Yet it was still some minutes before the_Come Rack! Come Rope!

still standing there, listening to voices talking, it seemed, almost in

his ears, yet whose words he could not hear; the vibration of feet that

shook the solid joist against which he had leaned his head, with closed

eyes; the brush of a cloak once, like a whisper, against the very panel

that shut him in. He could attend to nothing else; the rest of the drama

was as nothing to him: he had his business in hand--to keep away from

himself, by the very intentness of his will and determination, the feet

that passed so close.

The climax came in a sudden thump of a pike foot within a yard of his

head, so imminent, that for an instant he thought it was at his own

panel. There followed a splintering sound of a pike-head in the same

place. He understood. They were sounding on the woodwork and piercing

all that rang hollow.... His turn, then, would come immediately.

Talking voices followed the crash; then silence; then the vibration of

feet once more. The strain grew unbearable; his fingers twisted tight in

his rosary, lifted themselves once or twice from the floor edge on which

they were gripped, to tear back the bolts and declare himself. It seemed

to him in those instants a thousand times better to come out of his own

will, rather than to be poked and dragged from his hole like a badger.

In the very midst of such imaginings there came a thumping blow within

three inches of his face, and then silence. He leaned back desperately

to avoid the pike-thrust that must follow, with his eyes screwed tight

and his lips mumbling. He waited;... and then, as he waited, he drew an

irrepressible hissing breath of terror, for beneath the soft padding

under his feet he could feel movements; blow follow blow, from the same

direction, and last a great clamour of voices all shouting together.

Feet ran across the floor on which his hands were gripped again, and

down the stairs. He perceived two things: the chapel was empty again,

and the priests below had been found.

He could follow every step of the drama after that, for he appeared to

himself now as a mere witness, without personal part in it.

First, there were voices below him, so clear and close that he could

distinguish the intonation, and who it was that spoke, though the words

were inaudible.

It was Mr. Garlick who first spoke--a sentence of a dozen words, it

might be, consenting, no doubt, to come out without being dragged;

congratulating, perhaps (as the manner was), the searchers on their

success. A murmur of answer came back, and then one sharp, peevish voice

by itself. Again Mr. Garlick spoke, and there followed the shuffling of

movements for a long while; and then, so far as the little chamber was

concerned, empty silence. But from the hall rose up a steady murmur of

talk once more....

Again Robin's heart leaped in him, for there came the rattle of a

pike-end immediately below his feet. They were searching the little

chamber beneath, from the level of the hall, to see if it were empty.

The pike was presently withdrawn.

For a long while the talking went on. So far as the rest of the house

was concerned, the hidden man could tell nothing, or whether Mr. John

were taken, or whether the search were given up. He could not even fix

his mind on the point; he was constructing for himself, furiously and

intently, the scene he imagined in the hall below; he thought he saw the

two priests barred in behind the high table; my lord Shrewsbury in the

one great chair in the midst of the room; Mr. Columbell, perhaps, or Mr.

John Manners talking in his ear; the men on guard over the, priests and

beside the door; and another, maybe, standing by the hearth.

He was so intent on this that he thought of little else; though still,

on a strange background of another consciousness, moved scenes and ideas

such as he had had at the beginning. And he was torn from this

contemplation with the suddenness of a blow, by a voice speaking, it

seemed, within a foot of his head.

"Well, we have those rats, at any rate."

(He perceived instantly what had happened. The men were back again in

the chapel, and he had not heard them come. He supposed that he could

hear the words now, because of the breaking of the panel next to his

own.)

"Ralph said he was sure of the other one, too," said a second voice.

"Which was that one?"

"The fellow that was at Fotheringay."

(Robin clenched his teeth like iron.)

"Well, he is not here."

There was silence.

"I have sounded that side," said the first voice sharply.

"Well, but--"

"I tell you I have sounded it. There is no time to be lost. My lord--"

"Hark!" said the second voice. "There is my lord's man--"

There followed a movement of feet towards the door, as it seemed to the

priest.

He could hear the first man grumbling to himself, and beating listlessly

on the walls somewhere. Then a voice called something unintelligible

from the direction of the stairs; the beating ceased, and footsteps went

across the floor again into silence.

He was dazed and blinded by the light when, after infinite hours, he

drew the bolts and slid the panel open.

* * * * *

He had lost all idea of time utterly: he did not know whether he should

find that night had come, or that the next day had dawned. He had waited

there, period after period; he marked one of them by eating food that

had no taste and drinking liquid that stung his throat but did not

affect his palate; he had marked another by saying compline to himself

in a whisper.

During the earlier part of those periods he had followed--he thought

with success--the dreadful drama that was acted in the house. Someone

had made a formal inspection of all the chambers--a man who said little

and moved heavily with something of a limp (he had thought this to be my

lord Shrewsbury himself, who suffered from the gout): this man had

walked slowly through the chapel and out again.

At a later period he had heard the horses being brought round the house;

heard plainly the jingle of the bits and a sneeze or two. This had been

followed by long interminable talking, muffled and indistinguishable,

that came up to him from some unknown direction. Voices changed

curiously in loudness and articulation as the speakers moved about.

At a later period a loud trampling had begun again, plainly from the

hall: he had interpreted this to mean that the prisoners were being

removed out of doors; and he had been confirmed in this by hearing

immediately afterwards again the stamping of horses and the creaking of

leather.

Again there had been a pause, broken suddenly by loud women's wailing.

And at last the noise of horses moving off; the noise grew less; a man

ran suddenly through the archway and out again, and, little by little,

complete silence once more.

Yet he had not dared to move. It was the custom, he knew, sometimes to

leave three or four men on guard for a day or two after such an assault,

in the hope of starving out any hidden fugitives that might still be

left. So he waited again--period after period; he dozed a little for

weariness, propped against the narrow walls of his hidinghole; woke;

felt again for food and found he had eaten it all ... dozed again.

Then he had started up suddenly, for without any further warning there

had come a tiny indeterminate tapping against his panel. He held his

breath and listened. It came again. Then fearlessly he drew back the

bolts, slid the panel open and shut his eyes, dazzled by the light.

He crawled out at last, spent and dusty. There was looking at him only

the little red-eyed maid whom he had tried to comfort at some far-off

hour in his life. Her face was all contorted with weeping, and she had a

great smear of dust across it.

"What time is it?" he said.

"It ... it is after two o'clock," she whispered.

"They have all gone?"

She nodded, speechless.

"Whom have they taken?"

"Mr. FitzHerbert ... the priests ... the servants."

"Mr. FitzHerbert? They found him, then?"

She stared at him with the dull incapacity to understand why he did not

know all that she had seen.

"Where did they find him?" he repeated sharply.

"The master ... he opened the door to them himself."

Her face writhed itself again into grotesque lines, and she broke out

into shrill wailing and weeping.

CHAPTER IV

Marjorie was still in bed when the news was brought her by her friend.

She did not move or speak when Mistress Alice said shortly that Mr.

FitzHerbert had been taken with ten of his servants and two priests.

"You understand, my dear.... They have ridden away to Derby, all of them

together. But they may come back here suddenly."

Marjorie nodded.

"Mr. Garlick and Mr. Ludlam were in the chimney-hole of the hall,"

whispered Mistress Alice, glancing fearfully behind her.

Marjorie lay back again on her pillows.

"And what of Mr. Alban?" she asked.

"Mr. Alban was upstairs. They missed him. He is coming here after dark,

the maid says."

* * * * *

An hour after supper-time the priest came quietly upstairs to the

parlour. He showed no signs of his experience, except perhaps by a

certain brightness in his eyes and an extreme self-repression of manner.

Marjorie was up to meet him; and had in her hands a paper. She hardly

spoke a single expression of relief at his safety. She was as quiet and

business-like as ever.

"You must lie here to-night," she said. "Janet hath your room ready. At

one o'clock in the morning you must ride: here is a map of your journey.

They may come back suddenly. At the place I have marked here with red

there is a shepherd's hut; you cannot miss it if you follow the track I

have marked. There will be meat and drink there. At night the shepherd

will come from the westwards; he is called David, and you may trust him.

You must lie there two weeks at least."

"I must have news of the other priests," he said.

Marjorie bowed her head.

"I will send a letter to you by Dick Sampson at the end of two weeks.

Until that I can promise nothing. They may have spies round the house by

this time to-morrow, or even earlier. And I will send in that letter any

news I can get from Derby."

"How shall I find my way?" asked Robin.

"Until it is light you will be on ground that you know." (She flushed

slightly.) "Do you remember the hawking, that time after Christmas? It

is all across that ground. When daylight comes you can follow this map."

(She named one or two landmarks, pointing to them on the map.) "You must

have no lantern."

They talked a few minutes longer as to the way he must go and the

provision that would be ready for him. He must take no mass requisites

with him. David had made that a condition. Then Robin suddenly changed

the subject.

"Had my father any hand in this affair at Padley?"

"I am certain he had not."

"They will execute Mr. Garlick and Mr. Ludlam, will they not?"

She bowed her head in assent.

"The Summer Assizes open on the eighteenth," she said. "There is no

doubt as to how all will go."

Robin rose.

"It is time I were in bed," he said, "if I must ride at one."

The two women knelt for his blessing.

At one o'clock Marjorie heard the horse brought round. She stepped

softly to the window, knowing herself to be invisible, and peeped out.

All was as she had ordered. There was no light of any kind: she could

make out but dimly in the summer darkness the two figures of horse and

groom. As she looked, a third figure appeared beneath; but there was no

word spoken that she could hear. This third figure mounted. She caught

her breath as she heard the horse scurry a little with freshness, since

every sound seemed full of peril. Then the mounted figure faded one way

into the dark, and the groom another.

It was two weeks to the day that Robin received his letter.

* * * * *

He had never before been so long in utter solitude; for the visits of

David did not break it; and, for other men, he saw none except a

hog-herd or two in the distance once or twice. The shepherd came but

once a day, carrying a great jug and a parcel of food, and set them down

without the hut; he seemed to avoid even looking within; but merely took

the empty jug of the day before and went away again. He was an old, bent

man, with a face like a limestone cliff, grey and weather-beaten; he

lived half the year up here in the wild Peak country, caring for a few

sheep, and going down to the village not more than once or twice a week.

There was a little spring welling up in a hollow not fifty yards away

from the hut, which itself stood in a deep, natural rift among the high

hills, so that men might search for it a lifetime and not come across

it.

Robin's daily round was very simple. He had leave to make a fire by day,

but he must extinguish it at night lest its glow should be seen, so he

began his morning by mixing a little oatmeal, and then preparing his

dinner. About noon, so near as he could judge by the sun, he dined;

sometimes off a partridge or rabbit; on Fridays off half a dozen tiny

trout; and set aside part of the cold food for supper; he had one good

loaf of nearly black bread every day, and the single jug of small beer.

The greater part of the day he spent within the hut, for safety's sake,

sleeping a little, and thinking a good deal. He had no books with him;

even his breviary had been forbidden, since David, as a shrewd man, had

made conditions, first that he should not have to speak with any

refugee, second, that if the man were a priest he should have nothing

about him that could prove him to be so. Mr. Maine's beads, only, had

been permitted, on condition that they were hidden always beneath a

stone outside the hut.

After nightfall Robin went out to attend to his horse that was tethered

in the next ravine, over a crag; to shift his peg and bring him a good

armful of cut grass and a bucket of water. (The saddle and bridle were

hidden beneath a couple of great stones that leaned together not far

away.) After doing what was necessary for his horse, he went to draw

water for himself; and then took his exercise, avoiding carefully,

according to instructions, every possible skyline. And it was then, for

the most part, that he did his clear thinking.... He tried to fancy

himself in a fortnight's retreat, such as he had had at Rheims before

his reception of orders.

* * * * *

The evening of the twenty-fifth of July closed in stormy; and Robin, in

an old cloak he had found placed in the hut for his own use, made haste

to attend to what was necessary, and hurried back as quickly as he

could. He sat a while, listening to the thresh of the rain and the cry

of the wind; for, up here in the high land the full storm broke on him.

(The hut was wattled of osiers and clay, and kept out the wet tolerably

well.)

He could see nothing from the door of his hut except the dim outline of

the nearer crag thirty or forty yards off; and he went presently to bed.

* * * * *

He awoke suddenly, wide awake--as is easy for a man who is sleeping in

continual expectation of an alarm--at the flash of light in his eyes.

But he was at once reassured by Dick's voice.

"I have come, sir; and I have brought the mistress' letter."

Robin sat up and took the packet. He saw now that the man carried a

little lantern with a slide over it that allowed only a thin funnel of

light to escape that could be shut off in an instant.

"All well, Dick? I did not hear you coming."

"The storm's too loud, sir."

"All well?"

"Mistress Manners thinks you had best stay here a week longer, sir."

"And ... and the news?"

"It is all in the letter, sir."

Robin looked for the inscription, but there was none. Then he broke the

two seals, opened the paper and began to read. For the next five minutes

there was no sound, except the thresh of the rain and the cry of the

wind. The letter ran as follows:

III

"Three more have glorified God to-day by a good confession--Mr. Garlick,

Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Simpson. That is the summary. The tale in detail

hath been brought to me to-day by an eye-witness.

"The trial went as all thought it would. There was never the least

question of it; for not only were the two priests taken with signs of

their calling upon them, but both of them had been in the hands of the

magistrates before. There was no shrinking nor fear showed of any kind.

But the chief marvel was that these two priests met with Mr. Simpson in

the gaol; they put them together in one room, I think, hoping that Mr.

Simpson would prevail upon them to do as he had promised to do; but, by

the grace of God, it was all the other way, and it was they who

prevailed upon Mr. Simpson to confess himself again openly as a

Catholic. This greatly enraged my lord Shrewsbury and the rest; so that

there was less hope than ever of any respite, and sentence was passed

upon them all together, Mr. Simpson showing, at the reading of it, as

much courage as any. This was all done two days ago at the Assizes; and

it was to-day that the sentence was carried out.

"They were all three drawn on hurdles together to the open space by St.

Mary's Bridge, where all was prepared, with gallows and cauldron and

butchering block; and a great company went after them. I have not heard

that they spoke much, on the way, except that a friend of Mr. Garlick's

cried out to him to remember that they had often shot off together on

the moors; to which Mr. Garlick made answer merrily that it was true;

but that 'I am now to shoot off such a shot as I never shot in all my

life.' He was merry at the trial, too, I hear; and said that 'he was not

come to seduce men, but rather to induce them to the Catholic religion,

that to this end he had come to the country, and for this that he would

work so long as he lived.' And this he did on the scaffold, speaking to

the crowd about him of the salvation of their souls, and casting papers,

which he had written in prison, in proof of the Catholic faith.

"Mr. Garlick went up the ladder first, kissing and embracing it as the

instrument of his death, and to encourage Mr. Simpson, as it was

thought, since some said he showed signs of timorousness again when he

came to the place. But he showed none when his turn came, but rather

exhibited the same courage as them both. Mr. Ludlam stood by smiling

while all was done; and smiling still when his turn came. His last words

were, '_Venite benedicti Dei_'; and this he said, seeming to see a

vision of angels come to bear his soul away.

"They were cut down, all three of them, before they were dead; and the

butchery done on them according to sentence; yet none of them cried out

or made the least sound; and their heads and quarters were set up

immediately afterwards on poles in divers places of Derby; some of them

above the house that stands on the bridge and others on the bridge

itself. But these, I hear, will not be there long.

"So these three have kept the faith and finished their course with joy.

_Laus Deo_. Mr. John is in ward, for harbouring of the priests; but

nothing hath been done to him yet.

"As for your reverence, I am of opinion that you had best wait another

week where you are. There has been a man or two seen hereabouts whom

none knew, as well as at Padley. It hath been certified, too, that Mr.

Thomas was at the root of it all, that he gave the information that Mr.

John and at least a priest or two would be at Padley at that time,

though no man knows how he knew it, unless through servants' talk; and

since Mr. Thomas knows your reverence, it will be better to be hid for a

little longer. So, if you will, in a week from now, I will send Dick

once, again to tell you if all be well. I look for no letter back for

this since you have nothing to write with in the hut, as I know; but

Dick will tell me how you do; as well as anything you may choose to say

to him.

"I ask your reverence's blessing again. I do not forget your reverence

in my poor prayers."

* * * * *

And so it ended, without signature--for safety's sake.

Robin looked up when he had finished to where the faint outline of the

servant could be seen behind the lantern, against the greater darkness

of the wall.

"You know of all that has fallen at Derby?" he said, with some

difficulty.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, pray God we may be willing, too, if He bids us to it."

"Yes, sir."...

"You had best lose no time if you are to be home before dawn. Say to

Mistress Manners that I thank her for her letter; that I praise God for

the graces she relates in it; and that I will do as she bids.... Dick."

"Yes, sir."

"Is Mr. Audrey in any of this?"

"I do not know, sir.... I heard--" The man's voice hesitated.

"What did you hear?"

"I heard that my lord Shrewsbury wondered at his absence from the trial;

and ... and that a message would be sent to Mr. Audrey to look to it to

be more zealous on her Grace's commission."

"That was all?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then you had best be gone. There is no more to be said. Bring me what

news you can when you come again. Good-night, Dick."

"Good-night, sir.... God bless your reverence."

* * * * *

An hour later, with the first coming of the dawn, the storm ceased. (It

was that same storm, if he had only known it, that had blown upon the

Spanish Fleet at sea and driven it towards destruction. But of this he

knew nothing.) He had not slept since Dick had gone, but had lain on his

back on the turfed and blanketed bed in the corner, his hands clasped

behind his head, thinking, thinking and re-thinking all that he had read

just now. He had known it must happen; but there seemed to him all the

difference in the world between an event and its mere certainty.... The

thing was done--out to every bitter detail of the loathsome, agonizing

death--and it had been two of the men whom he had seen say mass after

himself--the ruddy-faced, breezy countryman, yet anointed with the

sealing oil, and the gentle, studious, smiling man who had been no less

vigorous than his friend....

But there was one thing he had not known, and that, the recovery of the

faint heart which they had inspirited. And then, in an instant he

remembered how he had seen the three, years ago, against the sunset, as

he rode with Anthony....

* * * * *

His mind was full of the strange memory as he came out at last, when the

black darkness began to fade to grey, and the noise of the rain on the

roof had ceased, and the wind had fallen.

It was a view of extraordinary solemnity that he looked on, as he stood

leaning against the rough door-post. The night was still stronger than

day; overhead was as black as ever, and stars shone in it through the

dissolving clouds that were passing at last. But, immediately over the

grim, serrated edge of the crag that faced him to the east, a faint and

tender light was beginning to burn, so faint that, as yet it seemed an

absence of black rather than as of a colour itself; and in the midst of

it, like a crumb of diamond, shone a single dying star. This high land

was as still now as a sheltered valley, a tuft of springy grass stood

out on the crag as stiff as a thin plume; and the silence, as at Padley

two weeks ago, was marked rather than broken by the tinkle of water from

his spring fifty yards away. The air was cold and fresh and marvellously

scented, after the rain, with the clean smell of strong turf and rushes.

It was as different from the peace he had had at Padley as water is

different from wine; yet it was Peace, too, a confident and expectant

peace that precedes the battle, rather than the rest which follows

it....

How was it he had seen the three men on the moor; as he turned with

Anthony? They were against the crimson west, as against a glory, the two

laymen on either side, the young priest in the middle.... They had

seemed to bear him up and support him; the colour of the sky was as a

stain of blood; and their shadows had stretched to his own feet....

* * * * *

And there came on him in that hour one of those vast experiences that

can never be told, when a flood rises in earth and air that turns them

all to wine, that wells up through tired limbs, and puzzled brain and

beating heart, and soothes and enkindles, all in one; when it is not a

mere vision of peace that draws the eyes up in an ecstasy of sight, but

a bathing in it, and an envelopment in it, of every fibre of life; when

the lungs draw deep breaths of it; and the heart beats in it, and the

eyes are enlightened by it; when the things of earth become at once

eternal and fixed and of infinite value, and at the same instant of less

value than the dust that floats in space; when there no longer appears

any distinction between the finite and the eternal, between time and

infinity; when the soul for that moment at least finds that rest that is

the magnet and the end of all human striving; and that comfort which

wipes away all tears.

CHAPTER V

It was the sixth night after Dick Sampson had come back with news of Mr.

Alban; and he had already received instructions as to how he was to go

twenty-four hours later. He was to walk, as before, starting after dark,

not carrying a letter this time, after all, in spite of the news that he

might have taken with him; for the priest would be back before morning

and could hear it all then at his ease.

Every possible cause of alarm had gone; and Marjorie, for the first time

for three weeks, felt very nearly as content as a year ago. Not one more

doubtful visitor had appeared anywhere; and now she thought herself

mistaken even about those solitary figures she had suspected before.

After all, they had only been a couple of men, whose faces her servants

did not know, who had gone past on the track beneath the house; one

mounted, and the other on foot.

There had been something of a reaction, too, in Derby. The deaths of the

three priests had made an impression; there was no doubt of that. Mr.

Biddell had written her a letter on the point, saying that the blood of

those martyrs might well be the peace, if it might not be the seed, of

the Church in the district. Men openly said in the taverns, he reported,

that it was hard that any should die for religion merely; politics were

one matter and religion another. Yet the deaths had dismayed the simple

Catholics, too, for the present; and at Hathersage church, scarcely ten

miles away, above two hundred came to the Protestant sermon preached

before my lord Shrewsbury on the first Sunday after.

The news of the Armada, too, had distracted men's minds wonderfully in

another direction. News had come in already, she was informed, of an

engagement or two in the English Channel, all in favour of its

defenders. More than that was not known. But the beacons had blazed; and

the market-place of Derby had echoed with the tramp of the train-bands;

and it was not likely that at such a time the attention of the

magistrates would be given to anything else.

So her plans were laid. Mr. Alban was to come here for three or four

days; be provided with a complete change of clothes (all of which she

had ready); shave off his beard; and then set out again for the border.

He had best go to Staffordshire, she thought, for a month or two, before

beginning once more in his own county.

* * * * *

She went to bed that night, happy enough, in spite of the cause, which

she loved so much, seeming to fail everywhere. It was true that, under

this last catastrophe, great numbers had succumbed; but she hoped that

this would be but for a time. Let but a few more priests come from

Rheims to join the company that had lost so heavily, and all would be

well again. So she said to herself: she did not allow even in her own

soul that the security of her friend and the thought that he would be

with her in a day or two, had any great part in her satisfaction.

* * * * *

She awaked suddenly. At the moment she did not know what time it was or

how long she had slept; but it was still dark and deathly still. Yet she

could have sworn that she had heard her name called. The rushlight was

burned out; but in the summer night she could still make out the outline

of Mistress Alice's bed. Yet all was still there, except for the gentle

breathing: it could not have been she who had called out in her sleep,

or she would surely show some signs of restlessness.

She sat up listening; but there was not a sound. She lay down again; and

the strange fancy seized her that it had been her mother's voice that

she had heard.... It was in this room that her mother had died.... Again

she sat up and looked round. All was quiet as before: the tall press at

the foot of her bed glimmered here and there with lines and points of

starlight.

Then, as again she began to lie down, there came the signal for which

her heart was expectant, though her mind knew nothing of its coming. It

was a clear rap, as of a pebble against the glass.

She was up and out of bed in a moment, and was peering out under the

thick arch of the little window. And a figure stood there, bending, it

seemed, for another pebble; in the very place where she had seen it, she

thought, nearly three weeks ago, standing ready to mount a horse.

Then she was at Alice's bedside.

"Alice," she whispered. "Alice! Wake up.... There is someone come. You

must come with me. I do not know--" Her voice faltered: she knew that

she knew, and fear clutched her by the throat.

* * * * *

The porter was fast asleep, and did not move, as carrying a rushlight

she went past the buttery with her friend behind her saying no word. The

bolts were well oiled, and came back with scarcely a sound. Then as the

door swung slowly back a figure slipped in.

"Yes," he said, "it is I.... I think I am followed.... I have but

come--"

"Come in quickly," she said, and closed and bolted the door once more.

It was a horrible delight to sit, wrapped in her cloak with the hood

over her head, listening to his story in the hall, and to know that it

was to her house that he had come for safety. It was horrible to her

that he needed it--so horrible that every shred of interior peace had

left her; she was composed only in her speech, and it was a strange

delight that he had come so simply. He sat there; she could see his

outline and the pallor of his face under his hat, and his voice was

perfectly resolute and quiet. This was his tale.

"Twice this afternoon," he said, "I saw a man against the sky, opposite

my hut. It was the same man both times; he was not a shepherd or a

farmer's man. The night before, when David came, he did not speak to me;

but for the first time he put his head in at the hut-door when he

brought the food and made gestures that I could not understand. I looked

at him and shook my head, but he would say nothing, and I remembered the

bond and said nothing myself. All that he would do was to shut his eyes

and wave his hands. Then this last night he brought no food at all.

"I was uneasy at the sight of the man, too, in the afternoon. I think he

thought that I was asleep; for when I saw him for the first time I was

lying down and looking at the crag opposite. And I saw him raise himself

on his hands against the sky, as if he had been lying flat on his face

in the heather. I looked at him for a while, and then I flung my hand

out of bed suddenly, and he was gone in a whisk. I went to the door

after a time, stretching myself as if I were just awakened, and there

was no sign of him.

"About an hour before sunset I was watching again; and I saw, on a

sudden, a covey of birds rise suddenly about two hundred yards away to

the north of the hut--that is, by the way that I should have to go down

to the valleys again. They rose as if they were frightened. I kept my

eyes on the place, and presently I saw a man's hat moving very slowly.

It was the movement of a man crawling on his hands, drawing his legs

after him.

"Then I waited for David to come, but he did not come, and I determined

then to make my way down here as well as I could after dark. If there

were any fellows after me, I should have a better chance of escape than

if I stayed in the hut, I thought, until they could fetch up the rest;

and, if not, I could lose nothing by coming a day too soon."

"But--" began the girl eagerly.

"Wait," said Robin quietly. "That is not all. I made very poor way on

foot (for I thought it better to come quietly than on a horse), and I

went round about again and again in the precipitous ground so that, if

there were any after me, they could not tell which way I meant to go.

For about two hours I heard and saw nothing of any man, and I began to

think I was a fool for all my pains. So I sat down a good while and

rested, and even thought that I would go back again. But just as I was

about to get up again I heard a stone fall a great way behind me: it was

on some rocky ground about two hundred yards away. The night was quite

still, and I could hear the stone very plainly.... It was I that crawled

then, further down the hill, and it was then that I saw once more a

man's head move against the stars.

"I went straight on then, as quietly as I could. I made sure that it was

but one that was after me, and that he would not try to take me by

himself, and I saw no more of him till I came down near Padley--"

"Near Padley? Why--"

"I meant to go there first," said the priest, "and lie, there till

morning. But as I came down the hill I heard the steps of him again a

great way off. So I turned sharp into a little broken ground that lies

there, and hid myself among the rocks--"

* * * * *

Mistress Alice lifted her hand suddenly.

"Hark!" she whispered.

Then as the three sat motionless, there came, distinct and clear, from a

little distance down the hill, the noise of two or three horses walking

over stony ground.

III

For one deathly instant the two sat looking each into the other's white

face--since even the priest changed colour at the sound. (While they had

talked the dawn had begun to glimmer, and the windows showed grey and

ghostly on the thin morning mist.) Then they rose together. Marjorie was

the first to speak.

"You must come upstairs at once," she said. "All is ready there, as you

know."

The priest's lips moved without speaking. Then he said suddenly:

"I had best be off the back way; that is, if it is what I think--"

"The house will be surrounded."

"But you will have harboured me--"

Marjorie's lips opened in a smile.

"I have done that in any case," she said. She caught up the candle and

blew it out, as she went towards the door.

"Come quickly," she said.

At the door Janet met them. Her old face was all distraught with fear.

She had that moment run downstairs again on hearing the noise. Marjorie

silenced her by a gesture....

The young carpenter had done his work excellently, and Marjorie had

taken care that there had been no neglect since the work had been done.

Yet so short was the time since the hearing of the horses' feet, that as

the girl slipped out of the press again after drawing back the secret

door, there came the loud knocking beneath, for which they had waited

with such agony.

"Quick!" she said....

From within, as she waited, came the priest's whisper. "Is this to be

pushed--?"

"Yes; yes."

There was the sound of sliding wood and a little snap. Then she closed

the doors of the press again.

Mr. Audrey outside grew indignant, and the more so since he was unhappy.

* * * * *

He had had the message from my lord Shrewsbury that a magistrate of her

Grace should show more zeal; and, along with this, had come a private

intimation that it was suspected that Mr. Audrey had at least once

warned the recusants of an approaching attack. It would be as well,

then, if he would manifest a little activity....

But it appeared to him the worst luck in the world that the hunt should

lead him to Mistress Manners' door.

It was late in the afternoon that the informer had made his appearance

at Matstead, thirsty and dishevelled, with the news that a man thought

to be a Popish priest was in hiding on the moors; that he was being kept

under observation by another informer; and that it was to be suspected

that he was the man who had been missed at Padley when my lord had taken

Garlick and Ludlam. If it were the man, it would be the priest known by

the name of Alban--the fellow whom my lord's man had so much distrusted

at Fotheringay, and whom he had seen again in Derby a while later. Next,

if it were this man, he would almost certainly make for Padley if he

were disturbed.

Mr. Audrey had bitten his nails a while as he listened to this, and then

had suddenly consented. The plan suggested was simple enough. One little

troop should ride to Padley, gathering reinforcements on the way, and

another on foot should set out for the shepherd's hut. Then, if the

priest should be gone, this second party should come on towards Padley

immediately and join forces with the riders.

All this had been done, and the mounted company, led by the magistrate

himself, had come up from the valley in time to see the signalling from

the heights (contrived by the showing of lights now and again), which

indicated that the priest was moving in the direction that had been

expected, and that one man at least was on his track. They had waited

there, in the valley, till the intermittent signals had reached the

level ground and ceased, and had then ridden up cautiously in time to

meet the informer's companion, and to learn that the fugitive had

doubled suddenly back towards Booth's Edge. There they had waited then,

till the dawn was imminent, and, with it, there came the party on foot,

as had been arranged; then, all together, numbering about twenty-five

men, they had pushed on in the direction of Mistress Manners' house.

As the house came into view, more than ever Mr. Audrey reproached his

evil luck. Certainly there still were two or three chances to one that

no priest would be taken at all; since, first, the man might not be a

priest, and next, he might have passed the manor and plunged back again

into the hills. But it was not very pleasant work, this rousing of a

house inhabited by a woman for whom the magistrate had very far from

unkindly feelings, and on such an errand.... So the informers marvelled

at the venom with which Mr. Audrey occasionally whispered at them in the

dark.

His heart sank as he caught a glimpse of a light first showing, and then

suddenly extinguished, in the windows of the hall, but he was relieved

to hear no comment on it from the men who walked by his horse; he even

hoped that they had not seen it.... But he must do his duty, he said to

himself.

* * * * *

He grew a little warm and impatient when no answer came to the knocking.

He said such play-acting was absurd. Why did not the man come out

courageously and deny that he was a priest? He would have a far better

excuse for letting him go.

"Knock again," he cried.

And again the thunder rang through the archway, and the summons in the

Queen's name to open.

Then at last a light shone beneath the door. (It was brightening rapidly

towards the dawn here in the open air, but within it would still be

dark.) Then a voice grumbled within.

"Who is there?"

"Man," bellowed the magistrate, "open the door and have done with it. I

tell you I am a magistrate!"

There was silence. Then the voice came again.

"How do I know that you are?"

Mr. Audrey slipped off his horse, scrambled to the door, set his hands

on his knees and his mouth to the keyhole.

"Open the door, you fool, in the Queen's name.... I am Mr. Audrey, of

Matstead."

Again came the pause. The magistrate was in the act of turning to bid

his men beat the door in, when once more the voice came.

"I'll tell the mistress, sir.... She's a-bed."

* * * * *

His discomfort grew on him as he waited, staring out at the fast

yellowing sky. (Beneath him the slopes towards the valley and the

far-off hills on the other side appeared like a pencil drawing,

delicate, minute and colourless, or, at the most, faintly tinted in

phantoms of their own colours. The sky, too, was grey with the night

mists not yet dissolved.) It was an unneighbourly action, this of his,

he thought. He must do his best to make it as little offensive as he

could. He turned to his men.

"Now, men," he said, glaring like a judge, "no violence here, unless I

give the order. No breaking of aught in the house. The lady here is a

friend of mine; and--"

The great bolts shot back suddenly; he turned as the door opened; and

there, pale as milk, with eyes that seemed a-fire, Marjorie's face was

looking at him; she was wrapped in her long cloak and her hood was drawn

over her head. The space behind was crowded with faces, unrecognizable

in the shadow.

* * * * *

He saluted her.

"Mistress Manners," he said, "I am sorry to incommode you in this way.

But a couple of fellows tell me that a man hath come this way, whom they

think to be a priest. I am a magistrate, mistress, and--"

He stopped, confounded by her face. It was not like her face at all--the

face, rather, seemed as nothing; her whole soul was in her eyes, crying

to him some message that he could not understand. It appeared

impossible to him that this was a mere entreaty that he should leave one

more priest at liberty; impossible that the mere shock and surprise

should have changed her so.... He looked at her.... Then he began again:

"It is no will of mine, mistress, beyond my duty. But I hold her Grace's

commission--"

She swept back again, motioning him to enter. He was astonished at his

own discomfort, but he followed, and his men pressed close after; and he

noticed, even in that twilight, that a look of despair went over the

girl's face, sharp as pain, as she saw them.

"You have come to search my house, sir?" she asked. Her voice was as

colourless as her features.

"My commission, mistress, compels me--"

Then he noticed that the doors into the hall had been pushed open, and

that she was moving towards them. And he thought he understood.

"Stand back, men," he barked, so fiercely that they recoiled. "This lady

shall speak with me first."

* * * * *

He passed up the hall after her. He was as unhappy as possible. He

wondered what she could have to say to him; she must surely understand

that no pleading could turn him; he must do his duty. Yet he would

certainly do this with as little offence as he could.

"Mistress Manners--" he began.

Then she turned on him again. They were at the further end of the hall,

and could speak low without being overheard.

"You must begone again," she whispered. "Oh! you must begone again. You

do not understand; you--"

Her eyes still burned with that terrible eloquence; it was as the face

of one on the rack.

"Mistress, I cannot begone again. I must do my duty. But I promise

you--"

She was close to him, staring into his face; he could feel the heat of

her breath on his face.

"You must begone at once," she whispered, still in that voice of agony.

He saw her begin to sway on her feet and her eyes turn glassy. He caught

her as she swayed.

"Here! you women!" he cried.

* * * * *

It was all that he could do to force himself out through the crowd of

folks that looked on him. It was not that they barred his way. Rather

they shrank from him; yet their eyes pulled and impeded him; it was by a

separate effort that he put each foot before the other. Behind he could

hear the long moan that she had given die into silence, and the

chattering whispers of her women who held her. He reassured himself

savagely; he would take care that no one was taken ... she would thank

him presently; he would but set guards at all the doors and make a

cursory search; he would break a panel or two; no more. And that would

save both his face and her own.... Yet he loathed even such work as

this....

He turned abruptly as he came into the buttery passage.

"All the women in the hall," he said sharply. "Jack, keep the door fast

till we are done."

He took particular pains to do as little damage as possible.

First he went through the out-houses, himself with a pike testing the

haystacks, where he was sure that no man could be hidden. The beasts

turned slow and ruminating eyes upon him as he went by their stalls.

As he passed, a little later, the inner door into the buttery passage,

he could hear the beating of hands on the hall-door. He went on quickly

to the kitchen, hating himself, yet determined to get all done quickly,

and drove the kitchen-maid, who was crouching by the unlighted fire, out

behind him, sending a man with her to bestow her in the hall. She wailed

as she went by him, but it was unintelligible, and he was in no mood for

listening.

"Take her in," he said; "but let no one out, nor a message, till all is

done." (He thought that the kinder course.)

Then at last he went upstairs, still with his little bodyguard of four,

of whom one was the man who had followed the fugitive down from the

hills.

He began with the little rooms over the hall: a bedstead stood in one;

in another was a table all piled with linen a third had its floor

covered with early autumn fruit, ready for preserving. He struck on a

panel or two as he went, for form's sake.

As he came out again he turned savagely on the informer.

"It is damned nonsense," he said; "the fellow's not here at all. I told

you he'd have gone back to the hills."

The man looked up at him with a furtive kind of sneer in his face; he,

too, was angry enough; the loss of the priest meant the loss of the

heavy reward.

"We have not searched a room rightly yet, sir," he snarled. "There are a

hundred places--"

"Not searched! You villain! Why, what would you have?"

"It's not the manner I've done it before, sir. A pike-thrust here, and a

blow there--"

"I tell you I will not have the house injured! Mistress Manners--"

"Very good, sir. Your honour is the magistrate.... I am not."

The old man's temper boiled over. They were passing at that instant a

half-open door, and within he could see a bare little parlour, with

linen presses against the walls. It would not hide a cat.

"Do you search, then!" he cried. "Here, then, and I will watch you! But

you shall pay for any wanton damage, I tell you."

The man shrugged his shoulders.

"What is the use, then--" he began.

"Bah! search, then, as you will. I will pay."

* * * * *

The noise from the hall had ceased altogether as the four men went into

the parlour. It was a plain little room, with an open fireplace and a

great settle beside it. There were hangings here and there. That over

the hearth presented Icarus in the chariot of the sun. It seemed such a

place as that in which two lovers might sit and talk together at

sunset.... In one place hung a dark oil painting.

The old man went across to the window and stared out.

The sun was up by now, far away out of sight; and the whole sunlit

valley lay stretched beneath beyond the slopes that led down to Padley.

The loathing for his work rose up again and choked him--this desperate

bullying of a few women; and all to no purpose. He stared out at the

horses beneath, and at the couple of men gossiping together at their

heads.... He determined to see Mistress Manners again alone presently,

when she should be recovered, and have a word with her in private. She

would forgive him, perhaps, when she saw him ride off empty-handed, as

he most certainly meant to do.

He thought, too, of other things, this old man, as he stood, with his

shoulders squared, resolute in his lack of attention to the mean work

going on behind him.... He wondered whether God were angry or no.

Whether this kind of duty were according to His will. Down there was

Padley, where he had heard mass in the old days; Padley, where the two

priests had been taken a few weeks ago. He wondered--

"If it please your honour we will break in this panel," came the smooth,

sneering voice that he loathed.

He turned sullenly.

They were opposite the old picture. Beneath it there showed a crack in

the wainscoting.... He could scarcely refuse leave. Besides, the

woodwork was flawed in any case--he would pay for a new panel himself.

"There is nothing there!" he said doubtfully.

"Oh, no, sir," said the man with a peculiar look. "It is but to make a

show--"

The old man's brows came down angrily. Then he nodded; and, leaning

against the window, watched them.

* * * * *

One of his own men came forward with a hammer and chisel. He placed the

chisel at the edge of the cracked panel, where the informer directed,

and struck a blow or two. There was the unmistakable dull sound of wood

against stone--not an echo of resonance. The old man smiled grimly to

himself. The man must be a fool if he thought there could be any hole

there!... Well; he would let them do what they would here; and then

forbid any further damage.... He wondered if the priest really were in

the house or no.

The two men had their heads together now, eyeing the crack they had

made.... Then the informer said something in a low voice that the old

man could not hear; and the other, handing him the chisel and hammer,

went out of the room, beckoning to one of the two others that stood

waiting at the door.

"Well?" sneered the old man. "Have you caught your bird?

"Not yet, sir."

He could hear the steps of the others in the next room; and then

silence.

"What are they doing there?" he asked suddenly.

"Nothing, sir.... I just bade a man wait on that side."

The man was once more inserting the chisel in the top of the

wainscoting; then he presently began to drive it down with the hammer as

if to detach it from the wall.

Suddenly he stopped; and at the same instant the old man heard some

faint, muffled noise, as of footsteps moving either in the wall or

beyond it.

"What is that?"

The man said nothing; he appeared to be listening.

"What is that?" demanded the other again, with a strange uneasiness at

his heart. Was it possible, after all! Then the man dropped his chisel

and hammer and darted out and vanished. A sudden noise of voices and

tramplings broke out somewhere out of sight.

"God's blood!" roared the old man in anger and dismay. "I believe they

have the poor devil!"

* * * * *

He ran out, two steps down the passage and in again at the door of the

next room. It was a bedroom, with two beds side by side: a great press

with open doors stood between the hearth and the window; and, in the

midst of the floor, five men struggled and swayed together. The fifth

was a bearded young man, well dressed; but he could not see his face.

Then they had him tight; his hands were twisted behind his back; an arm

was flung round his neck; and another man, crouching, had his legs

embraced. He cried out once or twice.... The old man turned sick ... a

great rush of blood seemed to be hammering in his ears and dilating his

eyes.... He ran forward, tearing at the arm that was choking the

prisoner's throat, and screaming he knew not what.

And it was then that he knew for certain that this was his son.

CHAPTER VI

Robin drew a long breath as the door closed behind him. Then he went

forward to the table, and sat on it, swinging his feet, and looking

carefully and curiously round the room, so far as the darkness would

allow him; his eyes had had scarcely time yet to become accustomed to

the change from the brilliant sunshine outside to the gloom of the

prison. It was his first experience of prison, and, for the present, he

was more interested than subdued by it.

* * * * *

It seemed to him that a lifetime had passed since the early morning, up

in the hills, when he had attempted to escape by the bedroom, and had

been seized as he came out of the press. Of course, he had fought; it

was his right and his duty; and he had not known the utter uselessness

of it, in that guarded house. He had known nothing of what was going

forward. He had heard the entrance of the searchers below, and now and

again their footsteps.... Then he had seen the wainscoting begin to gape

before him, and had understood that his only chance was by the way he

had entered. Then, as he had caught sight of his father, he had ceased

his struggles.

He had not said one word to him. The shock was complete and unexpected.

He had seen the old man stagger back and sink on the bed. Then he had

been hurried from the room and downstairs. As the party came into the

buttery entrance, there had been a great clamour; the man on guard at

the hall doors had run forward; the doors had opened suddenly and

Marjorie had come out, with a surge of faces behind her. But to her,

too, he had said nothing; he had tried to smile; he was still faint and

sick from the fight upstairs. But he had been pushed out into the air,

where he saw the horses waiting, and round the corner of the house into

an out-building, and there he had had time to recover.

* * * * *

It was strange how little religion had come to his aid during that hour

of waiting; and, indeed, during the long and weary ride to Derby. He had

tried to pray; but he had had no consolation, such as he supposed must

surely come to all who suffered for Christ. It had been, instead, the

tiny things that absorbed his attention; the bundle of hay in the

corner; an ancient pitch-fork; the heads of his guards outside the

little barred window; the sound of their voices talking. Later, when a

man had come out from the house, and looked in at his door, telling him

that they must start in ten minutes, and giving him a hunch of bread to

eat, it had been the way the man's eyebrows grew over his nose, and the

creases of his felt hat, to which he gave his mind. Somewhere, far

beneath in himself, he knew that there were other considerations and

memories and movements, that were even fears and hopes and desires; but

he could not come at these; he was as a man struggling to dive, held up

on the surface by sheets of cork. He knew that his father was in that

house; that it was his father who had been the means of taking him; that

Marjorie was there--yet these facts were as tales read in a book. So,

too, with his faith; his lips repeated words now and then; but God was

as far from him and as inconceivably unreal, as is the thought of

sunshine and a garden to a miner freezing painlessly in the dark....

In the same state he was led out again presently, and set on a horse.

And while a man attached one foot to the other by a cord beneath the

horse's belly, he looked like a child at the arched doorway of the

house; at a patch of lichen that was beginning to spread above the

lintel; at the open window of the room above.

He vaguely desired to speak with Marjorie again; he even asked the man

who was tying his feet whether he might do so; but he got no answer. A

group of men watched him from the door, and he noticed that they were

silent. He wondered if it were the tying of his feet in which they were

so much absorbed.

* * * * *

Little by little, as they rode, this oppression began to lift. Half a

dozen times he determined to speak with the man who rode beside him and

held his horse by a leading rein; and each time he did not speak.

Neither did any man speak to him. Another man rode behind; and a dozen

or so went on foot. He could hear them talking together in low voices.

He was finally roused by his companion's speaking. He had noticed the

man look at him now and again strangely and not unkindly.

"Is it true that you are a son of Mr. Audrey, sir?"

He was on the point of saying "Yes," when his mind seemed to come back

to him as clear as an awakening from sleep. He understood that he must

not identify himself if he could help it. He had been told at Rheims

that silence was best in such matters.

"Mr. Audrey?" he said. "The magistrate?"

The man nodded. He did not seem an unkindly personage at all. Then he

smiled.

"Well, well," he said. "Less said--"

He broke off and began to whistle. Then he interrupted himself once

more.

"He was still in his fit," he said, "when we came away. Mistress Manners

was with him."

Intelligence was flowing back in Robin's brain like a tide. It seemed to

him that he perceived things with an extraordinary clearness and

rapidity. He understood he must show no dismay or horror of any kind; he

must carry himself easily and detachedly.

"In a fit, was he?"

The other nodded.

"I am arrested on his warrant, then? And on what charge?"

The man laughed outright.

"That's too good," he said. "Why, we, have a bundle of popery on the

horse behind! It was all in the hiding-hole!"

"I am supposed to be a priest, then?" said Robin, with admirable

disdain.

Again the man laughed.

"They will have some trouble in proving that," said Robin viciously.

* * * * *

He learned presently whither they were going. He was right in thinking

it to be Derby. There he was to be handed over to the gaoler. The trial

would probably come on at the Michaelmas assizes, five or six weeks

hence. He would have leave to communicate with a lawyer when he was once

safely bestowed there; but whether or no his lawyer or any other

visitors would be admitted to him was a matter for the magistrates.

They ate as they rode, and reached Derby in the afternoon.

At the very outskirts the peculiar nature of this cavalcade was

observed; and by the time that they came within sight of the

market-square a considerable mob was hustling along on all sides. There

were a few cries raised. Robin could not distinguish the words, but it

seemed to him as if some were raised for him as well as against him. He

kept his head somewhat down; he thought it better to risk no

complications that might arise should he be recognised.

As they drew nearer the market-place the progress became yet slower, for

the crowd seemed suddenly and abnormally swelled. There was a great

shouting of voices, too, in front, and the smell of burning came

distinctly on the breeze. The man riding beside Robin turned his head

and called out; and in answer one of the others riding behind pushed his

horse up level with the other two, so that the prisoner had a guard on

either side. A few steps further, and another order was issued, followed

by the pressing up of the men that went on foot so as to form a complete

square about the three riders.

Robin put a question, but the men gave him no answer. He could see that

they were preoccupied and anxious. Then, as step by step they made their

way forward and gained the corner of the market-place, he saw the reason

of these precautions; for the whole square was one pack of heads, except

where, somewhere in the midst, a great bonfire blazed in the sunlight.

The noise, too, was deafening; drums were beating, horns blowing, men

shouting aloud. From window after window leaned heads, and, as the party

advanced yet further, they came suddenly in view of a scaffold hung with

gay carpets and ribbons, on which a civil dignitary, in some official

dress, was gesticulating.

It was useless to ask a question; not a word could have been heard

unless it were shouted aloud; and presently the din redoubled, for out

of sight, round some corner, guns were suddenly shot off one after

another; and the cheering grew shrill and piercing in contrast.

As they came out at last, without attracting any great attention, into

the more open space at the entrance of Friar's Gate, Robin turned again

and asked what the matter was. It was plainly not himself, as he had at

first almost believed.

The man turned an exultant face to him.

"It's the Spanish fleet!" he said. "There's not a ship of it left, they

say."

When they halted at the gate of the prison there was another pause,

while the cord that tied his feet was cut, and he was helped from his

horse, as he was stiff and constrained from the long ride under such

circumstances. He heard a roar of interest and abuse, and, perhaps, a

little sympathy, from the part of the crowd that had followed, as the

gate close behind him.

As his eyes became better accustomed to the dark, he began to see what

kind of a place it was in which he found himself. It was a square little

room on the ground-floor, with a single, heavily-barred window, against

which the dirt had collected in such quantities as to exclude almost all

light. The floor was beaten earth, damp and uneven; the walls were built

of stones and timber, and were dripping with moisture; there was a table

and a stool in the centre of the room, and a dark heap in the corner. He

examined this presently, and found it to be rotting hay covered with

some kind of rug. The whole place smelled hideously foul.

From far away outside came still the noise of cheering, heard as through

wool, and the sharp reports of the cannon they were still firing. The

Armada seemed very remote from him, here in ward. Its destruction

affected him now hardly at all, except for the worse, since an

anti-Catholic reaction might very well follow.... He set himself, with

scarcely an effort, to contemplate more personal matters.

He was astonished that his purse had not been taken from him. He had

been searched rapidly just now, in an outer passage, by a couple of men,

one of whom he understood to be his gaoler; and a knife and a chain and

his rosary had been taken from him. But the purse had been put back

again.... He remembered presently that the possession of money made a

considerable difference to a prisoner's comfort; but he determined to do

as little as he was obliged in this way. He might need the money more

urgently by and by.

* * * * *

By the time that he had gone carefully round his prison-walls, even

reaching up to the window and testing the bars, pushing as noiselessly

as he could against the door, pacing the distances in every

direction--he had, at the same time, once more arranged and rehearsed

every piece of evidence that he possessed, and formed a number of

resolutions.

He was perfectly clear by now that his father had been wholly ignorant

of the identity of the man he was after. The horror in the gasping face

that he had seen so close to his own, above the strangling arm, set that

beyond a doubt; the news of the fit into which his father had fallen

confirmed it.

Next, he had been right in believing himself watched in the shepherd's

hut, and followed down from it. This hiding of his in the hills, the

discovery of him in the hiding-hole, together with the vestments--these

two things were the heaviest pieces of testimony against him. More

remote testimony might be brought forward from his earlier

adventures--his presence at Fotheringay, his recognition by my lord's

man. But these were, in themselves, indifferent.

His resolutions were few and simple.

He would behave himself quietly in all ways: he would make no demand to

see anyone; since he knew that whatever was possible would be done for

him by Marjorie. He would deny nothing and assert very little if he were

brought before the magistrates. Finally, he would say, if he could, a

dry mass every day; and observe the hours of prayer so far as he could.

He had no books with him of any kind. But he could pray God for

fortitude.

* * * * *

Then he knelt down on the earth floor and said his first prayer in

prison; the prayer that had rung so often in his mind since Mary herself

had prayed it aloud on the scaffold; and Mr. Bourgoign had repeated it

to him.

"As Thy arms, O Christ, were extended on the Cross; even so receive me

into the arms of Thy mercy, and blot out all my sins with Thy most

precious Blood."

CHAPTER VII

There was a vast crowd in the market-place at Michaelmas to see the

judges come--partly because there was always excitement at the visible

majesty of the law; partly because the tale of one at least of the

prisoners had roused interest. It was a dramatic tale: he was first a

seminary priest and a Derbyshire man (many remembered him riding as a

little lad beside his father); he was, next, a runaway to Rheims for

religion's sake, when his father conformed; third, he had been taken in

the house of Mistress Manners, to whom, report said, he had once been

betrothed; last, he had been taken by his father himself. All this

furnished matter for a quantity of conversation in the taverns; and it

was freely discussed by the sentimental whether or no, if the priest

yielded and conformed, he would yet find Mistress Manners willing to wed

him.

* * * * *

Signs of the Armada rejoicings still survived in the market-place as the

judges rode in. Streamers hung in the sunshine, rather bedraggled after

so long, from the roof and pillars of the Guildhall, and a great

smoke-blackened patch between the conduit and the cross marked where the

ox had been roasted. There was a deal of loyal cheering as the

procession went by; for these splendid personages on horseback stood to

the mob for the power that had repelled the enemies of England; and her

Grace's name was received with enthusiasm. Behind the judges and their

escort came a cavalcade of riders--gentlemen, grooms, servants, and

agents of all sorts. But not a Derby man noticed or recognised a thin

gentleman who rode modestly in the midst, with a couple of personal

servants on either side of him. It was not until the visitors had

separated to the various houses and inns where they were to be lodged,

and the mob was dispersing home again, that it began to be rumoured

everywhere that Mr. Topcliffe was come again to Derby on a special

mission.

The tidings came to Marjorie as she leaned back in her chair in Mr.

Biddell's parlour and listened to the last shoutings.

* * * * *

She had been in town now three days.

Ever since the capture she had been under guard in her own house till

three days ago. Four men had been billeted upon her, not, indeed, by the

orders of Mr. Audrey, since Mr. Audrey was in no condition to control

affairs any longer, but by the direction of Mr. Columbell, who had

himself ridden out to take charge at Booth's Edge, when the news of the

arrest had come, with the prisoner himself, to the city. It was he, too,

who had seen to the removal of Mr. Audrey a week later, when he had

recovered from the weakness caused by the fit sufficiently to travel as

far as Derby; for it was thought better that the magistrate who had

effected the capture should be accessible to the examining magistrates.

It was, of course, lamentable, said Mr. Columbell, that father and son

should have been brought into such relations, and he would do all that

he could to relieve Mr. Audrey from any painful task in which they could

do without him. But her Grace's business must be done, and he had had

special messages from my lord Shrewsbury himself that the prisoner must

be dealt with sternly. It was believed, wrote my lord, that Mr. Alban,

as he called himself, had a good deal more against him than the mere

fact of being a seminary priest: it was thought that he had been

involved in the Babington plot, and had at least once had access to the

Queen of the Scots since the fortunate failure of the conspiracy.

All this, then, Marjorie knew from Mr. Biddell, who seemed always to

know everything; but it was not until the evening on which the judges

arrived that she learned the last and extreme measures that would

be taken to establish these suspicions. She had ridden openly to Derby so

soon as the news came from there that for the present she might be set

at liberty.

The lawyer came into the darkening room as the square outside began to

grow quiet, and Marjorie opened her eyes to see who it was.

He said nothing at first, but sat down close beside her. He knew she

must be told, but he hated the telling. He carried a little paper in his

hand. He would begin with that little bit of good news first, he said to

himself.

"Well, mistress," he said, "I have the order at last. We are to see him

to-night. It is 'for Mr. Biddell and a friend.'"

She sat up, and a little vitality came back to her face; for a moment

she almost looked as she had looked in the early summer.

"To-night?" she said. "And when--"

"He will not be brought before my lords for three or four days yet.

There is a number of cases to come before his. It will give us those two

or three days, at least, to prepare our case."

He spoke heavily and dejectedly. Up to the present he had been utterly

refused permission to see his client; and though he knew the outlines of

the affair well enough, he knew very little of the thousand details on

which the priest would ask his advice. It was a hopeless affair, it

appeared to the lawyer, in any case. And now, with this last piece of

tidings, he knew that there was, indeed, nothing to be said except words

of encouragement.

He listened with the same heavy air to Mistress Manners as she said a

word or two as to what must be spoken of to Robin. She was very quiet

and collected, and talked to the point. But he said nothing.

"What is the matter, sir?" she said.

He lifted his eyes to hers. There was still enough light from the

windows for him to see her eyes, and that there was a spark in them that

had not been there just now. And it was for him to extinguish it.... He

gripped his courage.

"I have had worse news than all," he said.

Her lips moved, and a vibration went over her face. Her eyes blinked, as

at a sudden light.

"Yes?"

He put his hand tenderly on her arm.

"You must be courageous," he said. "It is the worst news that ever came

to me. It concerns one who is come from London to-day, and rode in with

my lords."

She could not speak, but her great eyes entreated him to finish her

misery.

"Yes," he said, still pressing his hand on to her arm. "Yes; it is Mr.

Topcliffe who is come."

* * * * *

He felt the soft muscles harden like steel.... There was no sound except

the voices talking in the square and the noise of footsteps across the

pavements. He could not look at her.

Then he heard her draw a long breath and breathe it out again, and her

taut muscles relaxed.

"We ... we are all in Christ's hands," she said.... "We must tell him."

III

It appeared to the girl as if she were moving on a kind of set stage,

with every movement and incident designed beforehand, in a play that was

itself a kind of destiny--above all, when she went at last into Robin's

cell and saw him standing there, and found it to be that in which so

long ago she had talked with Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert....

The great realities were closing round her, as irresistible as wheels

and bars. There was scarcely a period in her life, scarcely a voluntary

action of hers for good or evil, that did not furnish some part of this

vast machine in whose grip both she and her friend were held so fast. No

calculation on her part could have contrived so complete a climax; yet

hardly a calculation that had not gone astray from that end to which she

had designed it. It was as if some monstrous and ironical power had been

beneath and about her all her life long, using those thoughts and

actions that she had intended in one way to the development of another.

First, it was she that had first turned her friend's mind to the life of

a priest. Had she submitted to natural causes, she would have been his

wife nine years ago; they would have been harassed no doubt and

troubled, but no more. It was she again that had encouraged his return

to Derbyshire. If it had not been for that, and for the efforts she had

made to do what she thought good work for God, he might have been sent

elsewhere. It was in her house that he had been taken, and in the very

place she had designed for his safety. If she had but sent him on, as he

wished, back to the hills again, he might never have been taken at all.

These, and a score of other thoughts, had raced continually through her

mind; she felt even as if she were responsible for the manner of his

taking, and for the horror that it had been his father who had

accomplished it; if she had said more, or less, in the hall of that dark

morning; if she had not swooned; if she had said bravely: "It is your

son, sir, who is here," all might have been saved. And now it was

Topcliffe who was come--(and she knew all that this signified)--the very

man at whose mere bodily presence she had sickened in the court of the

Tower. And, last, it was she who had to tell Robin of this.

So tremendous, however, had been the weight of these thoughts upon her,

crowned and clinched (so to say) by finding that the priest was even in

the same cell as that in which she had visited the traitor, that there

was no room any more for bitterness. Even as she waited, with Mr.

Biddell behind her, as the gaoler fumbled with the keys, she was aware

that the last breath of resentment had been drawn.... It was, indeed, a

monstrous Power that had so dealt with her.... It was none other than

the Will of God, plain at last.

* * * * *

She knelt down for the priest's blessing, without speaking, as the door

closed, and Mr. Biddell knelt behind her. Then she rose and went forward

to the stool and sat upon it.

* * * * *

He was hardly changed at all. He looked a little white and drawn in the

wavering light of the flambeau; but his clothes were orderly and clean,

and his eyes as bright and resolute as ever.

"It is a great happiness to see you," he said, smiling, and then no more

compliments.

"And what of my father?" he added instantly.

She told him. Mr. Audrey was in Derby, still sick from his fit. He was

in Mr. Columbell's house. She had not seen him.

"Robin," she said (and she used the old name, utterly unknowing that she

did so), "we must speak with Mr. Biddell presently about your case. But

there is a word or two I have to say first. We can have two hours here,

if you wish it."

Robin put his hands behind him on to the table and jumped lightly, so

that he sat on it, facing her.

"If you will not sit on the table, Mr. Biddell, I fear there is only

that block of wood."

He pointed to a, block of a tree set on end. It served him, laid flat,

as a pillow. The lawyer went across to it.

"The judges, I hear, are come to-night," said the priest.

She bowed.

"Yes; but your case will not be up for three or four days yet."

"Why, then, I shall have time--"

She lifted her hand sharply a little to check him.

"You will not have much time," she said, and paused again. A sharp

contraction came and went in the muscles of her throat. It was as if a

band gripped her there, relaxed, and gripped again. She put up her own

hand desperately to tear at her collar.

"Why, but--" began the priest.

She could bear it no more. His resolute cheerfulness, his frank

astonishment, were like knives to her. She gave one cry.

"Topcliffe is come ... Topcliffe!..." she cried. Then she flung her arm

across the table and dropped her face on it. No tears came from her

eyes, but tearing sobs shook and tormented her.

It was quite quiet after she had spoken. Even in her anguish she knew

that. The priest did not stir from where he sat a couple of feet away;

only the swinging of his feet ceased. She drove down her convulsions;

they rose again; she drove them down once more. Then the tears surged

up, her whole being relaxed, and she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Marjorie," said the grave voice, as steady as it had ever been,

"Marjorie. This is what we looked for, is it not?... Topcliffe is come,

is he? Well, let him come. He or another. It is for this that we have

all looked since the beginning. Christ His Grace is strong enough, is it

not? It hath been strong enough for many, at least; and He will not

surely take it from me who need it so much...." (He spoke in pauses, but

his voice never faltered.) "I have prayed for that grace ever since I

have been here.... He hath given me great peace in this place.... I

think He will give it me to the end.... You must pray, my ... my child;

you must not cry like that."

(She lifted her agonized face for a moment, then she let it fall again.

It seemed as if he knew the very thoughts of her.)

"This all seems very perfect to me," he went on. "It was yourself who

first turned me to this life, and you knew surely what you did. I knew,

at least, all the while, I think; and I have never ceased to thank God.

And it was through your hands that the letter came to me to go to

Fotheringay. And it was in your house that I was taken.... And it was

Mr. Maine's beads that they found on me when they searched me here--the

pair of beads you gave me."

Again she stared at him, blind and bewildered.

He went on steadily:

"And now it is you again who bring me the first news of my passion. It

is yourself, first and last, under God, that have brought me all these

graces and crosses. And I thank you with all my heart.... But you must

pray for me to the end, and after it, too."

CHAPTER VIII

"Water," said a sharp voice, pricking through the enormous thickness of

the bloodshot dark that had come down on him. There followed a sound of

floods; then a sense of sudden coolness, and he opened his eyes once

more, and became aware of unbearable pain in arms and feet. Again the

whirling dark, striped with blood colour, fell on him like a blanket;

again the sound of waters falling and the sense of coolness, and again

he opened his eyes.

* * * * *

For a minute or two it was all that he could do to hold himself in

consciousness. It appeared to him a necessity to do so. He could see a

smoke-stained roof of beams and rafters, and on these he fixed his eyes,

thinking that he could hold himself so, as by thin, wiry threads of

sight, from falling again into the pit where all was black or

blood-colour. The pain was appalling, but he thought he had gripped it

at last, and could hold it so, like a wrestler.

As the pain began to resolve itself into throbs and stabs, from the

continuous strain in which at first it had shown itself--a strain that

was like a shrill horn blowing, or a blaze of bluish light--he began to

see more, and to understand a little. There were four or five faces

looking down on him: one was the face of a man he had seen somewhere in

an inn ... it was at Fotheringay; it was my lord Shrewsbury's man.

Another was a lean face; a black hat came and went behind it; the lips

were drawn in a sort of smile, so that he could see the teeth.... Then

he perceived next that he himself was lying in a kind of shallow trough

of wood upon the floor. He could see his bare feet raised a little and

tied with cords.

Then, one by one, these sights fitted themselves into one another and

made sense. He remembered that he was in Derby gaol--not in his own

cell; that the lean face was of a man called Topcliffe; that a physician

was there as well as the others; that they had been questioning him on

various points, and that some of these points he had answered, while

others he had not, and must not. Some of them concerned her Grace of the

Scots.... These he had answered. Then, again, association came back....

"As Thy arms, O Christ ..." he whispered.

"Now then," came the sharp voice in his ear, so close and harsh as to

distress him. "These questions again.... Were there any other places

besides at Padley and Booth's Edge, in the parish of Hathersage, where

you said mass?"

"... O Christ, were extended on the Cross--" began the tortured man

dreamily. "Ah-h-h!"....

It was a scream, whispered rather than shrieked, that was torn from him

by the sharpness of the agony. His body had lifted from the floor

without will of his own, twisting a little; and what seemed as strings

of fiery pain had shot upwards from his feet and downwards from his

wrists as the roller was suddenly jerked again. He hung there perhaps

ten or fifteen seconds, conscious only of the blinding pain--questions,

questioners, roof and faces all gone and drowned again in a whirling

tumult of darkness and red streaks. The sweat poured again suddenly from

his whole body.... Then again he sank relaxed upon the floor, and the

pulses beat in his head, and he thought that Marjorie and her mother and

his own father were all looking at him....

He heard presently the same voice talking:

"--and answer the questions that are put to you.... Now then, we will

begin the others, if it please you better.... In what month was it that

you first became privy to the plot against her Grace?"

"Wait!" whispered the priest. "Wait, and I will answer that." (He

understood that there was a trap here. The question had been framed

differently last time. But his mind was all a-whirl; and he feared he

might answer wrongly if he could not collect himself. He still wondered

why so many friends of his were in the room--even Father Campion....)

He drew a breath again presently, and tried to speak; but his voice

broke like a shattered trumpet, and he could not command it.... He must

whisper.

"It was in August, I think.... I think it was August, two years ago."...

"August ... you mean May or April."

"No; it was August.... At least, all that I know of the plot was when

... when--" (His thoughts became confused again; it was like strings of

wool, he thought, twisted violently together; a strand snapped now and

again. He made a violent effort and caught an end as it was slipping

away.) "It was in August, I think; the day that Mr. Babington fled, that

he wrote to me; and sent me--" (He paused: he became aware that here,

too, lurked a trap if he were to say he had seen Mary; he would surely

be asked what he had seen her for, and his priesthood might be so proved

against him.... He could not remember whether that had been proved; and

so ... would Father Campion advise him perhaps whether....)

The voice jarred again; and startled him into a flash of coherence. He

thought he saw a way out.

"Well?" snapped the voice. "Sent you?... Sent you whither?"

"Sent me to Chartley; where I saw her Grace ... her Grace of the Scots;

and ... 'As Thy arms, O Christ....'"

"Now then; now then--! So your saw her Grace? And what was that for?"

"I saw her Grace ... and ... and told her what Mr. Babington had told

me."

"What was that, then?"

"That ... that he was her servant till death; and ... and a thousand if

he had them. And so, 'As Thy arms, O--'"

"Water," barked the voice.

Again came the rush as of cataracts; and a sensation of drowning. There

followed an instant's glow of life; and then the intolerable pain came

back; and the heavy, red-streaked darkness....

He found himself, after some period, lying more easily. He could not

move hand or foot. His body only appeared to live. From his shoulders to

his thighs he was alive; the rest was nothing. But he opened his eyes

and saw that his arms were laid by his side; and that he was no longer

in the wooden trough. He wondered at his hands; he wondered even if they

were his ... they were of an unusual colour and bigness; and there was

something like a tight-fitting bracelet round each wrist. Then he

perceived that he was shirtless and hoseless; and that the bracelets

were not bracelets, but rings of swollen flesh. But there was no longer

any pain or even sensation in them; and he was aware that his mouth

glowed as if he had drunk ardent spirits.

He was considering all this, slowly, like a child contemplating a new

toy. Then there came something between him and the light; he saw a

couple of faces eyeing him. Then the voice began again, at first

confused and buzzing, then articulate; and he remembered.

"Now, then," said the voice, "you have had but a taste of it...." ("A

taste of it; a taste of it." The phrase repeated itself like the catch

of a song.... When he regained his attention, the sentence had moved

on.)

"... these questions. I will put them to you again from the beginning.

You will give your answer to each. And if my lord is not satisfied, we

must try again."

"My lord!" thought the priest. He rolled his eyes round a little

further. (He dared not move his head; the sinews of his throat burned

like red-hot steel cords at the thought of it.) And he saw a little

table floating somewhere in the dark; a candle burned on it; and a

melancholy face with dreamy eyes was brightly illuminated.... That was

my lord Shrewsbury, he considered....

"... in what month that you first became privy to the plot against her

Grace?"

(Sense was coming back to him again now. He remembered what he had said

just now.)

"It was in August," he whispered, "in August, I think; two years ago.

Mr. Babington wrote to me of it."

"And you went to the Queen of the Scots, you say?"

"Yes."

"And what did you there?"

"I gave the message."

"What was that?"

"... That Mr. Babington was her servant always; that he regretted

nothing, save that he had failed. He begged her to pray for his soul,

and for all that had been with him in the enterprise."

(It appeared to him that he was astonishingly voluble, all at once. He

reflected that he must be careful.)

"And what did she say to that?"

"She declared herself guiltless of the plot ... that she knew nothing of

it; and that--"

"Now then; now then. You expect my lord to believe that?"

"I do not know.... But it was what was said."

"And you profess that you knew nothing of the plot till then?"

"I knew nothing of it till then," whispered the priest steadily. "But--"

(A face suddenly blotted out more of the light.)

"Yes?"

"Anthony--I mean Mr. Babington--had spoken to me a great while

before--in ... in some village inn.... I forget where. It was when I was

a lad. He asked whether I would join in some enterprise. He did not say

what it was.... But I thought it to be against the Queen of England....

And I would not."...

He closed his eyes again. There had begun a slow heat of pain in ankles

and wrists, not wholly unbearable, and a warmth began to spread in his

body. A great shudder or two shook him. The voice said something he

could not hear. Then a metal rim was pressed to his mouth; and a stream

of something at once icy and fiery ran into his mouth and out at the

corners. He swallowed once or twice; and his senses came back.

"You do not expect us to believe all that!" came the voice.

"It is the truth, for all that," murmured the priest.

The next question came sudden as a shot fired:

"You were at Fotheringay?"

"Yes."

"In what house?"

"I was in the inn--the 'New Inn,' I think it is.

"And you spoke with her Grace again?"

"No; I could not get at her. But--"

"Well?"

"I was in the court of the castle when her Grace was executed."

There was a murmur of voices. He thought that someone had moved over to

the table where my lord sat; but he could not move his eyes again, the

labour was too great.

"Who was with you in the inn--as your friend, I mean?"

"A ... a young man was with me. His name was Merton. He is in France, I

think."

"And he knew you to be a priest?" came the voice without an instant's

hesitation.

"Why--" Then he stopped short, just in time.

"Well?"

"How should he think that?" asked Robin.

There was a laugh somewhere. Then the voice went on, almost

good-humouredly.

"Mr. Alban; what is the use of this fencing? You were taken in a

hiding-hole with the very vestments at your feet. We _know_ you to be a

priest. We are not seeking to entrap you in that, for there is no need.

But there are other matters altogether which we must have from you. You

have been made priest beyond the seas, in Rheims--"

"I swear to you that I was not," whispered Robin instantly and eagerly,

thinking he saw a loophole.

"Well, then, at Châlons, or Douay: it matters not where. That is not our

affair to-day. All that will be dealt with before my lords at the

Assizes. But what we must have from you now is your answer to some other

questions."

"Assuming me to be a priest?"

"Mr. Alban, I will talk no more on that point. I tell you we know it.

But we must have answers on other points. I will come back to Merton

presently. These are the questions. I will read them through to you.

Then we will deal with them one by one."

There was the rustle of a paper. An extraordinary desire for sleep came

down on the priest; it was only by twitching his head a little, and

causing himself acute shoots of pain in his neck that he could keep

himself awake. He knew that he must not let his attention wander again.

He remembered clearly how that Father Campion was dead, and that

Marjorie could not have been here just now.... He must take great care

not to become so much confused again.

* * * * *

"The first question," read the voice slowly, "is, Whether you have said

mass in other places beside Padley and the manor at Booth's Edge. We

know that you must have done so; but we must have the names of the

places, and of the parties present, so far as you can remember them.

"The second question is, the names of all those other priests with whom

you have spoken in England, since you came from Rheims; and the names of

all other students, not yet priests, or scarcely, whom you knew at

Rheims, and who are for England.

"The third question is, the names of all those whom you know to be

friends of Mr. John FitzHerbert, Mr. Bassett and Mr. Fenton--not being

priests; but Papists.

"These three questions will do as a beginning. When you have answered

these, there is a number more. Now, sir."

The last two words were rapped out sharply. Robin opened his eyes.

"As to the first two questions," he whispered. "These assume that I am

a priest myself. Yet that is what you, have to prove against me. The

third question concerns ... concerns my loyalty to my friends. But I

will tell you--"

"Yes?" (The voice was sharp and eager.)

"I will tell you the names of two friends of each of those gentlemen you

have named."

A pen suddenly scratched on paper. He could not see who held it.

"Yes?" said the voice again.

"Well, sir. The names of two of the friends of Mr. FitzHerbert are, Mr.

Bassett and Mr. Fenton. The names--"

"Bah!" (The word sounded like the explosion of a gun.)

"You are playing with us--"

"The names," murmured the priest slowly, "of two of Mr. Fenton's friends

are Mr. FitzHerbert and--"

A face, upside-down, thrust itself suddenly almost into his. He could

feel the hot breath on his forehead.

"See here, Mr. Alban. You are fooling us. Do you think this is a

Christmas game? I tell you it is not yet three o'clock. There are three

hours more yet--"

A smooth, sad voice interrupted. (The reversed face vanished.)

"You have threatened the prisoner," it said, "but you have not yet told

him the alternative."

"No, my lord.... Yes, my lord. Listen, Mr. Alban. My lord here says that

if you will answer these questions he will use his influence on your

behalf. Your life is forfeited, as you know very well. There is not a

dog's chance for you. Yet, if you will but answer these three

questions--and no more--(No more, my lord?)--Yes; these three questions

and no more, my lord will use his influence for you. He can promise

nothing, he says, but that; but my lord's influence--well, we need say

no more on that point. If you refuse to answer, on the other hand, there

are yet three hours more to-day; there is all to-morrow, and the next

day. And, after that, your case will be before my lords at the Assizes.

You have had but a taste of what we can do.... And then, sir, my lord

does not wish to be harsh...."

There was a pause.

Robin was counting up the hours. It was three o'clock now. Then he had

been on the rack, with intervals, since nine o'clock. That was six

hours. There was but half that again for to-day. Then would come the

night. He need not consider further than that.... But he must guard his

tongue. It might speak, in spite---

"Well, Mr. Alban?"

He opened his eyes.

"Well, sir?"

"Which is it to be?"

The priest smiled and closed his eyes again. If he could but fix his

attention on the mere pain, he thought, and refuse utterly to consider

the way of escape, he might be able to keep his unruly tongue in check.

"You will not, then?"

"No."

* * * * *

The appalling pain ran through him again like fiery snakes of iron--from

wrist to shoulders, from ankles to thighs, as the hands seized him and

lifted him....

There was a moment or two of relief as he sank down once more into the

trough of torture. He could feel that his feet were being handled, but

it appeared as if nothing touched his flesh. He gave a great sighing

moan as his arms were drawn back over his head; and the sweat poured

again from all over his body.

Then, as the cords tightened:

"As Thy arms, O Christ, were extended ..." he whispered.

CHAPTER IX

A great murmuring crowd filled every flat spot of ground and pavement

and parapet. They stood even on the balustrade of St. Mary's Bridge;

there were fringes of them against the sky on the edges of roofs a

quarter of a mile away. No flat surface was to be seen anywhere except

on the broad reach of the river, and near the head of the bridge, in the

circular space, ringed by steel caps and pike-points, where the gallows

and ladder rose. Close beside them a column of black smoke rose heavily

into the morning air, bellying away into the clear air. A continual

steady low murmur of talking went up continually.

* * * * *

There had been no hanging within the memory of any that had roused such

interest. Derbyshire men had been hung often enough; a criminal usually

had a dozen friends at least in the crowd to whom he shouted from the

ladder. Seminary priests had been executed often enough now to have

destroyed the novelty of it for the mob; why, three had been done to

death here little more than two months ago in this very place. They gave

no sport, certainly; they died too quietly; and what peculiar interest

there was in it lay in the contemplation of the fact that it was for

religion that they died. Gentlemen, too, had been hanged here now and

then--polished persons, dressed in their best, who took off their outer

clothes carefully, and in one or two cases had handed them to a servant;

gentlemen with whom the sheriff shook hands before the end, who eyed the

mob imperturbably or affected even not to be aware of the presence of

the vulgar. But this hanging was sublime.

First, he was a Derbyshire man, a seminary priest and a gentleman--three

points. Yet this was no more than the groundwork of his surpassing

interest. For, next, he had been racked beyond belief. It was for three

days before his sentence that Mr. Topcliffe himself had dealt with him.

(Yes, Mr. Topcliffe was the tall man that had his rooms in the

market-place, and always went abroad with two servants.... He was to

have Padley, too, it was said, as a reward for all his zeal.) Of course,

young Mr. Audrey (for that was his real name--not Alban; that was a

Popish _alias_ such as they all used)--Mr. Audrey had not been on the

rack for the whole of every day. But he had been in the rack-house eight

or nine hours on the first day, four the second, and six or seven the

third. And he had not answered one single question differently from the

manner in which he had answered it before ever he had been on the rack

at all. (There was a dim sense of pride with regard to this, in many

Derbyshire minds. A Derbyshire man, it appeared, was more than a match

for even a Londoner and a sworn servant of her Grace.) It was said that

Mr. Audrey would have to be helped up the ladder, even though he had not

been racked for a whole week since his sentence.

Next, the trial itself had been full of interest. A Papist priest was,

of course, fair game. (Why, the Spanish Armada itself had been full of

them, it was said, all come to subdue England.... Well, they had had

their bellyful of salt water and English iron by now.) But this Papisher

had hit back and given sport. He had flatly refused to be caught, though

the questions were swift and subtle enough to catch any clerk. Certainly

he had not denied that he was a priest; but he had said that that was

what the Crown must prove: he was not there as a witness, he had said,

but as a prisoner; he had even entreated them to respect their own

legal dignities! But there had been a number of things against him, and

even if none of these had been proved, still, the mere sum of them was

enough; there could be no smoke without fire, said the proverb-quoters.

It was alleged that he had been privy to the plot against the Queen (the

plot of young Mr. Babington, who had sold his house down there a week or

two only before his arrest); he had denied this, but he had allowed that

he had spoken with her Grace immediately after the plot; and this was a

highly suspicious circumstance: if he allowed so much as this, the rest

might be safely presumed. Again, it was said that he had had part in

attempts to free the Queen of the Scots, even from Fotheringay itself;

and had been in the castle court, with a number of armed servants, at

the very time of her execution. Again, if he allowed that he had been

present, even though he denied the armed servants, the rest might be

presumed. Finally, since he were a priest, and had seen her Grace at a

time when there was no chaplain allowed to her, it was certain that he

must have ministered their Popish superstitions to her, and this was

neither denied nor affirmed: he had said to this that they had yet to

prove him a priest at all. The very spectacle of the trial, too, had

been remarkable; for, first, there was the extraordinary appearance of

the prisoner, bent double like an old man, with the face of a dead one,

though he could not be above thirty years old at the very most; and then

there was the unusual number of magistrates present in court besides the

judges, and my lord Shrewsbury himself, who had presided at the racking.

It was one of my lord's men, too, that had helped to identify the

prisoner.

But the supreme interest lay in even more startling circumstances--in

the history of Mistress Manners, who was present through the trial with

Mr. Biddell the lawyer, and who had obtained at least two interviews

with the prisoner, one before the torture and the other after sentence.

It was in Mistress Manners' house at Booth's Edge that the priest had

been taken; and it was freely rumoured that although Mr. Audrey had once

been betrothed to her, yet that she had released and sent him herself to

Rheims, and all to end like this. And yet she could bear to come and see

him again; and, it was said, would be present somewhere in the crowd

even at his death.

Finally, the tale of how the priest had been taken by his own

father--old Mr. Audrey of Matstead--him that was now lying sick in Mr.

Columbell's house--this put the crown on all the rest. A hundred rumours

flew this way and that: one said that the old man had known nothing of

his son's presence in the country, but had thought him to be still in

foreign parts. Another, that he knew him to be in England, but not that

he was in the county; a third, that he knew very well who it was in the

house he went to search, and had searched it and taken him on purpose to

set his own loyalty beyond question. Opinions differed as to the

propriety of such an action....

* * * * *

So then the great crowd of heads--men from all the countryside, from

farms and far-off cottages and the wild hills, mingling with the

townsfolk--this crowd, broken up into levels and patches by river and

houses and lanes, moved to and fro in the October sunshine, and sent up,

with the column of smoke that eddied out from beneath the bubbling

tar-cauldron by the gallows, a continual murmur of talking, like the

sound of slow-moving wheels of great carts.

He felt dazed and blind, yet with a kind of lightness too as he came

out of the gaol-gate into that packed mass of faces, held back by guards

from the open space where the horse and the hurdle waited. A dozen

persons or so were within the guards; he knew several of them by sight;

two or three were magistrates; another was an officer; two were

ministers with their Bibles.

It is hard to say whether he were afraid. Fear was there, indeed--he

knew well enough that in his case, at any rate, the execution would be

done as the law ordered; that he would be cut down before he had time to

die, and that the butchery would be done on him while he would still be

conscious of it. Death, too, was fearful, in any case.... Yet there were

so many other things to occupy him--there was the exhilarating knowledge

that he was to die for his faith and nothing else; for they had offered

him his life if he would go to church; and they had proved nothing as to

any complicity of his in any plot, and how could they, since there was

none? There was the pain of his tormented body to occupy him; a pain

that had passed from the acute localized agonies of snapped sinews and

wrenched joints into one vast physical misery that soaked his whole body

as in a flood; a pain that never ceased; of which he dreamed darkly, as

a hungry man dreams of food which he cannot eat, to which he awoke again

twenty times a night as to a companion nearer to him than the thoughts

with which he attempted to distract himself. This pain, at least, would

have an end presently. Again, there was an intermittent curiosity as to

how and what would befall his flying soul when the butchery was done.

"To sup in Heaven" was a phrase used by one of his predecessors on the

threshold of death.... For what did that stand?... And at other times

there had been no curiosity, but an acquiescence in old childish images.

Heaven at such times appeared to him as a summer garden, with pavilions,

and running water and the song of birds ... a garden where he would lie

at ease at last from his torn body and that feverish mind, which was all

that his pain had left to him; where Mary went, gracious and motherly,

with her virgins about her; where the Crucified Lamb of God would talk

with him as a man talks with his friend, and allow him to lie at the

Pierced Feet ... where the glory of God rested like eternal sunlight on

all that was there; on the River of Life, and the wood of the trees that

are for the healing of all hurts.

And, last of all, there was a confused medley of more human thoughts

that concerned persons other than himself. He could not remember all the

persons clearly; their names and their faces came and went. Marjorie,

his father, Mr. John FitzHerbert and Mr. Anthony, who had been allowed

to come and see him; Dick Sampson, who had come in with Marjorie the

second time and had kissed his hands. One thing at least he remembered

clearly as he stood here, and that was how he had bidden Mistress

Manners, even now, not to go overseas and become a nun, as she had

wished; but rather to continue her work in Derbyshire, if she could.

So then he stood, bent double on two sticks, blinking and peering out at

the faces, wondering whether it was a roar of anger or welcome or

compassion that had broken out at his apparition, and smiling--smiling

piteously, not of deliberation, but because the muscles of his mouth so

moved, and he could not contract them again.

* * * * *

He understood presently that he was to lie down on the hurdle, with his

head to the horses' heels.

This was a great business, to be undertaken with care. He gave his two

sticks to a man, and took his arm. Then he kneeled, clinging to the arm

as a child to a swimmer's in a rough sea, and sank gently down. But he

could not straighten his legs, so they allowed him to lie half

side-ways, and tied him so. It was amazingly uncomfortable, and, before

he was settled, twice the sweat suddenly poured from his face as he

found some new channel of pain in his body....

An order or two was issued in a loud, shouting voice; there was a great

confusion and scuffling, and the crack of a whip. Then, with a jerk that

tore his whole being, he was flicked from his place; the pain swelled

and swelled till there seemed no more room for it in all God's world;

and he closed his eyes so as not to see the house-roofs and the faces

and the sky whirl about in that mad jigging dance....

After that he knew very little of the journey. For the most part his

eyes were tight closed; he sobbed aloud half a dozen times as the hurdle

lifted and dropped over rough places in the road. Two or three times he

opened his eyes to see what the sounds signified, especially a loud,

bellowing voice almost in his ear that cried texts of Scripture at him.

"_We have but one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ

Jesus_...."

"_We then, being justified by faith.... For if by the works of the Law

we are justified_...."

He opened his eyes wide at that, and there was the face of one of the

ministers bobbing against the sky, flushed and breathless, yet

indomitable, bawling aloud as he trotted along to keep pace with the

horse.

Then he closed his eyes again. He knew that he, too, could bandy texts

if that were what was required. Perhaps, if he were a better man and

more mortified, he might be able to do so as the martyrs sometimes had

done. But he could not ... he would have a word to say presently

perhaps, if it were permitted; but not now. His pain occupied him; he

had to deal with that and keep back, if he could, those sobs that were

wrenched from him now and again. He had made but a poor beginning in his

journey, he thought; he must die more decently than that.

* * * * *

The end came unexpectedly. Just when he thought he had gained his

self-control again, so as to make no sound at any rate, the hurdle

stopped. He clenched his teeth to meet the dreadful wrench with which it

would move again; but it did not. Instead there was a man down by him,

untying his bonds. He lay quite still when they were undone; he did not

know which limb to move first, and he dreaded to move any.

"Now then," said the voice, with a touch of compassion, he thought.

He set his teeth, gripped the arm and raised himself--first to his

knees, then to his feet, where he stood swaying. An indescribable roar

ascended steadily on all sides; but he could see little of the crowd as

yet. He was standing in a cleared space, held by guards. A couple of

dozen persons stood here; three or four on horseback; and one of these

he thought to be my lord Shrewsbury, but he was not sure, since his head

was against the glare of the sun. He turned a little, still holding to

the man's arm, and not knowing what to do, and saw a ladder behind him;

he raised his eyes and saw that its head rested against the cross-beam

of a single gallows, that a rope hung from this beam, and that a figure

sitting astride of this cross-beam was busy with this rope. The shock of

the sight cooled and nerved him; rather, it drew his attention all from

himself.... He looked lower again, and behind the gallows was a column

of heavy smoke going up, and in the midst of the smoke a cauldron hung

on a tripod. Beside the cauldron was a great stump of wood, with a

chopper and a knife lying upon it.... He drew one long steady breath,

expelled it again, and turned back to my lord Shrewsbury. As he turned,

he saw him make a sign, and felt himself grasped from behind.

III

He reached at last with his hands the rung of the ladder on which the

executioner's foot rested, hearing, as he went painfully up, the roar of

voices wax to an incredible volume. It was impossible for any to speak

so that he could hear, but he saw the hands above him in eloquent

gesture, and understood that he was to turn round. He did so cautiously,

grasping the man's foot, and so rested, half sitting on a rung, and

holding it as well as he could with his two hands. Then he felt a rope

pass round his wrists, drawing them closer together.... As he turned,

the roar of voices died to a murmur; the murmur died to silence, and he

understood and remembered. It was now the time to speak.... He gathered

for the last time all his forces together. With the sudden silence,

clearness came back to his mind, and he remembered word for word the

little speech he had rehearsed so often during the last week. He had

learned it by heart, fearful lest God should give him no words if he

trusted to the moment, lest God should not see fit to give him even that

interior consolation which was denied to so many of the saints--yet

without which he could not speak from the heart. He had been right, he

knew now: there was no religious consolation; he felt none of that

strange heart-shaking ecstasy that had transfigured other deaths like

his; he had none of the ready wit that Campion had showed. He saw

nothing but the clear October sky above him, cut by the roofs fringed

with heads (a skein of birds passed slowly over it as he raised his

eyes); and, beneath, that irreckonable pavement of heads, motionless now

as a cornfield in a still evening, one glimpse of the river--the river,

he remembered even at this instant, that came down from Hathersage and

Padley and his old home. But there was no open vision, such as he had

half hoped to see, no unimaginable glories looming slowly through the

veils in which God hides Himself on earth, no radiant face smiling into

his own--only this arena of watching human faces turned up to his,

waiting for his last sermon.... He thought he saw faces that he knew,

though he lost them again as his eyes swept on--Mr. Barton, the old

minister of Matstead; Dick; Mr. Bassett.... Their faces looked

terrified.... However, this was not his affair now.

As he was about to speak he felt hands about his neck, and then the

touch of a rope passed across his face. For an indescribable instant a

terror seized on him; he closed his eyes and set his teeth. The spasm

passed, and so soon as the hands were withdrawn again, he began:

* * * * *

"Good people"--(at the sound of his voice, high and broken, the silence

became absolute. A thin crowing of a cock from far off in the country

came like a thread and ceased)--"Good people: I die here as a Catholic

man, for my priesthood, which I now confess before all the world." (A

stir of heads and movements below distracted him. But he went on at

once.) "There have been alleged against me crimes in which I had neither

act nor part, against the life of her Grace and the peace of her

dominions."

"Pray for her Grace," rang out a sharp voice below him.

"I will do so presently.... It is for that that I am said to die, in

that I took part in plots of which I knew nothing till all was done. Yet

I was offered my life, if I would but conform and go to church; so you

see very well--"

A storm of confused voices interrupted him. He could distinguish no

sentence, so he waited till they ceased again.

"So you see very well," he cried, "for what it is that I die. It is for

the Catholic faith--"

"Beat the drums! beat the drums!" cried a voice. There began a drumming;

but a howl like a beast's surged up from the whole crowd. When it died

again the drum was silent. He glanced down at my lord Shrewsbury and saw

him whispering with an officer. Then he continued:

"It is for the Catholic faith, then, that I die--that which was once the

faith of all England--and which, I pray, may be one day its faith again.

In that have I lived, and in that will I die. And I pray God, further,

that all who hear me to-day may have grace to take it as I do--as the

true Christian Religion (and none other)--revealed by our Saviour

Christ."

The crowd was wholly quiet again now. My lord had finished his

whispering, and was looking up. But the priest had made his little

sermon, and thought that he had best pray aloud before his strength

failed him. His knees were already shaking violently under him, and the

sweat was pouring again from his face, not so much from the effort of

his speech as from the pain which that effort caused him. It seemed that

there was not one nerve in his body that was not in pain.

"I ask all Catholics, then, that hear me to join with me in prayer....

First, for Christ's Catholic Church throughout the world, for her peace

and furtherance.... Next, for our England, for the conversion of all her

children; and, above all, for her Grace, my Queen and yours, that God

will bless and save her in this world, and her soul eternally in the

next. For these and all other such matters I will beg all Catholics to

join with me and to say the _Our Father_; and when I am in my agony to

say yet another for my soul."

"_Our Father_...."

From the whole packed space the prayer rose up, in great and heavy waves

of sound. There were cries of mockery three or four times, but each was

suddenly cut off.... The waves of sound rolled round and ceased, and the

silence was profound. The priest opened his eyes; closed them again.

Then with a loud voice he began to cry:

"O Christ, as Thine arms were extended--"

* * * * *

He stopped again, shaken even from that intense point of concentration

to which he was forcing himself, by the amazing sound that met his ears.

He had heard, at the close of the _Our Father_, a noise which he could

not interpret: but no more had happened. But now the whole world seemed

screaming and swaying: he heard the trample of horses beneath

him--voices in loud expostulation.

He opened his eyes; the clamour died again at the same instant.... For a

moment his eyes wandered over the heads and up to the sky, to see if

some vision.... Then he looked down....

Against the ladder on which he stood, a man's figure was writhing and

embracing the rungs kneeling on the ground. He was strangely dressed, in

some sort of a loose gown, in a tight silk night-cap, and his feet were

bare. The man's head was dropped, and the priest could not see his face.

He looked beyond for some explanation, and there stood, all alone, a

girl in a hooded cloak, who raised her great eyes to his. As he looked

down again the man's head had fallen back, and the face was staring up

at him, so distorted with speechless entreaty, that even he, at first,

did not recognize it....

Then he saw it to be his father, and understood enough, at least, to act

as a priest for the last time.

He smiled a little, leaned his own head forward as from a cross, and

spoke....

"_Absolvo te a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus

Sancti_...."

He only awoke once again, after the strangling and the darkness had

passed. He could see nothing, nor hear, except a heavy murmuring noise,

not unpleasant. But there was one last Pain not into which all others

had passed, keen and cold like water, and it was about his heart.

"O Christ--" he whispered, and so died.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Come Rack! Come Rope!, by Robert Hugh Benson

Yet it was still some minutes before the climax came to him. He was