After a little more talk, Mr. Buxton looked at Anthony curiously a moment or two; and then said:
“I wonder you have not guessed yet who Father Robert is; for I am sure you know that that cannot be his real name.”
Anthony looked at him wonderingly.
“Well, he is in bed now; and will be off early to-morrow; and I have his leave to tell you. He is Father Persons, of whom you may have heard.”
Anthony stared.
“Yes,” said his host, “the companion of Campion. All the world supposes him to be in Rome; and I think that not half-a-dozen persons besides ourselves know where he is; but at this moment, I assure you, Father Robert Persons, of the Society of Jesus, is asleep (or awake, as the case may be) in the little tapestry chamber overhead.”
“Now,” went on Mr. Buxton, “that you are one of us, I will tell you quite plainly that Father Robert, as we will continue to call him, is in my opinion one of the most devout priests that ever said mass; and also one of the most shrewd men that ever drew breath; but I cannot follow him everywhere. You will find, Mr. Anthony, that the Catholics in England are of two kinds: those who seem to have as their motto the text I quoted to you in Lambeth prison; and who count their duty to Cæsar as scarcely less important than their direct duty to God. I am one of these: I sincerely desire above all things to serve her Grace, and I would not, for all the world, join in any confederacy to dethrone her, for I hold she is my lawful and true Prince. Then there is another party who would not hesitate for a moment to take part against their Prince, though I do not say to the slaying of her, if thereby the Catholic Religion could be established again in these realms. It is an exceedingly difficult point; and I understand well how honest and good men can hold that view: for they say, and rightly, that the Kingdom of God is the first thing in the world, and while they may not commit sin of course to further it, yet in things indifferent they must sacrifice all for it; and, they add, it is indifferent as to who sits on the throne of England; therefore one Prince may be pushed off it, so long as no crime is committed in the doing of it, and another seated there; if thereby the Religion may be so established again. You see the point, Mr. Anthony, no doubt; and how fine and delicate it is. Well, Father Robert is, I think, of that party; and so are many of the authorities abroad. Now I tell you all this, and on this sacred day too, because I may have no other opportunity; and I do not wish you to be startled or offended after you have become a Catholic. And I entreat you to be warm and kindly to those who take other views than your own; for I fear that many troubles lie in front of us of our own causing: for there are divisions amongst us already: although not at all of course (for which I thank God) on any of the saving truths of the Faith.”
Anthony’s excitement on hearing Father Robert’s real name was very great. As he lay in bed that night the thought of it all would hardly let him sleep. He turned to and fro, trying to realise that there, within a dozen yards of him, lay the famous Jesuit for whose blood all Protestant England was clamouring. The name of Persons was still sinister and terrible even to this convert; and he could scarcely associate in his thoughts all its suggestiveness with that kindly fervent lover of Jesus Christ who had led him with such skill and tenderness along the way of the Gospel. Others in England were similarly astonished in later years to learn that a famous Puritan book of devotions was scarcely other than a reprint of Father Persons’ “Christian Directory.”
The following day about noon, after an affectionate good-bye to his host and Mr. Blake, Anthony rode out of the iron-wrought gates and down the village street in the direction of Great Keynes.
It was a perfect spring-day. Overhead there was a soft blue sky with translucent clouds floating in it; underfoot and on all sides the mystery of life was beginning to stir and manifest itself. The last touch of bitterness had passed from the breeze, and all living growth was making haste out into the air. The hedges were green with open buds, and bubbling with the laughter and ecstasy of the birds; the high sloping overhung Sussex lanes were sweet with violets and primroses; and here and there under the boughs Anthony saw the blue carpet of bell-flowers spread. Rabbits whisked in and out of the roots, superintending and provisioning the crowded nurseries underground; and as Anthony came out, now and again on the higher and open spaces larks vanished up their airy spirals of song into the illimitable blue; or hung, visible musical specks against a fleecy cloud, pouring down their thin cataract of melody. And as he rode, for every note of music and every glimpse of colour round him, his own heart poured out pulse after pulse of that spiritual essence that lies beneath all beauty, and from which all beauty is formed, to the Maker of all this and the Saviour of himself. There were set wide before him now the gates of a kingdom, compared to which this realm of material life round about was but a cramped and wintry prison after all.
How long he had lived in the cold and the dark! he thought; kept alive by the refracted light that stole down the steps to where he sat in the shadow of death; saved from freezing by the warmth of grace that managed to survive the chill about him; and all the while the Catholic Church was glowing and pulsating with grace, close to him and yet unseen; that great realm full of heavenly sunlight, that was the life of all its members—that sunlight that had poured down so steadily ever since the winter had rolled away on Calvary; and that ever since then had been elaborating and developing into a thousand intricate forms all that was capable of absorbing it. One by one the great arts had been drawn into that Kingdom, transformed and immortalised by the vital and miraculous sap of grace; philosophies, languages, sciences, all in turn were taken up and sanctified; and now this Puritan soul, thirsty for knowledge and grace, and so long starved and imprisoned, was entering at last into her heritage.
All this was of course but dimly felt in the direct perceptions of Anthony; but Father Robert had said enough to open something of the vision, and he himself had sufficient apprehension to make him feel that the old meagre life was passing away, and a new life of unfathomed possibilities beginning. As he rode the wilderness appeared to rejoice and blossom like the rose, as the spring of nature and grace stirred about and within him; and only an hour or two’s ride away lay the very hills and streams of the Promised Land.
About half-past three he crossed the London road, and before four o’clock he rode round to the door of the Dower House, dismounted, telling the groom to keep his horse saddled.
He went straight through the hall, calling Isabel as he went, and into the garden, carrying his flat cap and whip and gloves: and as he came out beneath the holly tree, there she stood before him on the top of the old stone garden steps, that rose up between earthen flower-jars to the yew-walk on the north of the house. He went across the grass smiling, and as he came saw her face grow whiter and whiter. She was in a dark serge dress with a plain ruff, and a hood behind it, and her hair was coiled in great masses on her head. She stood trembling, and he came up and took her in his arms tenderly and kissed her, for his news would be heavy presently.
“Why, Isabel,” he said, “you look astonished to see me. But I could not well send a man, as I had only Geoffrey with me.”
She tried to speak, but could not; and looked so overwhelmed and terrified that Anthony grew frightened; he saw he must be very gentle.
“Sit down,” he said, drawing her to a seat beside the path at the head of the steps: “and tell me the news.”
By a great effort she regained her self-control.
“I did not know when you were coming,” she said tremulously. “I was startled.”
He talked of his journey for a few minutes; and of the kindness of the friend with whom he had been staying, and the beauty of the house and grounds, and so on; until she seemed herself again; and the piteous startled look had died out of her eyes: and then he forced himself to approach his point; for the horse was waiting saddled; and he must get to Cuckfield and back by supper if possible.
He took her hand and played with it gently as he spoke, turning over her rings.
“Isabel,” he said, “I have news to tell you. It is not bad news—at least I think not—it is the best thing that has ever come to me yet, by the grace of God, and so you need not be anxious or frightened. But I am afraid you may think it bad news. It—it is about religion, Isabel.”
He glanced at her, and saw that terrified look again in her face: she was staring at him, and her hand in his began to twitch and tremble.
“Nay, nay,” he said, “there is no need to look like that. I have not lost my faith in God. Rather, I have gained it. Isabel, I am going to be a Catholic.”
A curious sound broke from her lips; and a look so strange came into her face that he threw his arm round her, thinking she was going to faint: and he spoke sharply.
“Isabel, Isabel, what is there to fear? Look at me!”
Then a cry broke from her white lips, and she struggled to stand up.
“No, no, no! you are mocking me. Oh! Anthony, what have I done, that you should treat me like this?”
“Mocking!” he said, “before God I am not. My horse is waiting to take me to the priest.”
“But—but—” she began again. “Oh! then what have you done to James Maxwell?”
“James Maxwell! Why? What do you mean? You got my note!”
“No—no. There was no answer, he said.”
Anthony stared.
“Why, I wrote—and then Lady Maxwell! Does she not know, and James himself?”
Isabel shook her head and looked at him wildly.
“Well, well, that must wait; one thing at a time,” he said. “Icannotwait now. I must go to Cuckfield. Ah! Isabel, say you understand.”
Once or twice she began to speak, but failed; and sat panting and staring at him.
“My darling,” he said, “do not look like that: we are both Christians still: we at least serve the same God. Surely you will not cast me off for this?”
“Cast you off?” she said; and she laughed piteously and sharply; and then was grave again. Then she suddenly cried,
“Oh, Anthony, swear to me you are not mocking me.”
“My darling,” he said, “why should I mock you? I have made the Exercises, and have been instructed; and I have here a letter to Mr. Barnes from the priest who has taught me; so that I may be received to-night, and make my Easter duties: and Geoffrey is still at the door holding Roland to take me to Cuckfield to-night.”
“To Cuckfield!” she said. “You will not find Mr. Barnes there.”
“Not there! why not? Where shall I find him? How do you know?”
“Because he is here,” she went on in the same strange voice, “at the Hall.”
“Well,” said Anthony, “that saves me a journey. Why is he here?”
“He is here to say mass to-morrow.”
“Ah!”
“And—and——”
“What is it, Isabel?”
“And—to receive me into the Church to-night.”
The brother and sister walked up and down that soft spring evening after supper, on the yew-walk; with the whispers and caresses of the scented breeze about them, the shy dewy eyes of the stars looking down at them between the tall spires of the evergreens overhead; and in their hearts the joy of lovers on a wedding-night.
Anthony had soon told the tale of James Maxwell and Isabel had nearly knelt to ask her brother’s pardon for having ever allowed even the shadow of a suspicion to darken her heart. Lady Maxwell, too, who had come down with her sister to see Isabel about some small arrangement, was told; and she too had been nearly overwhelmed with the joy of knowing that the lad was innocent, and the grief of having dreamed he could be otherwise, and at the wholly unexpected news of his conversion; but she had gone at last back to the Hall to make all ready for the double ceremony of that night, and the Paschal Feast on the next day. Mistress Margaret was in Isabel’s room, moving about with a candle, and every time that the two reached the turn at the top of the steps they saw her light glimmering.
Then Anthony, as they walked under the stars, told Isabel of his great hope that he, too, one day would be a priest, and serve God and his countrymen that way.
“Oh, Anthony,” she whispered, and clung to that dear arm that held her own; terrified for the moment at the memory of what had been the price of priesthood to James Maxwell.
“And where shall you be trained for it?” she asked.
“At Douai: and—Isabel—I think I must go this summer.”
“This summer!” she said. “Why——” and she was silent.
“Anthony,” she went on, “I would like to tell you about Hubert.”
And then the story of the past months came out; she turned away her face as she talked; and at last she told him how Hubert had come for his answer, a week before his time.
“It was on Monday,” she said. “I heard him on the stairs, and stood up as he came in; and he stopped at the door in silence, and I could not bear to look at him. I could hear him breathing quickly; and then I could not bear to—think of it all; and I dropped down into my chair again, and hid my face in my arm and burst into crying. And still he said nothing, but I felt him come close up to me and kneel down by me; and he put his hand over mine, and held them tight; and then he whispered in a kind of quick way:
“‘I will be what you please; Catholic or Protestant, or what you will’; and I lifted my head and looked at him, because it was dreadful to hear him—Hubert—say that: and he was whiter than I had ever seen him; and then—then he began to wrinkle his mouth—you know the way he does when his horse is pulling or kicking: and then he began to say all kinds of things: and oh! I was so sorry; because he had behaved so well till then.”
“What did he say?” asked Anthony quickly.
“Ah! I have tried to forget,” said Isabel. “I do not want to think of him as he was when he was angry and disappointed. At last he flung out of the room and down the stairs, and I have not seen him since. But Lady Maxwell sent for me the same evening an hour later; and told me that she could not live there any longer. She said that Hubert had ridden off to London; and would not be down again till Whitsuntide; but that she must be gone before then. So I am afraid that he said things he ought not; but of course she did not tell me one word. And she asked me to go with her. And, and—Anthony, I did not know what to say; because I did not know what you would do when you heard that I was a Catholic; I was waiting to tell you when you came home—but now—but now——Oh, Anthony, my darling!”
At last the two came indoors. Mistress Margaret met them in the hall. She looked for a moment at the two; at Anthony in his satin and lace and his smiling face over his ruff and his steady brown eyes; and Isabel on his arm, with her clear pale face and bosom and black high-piled hair, and her velvet and lace, and a rope of pearls.
“Why,” said the old nun, smiling, “you look a pair of lovers.”
Then presently the three went together up to the Hall.
An hour or two passed away; the Paschal moon was rising high over the tall yew hedge behind the Italian garden; and the Hall lay beneath it with silver roofs and vane; and black shadows under the eaves and in the angles. The tall oriel window of the Hall looking on to the terrace shone out with candlelight; and the armorial coats of the Maxwells and the families they had married with glimmered in the upper panes. From the cloister wing there shone out above the curtains lines of light in Lady Maxwell’s suite of rooms, and the little oak parlour beneath, as well as from one or two other rooms; but the rest of the house, with the exception of the great hall and the servants’ quarters, was all dark. It was as if the interior life had shifted westwards, leaving the remainder desolate. The gardens to the south were silent, for the night breeze had dropped; and the faint ripple of the fountain within the cloister-court was the only sound that broke the stillness. And once or twice the sleepy chirp of a bird nestling by his mate in the deep shrubberies showed that the life of the spring was beating out of sight.
And then at last the door in the west angle of the terrace, between the cloister wing and the front of the house, opened, and a flood of mellow light poured out on to the flat pavement. A group stood within the little oaken red-tiled lobby; Lady Maxwell and her sister, slender and dignified in their dark evening dresses and ruffs; Anthony holding his cap, and Isabel with a lace shawl over her head, and at the back the white hair and ruddy face of old Mr. Barnes in his cassock at the bottom of the stairs.
As Mistress Margaret opened the door and looked out, Lady Maxwell took Isabel in her arms and kissed her again and again. Then Anthony took the old lady’s hand and kissed it, but she threw her other hand round him and kissed him too on the forehead. Then without another word the brother and sister came out into the moonlight, passed down the side of the cloister wing, and turning once to salute the group who waited, framed and bathed in golden light, they turned the corner to the Dower House. Then the door closed; the oriel window suddenly darkened, and an hour after the lights in the wing went out, and Maxwell Hall lay silver and grey again in the moonlight.
The night passed on. Once Isabel awoke, and saw her windows blue and mystical and her room full of a dim radiance from the bright night outside. It was irresistible, and she sprang out of bed and went to the window across the cool polished oak floor, and leaned with her elbows on the sill, looking out at the square of lawn and the low ivied wall beneath, and the tall trees rising beyond ashen-grey and olive-black in the brilliant glory that poured down from almost directly overhead, for the Paschal moon was at its height above the house.
And then suddenly the breathing silence was broken by a ripple of melody, and another joined and another; and Isabel looked and wondered and listened, for she had never heard before the music of the mysterious night-flight of the larks all soaring and singing together when the rest of the world is asleep. And she listened and wondered as the stream of song poured down from the wonderful spaces of the sky, rising to far-off ecstasies as the wheeling world sank yet further with its sleeping meadows and woods beneath the whirling singers; and then the earth for a moment turned in its sleep as Isabel listened, and the trees stirred as one deep breath came across the woods, and a thrush murmured a note or two beside the drive, and a rabbit suddenly awoke in the field and ran on to the lawn and sat up and looked at the white figure at the window; and far away from the direction of Lindfield a stag brayed.
“So longeth my soul,” whispered Isabel to herself.
Then all grew still again; the trees hushed; the torrent of music, more tumultuous as it neared the earth, suddenly ceased; and Isabel at the window leaned further out and held her hands in the bath of light; and spoke softly into the night:
“Oh, Lord Jesus, how kind Thou art to me!”
Then at last the morning came, and Christ was risen beyond a doubt.
Just before the sun came up, when all the sky was luminous to meet him, the two again passed up and round the corner, and into the little door in the angle. There was the same shaded candle or two, for the house was yet dark within; and they passed up and on together through the sitting-room into the chapel where each had made a First Confession the night before, and had together been received into the Catholic Church. Now it was all fragrant with flowers and herbs; a pair of tall lilies leaned their delicate heads towards the altar, as if to listen for the soundless Coming in the Name of the Lord; underfoot all about the altar lay sprigs of sweet herbs, rosemary, thyme, lavender, bay-leaves; with white blossoms scattered over them—a soft carpet for the Pierced Feet; not like those rustling palm-swords over which He rode to death last week. The black oak chest that supported the altar-stone was glorious in its vesture of cloth-of-gold; and against the white-hung wall at the back, behind the silver candlesticks, leaned the gold plate of the house, to do honour to the King. And presently there stood there the radiant rustling figure of the Priest, his personality sheathed and obliterated beneath the splendid symbolism of his vestments, stiff and chinking with jewels as he moved.
The glorious Mass of Easter Day began.
“Immolatus est Christus. Itaque epulemur,” Saint Paul cried from the south corner of the altar to the two converts. “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast, but not with the old leaven.”
“Quis revolvet nobis lapidem?” wailed the women. “Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?”
“And when they looked,” cried the triumphant Evangelist, “they saw that the stone was rolled away; for it was very great”—“erat quippe magnus valde.”
Here then they knelt at last, these two come home together, these who had followed their several paths so resolutely in the dark, not knowing that the other was near, yet each seeking a hidden Lord, and finding both Him and one another now in the full and visible glory of His Face—orto jam sole—for the Sun of Righteousness had dawned, and there was healing for all sorrows in His Wings.
“Et credo in unam sanctam Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam”—their hearts cried all together. “I believe at last in a Catholic Church; one, for it is built on one and its faith is one; holy, for it is the Daughter of God and the Mother of Saints; Apostolic, for it is guided by the Prince of Apostles and very Vicar of Christ.”
“Et exspecto vitam venturi saeculi.” “I look for the life of the world to come; and I count all things but loss, houses and brethren and sisters and father and mother and wife and children and lands, when I look to that everlasting life, and Him Who is the Way to it.Amen.”
So from step to step the liturgy moved on with its sonorous and exultant tramp, and the crowding thoughts forgot themselves, and watched as the splendid heralds went by; the triumphant trumpets ofGloria in excelsishad long died away; the proclamation of the names and titles of the Prince had been made.Unum Dominum Jesum Christum;Filium Dei Unigenitum;Ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula;Deum de Deo;Lumen de Lumine;Deum Verum de Deo Vero;Genitum non factum;Consubstantialem Patri.
Then His first achievement had been declared; “Per quem omnia facta sunt.”
Then his great and later triumphs; how He had ridden out alone from the Palace and come down the steep of heaven in quest of His Love; how He had disguised Himself for her sake; and by the crowning miracle of love, the mightiest work that Almighty God has ever wrought, He was made man; and the herald hushed his voice in awe as he declared it, and the people threw themselves prostrate in honour of this high and lowly Prince; then was recounted the tale of those victories that looked so bitterly like failures, and the people held their breath and whispered it too; then in rising step after step His last conquests were told; how the Black Knight was overthrown, his castle stormed and his prison burst; and the story of the triumph of the return and of the Coronation and the Enthronement at the Father’s Right Hand on high.
The heralds passed on; and mysterious figures came next, bearing Melchisedech’s gifts; shadowing the tremendous event that follows on behind.
After a space or two came the first lines of the bodyguard, the heavenly creatures dimly seen moving through clouds of glory, Angels, Dominations, Powers, Heavens, Virtues, and blessed Seraphim, all crying out together to heaven and earth to welcome Him Who comes after in the bright shadow of the Name of the Lord; and the trumpets peal out for the last time, “Hosanna in the highest.”
Then a hush fell, and presently in the stillness came riding the great Personages who stand in heaven about the Throne; first, the Queen Mother herself, glorious within and without, moving in clothing of wrought gold, high above all others; then, the great Princes of the Blood Royal, who are admitted to drink of the King’s own Cup, and sit beside Him on their thrones, Peter and Paul and the rest, with rugged faces and scarred hands; and with them great mitred figures, Linus, Cletus and Clement, with their companions.
And then another space and a tingling silence; the crowds bow down like corn before the wind, the far-off trumpets are silent; and He comes—He comes!
On He moves, treading under foot the laws He has made, yet borne up by them as on the Sea of Galilee; He Who inhabits eternity at an instant is made present; He Who transcends space is immanent in material kind; He Who never leaves the Father’s side rests on His white linen carpet, held yet unconfined; in the midst of the little gold things and embroidery and candle-flames and lilies, while the fragrance of the herbs rises about Him. There rests the gracious King, before this bending group; the rest of the pageant dies into silence and nothingness outside the radiant circle of His Presence. There is His immediate priest-herald, who has marked out this halting-place for the Prince, bowing before Him, striving by gestures to interpret and fulfil the silence that words must always leave empty; here behind are the adoring human hearts, each looking with closed eyes into the Face of the Fairest of the children of men, each crying silently words of adoration, welcome and utter love.
The moments pass; the court ceremonies are performed. The Virgins that follow the Lamb, Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha and the rest step forward smiling, and take their part; the Eternal Father is invoked again in the Son’s own words; and at length the King, descending yet one further step of infinite humility, flings back the last vesture of His outward Royalty and casts Himself in a passion of haste and desire into the still and invisible depths of these two quivering hearts, made in His own Image, that lift themselves in an agony of love to meet Him....
Meanwhile the Easter morning is deepening outside; the sun is rising above the yew hedge, and the dew flashes drop by drop into a diamond and vanishes; the thrush that stirred and murmured last night is pouring out his song; and the larks that rose into the moonlight are running to and fro in the long meadow grass. The tall slender lilies that have not been chosen to grace the sacramental Presence-Chamber, are at least in the King’s own garden, where He walks morning and evening in the cool of the day; and waiting for those who will have seen Him face to face....
And presently they come, the tall lad and his sister, silent and together, out into the radiant sunlight; and the joy of the morning and the singing thrush and the jewels of dew and the sweet swaying lilies are shamed and put to silence by the joy upon their faces and in their hearts.
PART III
CHAPTER I
THE COMING OF SPAIN
The conflict between the Old Faith and the lusty young Nation went steadily forward after the Jesuit invasion; more and more priests poured into England; more and more were banished, imprisoned and put to death. The advent of Father Holt, the Jesuit, to Scotland in 1583 was a signal for a new outburst of Catholic feeling, which manifested itself not only in greater devotion to Religion, but, among the ill-instructed and impatient, in very questionable proceedings. In fact, from this time onward the Catholic cause suffered greatly from the division of its supporters into two groups; the religious and the political, as they may be named. The former entirely repudiated any desire or willingness to meddle with civil matters; its members desired to be both Catholics and Englishmen; serving the Pope in matters of Faith and Elizabeth in matters of civil life; but they suffered greatly from the indiscretions and fanaticism of the political group. The members of that party frankly regarded themselves as at war with an usurper and an heretic; and used warlike methods to gain their ends; plots against the Queen’s life were set on foot; and their promoters were willing enough to die in defence of the cause. But the civil Government made the fatal mistake of not distinguishing between the two groups; again and again loyal Englishmen were tortured and hanged as traitors, because they shared their faith with conspirators.
There was one question, however, that was indeed on the borderline, exceedingly difficult to answer in words, especially for scrupulous consciences; and that was whether they believed in the Pope’s deposing power; and this question was adroitly and deliberately used by the Government in doubtful cases to ensure a conviction. But whether or not it was possible to frame a satisfactory answer in words, yet the accused were plain enough in their deeds; and when the Armada at length was launched in ’88, there were no more loyal defenders of England than the persecuted Catholics. Even before this, however, there had appeared signs of reaction among the Protestants, especially against the torture and death of Campion and his fellows; and Lord Burghley in ’83 attempted to quiet the people’s resentment by his anonymous pamphlet, “Execution of Justice in England,” to which Cardinal Allen presently replied.
Ireland, which had been profoundly stirred by the military expedition from the continent in ’80, at length was beaten and slashed into submission again; and the torture and execution of Hurley by martial law, which Elizabeth directed on account of his appointment to the See of Cashel, when the judges had pronounced there to be no case against him; and a massacre on the banks of the Moy in ’86 of Scots who had come across as reinforcements to the Irish;—these were incidents in the black list of barbarities by which at last a sort of temporary quiet was brought to Ireland.
In Scottish affairs, the tangle, unravelled even still, of which Mary Stuart was the centre, led at last to her death. Walsingham, with extraordinary skill, managed to tempt her into a dangerous correspondence, all of which he tapped on the way: he supplied to her in fact the very instrument—an ingeniously made beer-barrel—through which the correspondence was made possible, and, after reading all the letters, forwarded them to their several destinations. When all was ripe he brought his hand down on a group of zealots, to whose designs Mary was supposed to be privy; and after their execution, finally succeeded, in ’87, in obtaining Elizabeth’s signature to her cousin’s death-warrant. The storm already raging against Elizabeth on the Continent, but fanned to fury by this execution, ultimately broke in the Spanish Armada in the following year.
Meanwhile, at home, the affairs of the Church of England were far from prosperous. Puritanism was rampant; and a wail of dismay was evoked by the new demands of a Commission under Whitgift’s guidance, in ’82, whereby the Puritan divines were now called upon to assent to the Queen’s Supremacy, the Thirty-nine Articles and the Prayer Book. In spite of the opposition, however, of Burghley and the Commons, Whitgift, who had by this time succeeded to Canterbury upon Grindal’s death, remained firm; and a long and dreary dispute began, embittered further by the execution of Mr. Copping and Mr. Thacker in ’83 for issuing seditious books in the Puritan cause. A characteristic action in this campaign was the issuing of a Puritan manifesto in ’84, consisting of a brief, well-written pamphlet of a hundred and fifty pages under the title “A Learned Discourse of Ecclesiastical Government,” making the inconsistent claim of desiring a return to the Primitive and Scriptural model, and at the same time of advocating an original scheme, “one not yet handled.” It was practically a demand for the Presbyterian system of pastorate and government. To this Dr. Bridges replies with a tremendous tome of over fourteen hundred pages, discharged after three years of laborious toil; and dealing, as the custom then was, line by line, with the Puritan attack. To this in the following year an anonymous Puritan, under the name of Martin Marprelate, retorts with a brilliant and sparkling riposte addressed to “The right puissant and terrible priests, my clergy-masters of the Convocation-house,” in which he mocks bitterly at the prelates, accusing them of Sabbath-breaking, time-serving, and popery,—calling one “dumb and duncetical,” another “the veriest coxcomb that ever wore velvet cap,” and summing them up generally as “wainscot-faced bishops,” “proud, popish, presumptuous, profane paltry, pestilent, and pernicious prelates.”
The Archbishop had indeed a difficult team to drive; especially as his coadjutors were not wholly proof against Martin’s jibes. In ’84 his brother of York had been mixed up in a shocking scandal; in ’85 the Bishop of Lichfield was accused of simony; Bishop Aylmer was continually under suspicion of avarice, dishonesty, vanity and swearing; and the Bench as a whole was universally reprobated as covetous, stingy and weak.
In civil matters, England’s relation with Spain was her most important concern. Bitter feeling had been growing steadily between the two countries ever since Drake’s piracies in the Spanish dominions in America; and a gradually increasing fleet at Cadiz was the outward sign of it. Now the bitterness was deepened by the arrest of English ships in the Spanish ports in the early summer of ’85, and the swift reprisals of Drake in the autumn; who intimidated and robbed important towns on the coast, such as Vigo, where his men behaved with revolting irreverence in the churches, and Santiago; and then proceeded to visit and spoil S. Domingo and Carthagena in the Indies.
Again in ’87 Drake obtained the leave of the Queen to harass Spain once more, and after robbing and burning all the vessels in Cadiz harbour, he stormed the forts at Faro, destroyed Armada stores at Corunna, and captured the great treasure-shipSan Felipe.
Elizabeth was no doubt encouraged in her apparent recklessness by the belief that with the Netherlands, which she had been compelled at last to assist, in a state of revolt, Spain would have little energy for reprisals upon England; but she grew more and more uneasy when news continued to arrive in England of the growing preparations for the Armada; France, too, was now so much involved with internal struggles, as the Protestant Henry of Navarre was now the heir to her Catholic throne, that efficacious intervention could no longer be looked for from that quarter, and it seemed at last as if the gigantic Southern power was about to inflict punishment upon the little northern kingdom which had insulted her with impunity so long.
In the October of ’87 certain news arrived in England of the gigantic preparations being made in Spain and elsewhere: and hearts began to beat, and tongues to clack, and couriers to gallop. Then as the months went by, and tidings sifted in, there was something very like consternation in the country. Men told one another of the huge armament that was on its way, the vast ships and guns—all bearing down on tiny England, like a bull on a terrier. They spoke of the religious fervour, like that of a crusade, that inspired the invasion, and was bringing the flower of the Spanish nobility against them: the superstitious contrasted their ownLion,Revenge, andElizabeth Jonaswith the SpanishSan Felipe,San Matteo, andOur Lady of the Rosary: the more practical thought with even deeper gloom of the dismal parsimony of the Queen, who dribbled out stores and powder so reluctantly, and dismissed her seamen at the least hint of delay.
Yet, little by little, as midsummer came and went, beacons were gathering on every hill, ships were approaching efficiency, and troops assembling at Tilbury under the supremely incompetent command of Lord Leicester.
Among the smaller seaports on the south coast, Rye was one of the most active and enthusiastic; the broad shallow bay was alive with fishing-boats, and the steep cobbled streets of the town were filled all day with a chattering exultant crowd, cheering every group of seamen that passed, and that spent long hours at the quay watching the busy life of the ships, and predicting the great things that should fall when the Spaniards encountered the townsfolk, should the Armada survive Drake’s onslaught further west.
About July the twentieth more definite news began to arrive. At least once a day a courier dashed in through the south-west gate, with news that all must hold themselves ready to meet the enemy by the end of the month; labour grew more incessant and excitement more feverish.
About six o’clock on the evening of the twenty-ninth, as a long row of powder barrels was in process of shipping down on the quay, the men who were rolling them suddenly stopped and listened; the line of onlookers paused in their comments, and turned round. From the town above came an outburst of cries, followed by the crash of the alarm from the church-tower. In two minutes the quay was empty. Out of every passage that gave on to the main street poured excited men and women, some hysterically laughing, some swearing, some silent and white as they ran. For across the bay westwards, on a point beyond Winchelsea, in the still evening air rose up a stream of smoke shaped like a pine-tree, with a red smouldering root; and immediately afterwards in answer the Ypres tower behind the town was pouring out a thick drifting cloud that told to the watchers on Folkestone cliffs that the dreaded and longed-for foe was in sight of England.
Then the solemn hours of waiting began to pass. Every day and night there were watchers, straining their eyes westwards in case the Armada should attempt to coast along England to force a landing anywhere, and southwards in case they should pass nearer the French coast on their way to join the Prince of Parma; but there was little to be seen over that wide ring of blue sea except single vessels, or now and again half-a-dozen in company, appearing and fading again on some unknown quest. The couriers that came in daily could not tell them much; only that there had been indecisive engagements; that the Spaniards had not yet attempted a landing anywhere; and that it was supposed that they would not do so until a union with the force in Flanders had been effected.
And so four days of the following week passed; then on Thursday, August the fourth, within an hour or two after sunrise, the solemn booming of guns began far away to the south-west; but the hours passed; and before nightfall all was silent again.
The suspense was terrible; all night long there were groups parading the streets, anxiously conjecturing, now despondently, now cheerfully.
Then once again on the Friday morning a sudden clamour broke out in the town, and almost simultaneously a pinnace slipped out, spreading her wings and making for the open sea. A squadron of English ships had been sighted flying eastwards; and the pinnace was gone to get news. The ships were watched anxiously by thousands of eyes, and boats put out all along the coast to inquire; and within two or three hours the pinnace was back again in Rye harbour, with news that set bells ringing and men shouting. On Wednesday, the skipper reported, there had been an indecisive engagement during the dead calm that had prevailed in the Channel; a couple of Spanish store-vessels had been taken on the following morning, and a general action had followed, which again had been indecisive; but in which the English had hardly suffered at all, while it was supposed that great havoc had been wrought upon the enemy.
But the best of the news was that the Rye contingent was to set sail at once, and unite with the English fleet westward of Calais by mid-day on Saturday. The squadron that had passed was under the command of the Admiral himself, who was going to Dover for provisions and ammunition, and would return to his fleet before evening.
Before many hours were passed, Rye harbour was almost empty, and hundreds of eyes were watching the ships that carried their husbands and sons and lovers out into the pale summer haze that hung over the coast of France; while a few sharp-eyed old mariners on points of vantage muttered to one another that in the haze there was a patch of white specks to be seen which betokened the presence of some vast fleet.
That night the sun set yellow and stormy, and by morning the cobble-stones of Rye were wet and dripping with storm-showers, and a swell was beginning to lap and sob against the harbour walls.
CHAPTER II
MEN OF WAR AND PEACE
The following days passed in terrible suspense for all left behind at Rye. Every morning all the points of vantage were crowded; the Ypres tower itself was never deserted day or night; and all the sharpest eyes in the town were bent continually out over that leaden rolling sea that faded into haze and storm-cloud in the direction of the French coast. But there was nothing to be seen on that waste of waters but the single boats that flew up channel or laboured down it against the squally west wind, far out at sea. Once or twice fishing-boats put in at Rye; but their reports were so contradictory and uncertain that they increased rather than allayed the suspense and misery. Now it was a French boat that reported the destruction of theTriumph; now an Englishman that swore to having seen Drake kill Medina-Sidonia with his own hand on his poop; but whatever the news might be, the unrest and excitement ran higher and higher. St. Clare’s chapel in the old parish church of St. Nicholas was crowded every morning at five o’clock by an excited congregation of women, who came to beg God’s protection on their dear ones struggling out there somewhere towards the dawn with those cruel Southern monsters. Especially great was the crowd on the Tuesday morning following the departure of the ships; for all day on Monday from time to time came a far-off rolling noise from the direction of Calais; which many declared to be thunder, with an angry emphasis that betrayed their real opinion.
When they came out of church that morning, and were streaming down to the quay as usual to see if any news had come in during the night, a seaman called to them from a window that a French vessel was just entering the harbour.
When the women arrived at the water’s edge they found a good crowd already assembled on the quay, watching the ship beat in against the north-west wind, which had now set in; but she aroused no particular comment as she was a well-known boat plying between Boulogne and Rye; and by seven o’clock she was made fast to the quay.
There were the usual formalities, stricter than usual during war, to be gone through before the few passengers were allowed to land: but all was in order; the officers left the boat, and the passengers came up the plank, the crowd pressing forward as they came, and questioning them eagerly. No, there was no certain news, said an Englishman at last, who looked like a lawyer; it was said at Boulogne the night before that there had been an engagement further up beyond the Straits; they had all heard guns; and it was reported by the last cruiser who came in before the boat left that a Spanish galleasse had run aground and had been claimed by M. Gourdain, the governor of Calais; but probably, added the shrewd-eyed man, that was just a piece of their dirty French pride. The crowd smiled ruefully; and a French officer of the boat who was standing by the gangway scowled savagely, as the lawyer passed on with a demure face.
Then there was a pause in the little stream of passengers; and then, out of the tiny door that led below decks, walking swiftly, and carrying a long cloak over her arm, came Isabel Norris, in a grey travelling dress, followed by Anthony and a couple of servants. The crowd fell back for the lady, who passed straight up through them; but one or two of the men called out for news to Anthony. He shook his head cheerfully at them.
“I know no more than that gentleman,” he said, nodding towards the lawyer; and then followed Isabel; and together they made their way up to the inn.
Anthony was a good deal changed in the last six years; his beard and moustache were well grown; and he had a new look of gravity in his brown eyes; when he had smiled and shaken his head at the eager crowd just now, showing his white regular teeth, he looked as young as ever; but the serious look fell on his face again, as he followed Isabel up the steep little cobbled slope in his buff dress and plumed hat.
There was not so much apparent change in Isabel; she was a shade graver too, her walk a little slower and more dignified, and her lips, a little thinner, had a line of strength in them that was new; and even now as she was treading English ground again for the first time for six years, the look of slight abstraction in her eyes that is often the sign of a strong inner life, was just a touch deeper than it used to be.
They went up together with scarcely a word; and asked for a private room and dinner in two hours’ time; and a carriage and horses for the servants to be ready at noon. The landlord, who had met them at the door, shook his head.
“The private room, sir, and the dinner—yes, sir—but the horses——” and he spread his hands out deprecatingly. “There is not one in the stall,” he added.
Anthony considered a moment.
“Well, what do you propose? We are willing to stay a day or two, if you think that by then——”
“Ah,” said the landlord, “to-morrow is another matter. I expect two of my carriages home to-night, sir, from London; but the horses will not be able to travel till noon to-morrow.”
“That will do,” said Anthony; and he followed Isabel upstairs.
It was very strange to them both to be back in England after so long. They had settled down at Douai with the Maxwells; but, almost immediately on their arrival, Mistress Margaret was sent for by her Superior to the house of her Order at Brussels; and Lady Maxwell was left alone with Isabel in a house in the town; for Anthony was in the seminary.
Then, in ’86 Lady Maxwell had died, quite suddenly. Isabel herself had found her at her prie-dieu in the morning, still in her evening dress; she was leaning partly against the wall; her wrinkled old hands were clasped tightly together on a little ivory crucifix, on the top of the desk; and her snow-white head, with the lace drooping from it like a bridal veil, was bowed below them. Isabel, who had not dared to move her, had sent instantly for a little French doctor, who had thrown up his hands in a kind of devout ecstasy at that wonderful old figure, rigid in an eternal prayer. The two tall tapers she had lighted eight hours before were still just alight beside her, and looked strange in the morning sunshine.
“Pendant ses oraisons! pendant ses oraisons!” he murmured over and over again; and then had fallen on his knees and kissed the drooping lace of her sleeve.
“Priez pour moi, madame,” he whispered to the motionless figure.
And so the old Catholic who had suffered so much had gone to her rest. The fact that her son James had been living in the College during her four years’ stay at Douai had been perhaps the greatest possible consolation to her for being obliged to be out of England; for she saw him almost daily; and it was he who sang her Requiem. Isabel had then gone to live with other friends in Douai, until Anthony had been ordained priest in the June of ’88, and was ready to take her to England; and now the two were bound for Stanfield, where Anthony was to act as chaplain for the present, as Mr. Buxton had predicted so long before. Old Mr. Blake had died in the spring of the year, still disapproving of his patron’s liberal notions, and Mr. Buxton had immediately sent a special messenger all the way to Douai to secure Anthony’s services; and had insisted moreover that Isabel should accompany her brother. They intended however to call at the Dower House on the way, which had been left under the charge of old Mrs. Carroll; and renew the memories of their own dear home.
They talked little at dinner; and only of general matters, their journey, the Armada, their joy at getting home again; for they had been expressly warned by their friends abroad against any indiscreet talk even when they thought themselves alone, and especially in the seaports, where so constant a watch was kept for seminary priests. The presence of Isabel, however, was the greatest protection to Anthony; as it was almost unknown that a priest should travel with any but male companions.
Then suddenly, as they were ending dinner, a great clamour broke out in the town below them; a gun was fired somewhere; and footsteps began to rush along the narrow street outside. Anthony ran to the window and called to know what was the matter; but no one paid any attention to him; and he presently sat down again in despair, and with one or two wistful looks.
“I will go immediately,” he said to Isabel, “and bring you word.”
A moment after a servant burst into the room.
“It is a Spanish ship, sir,” he said, “a prize—rounding Dungeness.”
In the afternoon, when the first fierce excitement was over, Anthony went down to the quay. He did not particularly wish to attract attention, and so he kept himself in the background somewhat; but he had a good view of her as she lay moored just off the quay, especially when one of the town guard who had charge of the ropes that kept the crowd back, seeing a gentleman in the crowd, beckoned him through.
“Your honour will wish to see the prize?” he said, in hopes of a trifle for himself; “make way there for the gentleman.”
Anthony thought it better under these circumstances to accept the invitation, so he gave the man something, and slipped through. On the quay was a pile of plunder from the ship: a dozen chests carved and steel-clamped stood together; half-a-dozen barrels of powder; the ship’s bell rested amid a heap of rich clothes and hangings; a silver crucifix and a couple of lamps with their chains lay tumbled on one side; and a parson was examining a finely carved mahogany table that stood near.
He looked up at Anthony.
“For the church, sir,” he said cheerfully. “I shall make application to her Grace.”
Anthony smiled at him.
“A holy revenge, sir,” he said.
The ship herself had once been a merchantman brig; so much Anthony could tell, though he knew little of seamanship; but she had been armed heavily with deep bulwarks of timber, pierced for a dozen guns on each broadside. Now, however, she was in a terrible condition. The solid bulwarks were rent and shattered, as indeed was her whole hull; near the waterline were nailed sheets of lead, plainly in order to keep the water from entering the shot-holes; she had only one mast; and that was splintered in more than one place; a spar had been rigged up on to the stump of the bowsprit. The high poop such as distinguished the Spanish vessels was in the same deplorable condition; as well as the figure-head, which represented a beardless man with a halo behind his head, and which bore the marks of fierce hacks as well as of shot.
Anthony read the name,—theSan Juan da Cabellas.
From the high quay too he could see down on to the middle decks, and there was the most shocking sight of all, for the boards and the mast-stumps and the bulwarks and the ship’s furniture were all alike splashed with blood, some of the deeper pools not even yet dry. It was evident that theSan Juanhad not yielded easily.
Presently Anthony saw an officer approaching, and not wishing to be led into conversation slipped away again through the crowd to take Isabel the news.
The two remained quietly upstairs the rest of the afternoon, listening to the singing and the shouting in the streets, and watching from their window the groups that swung and danced to and fro in joy at Rye’s contribution to the defeat of the invaders. When the dusk fell the noise was louder than ever as the men began to drink more deep, and torches were continually tossing up and down the steep cobbled streets; the din reached its climax about half-past nine, when the main body of the revellers passed up towards the inn, and, as Anthony saw from the window, finally entered through the archway below; and then all grew tolerably quiet. Presently Isabel said that she would go to bed, but just before she left the room, the servant again came in.
“If you please, sir, Lieutenant Raxham, of theSeahorse, is telling the tale of the capture of the Spanish ship; and the landlord bid me come and tell you.”
Anthony glanced at Isabel, who nodded at him.
“Yes; go,” she said, “and come up and tell me the news afterwards, if it is not very late.”
When Anthony came downstairs he found to his annoyance that the place of honour had been reserved for him in a tall chair next to the landlord’s at the head of the table. The landlord rose to meet his guest.
“Sit here, sir,” he said. “I am glad you have come. And now, Mr. Raxham——”
Anthony looked about him with some dismay at this extreme publicity. The room was full from end to end. They were chiefly soldiers who sat at the table—heavy-looking rustics from Hawkhurst, Cranbrook and Appledore, in brigantines and steel caps, who had been sent in by the magistrates to the nearest seaport to assist in the defence of the coast—a few of them wore corselets with almain rivets and carried swords, while the pike-heads of the others rose up here and there above the crowd. The rest of the room was filled with the townsmen of Rye—those who had been retained for the defence of the coast, as well as others who for any physical reason could not serve by sea or land. There was an air of extraordinary excitement in the room. The faces of the most stolid were transfigured, for they were gathered to hear of the struggle their own dear England was making; the sickening pause of those months of waiting had ended at last; the huge southern monster had risen up over the edge of the sea, and the panting little country had flown at his throat and grappled him; and now they were hearing the tale of how deep her fangs had sunk.
The crowd laughed and applauded and drew its breath sharply, as one man; and the silence now and then was startling as the young officer told his story; although he had few gifts of rhetoric, except a certain vivid vocabulary. He himself was a lad of eighteen or so, with a pleasant reckless face, now flushed with drink and excitement, and sparkling eyes; he was seated in a chair upon the further end of the table, so that all could hear his story; and he had a cup of huff-cup in his left hand as he talked, leaving his right hand free to emphasise his points and slap his leg in a clumsy sort of oratory. His tale was full of little similes, at which his audience nodded their heads now and then, approvingly. He had apparently already begun his story, for when Anthony had taken his seat and silence had been obtained, he went straight on without any further introduction.
The landlord leaned over to Anthony. “TheSan Juan,” he whispered behind his hot hairy hand, and nodded at him with meaning eyes.
“And every time they fired over us,” went on the lieutenant, “and we fired into them; and the only damage they did us was their muskets in the tops. They killed Tom Dane like that”—there was a swift hiss of breath from the room; but the officer went straight on—“shot him through the back as he bent over his gun; and wounded old Harry and a score more; but all the while, lads, we were a-pounding at them with the broadsides as we came round, and raking them with the demi-cannon in the poop, until—well; go you and see the craft as she lies at the quay if you would know what we did. I tell you, as we came at her once towards the end, I saw that she was bleeding through her scuppers like a pig, from the middle deck. They were all packed up there together—sailors and soldiers and a priest or two; and scarce a ball could pass between the poop and the forecastle without touching flesh.”
The lad stopped a moment and took a pull at his cup, and a murmur of talk broke out in the room. Anthony was surprised at his accent and manner of speaking, and heard afterwards that he was the son of the parson at one of the inland villages, and had had an education. In a moment he went on.
“Well—it would be about noon, just before the Admiral came up from Calais, that the oldSeahorsewas lost. We came at the dons again as we had done before, only closer than ever; and just as the captain gave the word to put her about, a ball from one of their guns which they had trained down on us, cut old Dick Kemp in half at the helm, and broke the tiller to splinters.”
“Old Dick?” said a man’s voice out of the reeking crowd, “Old Dick?”
There was a murmur round him, bidding him hold his tongue; and the lad went on.
“Well, we drifted nearer and nearer. There was nought to do but to bang at them; and that we did, by God—and to board her if we touched. Well, I worked my saker, and saw little else—for the smoke was like a black sea-fog; and the noise fit to crack your ears. Mine sing yet with it; the captain was bawling from the poop, and there were a dozen pikemen ready below; and then on a sudden came the crash; and I looked up and there was the Spaniards’ decks above us, and the poop like a tower, with a grinning don or two looking down; and there was I looking up the muzzle of a culverin. I skipped towards the poop, shouting to the men; and the dons fired their broadside as I went.—God save us from that din! But I knew the oldSeahorsewas done this time—the old ship lurched and shook as the balls tore through her and broke her back; and there was such a yell as you’ll never hear this side of hell. Well—I was on the poop by now, and the men after me; for you see the poop of theSeahorsewas as high as the middle deck of the Spaniard, and we must board from there or not at all. Well, lads, there was the captain before me. He had fought cool till then, as cool as a parson among his roses, with never an oath from his mouth—but now he was as scarlet as a poppy, and his eyes were like blue fire, and his mouth jabbered and foamed; he was so hot, you see, at the loss of his ship. He was dancing to and fro waiting while the poop swung round on the tide; and the old craft plunged deeper in every wave that lifted her, but he cared no more for that nor for the musket-balls from the tops, nor for the brown grinning devils who shook their pikes at him from the decks, than—than a mad dog cares for a shower of leaves; but he stamped there and cursed them and damned them as they laughed at him; and then in a moment the poop touched.
“Well, lads—” and the lieutenant set his cup down on the table, clapped his hands on his knees, laughed shortly and nervously once or twice, and looked round. “Well, lads, I have never seen the like. The captain went for them like a wild cat; one step on the rail and the next among them; and was gone like a stone into water”—and the lad clapped his hand on his thigh. “I saw one face slit up from chin to eye; and another split across like an apple; and then we were after him. The men were mad, too—what was left of us; and we poured up on to the decks and left the oldSeahorseto die. Well, we had our work before us—but it was no good. The dons could do nothing; I was after the captain as he went through the pack and came out just behind him; there were half a dozen of them down now; and the noise and the foreign oaths went up like smoke; and the captain himself was bleeding down one side of his face and grunting as he cut and stabbed; and I had had a knife through the arm; but he went up on to the poop; and as I followed, the Spaniards broke and threw down their arms—they saw ’twas no use, you see. When we reached the poop-stairs an officer in a blue coat came forward jabbering some jargon; but the captain would have no parley with him, but flung his dag clean into the man’s face, and over he went backwards—with his damned high heels in the air.”
There was a sudden murmur of laughter from the room; Anthony glanced off the lieutenant’s grinning ruddy face for a moment, and saw the rows of listening faces all wrinkled with mirth.
“Well,” went on the lad, “up went the captain, and I after him. Then there came across the deck, very slow and stately, the Spanish captain himself, in a fine laced coat and a plumed hat, and he was holding out his sword by the blade and bowed as we ran towards him, and began some damned foreign nonsense, with hisSeñor—but the captain would have none o’ that, I tell you he was like Tom o’ Bedlam now—so as the Señor grinned at him with his monkey face and bowed and wagged, the captain fetched him a slash across the cheek with his sword that cut up into his head; and that don went spinning across the poop like a morris-man and brought up against the rail, and then down he came,” and the lad dashed his hand on his thigh again—“as dead as mutton.”
Again came a louder gust of laughter from the room. Anthony half rose in his chair, and then sat down again.
“Well,” said the lad, “and that was not all. Down he raged again to the decks and I behind him—I tell you, it was like a butcher’s shop—but it was quieter now—the fighting was over—and the Spaniards were all run below, except half-a-dozen in the tops; looking down like young rooks at an archer. There had been a popish priest too with his crucifix in one hand and his god-almighty in the other, over a dying man as we came up; but as we came down there he lay in his black gown with a hole through his heart and his crucifix gone. One of the lads had got it no doubt. Well, the captain brought up at the main mast. ‘God’s blood,’ he bawled, ‘where are the brown devils got to?’ Some one told him, and pointed down the hatch. Well, then I turned sick with my wound and the smell of the place and all; and I knew nothing more till I found myself sitting on a dead don, with the captain holding me up and pouring a cordial down my throat.”
Then talk and laughter broke out in the audience; but the landlord held up his hand for silence.
“And what of the others?” he shouted.
“Dead meat too,” said the lad—“the captain went down with a dozen or more and hunted them out and finished them. There was one, Dick told me afterwards,” and the lieutenant gave a cackle of mirth, “that they hunted twice round the ship before he jumped over yelling to some popish saint to help him; but it seems he was deaf, like the old Baal that parson tells of o’ Sundays. The dirty swine to run like that! Well, he’s got his bellyful now of the salt water that he came so far to see. And then the captain with his own hands trained a robinet that was on the poop on to the tops; and down the birds came, one by one; for their powder up there was all shot off.”
“And theSeahorse?” said the landlord again.
There fell a dead silence: all in the room knew that the ship was lost, but it was terrible to hear it again. The lad’s face broke into lines of grief, and he spoke huskily.
“Gone down with the dead and wounded; and the rest of the fleet a mile away.”
Then the lieutenant went on to describe how he himself had been deputed to bring theSan Juaninto port with the wounded on board, while the captain and the rest of the crew by Drake’s orders attached themselves to various vessels that were short-handed, and how the English fleet had followed what was left of the Spaniards when the fight ended at sunset, up towards the North Sea.
When he finished his story there was a tremendous outburst of cheering and hammering upon the table, and the feet and the pike-butts thundered on the floor, and a name was cried again and again as the cups were emptied.
“God save her Grace and old England!” yelled a slim smooth-faced archer from Appledore.
“God send the dons and all her foes to hell!” roared a burly pikeman with his cup in the air. Then the room shook again as the toasts were drunk with applauding feet and hands.
Anthony turned to the landlord, who had just ceased thumping with his great red fists on the table.
“What was the captain’s name?” he asked, when a slight lull came.
“Maxwell,” said the crimson-faced man. “Hubert Maxwell—one of Drake’s own men.”
When Anthony came upstairs he heard his name called through the door, and went in to Isabel’s room to find her sitting up in bed in the gloom of the summer night; the party below had broken up, and all was quiet except for the far-off shouts and hoots of cheerful laughter from the dispersing groups down among the narrow streets.
“Well?” she said, as he came in and stood in the doorway.
“It is just the story of the prize,” he said, “and it seems that Hubert had the taking of it.”
There was silence a moment. Anthony could see her face, a motionless pale outline, and her arms clasped round her knees as she sat up in bed.
“Hubert?” she asked in an even voice.
“Yes, Hubert.”
There was silence a moment.
“Well?” she said again.
“He is safe,” said Anthony, “and fought gallantly. I will tell you more to-morrow.”
“Ah!” said Isabel softly; and then lay down again.
“Good-night, Anthony.”
“Good-night.”
But Anthony dared not tell her the details next day, after all.
There was still a difficulty about the horses; they had not arrived until the Wednesday morning, and were greatly exhausted by a long and troublesome journey; so the travellers consented to postpone their journey for yet one more day. The weather, which had been thickening, grew heavier still in the afternoon, and great banks of clouds were rising out of the west. Anthony started out about four o’clock for a walk along the coast; and, making a long round in the direction of Lydd, did not finally return until about seven. As he came in at the north-east of the town he noticed how empty the streets were, and passed on down in the direction of the quay. As he turned down the steep street into the harbour groups began to pour up past him, laughing and exclaiming; and in a moment more came Isabel walking alone. He looked at her anxiously, for he saw something had happened. Her quiet face was lit up with some interior emotion, and her mouth was trembling.
“The Armada is routed,” she said; “and I have seen Hubert.”
The two turned back together and walked silently up to the inn. There she told him the story. She had been told that Captain Maxwell was come in theElizabeth, for provisions for Lord Howard Seymour’s squadron, to which his new command was attached; and that he was even now in harbour. At that she had gone straight down alone.
“Oh, Anthony!” she cried, “you know how it is with me. I could not help it. I am not ashamed of it. God Almighty knows all, and is not wrath with me. So I went down and was in the crowd as he came down again with the mayor, Mr. Hamon; we all made way for them, and the men cheered themselves scarlet; but he came down cool and quiet; you know his way—with his eyes half shut; and—and—he was so brown; and he looks sad—and he had a great plaister on the left temple. And then he saw me.”
Isabel sprang up, and came up to Anthony and took his hands. “Oh! Anthony; I was very happy then; because he took off his cap and bowed; and his face was all lighted; and he took my hand and kissed it—and then made Mr. Hamon known to me. The crowd laughed and said things—but I did not care; and he soon silenced them, he looked round so fiercely; and then I went on board with him—he would have it so—and he showed us everything—and we sat a little in the cabin; and he told me of his wife and child. She is the daughter of a Plymouth minister; he knew her when he was with Drake; and he told me all about her, so you see——” Isabel broke off; and sat down in the high window seat. “And then he asked me about you; and I said you were here; and that we were going to stay a little while with Mr. Buxton of Stanfield—you see I knew we could trust him; and Mr. Hamon was in the passage just then looking at the guns; and then a sailor came in to say that all was ready; and so we came away. But it was so good to see him again; and to know that he was so happy.”
Anthony looked at his sister in astonishment; her quiet manner was gone, and she was talking again almost like an excited child; and so happily. It was very strange, he thought. He sat down beside her.
“Oh, Anthony!” she said, “do you understand? I love him dearly still; and his wife and child too. God bless them all and keep them!”
The mystery was still deep to him; and he feared to say what he should not; so he kissed Isabel silently; and the two sat there together and looked out over the crowding red roofs to the glowing western sky across the bay below them.
CHAPTER III
HOME-COMING
It was a stormy summer evening as the brother and sister rode up between the last long hills that led to Great Keynes. A south-west wind had been rising all day, that same wind that was now driving the ruined Armada up into the fierce North Sea, with the fiercer men behind to bar the return. But here, twenty miles inland, with the high south-downs to break the gale, the riders were in comparative quiet, though the great trees overhead tossed their heavy rustling heads as the gusts struck them now and again.
The party had turned off, as the dusk was falling, from the main-road into bridle-paths that they knew well, and were now approaching the village through the water meadows on the south-east side along a ride that would bring them, round the village, direct to the Dower House. In the gloom Anthony could make out the tall reeds, and the loosestrife and willowherb against them, that marked the course of the stream where he had caught trout, as a boy; and against the western sky, as he turned in his saddle, rose up the high windy hills where he had hawked with Hubert so many years before. It was a strange thought to him as he rode along that his very presence here in his own country was an act of high treason by the law lately passed, and that every day he lived here must be a day of danger.