The cursing and jerking ceased, and a red furious face with thick black beard and hair looked up. But before the rider could speak, Mary went on again:
“There now, Chris, he is as quiet as a sheep again. Now take him at it.”
“What does he want?” asked Anthony. “I can scarcely see for the dust.”
“Why, he’s practising at the quintain;—ah! ah!” she cried out again, as the quintain was missed and swung round with a hard buffet on the man’s back as he tore past. “Going to market, Chris? You’ve got a sturdy shepherd behind you. Baa, baa, black sheep.”
“Who’s that?” asked Anthony, as the tall horseman, as if driven by the storm of contumely from the window, disappeared towards the stable.
“Why that’s Chris Hatton—whom the Queen calls her sheep, and he’s as silly as one, too, with his fool’s face and his bleat and his great eyes. He trots about after her Grace, too, like a pet lamb. Bah! I’m sick of him. That’s enough of the ass; tell me about Isabel.”
Then they fell to talking about Isabel; and Mary eyed him as he answered her questions.
“Then she isn’t a Papist, yet?” she asked.
Anthony’s face showed such consternation that she burst out laughing.
“There, there, there!” she cried. “No harm’s done. Then that tall lad, who was away last time I was there—well, I suppose he’s not turned Protestant?”
Anthony’s face was still more bewildered.
“Why, my dear lad,” she said, “where are your eyes?”
“Mistress Corbet,” he burst out at last, “I do not know what you mean. Hubert has been in Durham for years. There is no talk——” and he stopped.
Mary’s face became sedate again.
“Well, well,” she said, “I always was a tattler. It seems I am wrong again. Forgive me, Master Anthony.”
Anthony was indeed astonished at her fantastic idea. Of course he knew that Hubert had once been fond of Isabel, but that was years ago, when they had been all children together. Why, he reflected, he too had been foolish once—and he blushed a little.
Then they went on to talk of Great Keynes, Sir Nicholas, and Mr. Stewart’s arrest and death; and Mary asked Anthony to excuse her interest in such matters, but Papistry had always been her religion, and what could a poor girl do but believe what she was taught? Then they went on to speak of more recent affairs, and Mary made him describe to her his life at Lambeth, and everything he did from the moment he got up to the moment he went to bed again; and whether the Archbishop was a kind master, and how long they spent at prayers, and how many courses they had at dinner; and Anthony grew more and more animated and confidential—she was so friendly and interested and pretty, as she leaned towards him and questioned and listened, and the faint scent of violet from her dress awakened his old memories of her.
And then at last she approached the subject on which she had chiefly wished to see him—which was that he should speak to the steward at Lambeth on behalf of a young man who was to be dismissed, it seemed, from the Archbishop’s service, because his sister had lately turned Papist and fled to a convent abroad. It was a small matter; and Anthony readily promised to do his best, and, if necessary, to approach the Archbishop himself: and Mistress Corbet was profusely grateful.
They had hardly done talking of the matter, when a trumpet blew suddenly somewhere away behind the building they were in. Mary held up a white finger and put her head on one side.
“That will be the Ambassador,” she said.
Anthony looked at her interrogatively.
“Why, you country lad!” she said, “come and see.”
She jumped up, and he followed her down the gallery, and along through interminable corridors and ante-chambers, and up and down the stairs of this enormous palace; and Anthony grew bewildered and astonished as he went at the doors on all sides, and the roofs that ranged themselves every way as he looked out. And at last Mary stopped at a window, and pointed out.
The courtyard beneath was alive with colour and movement. In front of the entrance opposite waited the great gilded state carriage, and another was just driving away. On one side a dozen ladies on grey horses were drawn up, to follow behind the Queen when she should come out; and a double row of liveried servants were standing bare-headed round the empty carriage. The rest of the court was filled with Spanish and English nobles, mounted, with their servants on foot; all alike in splendid costumes—the Spaniards with rich chains about their necks, and tall broad-brimmed hats decked with stones and pearls, and the Englishmen in feathered buckled caps and short cloaks thrown back. Two or three trumpeters stood on the steps of the porch. Anthony did not see much state at Lambeth, and the splendour and gaiety of this seething courtyard exhilarated him, and he stared down at it all, fascinated, while Mary Corbet poured out a caustic commentary:
“There is the fat fool Chris again, all red with his tilting. I would like to baa at him again, but I dare not with all these foreign folk. There is Leicester, that tall man with a bald forehead in the cap with the red feather, on the white horse behind the carriage—he always keeps close to the Queen. He is the enemy of your prelate, Master Anthony, you know.... That is Oxford, just behind him on the chestnut. Yes, look well at him. He is the prince of the tilt-yard; none can stand against him. You would say he was at his nine-pins, when he rides against them all.... And he can do more than tilt. These sweet-washed gloves”—and she flapped an embroidered pair before Anthony—“these he brought to England. God bless and reward him for it!” she added fervently.... “I do not see Burghley. Eh! but he is old and gouty these days; and loves a cushion and a chair and a bit of flannel better than to kneel before her Grace. You know, she allows him to sit when he confers with her. But then, she is ever prone to show mercy to bearded persons.... Ah! there is dear Sidney; that is a sweet soul. But what does he do here among the stones and mortar when he has the beeches of Penshurst to walk beneath. He is not so wise as I thought him.... But I must say I grow weary of his nymphs and his airs of Olympus. And for myself, I do not see that Flora and Phœbus and Maia and the rest are a great gain, instead of Our Lady and Saint Christopher and the court of heaven. But then I am a Papist and not a heathen, and therefore blind and superstitious. Is that not so, Master Anthony?... And there is Maitland beside him, with the black velvet cap and the white feather, and his cross eyes and mouth. Now I wish he were at Penshurst, or Bath—or better still, at Jericho, for it is further off. I cannot bear that fellow.... Why, Sussex is going on the water, too, I see. Now what brings him here? I should have thought his affairs gave him enough to think of.... There he is, with his groom behind him, on the other chestnut. I am astonished at him. He is all for this French marriage, you know. So you may figure to yourself Mendoza’s love for him! They will be like two cats together on the barge; spitting and snarling softly at one another. Her Grace loves to balance folk like that; first one stretches his claws, and then the other; then one arches his back and snarls, and the other scratches his face for him; and then when all is flying fur and blasphemy, off slips her Grace and does what she will.”
It was an astonishing experience for Anthony. He had stepped out from his workaday life among the grooms and officers and occasional glimpses of his lonely old master, into an enchanted region, where great personages whose very names were luminous with fame, now lived and breathed and looked cheerful or sullen before his very eyes; and one who knew them in their daily life stood by him and commented and interpreted them for him. He listened and stared, dazed with the strangeness of it all.
Mistress Corbet was proceeding to express her views upon the foreign element that formed half the pageant, when the shrill music broke out again in the palace, and the trumpeters on the steps took it up; and a stir and bustle began. Then out of the porch began to stream a procession, like a river of colour and jewels, pouring from the foot of the carved and windowed wall, and eddying in a tumbled pool about the great gilt carriage;—ushers and footmen and nobles and ladies and pages in bewildering succession. Anthony pressed his forehead to the glass as he watched, with little exclamations, and Mary watched him, amused and interested by his enthusiasm.
And last moved the great canopy bending and swaying under the doorway, and beneath it, like two gorgeous butterflies, at the sight of whom all the standing world fell on its knees, came the pale Elizabeth with her auburn hair, and the brown-faced Mendoza, side by side; and entered the carriage with the five plumes atop and the caparisoned horses that stamped and tossed their jingling heads. The yard was already emptying fast,en routefor Chelsea Stairs; and as soon as the two were seated, the shrill trumpets blew again, and the halberdiers moved off with the carriage in the midst, the great nobles going before, and the ladies behind. The later comers mounted as quickly as possible, as their horses were brought in from the stable entrance, and clattered away, and in five minutes the yard was empty, except for a few sentries at their posts, and a servant or two lounging at the doorway; and as Anthony still stared at the empty pavement and the carpeted steps, far away from the direction of the Abbey came the clear call of the horns to tell the loyal folk that the Queen was coming.
It was a great inspiration for Anthony. He had seen world-powers incarnate below him in the glittering rustling figure of the Queen, and the dark-eyed courtly Ambassador in his orders and jewels at her side. There they had sat together in one carriage; the huge fiery realm of the south, whose very name was redolent with passion and adventure and boundless wealth; and the little self-contained northern kingdom, now beginning to stretch its hands, and quiver all along its tingling sinews and veins with fresh adolescent life. And Anthony knew that he was one of the cells of this young organism; and that in him as well as in Elizabeth and this sparkling creature at his side ran the fresh red blood of England. They were all one in the possession of a common life; and his heart burned as he thought of it.
After he had parted from Mary he rode back to Westminster, and crossed the river by the horse-ferry that plied there. And even as he landed and got his beast, with a deal of stamping and blowing, off the echoing boards on to the clean gravel again, there came down the reaches of the river the mellow sound of music across a mile of water, mingled with the deep rattle of oars, and sparkles of steel and colour glittered from the far-away royal barges in the autumn sunshine; and the lad thought with wonder how the two great powers so savagely at war upon the salt sea, were at peace here, sitting side by side on silken cushions and listening to the same trumpets of peace upon the flowing river.
CHAPTER II
SOME NEW LESSONS
The six years that followed Sir Nicholas’ return and Hubert’s departure for the North had passed uneventfully at Great Keynes. The old knight had been profoundly shocked that any Catholic, especially an agent so valuable as Mr. Stewart, should have found his house a death-trap; and although he continued receiving his friends and succouring them, he did so with more real caution and less ostentation of it. His religious zeal and discretion were further increased by the secret return to the “Old Religion” of several of his villagers during the period; and a very fair congregation attended Mass so often as it was said in the cloister wing of the Hall. The new rector, like his predecessor, was content to let the squire alone; and unlike him had no wife to make trouble.
Then, suddenly, in the summer of ’77, catastrophes began, headed by the unexpected return of Hubert, impatient of waiting, and with new plans in his mind.
Isabel had been out with Mistress Margaret walking in the dusk one August evening after supper, on the raised terrace beneath the yews. They had been listening to the loud snoring of the young owls in the ivy on the chimney-stack opposite, and had watched the fierce bird slide silently out of the gloom, white against the blackness, and disappear down among the meadows. Once Isabel had seen him pause, too, on one of his return journeys, suspicious of the dim figures beneath, silhouetted on a branch against the luminous green western sky, with the outline of a mouse with its hanging tail plain in his crooked claws, before he glided to his nest again. As Isabel waited she heard the bang of the garden-door, but gave it no thought, and a moment after Mistress Margaret asked her to fetch a couple of wraps from the house for them both, as the air had a touch of chill in it. She came down the lichened steps, crossed the lawn, and passed into the unlighted hall. As she entered, the door opposite opened, and for a moment she saw the silhouette of a man’s figure against the bright passage beyond. Her heart suddenly leapt, and stood still.
“Anthony!” she whispered, in a hush of suspense.
There was a vibration and a step beside her.
“Isabel!” said Hubert’s voice. And then his arms closed round her for the first time in her life. She struggled and panted a moment as she felt his breath on her face; and he released her. She recoiled to the door, and stood there silent and panting.
“Oh! Isabel!” he whispered; and again, “Isabel!”
She put out her hand and grasped the door-post behind her.
“Oh! Hubert! Why have you come?”
He came a step nearer and she could see the faint whiteness of his face in the western glimmer.
“I cannot wait,” he said, “I have been nearly beside myself. I have left the north—and I cannot wait so long.”
“Well?” she said; and he heard the note of entreaty and anxiety in her voice.
“I have my plans,” he answered; “I will tell you to-morrow. Where is my aunt?”
Isabel heard a step on the gravel outside.
“She is coming,” she said sharply. Hubert melted into the dark, and she saw the opposite door open and let him out.
The next day Hubert announced his plans to Sir Nicholas, and a conflict followed.
“I cannot go on, sir,” he said, “I cannot wait for ever. I am treated like a servant, too; and you know how miserably I am paid, I have obeyed you for six years, sir; and now I have thrown up the post and told my lord to his face that I can bear with him no longer.”
Sir Nicholas’ face, as he sat in his upright chair opposite the boy, grew flushed with passion.
“It is your accursed temper, sir,” he said violently. “I know you of old. Wait? For what? For the Protestant girl? I told you to put that from your mind, sir.”
Hubert did not propose as yet to let his father into all his plans.
“I have not spoken her name, sir, I think. I say I cannot wait for my fortune; I may be impatient, sir—I do not deny it.”
“Then how do you propose to better it?” sneered his father.
“In November,” said Hubert steadily, looking his father in the eyes, “I sail with Mr. Drake.”
Sir Nicholas’ face grew terrific. He rose, and struck the table twice with his clenched fist.
“Then, by God, sir, Mr. Drake may have you now.”
Hubert’s face grew white with anger; but he had his temper under control.
“Then I wish you good-day, sir,” and he left the room.
When the boy had left the house again for London, as he did the same afternoon, Lady Maxwell tried to soothe the old man. It was impossible, even for her, to approach him before.
“Sweetheart,” she said tranquilly, as he sat and glowered at his plate when supper was over and the men had left the room, “sweetheart, we must have Hubert down here again. He must not sail with Mr. Drake.”
The old man’s face flared up again in anger.
“He may follow his own devices,” he cried. “I care not what he does. He has given up the post that I asked for him; and he comes striding and ruffling home with his hat cocked and—and——”; his voice became inarticulate.
“He is only a boy, sweetheart; with a boy’s hot blood—you would sooner have him like that than a milk-sop. Besides—he is our boy.”
The old man growled. His wife went on:
“And now that James cannot have the estate, he must have it, as you know, and carry on the old name.”
“He has disgraced it,” burst out the angry old man, “and he is going now with that damned Protestant to harry Catholics. By the grace of God I love my country, and would serve her Grace with my heart’s blood—but that my boy should go with Drake——!” and again his voice failed.
It was a couple of days before she could obtain her husband’s leave to write a conciliatory letter, giving leave to Hubert to go with Drake, if he had made any positive engagement (because, as she represented to Sir Nicholas, there was nothing actually wrong or disloyal to the Faith in it)—but entreating him with much pathos not to leave his old parents so bitterly.
“Oh, my dear son,” the end of the letter ran, “your father is old; and God, in whose hand are our days, alone knows how long he will live; and I, too, my son, am old. So come back to us and be our dear child again. You must not think too hardly of your father’s words to you; he is quick and hot, as you are, too—but indeed we love you dearly. Your room here is ready for you; and Piers wants a firm hand now over him, as your father is so old. So come back, my darling, and make our old hearts glad again.”
But the weeks passed by, and no answer came, and the old people’s hearts grew sick with suspense; and then, at last, in September the courier brought a letter, written from Plymouth, which told the mother that it was too late; that he had in fact engaged himself to Mr. Drake in August before he had come to Great Keynes at all; and that in honour he must keep his engagement. He asked pardon of his father for his hastiness; but it seemed a cold and half-hearted sorrow; and the letter ended by announcing that the little fleet would sail in November; and that at present they were busy fitting the ships and engaging the men; and that there would be no opportunity for him to return to wish them good-bye before he sailed. It was plain that the lad was angry still.
Sir Nicholas did not say much; but a silence fell on the house. Lady Maxwell sent for Isabel, and they had a long interview. The old lady was astonished at the girl’s quietness and resignation.
Yes, she said, she loved Hubert with all her heart. She had loved him for a long while. No, she was not angry, only startled. What would she do about the difference in religion? Could she marry him while one was a Catholic and the other a Protestant? No, they would never be happy like that; and she did not know what she would do. She supposed she would wait and see. Yes, she would wait and see; that was all that could be done.—And then had come a silent burst of tears, and the girl had sunk down on her knees and hidden her face in the old lady’s lap, and the wrinkled jewelled old hand passed quietly over the girl’s black hair; but no more had been said, and Isabel presently got up and went home to the Dower House.
The autumn went by, and November came, and there was no further word from Hubert. Then towards the end of November a report reached them from Anthony at Lambeth that the fleet had sailed; but had put back into Falmouth after a terrible storm in the Channel. And hope just raised its head.
Then one evening after supper Sir Nicholas complained of fever and restlessness, and went early to bed. In the night he was delirious. Mistress Margaret hastened up at midnight from the Dower House, and a groom galloped off to Lindfield before morning to fetch the doctor, and another to fetch Mr. Barnes, the priest, from Cuckfield. Sir Nicholas was bled to reduce the fever of the pneumonia that had attacked him. All day long he was sinking. About eleven o’clock that night he fell asleep, apparently, and Lady Maxwell, who had watched incessantly, was persuaded to lie down; but at three o’clock in the morning, on the first of December, Mistress Margaret awakened her, and together they knelt by the bedside of the old man. The priest, who had anointed him on the previous evening, knelt behind, repeating the prayers for the dying.
Sir Nicholas lay on his back, supported by pillows, under the gloom of the black old four-posted bed. A wood-fire glowed on the hearth, and the air was fragrant with the scent of the burning cedar-logs. A crucifix was in the old man’s hands; but his eyes were bright with fever, and his fingers every now and then relaxed, and then tightened their hold again on the cool silver of the figure of the crucified Saviour. His lips were moving tremulously, and his ruddy old face was pale now.
The priest’s voice went on steadily; the struggle was beginning.
“Proficiscere, anima christiana, de hoc mundo.—Go forth, Christian soul, from this world in the name of God the Father Almighty, who created thee; in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, Who suffered for thee; in the name of the Holy Ghost, who was shed forth upon thee; In the name of Angels and Archangels; in the name of Thrones and Dominions; in the name of Principalities and Powers——”
Suddenly the old man, whose head had been slowly turning from side to side, ceased his movement, and his open mouth closed; he was looking steadily at his wife, and a look of recognition came back to his eyes.
“Sweetheart,” he said; and smiled, and died.
Isabel did not see much of Mistress Margaret for the next few days; she was constantly with her sister, and when she came to the Dower House now and then, said little to the girl. There were curious rumours in the village; strangers came and went continually, and there was a vast congregation at the funeral, when the body of the old knight was laid to rest in the Maxwell chapel. The following day the air of mystery deepened; and young Mrs. Melton whispered to Isabel, with many glances and becks, that she and her man had seen lights through the chapel windows at three o’clock that morning. Isabel went into the chapel presently to visit the grave, and there was a new smear of black on the east wall as if a taper had been set too near.
The courier who had been despatched to announce to Hubert that his father had died and left him master of the Hall and estate, with certain conditions, returned at the end of the month with the news that the fleet had sailed again on the thirteenth, and that Hubert was gone with it; so Lady Maxwell, now more silent and retired than ever, for the present retained her old position and Mr. Piers took charge of the estate.
Although Isabel outwardly was very little changed in the last six years, great movements had been taking place in her soul, and if Hubert had only known the state of the case, possibly he would not have gone so hastily with Mr. Drake.
The close companionship of such an one as Mistress Margaret was doing its almost inevitable work; and the girl had been learning that behind the brilliant and even crude surface of the Catholic practice, there lay still and beautiful depths of devotion which she had scarcely dreamed of. The old nun’s life was a revelation to Isabel; she heard from her bed in the black winter mornings her footsteps in the next room, and soon learnt that Mistress Margaret spent at least two hours in prayer before she appeared at all. Two or three times in the day she knew that she retired again for the same purpose, and again an hour after she was in bed, there were the same gentle movements next door. She began to discover, too, that for the Catholic, as well as for the Puritan, the Person of the Saviour was the very heart of religion; that her own devotion to Christ was a very languid flame by the side of the ardent inarticulate passion of this soul who believed herself His wedded spouse; and that the worship of the saints and the Blessed Mother instead of distracting the love of the Christian soul rather seemed to augment it. The King of Love stood, as she fancied sometimes, to Catholic eyes, in a glow of ineffable splendour; and the faces of His adoring Court reflected the ruddy glory on all sides; thus refracting the light of their central Sun, instead of, as she had thought, obscuring it.
Other difficulties, too, began to seem oddly unreal and intangible, when she had looked at them in the light of Mistress Margaret’s clear old eyes and candid face. It was a real event in her inner life when she first began to understand what the rosary meant to Catholics. Mistress Corbet had told her what was the actual use of the beads; and how the mysteries of Christ’s life and death were to be pondered over as the various prayers were said; but it had hitherto seemed to Isabel as if this method were an elaborate and superstitious substitute for reading the inspired record of the New Testament.
She had been sitting out in the little walled garden in front of the Dower House one morning on an early summer day after her father’s death, and Mistress Margaret had come out in her black dress and stood for a moment looking at her irresolutely, framed in the dark doorway. Then she had come slowly across the grass, and Isabel had seen for the first time in her fingers a string of ivory beads. Mistress Margaret sat down on a garden chair a little way from her, and let her hands sink into her lap, still holding the beads. Isabel said nothing, but went on reading. Presently she looked up again, and the old lady’s eyes were half-closed, and her lips just moving; and the beads passing slowly through her fingers. She looked almost like a child dreaming, in spite of her wrinkles and her snowy hair; the pale light of a serene soul lay on her face. This did not look like the mechanical performance that Isabel had always associated with the idea of beads. So the minutes passed away; every time that Isabel looked up there was the little white face with the long lashes lying on the cheek, and the crown of snowy hair and lace, and the luminous look of a soul in conscious communion with the unseen.
When the old lady had finished, she twisted the beads about her fingers and opened her eyes. Isabel had an impulse to speak.
“Mistress Margaret,” she said, “may I ask you something?”
“Of course, my darling,” the old lady said.
“I have never seen you use those before—I cannot understand them.”
“What is it,” asked the old lady, “that you don’t understand?”
“How can prayers said over and over again like that be any good?”
Mistress Margaret was silent for a moment.
“I saw young Mrs. Martin last week,” she said, “with her little girl in her lap. Amy had her arms round her mother’s neck, and was being rocked to and fro; and every time she rocked she said ‘Oh, mother.’”
“But then,” said Isabel, after a moment’s silence, “she was only a child.”
“‘Except ye become like little children—’” quoted Mistress Margaret softly—“you see, my Isabel, we are nothing more than children with God and His Blessed Mother. To say ‘Hail Mary, Hail Mary,’ is the best way of telling her how much we love her. And then this string of beads is like Our Lady’s girdle, and her children love to finger it, and whisper to her. And then we say our paternosters, too; and all the while we are talking she is shewing us pictures of her dear Child, and we look at all the great things He did for us, one by one; and then we turn the page and begin again.”
“I see,” said Isabel; and after a moment or two’s silence Mistress Margaret got up and went into the house.
The girl sat still with her hands clasped round her knee. How strange and different this religion was to the fiery gospel she had heard last year at Northampton from the harsh stern preacher, at whose voice a veil seemed to rend and show a red-hot heaven behind! How tender and simple this was—like a blue summer’s sky with drifting clouds! If only it was true! If only there were a great Mother whose girdle was of beads strung together, which dangled into every Christian’s hands; whose face bent down over every Christian’s bed; and whose mighty and tender arms that had held her Son and God were still stretched out beneath her other children. And Isabel, whose soul yearned for a mother, sighed as she reminded herself that there was but “one Mediator between God and man—the man, Christ Jesus.”
And so the time went by, like an outgoing tide, silent and steady. The old nun did not talk much to the girl about dogmatic religion, for she was in a difficult position. She was timid certainly of betraying her faith by silence, but she was also timid of betraying her trust by speech. Sometimes she felt she had gone too far, sometimes not far enough; but on the whole her practice was never to suggest questions, but only to answer them when Isabel asked; and to occupy herself with affirmative rather than with destructive criticism. More than this she hesitated to do out of honour for the dead; less than this she dared not do out of love for God and Isabel. But there were three or four conversations that she felt were worth waiting for; and the look on Isabel’s face afterwards, and the sudden questions she would ask sometimes after a fit of silence, made her friend’s heart quicken towards her, and her prayers more fervent.
The two were sitting together one December day in Isabel’s upstairs room and the girl, who had just come in from a solitary walk, was half kneeling on the window-seat and drumming her fingers softly on the panes as she looked out at the red western sky.
“I used to think,” she said, “that Catholics had no spiritual life; but now it seems to me that in comparison we Puritans have none. You know so much about the soul, as to what is from God and what from the Evil One; and we have to grope for ourselves. And yet our Saviour said that His sheep should know His voice. I do not understand it.” And she turned towards Mistress Margaret who had laid down her work and was listening.
“Dear child,” she said, “if you mean our priests and spiritual writers, it is because they study it. We believe in the science of the soul; and we consult our spiritual guides for our soul’s health, as the leech for our body’s health.”
“But why must you ask the priest, if the Lord speaks to all alike?”
“He speaks through the priest, my dear, as He does through the physician.”
“But why should the priest know better than the people?” pursued Isabel, intent on her point.
“Because he tells us what the Church says,” said the other smiling, “it is his business. He need not be any better or cleverer in other respects. The baker may be a thief or a foolish fellow; but his bread is good.”
“But how do you know,” went on Isabel, who thought Mistress Margaret a little slow to see her point—“how do you know that the Church is right?”
The old nun considered a moment, and then lifted her embroidery again.
“Why do you think,” she asked, beginning to sew, “that each single soul that asks God’s guidance is right?”
“Because the Holy Ghost is promised to such,” said Isabel wondering.
“Then is it not likely,” went on the other still stitching, “that the millions of souls who form Holy Church are right, when they all agree together?” Isabel moved a little impatiently.
“You see,” went on Mistress Margaret, “that is what we Catholics believe our Saviour meant when He said that the gates of hell should not prevail against His Church.”
But Isabel was not content. She broke in:
“But why are not the Scriptures sufficient? They are God’s Word.”
The other put down her embroidery again, and smiled up into the girl’s puzzled eyes.
“Well, my child,” she said, “do they seem sufficient, when you look at Christendom now? If they are so clear, how is it that you have the Lutherans, and the Anabaptists, and the Family of Love, and the Calvinists, and the Church of England, all saying they hold to the Scriptures alone. Nay, nay; the Scriptures are the grammar, and the Church is the dame that teaches out of it, and she knows so well much that is not in the grammar, and we name that tradition. But where there is no dame to teach, the children soon fall a-fighting about the book and the meaning of it.”
Isabel looked at Mistress Margaret a moment, and then turned back again to the window in silence.
At another time they had a word or two about Peter’s prerogatives.
“Surely,” said Isabel suddenly, as they walked together in the garden, “Christ is the one Foundation of the Church, St. Paul tells us so expressly.”
“Yes, my dear,” said the nun, “but then Christ our Lord said: ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.’ So he who is the only Good Shepherd, said to Peter, ‘Feed My sheep’; and He that isClavis Davidand that openeth and none shutteth said to him, ‘I will give thee the keys, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.’ That is why we call Peter the Vicar of Christ.”
Isabel raised her eyebrows.
“Surely, surely——” she began.
“Yes, my child,” said Mistress Margaret, “I know it is new and strange to you; but it was not to your grandfather or his forbears: to them, as to me, it is the plain meaning of the words. We Catholics are a simple folk. We hold that what our Saviour said simply He meant simply: as we do in the sacred mystery of His Body and Blood. To us, you know,” she went on, smiling, with a hand on the girl’s arm, “it seems as if you Protestants twisted the Word of God against all justice.”
Isabel smiled back at her; but she was puzzled. The point of view was new to her. And yet again in the garden, a few months later, as they sat out together on the lawn, the girl opened the same subject.
“Mistress Margaret,” she said, “I have been thinking a great deal; and it seems very plain when you talk. But you know our great divines could answer you, though I cannot. My father was no Papist; and Dr. Grindal and the Bishops are all wise men. How do you answer that?”
The nun looked silently down at the grass a moment or two.
“It is the old tale,” she said at last, looking up; “we cannot believe that the babes and sucklings are as likely to be right in such matters as the wise and prudent—even more likely, if our Saviour’s words are to be believed. Dear child, do you not see that our Lord came to save all men, and call all men into His Church; and that therefore He must have marked His Church in such a manner that the most ignorant may perceive it as easily as the most learned? Learning is very well, and it is the gift of God; but salvation and grace cannot depend upon it. It needs an architect to understand why Paul’s Church is strong and beautiful, and what makes it so; but any child or foolish fellow can see that it is so.”
“I do not understand,” said Isabel, wrinkling her forehead.
“Why this—that you are as likely to know the Catholic Church when you see it, as Dr. Grindal or Dr. Freake, or your dear father himself. Only a divine can explain about it and understand it, but you and I are as fit to see it and walk into it, as any of them.”
“But then why are they not all Catholics?” asked Isabel, still bewildered.
“Ah!” said the nun, softly, “God alone knows, who reads hearts and calls whom He will. But learning, at least, has nought to do with it.”
Conversations of this kind that took place now and then between the two were sufficient to show Mistress Margaret, like tiny bubbles on the surface of a clear stream, the swift movement of this limpid soul that she loved so well. But on the other hand, all the girl’s past life, and most sacred and dear associations, were in conflict with this movement; the memory of her quiet, wise father rose and reproached her sometimes; Anthony’s enthusiastic talk, when he came down from Lambeth, on the glorious destinies of the Church of England, of her gallant protest against the corruptions of the West, and of her future unique position in Christendom as the National Church of the most progressive country—all this caused her to shrink back terrified from the bourne to which she was drifting, and from the breach that must follow with her brother. But above all else that caused her pain was the shocking suspicion that her love for Hubert perhaps was influencing her, and that she was living in gross self-deception as to the sincerity of her motives.
This culminated at last in a scene that seriously startled the old nun; it took place one summer night after Hubert’s departure in Mr. Drake’s expedition. Mistress Margaret had seen Isabel to her room, and an hour later had finished her night-office and was thinking of preparing herself to bed, when there was a hurried tap at the door, and Isabel came quickly in, her face pale and miserable, her great grey eyes full of trouble and distraction, and her hair on her shoulders.
“My dear child,” said the nun, “what is it?”
Isabel closed the door and stood looking at her, with her lips parted.
“How can I know, Mistress Margaret,” she said, in the voice of a sleep-walker, “whether this is the voice of God or of my own wicked self? No, no,” she went on, as the other came towards her, frightened, “let me tell you. I must speak.”
“Yes, my child, you shall; but come and sit down first,” and she drew her to a chair and set her in it, and threw a wrap over her knees and feet; and sat down beside her, and took one of her hands, and held it between her own.
“Now then, Isabel, what is it?”
“I have been thinking over it all so long,” began the girl, in the same tremulous voice, with her eyes fixed on the nun’s face, “and to-night in bed I could not bear it any longer. You see, I love Hubert, and I used to think I loved our Saviour too; but now I do not know. It seems as if He was leading me to the Catholic Church; all is so much more plain and easy there—it seems—it seems—to make sense in the Catholic Church; and all the rest of us are wandering in the dark. But if I become a Catholic, you see, I can marry Hubert then; and I cannot help thinking of that; and wanting to marry him. But then perhaps that is the reason that I think I see it all so plainly; just because I want to see it plainly. And what am I to do? Why will not our Lord shew me my own heart and what is His Will?”
Mistress Margaret shook her head gently.
“Dear child,” she said, “our Saviour loves you and wishes to make you happy. Do you not think that perhaps He is helping you and making it easy in this way, by drawing you to His Church through Hubert. Why should not both be His Will? that you should become a Catholic and marry Hubert as well?”
“Yes,” said Isabel, “but how can I tell?”
“There is only one thing to be done,” went on the old lady, “be quite simple and quiet. Whenever your soul begins to be disturbed and anxious, put yourself in His Hands, and refuse to decide for yourself. It is so easy, so easy.”
“But why should I be so anxious and disturbed, if it were not our Lord speaking and warning me?”
“In the Catholic Church,” said Mistress Margaret, “we know well about all those movements of the soul; and we call them scruples. You must resist them, dear child, like temptations. We are told that if a soul is in grace and desires to serve God, then whenever our Lord speaks it is to bring sweetness with Him; and when it is the evil one, he brings disturbance. And that is why I am sure that these questionings are not from God. You feel stifled, is it not so, when you try to pray? and all seems empty of God; the waves and storms are going over you. But lie still and be content; and refuse to be disturbed; and you will soon be at peace again and see the light clearly.”
Mistress Margaret found herself speaking simply in short words and sentences as to a child. She had seen that for a long while past the clouds had been gathering over Isabel, and that her soul was at present completely overcast and unable to perceive or decide anything clearly; and so she gave her this simple advice, and did her utmost to soothe her, knowing that such a clean soul would not be kept long in the dark.
She knelt down with Isabel presently and prayed aloud with her, in a quiet even voice; a patch of moonlight lay on the floor, and something of its white serenity seemed to be in the old nun’s tones as she entreated the merciful Lord to bid peace again to this anxious soul, and let her see light again through the dark.
And when she had taken Isabel back again to her own room at last, and had seen her safely into bed, and kissed her good-night, already the girl’s face was quieter as it lay on the pillow, and the lines were smoothed out of her forehead.
“God bless you!” said Mistress Margaret.
CHAPTER III
HUBERT’S RETURN
After the sailing of Mr. Drake’s expedition, the friends of the adventurers had to wait in patience for several months before news arrived. Then theElizabeth, under the command of Mr. Winter, which had been separated from Mr. Drake’sPelicanin a gale off the south-west coast of America, returned to England, bringing the news of Mr. Doughty’s execution for desertion; but of thePelicanherself there was no further news until complaints arrived from the Viceroy of New Spain of Mr. Drake’s ravages up the west coast. Then silence again fell for eighteen months.
Anthony had followed the fortunes of thePelican, in which Hubert had sailed, with a great deal of interest: and it was with real relief that after the burst of joy in London at the news of her safe return to Plymouth with an incalculable amount of plunder, he had word from Lady Maxwell that she hoped he would come down at once to Great Keynes, and help to welcome Hubert home. He was not able to go at once, for his duties detained him; but a couple of days after the Hall had welcomed its new master, Anthony was at the Dower House again with Isabel. He found her extraordinarily bright and vivacious, and was delighted at the change, for he had been troubled the last time he had seen her a few months before, at her silence and listlessness; but her face was radiant now, as she threw herself into his arms at the door, and told him that they were all to go to supper that night at the Hall; and that Hubert had been keeping his best stories on purpose for his return. She showed him, when they got up to his room at last, little things Hubert had given her—carved nuts, a Spanish coin or two, and an ingot of gold—but of which she would say nothing, but only laugh and nod her head.
Hubert, too, when he saw him that evening seemed full of the same sort of half-suppressed happiness that shone out now and again suddenly. There he sat, for hours after supper that night, broader and more sunburnt than ever, with his brilliant eyes glancing round as he talked, and his sinewy man’s hand, in the delicate creamy ruff, making little explanatory movements, and drawing a map once or twice in spilled wine on the polished oak; the three ladies sat forward and watched him breathlessly, or leaned back and sighed as each tale ended, and Anthony found himself, too, carried away with enthusiasm again and again, as he looked at this gallant sea-dog in his gold chain and satin and jewels, and listened to his stories.
“It was bitter cold,” said Hubert in his strong voice, telling them of Mr. Doughty’s death, “on the morning itself: and snow lay on the decks when we rose. Mr. Fletcher had prepared a table in the poop-cabin, with a white cloth and bread and wine; and at nine of the clock we were all assembled where we might see into the cabin: and Mr. Fletcher said the Communion service, and Mr. Drake and Mr. Doughty received the sacrament there at his hands. Some of Mr. Doughty’s men had all they could do to keep back their tears; for you know, mother, they were good friends. And then when it was done, we made two lines down the deck to where the block stood by the main-mast; and the two came down together; and they kissed one another there. And Mr. Doughty spoke to the men, and bade them pray for the Queen’s Grace with him; and they did. And then he and Mr. Drake put off their doublets, and Mr. Doughty knelt at the block, and said another prayer or two, and then laid his head down, and he was shivering a little with cold, and then, when he gave the sign, Mr. Drake——” and Hubert brought the edge of his hand down sharply, and the glasses rang, and the ladies drew quick hissing breaths; and Lady Maxwell put her hand on her son’s arm, as he looked round on all their faces.
Then he told them of the expedition up the west coast, and of the towns they sacked; and the opulent names rolled oddly off his tongue, and seemed to bring a whiff of southern scent into this panelled English room,—Valparaiso, Tarapaca, and Arica—; and of the capture of theCacafuegooff Quibdo; and of the enormous treasure they took, the great golden crucifix with emeralds of the size of pigeon’s eggs, and the chests of pearls, and the twenty-six tons of silver, and the wedges of pure gold from the Peruvian galleon, and of the golden falcon from the Chinese trader that they captured south of Guatulco. And he described the search up the coast for the passage eastwards that never existed; and of Drake’s superb resolve to return westwards instead, by the Moluccas; and how they stayed at Ternate, south of Celebes, and coasted along Java seeking a passage, and found it in the Sunda straits, and broke out from the treacherous islands into the open sea; crossed to Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope; came up the west coast, touching at Sierra Leone, and so home again along the Spanish and French coasts, to Plymouth Sound and the pealing of Plymouth bells.
And he broke out into something very like eloquence when he spoke of Drake.
“Never was such a captain,” he cried, “with his little stiff beard and his obstinate eyes. I have seen him stand on the poop, when the arrows were like hail on the deck, with one finger in the ring round his neck,—so”: and Hubert thrust a tanned finger into a link of his chain, and lifted his chin, “just making little signs to the steersman, with his hand behind his back, to bring the ship nearer to the Spaniard; as cool, I tell you, as cool as if he were playing merelles. Oh! and then when we boarded, out came his finger from his ring; and there was none that struck so true and fierce; and all in silence too, without an oath or a cry or a word; except maybe to give an order. But he was very sharp with all that angered him. When we sighted theMadre di Dios, I ran into his cabin to tell him of it, without saluting, so full was my head of the chase. And he looked at me like ice; and then roared at me to know where my manners were, and bade me go out and enter again properly, before he would hear my news; and then I heard him rating the man that stood at his door for letting me pass in that state. At his dinner, too, which he took alone, there were always trumpets to blow, as when her Grace dines. When he laughed it seemed as if he did it with a grave face. There was a piece of grand fooling when we got out from among those weary Indian islands; where the great crabs be, and flies that burn in the dark, as I told you. Mr. Fletcher, the minister, played the coward one night when we ran aground; and bade us think of our sins and our immortal souls, instead of urging us to be smart about the ship; and he did it, too, not as Mr. Drake might do, but in such a melancholy voice as if we were all at our last hour; so when we were free of our trouble, and out on the main again, we were all called by the drum to the forecastle, and there Mr. Drake sat on a sea-chest as solemn as a judge, so that not a man durst laugh, with a pair of pantoufles in his hand; and Mr. Fletcher was brought before him, trying to smile as if ’twas a jest for him too, between two guards; and there he was arraigned; and the witnesses were called; and Tom Moore said how he was tapped on the shoulder by Mr. Fletcher as he was getting a pick from the hold; and how he was as white as a ghost and bade him think on Mr. Doughty, how there was no mercy for him when he needed it, and so there would be none for us—and then other witnesses came, and then Mr. Fletcher tried to make his defence, saying how it was the part of a minister to bid men think on their souls; but ’twas no good. Mr. Drake declared him guilty; and sentenced him to be kept in irons till he repented of that his cowardice; and then, which was the cream of the joke, since the prisoner was a minister, Mr. Drake declared him excommunicate, and cut off from the Church of God, and given over to the devil. And he was put in irons, too, for a while; so ’twas not all a joke.”
“And what is Mr. Drake doing now?” asked Lady Maxwell.
“Oh! Drake is in London,” said Hubert. “Ah! yes, and you must all come to Deptford when her Grace is going to be there. Anthony, lad, you’ll come?”
Anthony said he would certainly do his best; and Isabel put out her hand to her brother, and beamed at him; and then turned to look at Hubert again.
“And what are you to do next?” asked Mistress Margaret.
“Well,” he said, “I am to go to Plymouth again presently, to help to get the treasure out of the ships; and I must be there, too, for the spring and summer, for Drake wants me to help him with his new expedition.”
“But you are not going with him again, my son?” said his mother quickly.
Hubert put out his hand to her.
“No, no,” he said, “I have written to tell him I cannot. I must take my father’s place here. He will understand”; and he gave one swift glance at Isabel, and her eyes fell.
Anthony was obliged to return to Lambeth after a day or two, and he carried with him a heart full of admiration and enthusiasm for his friend. He had wondered once or twice, too, as his eyes fell on Isabel, whether there was anything in what Mistress Corbet had said; but he dared not speak to her, and still less to Hubert, unless his confidence was first sought.
The visit to Deptford, which took place a week or two later, gave an additional spurt to Anthony’s nationalism. London was all on fire at the return of the buccaneers, and as Anthony rode down the south bank of the river from Lambeth to join the others at the inn, the three miles of river beyond London Bridge were an inspiriting sight in the bright winter sunshine, crowded with craft of all kinds, bright with bunting, that were making their way down to the naval triumph. The road, too, was thick with vehicles and pedestrians.
It was still early when he met his party at the inn, and Hubert took them immediately to see thePelicanthat was drawn up in a little creek on the south bank. Mistress Margaret had not come, so the four went together all over the ship that had been for these years the perilous home of this sunburnt lad they all loved so well. Hubert pointed out Drake’s own cabin at the poop, with its stern-windows, where the last sacrament of the two friends had been celebrated; and where Drake himself had eaten in royal fashion to the sound of trumpets and slept with all-night sentries at his door. He showed them too his own cabin, where he had lived with three more officers, and the upper poop-deck where Drake would sit hour after hour with his spy-glass, ranging the horizons for treasure-ships. And he showed them, too, the high forecastle, and the men’s quarters; and Isabel fingered delicately the touch-holes of the very guns that had roared and snapped so fiercely at the Dons; and they peered down into the dark empty hold where the treasure-chests had lain, and up at the three masts and the rigging that had borne so long the swift wings of thePelican. And they heard the hiss and rattle of the ropes as Hubert ordered a man to run up a flag to show them how it was done; and they smelled the strange tarry briny smell of a sea-going ship.
“You are not tired?” Anthony said to his sister, as they walked back to the inn from which they were to see the spectacle. She shook her head happily; and Anthony, looking at her, once more questioned himself whether Mistress Corbet were right or not.
When they had settled down at last to their window, the crowds were gathering thicker every moment about the entrance to the ship, which lay in the creek perhaps a hundred yards from the inn, and on the road along which the Queen was to come from Greenwich. Anthony felt his whole heart go out in sympathy to these joyous shouting folk beneath, who were here to celebrate the gallant pluck of a little bearded man and his followers, who for the moment stood for England, and in whose presence just now the Queen herself must take second place. Even the quacks and salesmen who were busy in their booths all round used patriotism to push their bargains.
“Spanish ointment, Spanish ointment!” bellowed a red-faced herbalist in a doctor’s gown, just below the window. “The Dons know what’s best for wounds and knocks after Frankie Drake’s visit”; and the crowd laughed and bought up his boxes. And another drove a roaring business in green glass beads, reported to be the exact size of the emeralds taken from theCacafuego; and others sold little models of thePelican, warranted to frighten away Dons and all other kinds of devils from the house that possessed one. Isabel laughed with pleasure, and sent Anthony down to buy one for her.
But perhaps more than all else the sight of the seamen themselves stirred his heart. Most of them, officers as well as men, were dressed with absurd extravagance, for the prize-money, even after the deduction of the Queen’s lion-share, had been immense, but beneath their plumed and jewel-buckled caps, brown faces looked out, alert and capable, with tight lips and bright, puckered eyes, with something of the terrier in their expression. There they swaggered along with a slight roll in their walk, by ones or twos, through the crowd that formed lanes to let them pass, and surged along in their wake, shouting after them and clapping them on the back. Anthony watched them eagerly as they made their way from all directions to where thePelicanlay; for it was close on noon. Then from far away came the boom of the Tower guns, and then the nearer crash of those that guarded the dockyard; and last the deafening roar of thePelicanbroadside; and then the smoke rose and drifted in a heavy veil in the keen frosty air over the cheering crowds. When it lifted again, there was the flash of gold and colour from the Greenwich road, and the high braying of the trumpets pierced the roaring welcome of the people. But the watchers at the windows could see no more over the heads of the crowd than the plumes of the royal carriage, as the Queen dismounted, and a momentary glimpse of her figure and the group round her as she passed on to the deck of thePelicanand went immediately below to the banquet, while the parish church bells pealed a welcome.
Lady Maxwell insisted that Isabel should now dine, as there would be no more to be seen till the Queen should come up on deck again.
Of the actual ceremony of the knighting of Mr. Drake they had a very fair view, though the figures were little and far away. The first intimation they had that the banquet was over was the sight of the scarlet-clad yeomen emerging one by one up the little hatchway that led below. The halberdiers lined the decks already, with their weapons flashing in long curved lines; and by the time that the trumpets began to sound to show that the Queen was on her way from below, the decks were one dense mass of colour and steel, with a lane left to the foot of the poop-stairs by which she would ascend. Then at last the two figures appeared, the Queen radiant in cloth of gold, and Mr. Drake, alert and brisk, in his Court suit and sword. There was silence from the crowd as the adventurer knelt before the Queen, and Anthony held his breath with excitement as he caught the flash of the slender sword that an officer had put into the Queen’s hand; and then an inconceivable noise broke out as Sir Francis Drake stood up. The crowd was one open mouth, shouting, the church bells burst into peals overhead, answered by the roll of drums from the deck and the blare of trumpets; and then the whole din sank into nothingness for a moment under the heart-shaking crash of the ship’s broadside, echoed instantly by the deeper roar of the dockyard guns, and answered after a moment or two from far away by the dull boom from the Tower. And Anthony leaned yet further from the window and added his voice to the tumult.
As he rode back alone to Lambeth, after parting with the others at London Bridge, for they intended to go down home again that night, he was glowing with national zeal. He had seen not only royalty and magnificence but an apotheosis of character that day. There in the little trim figure with the curly hair kneeling before the Queen was England at its best—England that sent two ships against an empire; and it was the Church that claimed Sir Francis Drake as a son, and indeed a devoted one, in a sense, that Anthony himself was serving here at Lambeth, and for which he felt a real and fervent enthusiasm.
He was surprised a couple of days later to receive a note in Lady Maxwell’s handwriting, brought up by a special messenger from the Hall.
“There is a friend of mine,” she wrote, “to come to Lambeth House presently, he tells me, to be kept a day or two in ward before he is sent to Wisbeach. He is a Catholic, named Mr. Henry Buxton, who showed me great love during the sorrow of my dear husband’s death; and I write to you to show kindness to him, and to get him a good bed, and all that may comfort him: for I know not whether Lambeth Prison is easy or hard; but I hope perhaps that since my Lord Archbishop is a prisoner himself he has pity on such as are so too; and so my pains be in vain. However, if you will see Mr. Buxton at least, and have some talk with him, and show him this letter, it will cheer him perhaps to see a friend’s face.”
Anthony of course made inquiries at once, and found that Mr. Buxton was to arrive on the following afternoon. It was the custom to send prisoners occasionally to Lambeth, more particularly those more distinguished, or who, it was hoped, could be persuaded to friendly conference. Mr. Buxton, however, was thought to be incorrigible, and was only sent there because there was some delay in the preparations for his reception at Wisbeach, which since the previous year had been used as an overflow prison for Papists.
On the evening of the next day, which was Friday, Anthony went straight out from the Hall after supper to the gateway prison, and found Mr. Buxton at a fish supper in the little prison in the outer part of the eastern tower. He introduced himself, but found it necessary to show Lady Maxwell’s letter before the prisoner was satisfied as to his identity.
“You must pardon me, Mr. Norris,” he said, when he had read the letter and asked a question or two, “but we poor Papists are bound to be shy. Why, in this very room,” he went on, pointing to the inner corner away from the door, and smiling, “for aught I know a man sits now to hear us.”
Anthony was considerably astonished to see this stranger point so confidently to the hiding-hole, where indeed the warder used to sit sometimes behind a brick partition, to listen to the talk of the prisoners; and showed his surprise.
“Ah, Mr. Norris,” the other said, “we Papists are bound to be well informed; or else where were our lives? But come, sir, let us sit down.”
Anthony apologised for interrupting him at his supper, and offered to come again, but Mr. Buxton begged him not to leave, as he had nearly finished. So Anthony sat down, and observed the prison and the prisoner. It was fairly well provided with necessaries: a good straw bed lay in one corner on trestles; and washing utensils stood at the further wall; and there was an oil lamp that hung high up from an iron pin. The prisoner’s luggage lay still half unpacked on the floor, and a row of pegs held a hat and a cloak. Mr. Buxton himself was a dark-haired man with a short beard and merry bright eyes; and was dressed soberly as a gentleman; and behaved himself with courtesy and assurance. But it was a queer place with this flickering lamp, thought Anthony, for a gentleman to be eating his supper in. When Mr. Buxton had finished his dish of roach and a tankard of ale, he looked up at Anthony, smiling.
“My lord knows the ways of Catholics, then,” he said, pointing to the bones on his plate.
Anthony explained that the Protestants observed the Friday abstinence, too.
“Ah yes,” said the other, “I was forgetting the Queen’s late injunctions. Let us see; how did it run? ‘The same is not required for any liking of Papish Superstitions or Ceremonies (is it?) hitherto used, which utterly are to be detested of all Christian folk’; (no, the last word or two is a gloss), ‘but only to maintain the mariners in this land, and to set men a-fishing.’ That is the sense of it, is it not, sir? You fast, that is, not for heavenly reasons, which were a foolish and Papish thing to do; but for earthly reasons, which is a reasonable and Protestant thing to do.”
Anthony might have taken this assault a little amiss, if he had not seen a laughing light in his companion’s eyes; and remembered, too, that imprisonment is apt to breed a little bitterness. So he smiled back at him. Then soon they fell to talking of Lady Maxwell and Great Keynes, where it seemed that Mr. Buxton had stayed more than once.
“I knew Sir Nicholas well,” he said, “God rest his soul. It seems to me he is one of those whose life continually gave the lie to men who say that a Catholic can be no true Englishman. There never beat a more loyal heart than his.”
Anthony agreed; but asked if it were not true that Catholics were in difficulties sometimes as to the proper authority to be obeyed—the Pope or the Prince.
“It is true,” said the other, “or it might be. Yet the principle is clear,Date Cæsari quae sunt Cæsaris. The difficulty lies but in the application of the maxim.”
“But with us,” said Anthony—“Church of England folk,—there hardly can be ever any such difficulty; for the Prince of the State is the Governor of the Church as well.”
“I take your point,” said Mr. Buxton. “You mean that a National Church is better, for that spiritual and temporal authorities are then at one.”
“Just so,” said Anthony, beginning to warm to his favourite theme. “The Church is the nation regarded as religious. When England wars on land it is through her army, which is herself under arms; when on sea she embarks in the navy; and in the warfare with spiritual powers, it is through her Church. And surely in this way the Church must always be the Church of the people. The Englishman and the Spaniard are like cat and dog; they like not the same food nor the same kind of coat; I hear that their buildings are not like ours; their language, nay, their faces and minds, are not like ours. Then why should be their prayers and their religion? I quarrel with no foreigner’s faith; it is God who made us so.”
Anthony stopped, breathless with his unusual eloquence; but it was the subject that lay nearest to his heart at present, and he found no lack of words. The prisoner had watched him with twinkling eyes, nodding his head as if in agreement; and when he had finished his little speech, nodded again in meditative silence.
“It is complete,” he answered, “complete. And as a theory would be convincing; and I envy you, Master Norris, for you stand on the top of the wave. That is what England holds. But, my dear sir, Christ our Lord refused such a kingdom as that. My kingdom, He said, is not of this world—is not, that is, ruled by the world’s divisions and systems. You have described Babel,—every nation with its own language. But it was to undo Babel and to build one spiritual city that our Saviour came down, and sent the Holy Ghost to make the Church at Pentecost out of Arabians and Medes and Elamites—to break down the partition-walls, as the apostle tells us,—that there be neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian nor Scythian—and to establish one vast kingdom (which for that very reason we name Catholic), to destroy differences between nation and nation, by lifting each to be of the People of God—to pull down Babel, the City of Confusion, and build Jerusalem the City of Peace. Dear God!” cried Mr. Buxton, rising in his excitement, and standing over Anthony, who looked at him astonished and bewildered. “You and your England would parcel out the Kingdom of heaven into national Churches, as you name them—among all the kingdoms of the world; and yet you call yourselves the servants of Him who came to do just the opposite—yes, and who will do it, in spite of you, and make the kingdoms of this world, instead, the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. Why, if each nation is to have her Church, why not each county and each town—yes, and each separate soul, too; for all are different! Nay, nay, Master Norris, you are blinded by the Prince of this world. He is shewing you even now from an high mountain the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them: lift your eyes, dear lad, to the hills from whence cometh your help; those hills higher than the mountain where you stand; and see the new Jerusalem, and the glory of her, coming down from God to dwell with men.”
Mr. Buxton stood, his eyes blazing, plainly carried away wholly by enthusiasm; and Anthony, in spite of himself, could not be angry. He moistened his lips once or twice.
“Well, sir; of course I hold with what you say, in one sense; but it is not come yet; and never will, till our Lord comes back to make all plain.”
“Not come yet?” cried the other, “Not come yet! Why, what is the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church but that? There you have one visible kingdom, gathered out of every nation and tongue and people, as the apostle said. I have a little estate in France, Master Norris, where I go sometimes; and there are folk in their wooden shoes, talking a different human tongue to me, but, thank God! the same divine one—of contrition and adoration and prayer. There we have the same mass, the same priesthood, the same blessed sacrament and the same Faith, as in my own little oratory at Stanfield. Go to Spain, Africa, Rome, India; wherever Christ is preached; there is the Church as it is here—the City of Peace. And as for you and your Church! with whom do you hold communion?”
This stung Anthony, and he answered impulsively.
“In Geneva and Frankfort, at least, there are folk who speak the same divine tongue, as you call it, as we do; they and we are agreed in matters of faith.”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Burton sharply, “then what becomes of your Nationalism, and the varied temperaments that you told me God had made?”
Anthony bit his lip; he had overshot his mark. But the other swept on; and as he talked began to step up and down the little room, in a kind of rhapsody.
“Is it possible?” he cried, “that men should be so blind as to prefer the little divided companies they name National Churches—all confusion and denial—to that glorious kingdom that Christ bought with his own dear blood, and has built upon Peter, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. Yes, I know it is a flattering and a pleasant thought that this little nation should have her own Church; and it is humbling and bitter that England should be called to submit to a foreign potentate in the affairs of faith—Nay, cry they like the Jews of old, not Christ but Barabbas—we will not have this Man to reign over us. And yet this is God’s will and not that. Mark me, Mr. Norris, what you hope will never come to be—the Liar will not keep his word—you shall not have that National Church that you desire: as you have dealt, so will it be dealt to you: as you have rejected, so will you be rejected. England herself will cast you off: your religious folk will break into a hundred divisions. Even now your Puritans mock at your prelates—so soon! And if they do thus now, what will they do hereafter? You have cast away Authority, and authority shall forsake you. Behold your house is left unto you desolate.”
“Forgive me, Mr. Norris,” he added after a pause, “if I have been discourteous, and have forgotten my manners; but—but I would, as the apostle said, that you were altogether as I am, except these bonds.”
CHAPTER IV
A COUNTER-MARCH
Isabel was sitting out alone in the Italian garden at the Hall, one afternoon in the summer following the visit to Deptford. Hubert was down at Plymouth, assisting in the preparations for the expedition that Drake hoped to conduct against Spain. The two countries were technically at peace, but the object with which he was going out, with the moral and financial support of the Queen, was a corporate demonstration against Spain, of French, Portuguese, and English ships under the main command of Don Antonio, the Portuguese pretender; it was proposed to occupy Terceira in the Azores; and Drake and Hawkins entertained the highest hopes of laying their hands on further plunder.
She was leaning back in her seat, with her hands behind her head, thinking over her relations with Hubert. When he had been at home at the end of the previous year, he had apparently taken it for granted that the marriage would be celebrated; he had given her the gold nugget, that she had showed Anthony, telling her he had brought it home for the wedding-ring; and she understood that he was to come for his final answer as soon as his work at Plymouth was over. But not a word of explanation had passed between them on the religious difficulty. He had silenced her emphatically and kindly once when she had approached it; and she gathered from his manner that he suspected the direction in which her mind was turning and was generously unwilling for her to commit herself an inch further than she saw. Else whence came his assurance? And, for herself, things were indeed becoming plain: she wondered why she had hesitated so long, why she was still hesitating; the cup was brimming above the edge; it needed but a faint touch of stimulus to precipitate all.
And so Isabel lay back and pondered, with a touch of happy impatience at the workings of her own soul; for she dared not act without the final touch of conviction. Mistress Margaret had taught her that the swiftest flight of the soul was when there was least movement, when the soul knew how to throw itself with that supreme effort of cessation into the Hands of God, that He might bear it along: when, after informing the intellect and seeking by prayer for God’s bounty, the humble client of Heaven waited with uplifted eyes and ready heart until God should answer. And so she waited, knowing that the gift was at hand, yet not daring to snatch it. But, in the meanwhile, her imagination at least might act without restraint; so she sent it out, like a bird from the Ark, to bring her the earnest of peace. There, in the cloister-wing, somewhere, lay the chapel, where she and Hubert would kneel together;—somewhere beneath that grey roof. That was the terrace where she would walk one day as one who has a right there. Which of these windows would be hers? Not Lady Maxwell’s, of course; she must keep that.... Ah! how good God was!