The tall door on to the terrace opened, and Mistress Margaret peered out with a letter in her hand. Isabel called to her; and the old nun came down the steps into the garden. Why did she walk so falteringly, the girl wondered, as if she could not see? What was it? What was it?
Isabel rose to her feet, startled, as the nun with bent head came up the path. “What is it, Mistress Margaret?”
The other tried to smile at her, but her lips were trembling too much; and the girl saw that her eyes were brimming with tears. She put the letter into her hand.
Isabel lifted it in an agony of suspense; and saw her name, in Hubert’s handwriting.
“What is it?” she said again, white to the lips.
The old lady as she turned away glanced at her; and Isabel saw that her face was all twitching with the effort to keep back her tears. The girl had never seen her like that before, even at Sir Nicholas’ death. Was there anything, she wondered as she looked, worse than death? But she was too dazed by the sight to speak, and Mistress Margaret went slowly back to the house unquestioned.
Isabel turned the letter over once or twice; and then sat down and opened it. It was all in Hubert’s sprawling handwriting, and was dated from Plymouth.
It gave her news first about the squadron; saying how Don Antonio had left London for Plymouth, and was expected daily; and then followed this paragraph:
“And now, dearest Isabel, I have such good news to give you.I have turned Protestant; and there is no reason why we should not be married as soon as I return. I know this will make you happy to think that our religions are no longer different. I have thought of this so long; but would not tell you before for fear of disappointing you. Sir Francis Drake’s religion seems to me the best; it is the religion of all the ‘sea-dogs’ as they name us; and of the Queen’s Grace, and it will be soon of all England; and more than all it is the religion of my dearest mistress and love. I do not, of course, know very much of it as yet; but good Mr. Collins here has shown me the superstitions of Popery; and I hope now to be justified by faith without works as the gospel teaches. I fear that my mother and aunt will be much distressed by this news; I have written, too, to tell them of it. You must comfort them, dear love; and perhaps some day they, too, will see as we do.” Then followed a few messages, and loving phrases, and the letter ended.
Isabel laid it down beside her on the low stone wall; and looked round her with eyes that saw nothing. There was the grey old house before her, and the terrace, and the cloister-wing to the left, and the hot sunshine lay on it all, and drew out scents and colours from the flower-beds, and joy from the insects that danced in the trembling air; and it all meant nothing to her; like a picture when the page is turned over it. Five minutes ago she was regarding her life and seeing how the Grace of God was slowly sorting out its elements from chaos to order—the road was unwinding itself before her eyes as she trod on it day by day—now a hand had swept all back into disorder, and the path was hidden by the ruins.
Then gradually one thought detached itself, and burned before her, vivid and startling; and in all its terrible reality slipped between her and the visible world on which she was staring. It was this: to embrace the Catholic Faith meant the renouncing of Hubert. As a Protestant she might conceivably have married a Catholic; as a Catholic it was inconceivable that she should marry an apostate.
Then she read the letter through again carefully and slowly; and was astonished at the unreality of Hubert’s words about Romish superstition and gospel simplicity. She tried hard to silence her thoughts; but two reasons for Hubert’s change of religion rose up and insisted on making themselves felt; it was that he might be more in unity with the buccaneers whom he admired; second, that there might be no obstacle to their marriage. And what then, she asked, was the quality of the heart he had given her?
Then, in a flash of intuition, she perceived that a struggle lay before her, compared with which all her previous spiritual conflicts were as child’s play; and that there was no avoiding it. The vision passed, and she rose and went indoors to find the desolate mother whose boy had lost the Faith.
A month or two of misery went by. For Lady Maxwell they passed with recurring gusts of heart-broken sorrow and of agonies of prayer for her apostate son. Mistress Margaret was at the Hall all day, soothing, encouraging, even distracting her sister by all the means in her power. The mother wrote one passionate wail to her son, appealing to all that she thought he held dear, even yet to return to the Faith for which his father had suffered and in which he had died; but a short answer only returned, saying it was impossible to make his defence in a letter, and expressing pious hopes that she, too, one day would be as he was; the same courier brought a letter to Isabel, in which he expressed his wonder that she had not answered his former one.
And as for Isabel, she had to pass through this valley of darkness alone. Anthony was in London; and even if he had been with her could not have helped her under these circumstances; her father was dead—she thanked God for that now—and Mistress Margaret seemed absorbed in her sister’s grief. And so the girl fought with devils alone. The arguments for Catholicism burned pitilessly clear now; every line and feature in them stood out distinct and hard. Catholicism, it appeared to her, alone had the marks of the Bride, visible unity, visible Catholicity, visible Apostolicity, visible Sanctity;—there they were, the seals of the most High God. She flung herself back furiously into the Protestantism from which she had been emerging; there burned in the dark before her the marks of the Beast, visible disunion, visible nationalism, visible Erastianism, visible gulfs where holiness should be: that system in which now she could never find rest again glared at her in all its unconvincing incoherence, its lack of spirituality, its adulterous union with the civil power instead of the pure wedlock of the Spouse of Christ. She wondered once more how she dared to have hesitated so long; or dared to hesitate still.
On the theological side intellectual arguments of this kind started out, strong and irrefutable; her emotional drawings towards Catholicism for the present retired. Feelings might have been disregarded or discredited by a strong effort of the will; these apparently cold phenomena that presented themselves to her intellect, could not be thus dealt with. Yet, strangely enough, even now she would not throw herself resolutely into Catholicism: the fierce stimulus instead of precipitating the crisis, petrified it. More than once she started up from her knees in her own dark room, resolved to awaken the nun and tell her she would wait no longer, but would turn Catholic at once and have finished with the misery of suspense: and even as she moved to the door her will found itself against an impenetrable wall.
And then on the other side all her human nature cried out for Hubert—Hubert—Hubert. There he stood by her in fancy, day and night, that chivalrous, courteous lad, who had been loyal to her so long; had waited so patiently; had run to her with such dear impatience; who was so wholesome, so strong, so humble to her; so quick to understand her wants, so eager to fulfil them; so bound to her by associations; so fit a mate for the very differences between them. And now these two claims were no longer compatible; in his very love for her he had ended that possibility. All those old dreams; the little scenes she had rehearsed, of their first mass, their first communion together; their walks in the twilight; their rides over the hills; the new ties that were to draw the old ladies at the Hall and herself so close together—all this was changed; some of those dreams were now for ever impossible, others only possible on terms that she trembled even to think of. Perhaps it was worst of all to reflect that she was in some measure responsible for his change of religion; she fancied that it was through her slowness to respond to light, her delaying to confide in him, that he had been driven through impatience to take this step. And so week after week went by and she dared not answer his letter.
The old ladies, too, were sorely puzzled at her. It was impossible for them to know how far her religion was changing. She had kept up the same reserve towards them lately as towards Hubert, chiefly because she feared to disappoint them; and so after an attempt to tell each other a little of their mutual sympathy, the three women were silent on the subject of the lad who was so much to them all.
She began to show her state a little in her movements and appearance. She was languid, soon tired and dispirited; she would go for short, lonely walks, and fall asleep in her chair worn out when she came in. Her grey eyes looked longer and darker; her eyelids and the corners of her mouth began to droop a little.
Then in October he came home.
Isabel had been out a long afternoon walk by herself through the reddening woods. They had never, since the first awakening of the consciousness of beauty in her, meant so little to her as now. It appeared as if that keen unity of a life common to her and all living things had been broken or obscured; and that she walked in an isolation all the more terrible in that she was surrounded by the dumb presence of what she loved. Last year the quick chattering cry of the blackbird, the evening mists over the meadows, the stir of the fading life of the woods, the rustling scamper of the rabbit over the dead leaves, the solemn call of the homing rooks—all this, only last year, went to make up the sweet natural atmosphere in which her spirit moved and breathed at ease. Now she was excommunicate from that pleasant friendship, banned by nature and forgotten by the God who made it and was immanent within it. Her relations to the Saviour, who only such a short time ago had been the Person round whom all the joys of life had centred, from whom they radiated, and to whom she referred them all—these relations had begun to be obscured by her love for Hubert, and now had vanished altogether. She had regarded her earthly and her heavenly lover as two persons, each of whom had certain claims upon her heart, and each of whom she had hoped to satisfy in different ways; instead of identifying the two, and serving each not apart from, but in the other. And it now seemed to her that she was making experience of a Divine jealousy that would suffer her to be satisfied neither with God nor man. Her soul was exhausted by internal conflict, by the swift alternations of attraction and repulsion between the poles of her supernatural and natural life; so that when it turned wearily from self to what lay outside, it was not even capable, as before, of making that supreme effort of cessation of effort which was necessary to its peace. It seemed to her that she was self-poised in emptiness, and could neither touch heaven or earth—crucified so high that she could not rest on earth, so low that she could not reach to heaven.
She came in weary and dispirited as the candles were being lighted in her sitting-room upstairs; but she saw the gleam of them from the garden with no sense of a welcoming brightness. She passed from the garden into the door of the hall which was still dark, as the fire had nearly burned itself out. As she entered the door opposite opened, and once more she saw the silhouette of a man’s figure against the lighted passage beyond; and again she stopped frightened, and whispered “Anthony.”
There was a momentary pause as the door closed and all was dark again; and then she heard Hubert’s voice say her name; and felt herself wrapped once more in his arms. For a moment she clung to him with furious longing. Ah! this is a tangible thing, she felt, this clasp; the faint cleanly smell of his rough frieze dress refreshed her like wine, and she kissed his sleeve passionately. And the wide gulf between them yawned again; and her spirit sickened at the sight of it.
“Oh! Hubert, Hubert!” she said.
She felt herself half carried to a high chair beside the fire-place and set down there; then he re-arranged the logs on the hearth, so that the flames began to leap again, showing his strong hands and keen clear-cut face; then he turned on his knees, seized her two hands in his own, and lifted them to his lips; then laid them down again on her knee, still holding them; and so remained.
“Oh! Isabel,” he said, “why did you not write?”
She was silent as one who stares fascinated down a precipice.
“It is all over,” he went on in a moment, “with the expedition. The Queen’s Grace has finally refused us leave to go—and I have come back to you, Isabel.”
How strong and pleasant he looked in this leaping fire-light! how real! and she was hesitating between this warm human reality and the chilly possibilities of an invisible truth. Her hands tightened instinctively within his, and then relaxed.
“I have been so wretched,” she said piteously.
“Ah! my dear,” and he threw an arm round her neck and drew her face down to his, “but that is over now.” She sat back again; and then an access of purpose poured into her and braced her will to an effort.
“No, no,” she began, “I must tell you. I was afraid to write. Hubert, I must wait a little longer. I—I do not know what I believe.”
He looked at her, puzzled.
“What do you mean, dearest?”
“I have been so much puzzled lately—thinking so much—and—and—I am sorry you have become a Protestant. It makes all so hard.”
“My dear, this is—I do not understand.”
“I have been thinking,” went on Isabel bravely, “whether perhaps the Catholic Church is not right after all.”
Hubert loosed her hands and stood up. She crouched into the shadow of the interior of the high chair, and looked up at him, terrified. His cheek twitched a little.
“Isabel, this is foolishness. I know what the Catholic faith is. It is not true; I have been through it all.”
He was speaking nervously and abruptly. She said nothing. Then he suddenly dropped on his knees himself.
“My dearest, I understand. You were doing this for me. I quite understand. It is what I too——” and then he stopped.
“I know, I know,” she cried piteously. “It is just what I have feared so terribly—that—that our love has been blinding us both. And yet, what are we to do, what are we to do? Oh! God—Hubert, help me.”
Then he began to speak in a low emphatic voice, holding her hands, delicately stroking one of them now and again, and playing with her fingers. She watched his curly head in the firelight as he talked, and his keen face as he looked up.
“It is all plain to me,” he said, caressingly. “You have been living here with my aunt, a dear old saint; and she has been talking and telling you all about the Catholic religion, and making it seem all true and good. And you, my dear child, have been thinking of me sometimes, and loving me a little, is it not so? and longing that religion should not separate us; and so you began to wish it was true; and then to hope it was; and at last you have begun to think it is. But it is not your true sweet self that believes it. Ah! you know in your heart of hearts, as I have known so long, that it is not true; that it is made up by priests and nuns; and it is very beautiful, I know, my dearest, but it is only a lovely tale; and you must not spoil all for the sake of a tale. And I have been gradually led to the light; it was your—” and his voice faltered—“your prayers that helped me to it. I have longed to understand what it was that made you so sweet and so happy; and now I know; it is your own simple pure religion; and—and—it is so much more sensible, so much more likely to be true than the Catholic religion. It is all in the Bible you see; so plain, as Mr. Collins has showed me. And so, my dear love, I have come to believe it too; and you must put all these fancies out of your head, these dreams; though I love you, I love you,” and he kissed her hand again, “for wishing to believe them for my sake—and—and we will be married before Christmas; and we will have our own fairy-tale, but it shall be a true one.”
This was terrible to Isabel. It seemed as if her own haunting thought that she was sacrificing a dream to reality had become incarnate in her lover and was speaking through his lips. And yet in its very incarnation, it seemed to reveal its weakness rather than its strength. As a dark suggestion the thought was mighty; embodied in actual language it seemed to shrink a little. But then, on the other hand—and so the interior conflict began to rage again.
She made a movement as if to stand up; but he pressed her back into the chair.
“No, my dearest, you shall be a prisoner until you give your parole.”
Twice Isabel made an effort to speak; but no sound came. It seemed as if the raging strife of thoughts deafened and paralysed her.
“Now, Isabel,” said Hubert.
“I cannot, I cannot,” she cried desperately, “you must give me time. It is too sudden, your returning like this. You must give me time. I do not know what I believe. Oh, dear God, help me.”
“Isabel, promise! promise! Before Christmas! I thought it was all to be so happy, when I came in through the garden just now. My mother will hardly speak to me; and I came to you, Isabel, as I always did; I felt so sure you would be good to me; and tell me that you would always love me, now that I had given up my religion for love of you. And now——” and Hubert’s voice ended in a sob.
Her heart seemed rent across, and she drew a sobbing sigh. Hubert heard it, and caught at her hands again as he knelt.
“Isabel, promise, promise.”
Then there came that gust of purpose into her heart again; she made a determined effort and stood up; and Hubert rose and stood opposite her.
“You must not ask me,” she said, bravely. “It would be wicked to decide yet. I cannot see anything clearly. I do not know what I believe, nor where I stand. You must give me time.”
There was a dead silence. His face was so much in shadow that she could not tell what he was thinking. He was standing perfectly still.
“Then that is all the answer you will give me?” he said, in a perfectly even voice.
Isabel bowed her head.
“Then—then I wish you good-night, Mistress Norris,” and he bowed to her, caught up his cap and went out.
She could not believe it for a moment, and caught her breath to cry out after him as the door closed; but she heard his step on the stone pavement outside, the crunch of the gravel, and he was gone. Then she went and leaned her head against the curved mantelshelf and stared into the logs that his hands had piled together.
This, then, she thought, was the work of religion; the end of all her aspirations and efforts, that God should mock them by bringing love into their life, and then when they caught at it and thanked him for it, it was whisked away again, and left their hands empty. Was this the Father of Love in whom she had been taught to believe, who treated His children like this? And so the bitter thoughts went on; and yet she knew in her heart that she was powerless; that she could not go to the door and call Hubert and promise what he asked. A great Force had laid hold of her, it might be benevolent or not—at this moment she thought not—but it was irresistible; and she must bow her head and obey.
And even as she thought that, the door opened again, and there was Hubert. He came in two quick steps across the room to her, and then stopped suddenly.
“Mistress Isabel,” he asked, “can you forgive me? I was a brute just now. I do not ask for your promise. I leave it all in your hands. Do with me what you will. But—but, if you could tell me how long you think it will be before you know——”
He had touched the right note. Isabel’s heart gave a leap of sorrow and sympathy. “Oh, Hubert,” she said brokenly, “I am so sorry; but I promise I will tell you—by Easter?” and her tone was interrogative.
“Yes, yes,” said Hubert. He looked at her in silence, and she saw strange lines quivering at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes large and brilliant in the firelight. Then the two drew together, and he took her in his arms strongly and passionately.
There was a scene that night between the mother and son. Mistress Margaret had gone back to the Dower House for supper; and Lady Maxwell and Hubert were supping in Sir Nicholas’ old study that would soon be arranged for Hubert now that he had returned for good. They had been very silent during the meal, while the servants were in the room, talking only of little village affairs and of the estate, and of the cancelling of the proposed expedition. Hubert had explained to his mother that it was generally believed that Elizabeth had never seriously intended the English ships to sail, but that she only wished to draw Spain’s attention off herself by setting up complications between that country and France; and when she had succeeded in this by managing to get the French squadron safe at Terceira, she then withdrew her permission to Drake and Hawkins, and thus escaped from the quarrel altogether. But it was a poor makeshift for conversation.
When the servants had withdrawn, a silence fell. Presently Hubert looked across the table between the silver branched candlesticks.
“Mother,” he said, “of course I know what you are thinking. But I cannot consent to go through all the arguments; I am weary of them. Neither will I see Mr. Barnes to-morrow at Cuckfield or here. I am satisfied with my position.”
“My son,” said Lady Maxwell with dignity, “I do not think I have spoken that priest’s name; or indeed any.”
“Well,” said Hubert, impatiently, “at any rate I will not see him. But I wish to say a few words about this house. We must have our positions clear. My father left to your use, did he not, the whole of the cloister-wing? I am delighted, dear mother, that he did so. You will be happy there I know; and of course I need not say that I hope you will keep your old room overhead as well; and, indeed, use the whole house as you have always done. I shall be grateful if you will superintend it all, as before—at least, until a new mistress comes.”
“Thank you, my son.”
“I will speak of that in a moment,” he went on, looking steadily at the table-cloth; “but there was a word I wished to say first. I am now a loyal subject of her Grace in all things; in religion as in all else. And—and I fear I cannot continue to entertain seminary priests as my father used to do. My—my conscience will not allow that. But of course, mother, I need not say that you are at perfect liberty to do what you will in the cloister-wing; I shall ask no questions; and I shall set no traps or spies. But I must ask that the priests do not come into this part of the house, nor walk in the garden. Fortunately you have a lawn in the cloister; so that they need not lack fresh air or exercise.”
“You need not fear, Hubert,” said his mother, “I will not embarrass you. You shall be in no danger.”
“I think you need not have said that, mother; I am not usually thought a coward.”
Lady Maxwell flushed a little, and began to finger her silver knife.
“However,” Hubert went on, “I thought it best to say that. The chapel, you see, is in that wing; and you have that lawn; and—and I do not think I am treating you hardly.”
“And is your brother James not to come?” asked his mother.
“I have thought much over that,” said Hubert; “and although it is hard to say it, I think he had better not come to my part of the house—at least not when I am here; I must know nothing of it. You must do what you think well when I am away, about him and others too. It is very difficult for me, mother; please do not add to the difficulty.”
“You need not fear,” said Lady Maxwell steadily; “you shall not be troubled with any Catholics besides ourselves.”
“Then that is arranged,” said the lad. “And now there is a word more. What have you been doing to Isabel?” And he looked sharply across the table. His mother’s eyes met his fearlessly.
“I do not understand you,” she said.
“Mother, you must know what I mean. You have seen her continually.”
“I have told you, my son, that I do not know.”
“Why,” burst out Hubert, “she is half a Catholic.”
“Thank God,” said his mother.
“Ah! yes; you thank God, I know; but whom am I to thank for it?”
“I would that you could thank Him too.”
Hubert made a sharp sound of disgust.
“Ah! yes,” he said scornfully, “I knew it;Non nobis Domine, and the rest.”
“Hubert,” said Lady Maxwell, “I do not think you mean to insult me in this house; but either that is an insult, or else I misunderstood you wholly, and must ask your pardon for it.”
“Well,” he said, in a harsh voice, “I will make myself plain. I believe that it is through the influence of you and Aunt Margaret that this has been brought about.”
At the moment he spoke the door opened.
“Come in, Margaret,” said her sister, “this concerns you.”
The old nun came across to Hubert with her anxious sweet face; and put her old hand tenderly on his black satin sleeve as he sat and wrenched at a nut between his fingers.
“Hubert, dear boy,” she said, “what is all this? Will you tell me?”
Hubert rose, a little ashamed of himself, and went to the door and closed it; and then drew out a chair for his aunt, and put a wine-glass for her.
“Sit down, aunt,” he said, and pushed the decanter towards her.
“I have just left Isabel,” she said, “she is very unhappy about something. You saw her this evening, dear lad?”
“Yes,” said Hubert, heavily, looking down at the table and taking up another nut, “and it is of that that I have been speaking. Who has made her unhappy?”
“I had hoped you would tell us that,” said Mistress Margaret; “I came up to ask you.”
“My son has done us—me—the honour——” began Lady Maxwell; but Hubert broke in:
“I left Isabel here last Christmas happy and a Protestant. I have come back here now to find her unhappy and half a Catholic, if not more—and——”
“Oh! are you sure?” asked Mistress Margaret, her eyes shining. “Thank God, if it be so!”
“Sure?” said Hubert, “why she will not marry me; at least not yet.”
“Oh, poor lad,” she said tenderly, “to have lost both God and Isabel.”
Hubert turned on her savagely. But the old nun’s eyes were steady and serene.
“Poor lad!” she said again.
Hubert looked down again; his lip wrinkled up in a little sneer.
“As far as I am concerned,” he said, “I can understand your not caring, but I am astonished at this response of yours to her father’s confidence!”
Lady Maxwell grew white to the lips.
“I have told you,” she began—“but you do not seem to believe it—that I have had nothing to do, so far as I know, with her conversion, which”—and she raised her voice bravely—“I pray God to accomplish. She has, of course, asked me questions now and then; and I have answered them—that is all.”
“And I,” said Mistress Margaret, “plead guilty to the same charge, and to no other. You are not yourself, dear boy, at present; and indeed I do not wonder at it; and I pray God to help you; but you are not yourself, or you would not speak like this to your mother.”
Hubert rose to his feet; his face was white under the tan, and the ruffle round his wrist trembled as he leaned heavily with his fingers on the table.
“I am only a plain Protestant now,” he said bitterly, “and I have been with Protestants so long that I have forgotten Catholic ways; but——”
“Stay, Hubert,” said his mother, “do not finish that. You will be sorry for it presently, if you do. Come, Margaret.” And she moved towards the door; her son went quickly past and opened it.
“Nay, nay,” said the nun. “Do you be going, Mary. Let me stay with the lad, and we will come to you presently.” Lady Maxwell bowed her head and passed out, and Hubert closed the door.
Mistress Margaret looked down on the table.
“You have given me a glass, dear boy; but no wine in it.”
Hubert took a couple of quick steps back, and faced her.
“It is no use, it is no use,” he burst out, and his voice was broken with emotion, “you cannot turn me like that. Oh, what have you done with my Isabel?” He put out his hand and seized her arm. “Give her back to me, Aunt Margaret; give her back to me.”
He dropped into his seat and hid his face on his arm; and there was a sob or two.
“Sit up and be a man, Hubert,” broke in Mistress Margaret’s voice, clear and cool.
He looked up in amazement with wet indignant eyes. She was looking at him, smiling tenderly.
“And now, for the second time, give me half a glass of wine, dear boy.”
He poured it out, bewildered at her self-control.
“For a man that has been round the world,” she said, “you are but a foolish child.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you never thought of a way of yet winning Isabel,” she asked.
“What do you mean?” he repeated.
“Why, come back to the Church, dear lad; and make your mother and me happy again, and marry Isabel, and save your own soul.”
“Aunt Margaret,” he cried, “it is impossible. I have truly lost my faith in the Catholic religion; and—and—you would not have me a hypocrite.”
“Ah! ah!” said the nun, “you cannot tell yet. Please God it may come back. Oh! dear boy, in your heart you know it is true.”
“Before God, in my heart I know that it is not true.”
“No, no, no,” she said; but the light died out of her eyes, and she stretched a tremulous hand.
“Yes, Aunt Margaret, it is so. For years and years I have been doubting; but I kept on just because it seemed to me the best religion; and—and I would not be driven out of it by her Grace’s laws against my will, like a dog stoned from his kennel.”
“But you are only a lad still,” she said piteously. He laughed a little.
“But I have had the gift of reason and discretion nearly twenty years, a priest would tell me. Besides, Aunt Margaret, I could not be such a—a cur—as to come back without believing. I could never look Isabel in the eyes again.”
“Well, well,” said the old lady, “let us wait and see. Do you intend to be here now for a while?”
“Not while Isabel is like this,” he said. “I could not. I must go away for a while, and then come back and ask her again.”
“When will she decide?”
“She told me by next Easter,” said Hubert. “Oh, Aunt Margaret, pray for us both.”
The light began to glimmer again in her eyes.
“There, dear boy,” she said, “you see you believe in prayer still.”
“But, aunt,” said Hubert, “why should I not? Protestants pray.”
“Well, well,” said the old nun again. “Now you must come to your mother; and—and be good to her.”
CHAPTER V
THE COMING OF THE JESUITS
The effect on Anthony of Mr. Buxton’s conversation was very considerable. He had managed to keep his temper very well during the actual interview; but he broke out alone afterwards, at first with an angry contempt. The absurd arrogance of the man made him furious—the arrogance that had puffed away England and its ambitions and its vigour—palpable evidences of life and reality, and further of God’s blessing—in favour of a miserable Latin nation which had the presumption to claim the possession of Peter’s Chair and of the person of the Vicar of Christ! Test it, said the young man to himself, by the ancient Fathers and Councils that Dr. Jewel quoted so learnedly, and the preposterous claim crumbled to dust. Test it, yet again, by the finger of Providence; and God Himself proclaimed that the pretensions of the spiritual kingdom, of which the prisoner in the cell had bragged, are but a blasphemous fable. And Anthony reminded himself of the events of the previous year.
Three great assaults had been made by the Papists to win back England to the old Religion. Dr. William Allen, the founder of Douai College, had already for the last seven or eight years been pouring seminary priests into England, and over a hundred and twenty were at work among their countrymen, preparing the grand attack. This was made in three quarters at once.
In Scotland it was chiefly political, and Anthony thought, with a bitter contempt, of the Count d’Aubigny, Esmé Stuart, who was supposed to be an emissary of the Jesuits; how he had plotted with ecclesiastics and nobles, and professed Protestantism to further his ends; and of all the stories of his duplicity and evil-living, told round the guard-room fire.
In Ireland the attempt was little else than ludicrous. Anthony laughed fiercely to himself as he pictured the landing of the treacherous fools at Dingle, of Sir James FitzMaurice and his lady, very wretched and giddy after their voyage, and the barefooted friars, and Dr. Sanders, and the banner so solemnly consecrated; and of the sands of Smerwick, when all was over a year later, and the six hundred bodies, men and women who had preferred Mr. Buxton’s spiritual kingdom to Elizabeth’s kindly rule, stripped and laid out in rows, like dead game, for Lord Grey de Wilton to reckon them by.
But his heart sank a little as he remembered the third method of attack, and of the coming of the Jesuits. By last July all London knew that they were here, and men’s hearts were shaken with apprehension. They reminded one another of the April earthquake that had tolled the great Westminster bell, and thrown down stones from the churches. One of the Lambeth guards, a native of Blunsdon, in Wiltshire, had told Anthony himself that a pack of hell-hounds had been heard there, in full cry after a ghostly quarry. Phantom ships had been seen from Bodmin attacking a phantom castle that rode over the waves off the Cornish coast. An old woman of Blasedon had given birth to a huge-headed monster with the mouth of a mouse, eight legs, and a tail; and, worse than all, it was whispered in the Somersetshire inns that three companies of black-robed men, sixty in number, had been seen, coming and going overhead in the gloom. These two strange emissaries, Fathers Persons and Campion—how they appealed to the imagination, lurking under a hundred disguises, now of servants, now of gentlemen of means and position! It was known that they were still in England, going about doing good, their friends said who knew them; stirring up the people, their enemies said who were searching for them. Anthony had seen with his own eyes some of the papers connected with their presence—that containing a statement of their objects in coming, namely, that they were spiritual not political agents, seeking recruits for Christ and for none else; Campion’s “Challenge and Brag,” offering to meet any English Divine on equal terms in a public disputation; besides one or two of the controversial pamphlets, purporting to be printed at Douai, but really emanating from a private printing-press in England, as the Government experts had discovered from an examination of the water-marks of the paper employed.
Yet as the weeks went by, and his first resentment cooled, Mr. Buxton’s arguments more and more sank home, for they had touched the very point where Anthony had reckoned that his own strength lay. He had never before heard Nationalism and Catholicism placed in such flat antithesis. In fact, he had never before really heard the statement of the Catholic position; and his fierce contempt gradually melted into respect. Both theories had a concrete air of reality about them; his own imaged itself under the symbols of England’s power; the National Church appealed to him so far as it represented the spiritual side of the English people; and Mr. Buxton’s conception appealed to him from its very audacity. This great spiritual kingdom, striding on its way, trampling down the barriers of temperament and nationality, disregarding all earthly limitations and artificial restraints, imperiously dominating the world in spite of the world’s struggles and resentment—this, after all, as he thought over it, was—well—was a new aspect of affairs. The coming of the Jesuits, too, emphasised the appeal: here were two men, as the world itself confessed, of exceptional ability—for Campion had been a famous Oxford orator, and Persons a Fellow of Balliol—choosing, under a free-will obedience, first a life of exile, and then one of daily peril and apprehension, the very thought of which burdened the imagination with horror; hunted like vermin, sleeping and faring hard, their very names detested by the majority of their countrymen, with the shadow of the gallows moving with them, and the reek of the hangman’s cauldron continually in their nostrils—and for what? For Mr. Buxton’s spiritual kingdom! Well, Anthony thought to himself as the weeks went by and his new thoughts sank deeper, if it is all a superstitious dream, at least it is a noble one!
What, too, was the answer, he asked himself, that England gave to Father Campion’s challenge, and the defence that the Government was preparing against the spiritual weapons of the Jesuits? New prisons at Framingham and Battersea; new penalties enacted by Parliament; and, above all, the unanswerable argument of the rack, and the gallows finally to close the discussion. And what of the army that was being set in array against the priests, and that was even now beginning to scour the country round Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and London? Anthony had to confess to himself that they were queer allies for the servants of Christ; for traitors, liars, and informers were among the most trusted Government agents.
In short, as the spring drew on, Anthony was not wholly happy. Again and again in his own room he studied a little manuscript translation of Father Campion’s “Ten Reasons,” that had been taken from a popish prisoner, and that a friend had given him; and as he read its exultant rhetoric, he wondered whether the writer was indeed as insincere and treacherous as Mr. Scot declared. There seemed in the paper a reckless outspokenness, calculated rather to irritate than deceive.
“I turn to the Sacraments,” he read, “none, none, not two, not one, O holy Christ, have they left. Their very bread is poison. Their baptism, though it be true, yet in their judgment is nothing. It is not the saving water! It is not the channel of Grace! It brings not Christ’s merits to us! It is but a sign of salvation!” And again the writer cried to Elizabeth to return to the ancient Religion, and to be in truth what she was in name, the Defender of the Faith.
“‘Kings shall be thy nursing fathers,’ thus Isaiah sang, ‘and Queens thy nursing mothers.’ Listen, Elizabeth, most Mighty Queen! To thee the great Prophet sings! He teaches thee thy part. Join then thyself to these princes!... O Elizabeth, a day, a day shall come that shall show thee clearly which have loved thee the better, the Society ofJesusor Luther’s brood!”
What arrogance, thought Anthony to himself, and what assurance too!
Meanwhile in the outer world things were not reassuring to the friends of the Government: it was true that half a dozen priests had been captured and examined by torture, and that Sir George Peckham himself, who was known to have harboured Campion, had been committed to the Marshalsea; but yet the Jesuits’ influence was steadily on the increase. More and more severe penalties had been lately enacted; it was now declared to be high treason to reconcile or be reconciled to the Church of Rome; overwhelming losses in fortune as well as liberty were threatened against all who said or heard Mass or refused to attend the services of the Establishment; but, as was discovered from papers that fell from time to time into the hands of the Government agents, the only answer of the priests was to inveigh more strenuously against even occasional conformity, declaring it to be the mortal sin of schism, if not of apostasy, to put in an appearance under any circumstances, except those of actual physical compulsion, at the worship in the parish churches. Worse than all, too, was the fact that this severe gospel began to prevail; recusancy was reported to be on the increase in all parts of the country; and many of the old aristocracy began to return to the faith of their fathers: Lords Arundel, Oxford, Vaux, Henry Howard, and Sir Francis Southwell were all beginning to fall under the suspicion of the shrewdest Government spies.
The excitement at Lambeth ran higher day by day as the summer drew on; the net was being gradually contracted in the home counties; spies were reported to be everywhere, in inns, in the servants’ quarters of gentlemen’s houses, lounging at cross roads and on village greens. Campion’s name was in every mouth. Now they were on his footsteps, it was said; now he was taken; now he was gone back to France; now he was in London; now in Lancashire; and each rumour in turn corrected its predecessor.
Anthony shared to the full in the excitement; the figure of the quarry, after which so many hawks were abroad, appealed to his imagination. He dreamed of him at night, once as a crafty-looking man with narrow eyes and stooping shoulders, that skulked and ran from shadow to shadow across a moonlit country; once as a ruddy-faced middle-aged gentleman riding down a crowded street; and several times as a kind of double of Mr. Stewart, whom he had never forgotten, since he had watched him in the little room of Maxwell Hall, gallant and alert among his enemies.
At last one day in July, as it drew on towards evening, and as Anthony was looking over the stable-accounts in his little office beyond the Presence Chamber, a buzz of talk and footsteps broke out in the court below; and a moment later the Archbishop’s body-servant ran in to say that his Grace wished to see Mr. Norris at once in the gallery that opened out of the guard-room.
“And I think it is about the Jesuits, sir,” added the man, evidently excited.
Anthony ran down at once and found his master pacing up and down, with a courier waiting near the steps at the lower end that led to Chichele’s tower. The Archbishop stopped by a window, emblazoned with Cardinal Pole’s emblem, and beckoned to him.
“See here, Master Norris,” he said, “I have received news that Campion is at last taken: it may well be false, as so often before; but take horse, if you please, and ride into the city and find the truth for me. I will not send a groom; they believe the maddest tales. You are at liberty?” he added courteously.
“Yes, your Grace, I will ride immediately.”
As he rode down the river-bank towards London Bridge ten minutes later, he could not help feeling some dismay as well as excitement at the news he was to verify. And yet what other end was possible? But what a doom for the brilliant Oxford orator, even though he had counted the cost!
Streams of excited people were pouring across the bridge into the city; Campion’s name was on every tongue; and Anthony, as he passed under the high gate, noticed a man point up at the grim spiked heads above it, and laugh to his companion. There seemed little doubt, from the unanimity of those whom he questioned, that the rumour was true; and some even said that the Jesuit was actually passing down Cheapside on his way to the Tower. When at last Anthony came to the thoroughfare the crowd was as dense as for a royal progress. He checked his horse at the door of an inn-yard, and asked an ostler that stood there what it was all about.
“It is Campion, the Jesuit, sir,” said the man. “He has been taken at Lyford, and is passing here presently.”
The man had hardly finished speaking when a yell came from the end of the street, and groans and hoots ran down the crowd. Anthony turned in his saddle, and saw a great stir and movement, and then horses’ and men’s heads moving slowly down over the seething surface of the crowd, as if swimming in a rough sea. He could make little out, as the company came towards him, but the faces of the officers and pursuivants who rode in the front rank, four or five abreast; then followed the faces of three or four others, also riding between guards, and Anthony looked eagerly at them; but they were simple faces enough, a little pale and quiet; one was like a farmer’s, ruddy and bearded;—surely Campion could not be among those! Then more and more, riding two and two, with a couple of armed guards with each pair; some looked like country-men or servants, some like gentlemen, and one or two might be priests; but the crowd seemed to pay them no attention beyond a glance or two. Ah! what was this coming behind?
There was a space behind the last row of guards, and then came a separate troop riding all together, of half a dozen men at least, and one in the centre, with something white in his hat. The ferment round this group was tremendous; men were leaping up and yelling, like hounds round a carted stag; clubs shot up menacingly, and a storm of ceaseless execration raged outside the compact square of guards who sat alert and ready to beat off an attack. Once a horse kicked fiercely as a man sprang to his hind-quarters, and there was a scream of pain and a burst of laughing.
Anthony sat trembling with excitement as the first group had passed, and this second began to come opposite the entrance where he sat. This then was the man!
The rider in the centre sat his horse somewhat stiffly, and Anthony saw that his elbows were bound behind his back, and his hands in front; the reins were drawn over his horse’s head and a pursuivant held them on either side. The man was dressed as a layman, in a plumed hat and a buff jerkin, such as soldiers or plain country-gentlemen might use; and in the hat was a great paper with an inscription. Anthony spelt it out.
“Campion, the Seditious Jesuit.”
Then he looked at the man’s face.
It was a comely refined face, a little pale but perfectly serene: his pointed dark brown beard and moustache were carefully trimmed; and his large passionate eyes looked cheerfully about him. Anthony stared at him, wholly fascinated; for above the romance that hung about the hunted priest and the glamour of the dreaded Society which he represented, there was a chivalrous fearless look in his face that drew the heart of the young man almost irresistibly. At least he did not look like the skulking knave at whom all the world was sneering, and of whom Anthony had dreamt so vividly a few nights before.
The storm of execration from the faces below, and the faces crowding at the windows, seemed to affect him not at all; and he looked from side to side as if they were cheering him rather than crying against him. Once his eyes met Anthony’s and rested on them for a moment; and a strange thrill ran through him and he shivered sharply.
And yet he felt, too, a distinct and irresistible movement of attraction towards this felon who was riding towards his agony and passion; and he was conscious at the same time of that curious touch of wonder that he had felt years before towards the man whipped at the cart’s tail, as to whether the solitary criminal were not in the right, and the clamorous accusers in the wrong. Campion in a moment had passed on and turned his head.
In that moment, too, Anthony caught a sudden clear instantaneous impression of a group of faces in the window opposite. There were a couple of men in front, stout city personages no doubt, with crimson faces and open mouths cursing the traitorous Papist and the crafty vagrant fox trapped at last; but between them, looking over their shoulders, was a woman’s face in which Anthony saw the most intense struggle of emotions. The face was quite white, the lips parted, the eyes straining, and sorrow and compassion were in every line, as she watched the cheerful priest among his warders; and yet there rested on it, too, a strange light as of triumph. It was the face of one who sees victory even at the hour of supremest failure. In an instant more the face had withdrawn itself into the darkness of the room.
When the crowds had surged down the street in the direction of the Tower, yelling in derision as Campion saluted the lately defaced Cheapside Cross, Anthony guided his horse out through the dispersing groups, realising as he did so, with a touch of astonishment at the coincidence, that he had been standing almost immediately under the window whence he and Isabel had leaned out so many years before.
The sun was going down behind the Abbey as he rode up towards Lambeth, and the sky above and the river beneath were as molten gold. The Abbey itself, with Westminster Hall and the Houses of Parliament below, stood up like mystical palaces against the sunset; and it seemed to Anthony as he rode, as if God Himself were illustrating in glorious illumination the closing pages of that human life of which a glimpse had opened to him in Cheapside. It did not appear to him as it had done in the days of his boyish love as if heaven and earth were a stage for himself to walk and pose upon; but he felt intensely now the dominating power of the personality of the priest; and that he himself was no more than a spectator of this act of a tragedy of which the priest was both hero and victim, and for which this evening glory formed so radiant a scene. The old intellectual arguments against the cause that the priest represented for the moment were drowned in this flood of splendour. When he arrived at Lambeth and had reached the Archbishop’s presence, he told him the news briefly, and went to his room full of thought and perplexity.
In a few days the story of Campion’s arrest was known far and wide. It had been made possible by the folly of one Catholic and the treachery of another; and when Anthony heard it, he was stirred still more by the contrast between the Jesuit and his pursuers. The priest had returned to the moated grange at Lyford, after having already paid as long a visit there as was prudent, owing to the solicitations of a number of gentlemen who had ridden after him and his companion, and who wished to hear his eloquence. He had returned there again, said mass on the Sunday morning, and preached afterwards, from a chair set before the altar, a sermon on the tears of the Saviour over apostate Jerusalem. But a false disciple had been present who had come in search of one Payne; and this man, known afterwards by the Catholics as Judas Eliot or Eliot Iscariot, had gathered a number of constables and placed them about the manor-house; and before the sermon was over he went out quickly from the table of the Lord, the house was immediately surrounded, and the alarm was raised by a watcher placed in one of the turrets after Eliot’s suspicious departure. The three priests present, Campion and two others, were hurried into a hiding-hole over the stairs. The officers entered, searched, and found nothing; and were actually retiring, when Eliot succeeded in persuading them to try again; they searched again till dark, and still found nothing. Mrs. Yate encouraged them to stay the night in the house, and entertained them with ale; and then when all was quiet, insisted on hearing some parting words from her eloquent guest. He came out into the room where she had chosen to spend the night until the officers were gone; and the rest of the Catholics, some Brigittine nuns and others, met there through private passages and listened to him for the last time. As the company was dispersing one of the priests stumbled and fell, making a noise that roused the sentry outside. Again the house was searched, and again with no success. In despair they were leaving it, when Jenkins, Eliot’s companion, who was coming downstairs with a servant of the house, beat with his stick on the wall, saying that they had not searched there. It was noticed that the servant showed signs of agitation; and men were fetched to the spot; the wall was beaten in and the three priests were found together, having mutually shriven one another, and made themselves ready for death.
Campion was taken out and sent first to the Sheriff of Berkshire, and then on towards London on the following day.
The summer days went by, and every day brought its fresh rumour about Campion. Sir Owen Hopton, Governor of the Tower, who at first had committed his prisoner to Little-Ease, now began to treat him with more honour; he talked, too, mysteriously, of secret interviews and promises and understandings; and gradually it began to get about that Campion was yielding to kindness; that he had seen the Queen; that he was to recant at Paul’s Cross; and even that he was to have the See of Canterbury. This last rumour caused great indignation at Lambeth, and Anthony was more pressed than ever to get what authentic news he could of the Jesuit. Then at the beginning of August came a burst of new tales; he had been racked, it was said, and had given up a number of names; and as the month went by more and more details, authentic and otherwise, were published. Those favourably inclined to the Catholics were divided in opinion; some feared that he had indeed yielded to an excess of agony; others, and these proved to be in the right when the truth came out, that he had only given up names which were already known to the authorities; though even for this he asked public pardon on the scaffold.
Towards the end of August the Archbishop again sent expressly for Anthony and bade him accompany his chaplain on the following day to the Tower, to be present at the public disputation that was to take place between English divines and the Jesuit.
“Now he will have the chance he craved for,” said Grindal. “He hath bragged that he would meet any and all in dispute, and now the Queen’s clemency hath granted it him.”
On the following day in the early morning sunshine the minister and Anthony rode down together to the Tower, where they arrived a few minutes before eight o’clock, and were passed through up the stairs into St. John’s chapel to the seats reserved for them.
It was indeed true that the authorities had determined to give Campion his chance, but they had also determined to make it as small as possible. He was not even told that the discussion was to take place until the morning of its occasion, and he was allowed no opportunity for developing his own theological position; the entire conduct of the debate was in the hands of his adversaries; he might only parry, seldom riposte, and never attack.
When Anthony found himself in his seat he looked round the chapel. Almost immediately opposite him, on a raised platform against a pillar, stood two high seats occupied by Deans Nowell and Day, who were to conduct the disputation, and who were now talking with their heads together while a secretary was arranging a great heap of books on the table before them. On either side, east and west, stretched chairs for the divines that were to support them in debate, should they need it; and the platform on which Anthony himself had a chair was filled with a crowd of clergy and courtiers laughing and chatting together. A little table, also heaped with books, with seats for the notaries, stood in the centre of the nave, and not far from it were a number of little wooden stools which the prisoners were to occupy. Plainly they were to be allowed no advisers and no books; even the physical support of table and chairs was denied to them in spite of their weary racked bodies. The chapel, bright with the morning sunlight that streamed in through the east windows of the bare Norman sanctuary, hummed with the talk and laughter of those who had come to see the priest-baiting and the vindication of the Protestant Religion; though, as Anthony looked round, he saw here and there an anxious or a downcast face of some unknown friend of the Papists.
He himself was far from easy in his mind. He had been studying Campion’s “Ten Reasons” more earnestly than ever, and was amazed to find that the very authorities to which Dr. Jewel deferred, namely, the Scriptures interpreted by Fathers and Councils and illustrated by History, were exactly Campion’s authorities, too; and that the Jesuit’s appeal to them was no less confident than the Protestant’s. That fact had, of course, suggested the thought that if there were no further living authority in existence to decide between these two scholars, Christendom was in a poor position. When doctors differed, where was the layman to turn? To his own private judgment, said the Protestant. But then Campion’s private judgment led him to submit to the Catholic claim! This then at present weighed heavily on Anthony’s mind. Was there or was there not an authority on earth capable of declaring to him the Revelation of God? For the first time he was beginning to feel a logical and spiritual necessity for an infallible external Judge in matters of faith; and that the Catholic Church was the only system that professed to supply it. The question of the existence of such an authority was, with the doctrine of justification, one of those subjects continually in men’s minds and conversations, and to Anthony, unlike others, it appeared more fundamental even than its companion. All else seemed secondary. Indulgences, the Mass, Absolution, the Worship of Mary and the Saints—all these must stand or fall on God’s authority made known to man. The one question for him was, Where was that authority to be certainly found?
There came the ringing tramp of footsteps; the buzz of talk ceased and then broke out again, as the prisoners, with all eyes bent upon them, surrounded by a strong guard of pikemen, were seen advancing up the chapel from the north-west door towards the stools set ready for them. Anthony had no eyes but for Campion who limped in front, supported on either side by a warder. He could scarcely believe at first that this was the same priest who had ridden so bravely down Cheapside. Now he was bent, and walked like an old broken man; his face was deathly pale, with shadows and lines about his eyes, and his head trembled a little. There were one or two exclamations of pity, for all knew what had caused the change; and Anthony heard an undertone moan of sorrow and anger from some one in a seat behind him.
The prisoners sat down; and the guards went to their places. Campion took his seat in front, and turned immediately from side to side, running his dark eyes along the faces to see where were his adversaries; and once more Anthony met his eyes, and thrilled at it. Through the pallor and pain of his face, the same chivalrous spirit looked out and called for homage and love, that years ago at Oxford had made young men, mockingly nicknamed after their leader, to desire his praise more passionately than anything on earth, and even to imitate his manners and dress and gait, for very loyalty and devotion. Anthony could not take his eyes off him; he watched the clear-cut profile of his face thrown fearlessly forward, waited in tense expectation to hear him speak, and paid no attention to the whisperings of the chaplain beside him.
Presently the debate began. It was opened by Dean Nowell from his high seat, who assured Father Campion of the disinterested motives of himself and his reverend friends in holding this disputation. It was, after all, only what the priest had demanded; and they trusted by God’s grace that they would do him good and help him to see the truth. There was no unfairness, said the Dean, who seemed to think that some apology was needed, in taking him thus unprepared, since the subject of debate would be none other than Campion’s own book. The Jesuit looked up, nodded his head, and smiled.
“I thank you, Mr. Dean,” he said, in his deep resonant voice, and there fell a dead hush as he spoke. “I thank you for desiring to do me good, and to take up my challenge; but I must say that I would I had understood of your coming, that I might have made myself ready.”
Campion’s voice thrilled strangely through Anthony, as the glance from his eyes had done. It was so assured, so strong and delicate an instrument, and so supremely at its owner’s command, that it was hardly less persuasive than his personality and his learning that made themselves apparent during the day. And Anthony was not alone in his impressions of the Jesuit. Lord Arundel afterwards attributed his conversion to Campion’s share in the discussions. Again and again during the day a murmur of applause followed some of the priest’s clean-cut speeches and arguments, and a murmur of disapproval the fierce thrusts and taunts of his opponents; and by the end of the day’s debate, so marked was the change of attitude of the crowd that had come to triumph over the Papist, and so manifest their sympathy with the prisoners, that it was thought advisable to exclude the public from the subsequent discussions.
On this first day, all manner of subjects were touched upon, such as the comparative leniency of Catholic and Protestant governments, the position of Luther with regard to the Epistle of St. James, and other matters comparatively unimportant, in the discussion of which a great deal of time was wasted. Campion entreated his opponents to leave such minor questions alone, and to come to doctrinal matters; but they preferred to keep to details rather than to principles, and the priest had scarcely any opportunity to state his positive position at all. The only doctrinal matter seriously touched upon was that of Justification by Faith; and texts were flung to and fro without any great result. “We are justified by faith,” cried one side. “Though I have all faith and have not charity, I am nothing,” cried the other. The effect on Anthony of this day’s debate arose rather from the victorious personality of the priest than from his arguments. His gaiety, too, was in strange contrast to the solemn Puritanism of his enemies. For instance, he was on the point that Councils might err in matters of fact, but that the Scriptures could not.
“As for example,” he said, his eyes twinkling out of his drawn face, “I am bound under pain of damnation to believe that Toby’s dog had a tail, because it is written, he wagged it.”
The Deans looked sternly at him, as the audience laughed.
“Now, now,” said one of them, “it becomes not to deal so triflingly with matters of weight.”
Campion dropped his eyes, demurely, as if reproved.
“Why, then,” he said, “if this example like you not, take another. I must believe that Saint Paul had a cloak, because he willeth Timothy to bring it with him.”
Again the crowd laughed; and Anthony laughed, too, with a strange sob in his throat at the gallant foolery, which, after all, was as much to the point as a deal that the Deans were saying.
But the second day’s debate, held in Hopton’s Hall, was on more vital matters; and Anthony again and again found himself leaning forward breathlessly, as Drs. Goode and Fulke on the one side, and Campion on the other, respectively attacked and defended the Doctrine of the Visible Church; for this, for Anthony, was one of the crucial points of the dispute between Catholicism and Protestantism. Anthony believed already that the Church was one; and if it was visible, surely, he thought to himself, it must be visibly one; and in that case, it is evident where that Church is to be found. But if it is invisible, it may be invisibly one, and then as far as that matter is concerned, he may rest in the Church of England. If not—and then he recoiled from the gulf that opened.
“It must be an essential mark of the Church,” said Campion, “and such a quality as is inseparable. It must be visible, as fire is hot, and water moist.”
Goode answered that when Christ was taken and the Apostles fled, then at least the Church was invisible; and if then, why not always?
“It was a Church inchoate,” answered the priest, “beginning, not perfect.”
But Goode continued to insist that the true Church is known only to God, and therefore invisible.
“There are many wolves within,” he said, “and many sheep without.”
“I know not who is elect,” retorted Campion, “but I know who is a Catholic.”
“Only the elect are of the Church,” said Goode.
“I say that both good and evil are of the visible Church,” answered the other.
“To be elect or true members of Christ is one thing,” went on Goode, “and to be in the visible Church is another.”
As the talk went on, Anthony began to see where the confusion lay. The Protestants were anxious to prove that membership in a visible body did not ensure salvation but then the Catholics never claimed that it did; the question was: Did or did not Christ intend there to be a visible Church, membership in which should be the normal though not the infallible means of salvation?
They presently got on to thea prioripoint as to whether a visible Church would seem to be a necessity.
“There is a perpetual commandment,” said the priest, “in Matthew eighteen—‘Tell the Church’; but that cannot be unless the Church is visible;ergo, the visibility of the Church is continual.”
“When there is an established Church,” said Goode, “this remedy is to be sought for. But this cannot be always had.”
“The disease is continual,” answered Campion; “ergothe remedy must be continual.” Then he left thea prioriground and entered theirs. “To whom should I have gone,” he cried, “before Luther’s time? What prelates should I have made my complaint unto in those days? Where was your Church nine hundred years ago? Whose were John Huss, Jerome of Prague, the Waldenses? Were they yours?” Then he turned scornfully to Fulke, “Help him, Master Doctor.”
And Fulke repeated Goode’s assertion, that valuable as the remedy is, it cannot always be had.
Anthony sat back, puzzled. Both sides seemed right. Persecution must often hinder the full privileges of Church membership and the exercise of discipline. Yet the question was, What was Christ’s intention? Was it that the Church should be visible? It seemed that even the ministers allowed that, now. And if so, why then the Catholic’s claim that Christ’s intention had never been wholly frustrated, but that a visible unity was to be found amongst themselves—surely this was easier to believe than the Protestant theory that the Church which had been visible for fifteen centuries was not really the Church at all; but that the true Church had been invisible—in spite of Christ’s intention—during all that period, and was now to be found only in small separated bodies scattered here and there. How of the prevailing of the gates of hell, if that were allowed to be true?
At two o’clock they reassembled for the afternoon conference; and now they got even closer to the heart of the matter, for the subject was to be, whether the Church could err?
Fulke asserted that it could, and did; and made a syllogism:
“Whatsoever error is incident to every member, is incident to the whole. But it is incident to every member to err;ergo, to the whole.”
“I deny bothmajorandminor,” said Campion quietly. “Every man may err, but not the whole gathered together; for the whole hath a promise, but so hath not every particular man.”
Fulke denied this stoutly, and beat on the table.
“Every member hath the spirit of Christ,” he said, “which is the spirit of truth; and therefore hath the same promise that the whole hath.”
“Why, then,” said Campion, smiling, “there should be no heretics.”
“Yes,” answered Fulke, “heretics may be within the Church, but not of the Church.”
And so they found themselves back again where they started from.
Anthony sat back on the oak bench and sighed, and glanced round at the interested faces of the theologians and the yawns of the amateurs, as the debate rolled on over the old ground, and touched on free will, and grace, and infant baptism; until the Lieutenant interposed:
“Master Doctors,” he said, with a judicial air, “the question that was appointed before dinner was, whether the visible Church may err”—to which Goode retorted that the digressions were all Campion’s fault.
Then the debate took the form of contradictions.
“Whatsoever congregation doth err in matters of faith,” said Goode, “is not the true Church; but the Church of Rome erreth in matters of faith;ergo, it is not the true Church.”
“I deny yourminor,” said Campion, “the Church of Rome hath not erred.” Then the same process was repeated over the Council of Trent; and the debate whirled off once more into details and irrelevancies about imputed righteousness, and the denial of the Cup to the laity.
Again the audience grew restless. They had not come there, most of them, to listen to theological minutiæ, but to see sport; and this interminable chopping of words that resulted in nothing bored them profoundly. A murmur of conversation began to buzz on all sides.
Campion was in despair.
“Thus shall we run into all questions,” he cried hopelessly, “and then we shall have done this time twelve months.”
But Fulke would not let him be; but pressed on a question about the Council of Nice.
“Now we shall have the matter of images,” sighed Campion.
“You arenimis acutus,” retorted Fulke, “you will leap over the stile or ever you come to it. I mean not to speak of images.”
And so with a few more irrelevancies the debate ended.
The third debate in September (on the twenty-third), at which Anthony was again present, was on the subject of the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament.