The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary - Robert Hugh Benson (reading eggs books txt) 📗

doing.)

"Oho!" said the officer, "that is all that you have done to his grace! I would advise you, sir, not to play the fool with me. We know very well what you have done; but we would know from you how and when you did it."

Master Richard said nothing to that. He felt very light in the head, what with his wounds and the bad air, and the strangeness of the position. He knew that he was smiling, but he could not prevent it. His smiling angered the man.

"You dare smile at me, sir!" he cried. "I will teach you to smile!"--and he struck the table with his hand, so that the ink-horn danced upon it.

"I cannot help smiling," said Master Richard. "I think I am faint, sir."

One of the men shook him by the arm, and Master Richard's sense came back a little.

When he could see again clearly (for just now the face of the officer and the woodwork behind him swam like images seen in water), Master-Lieutenant had a little bottle in his hand. He bade Master Richard look upon it and asked him what it was.

"I think it to be my Quinte Essence" said Master Richard.

"You acknowledge that then!" cries the man. "And what is Quinte Essence?"

"It is distilled of blood" said Master Richard.

The officer set the bottle down again upon the table.

"Now sir" he said, "that is enough to cast you. None who was a Christian man would have such a thing. Say _paternoster_." [This seems to have been one of the tests in trials for witchcraft.]

"_Paternoster_ ..." began Master Richard.

Now, my children, I cannot explain what this signified, but Master Richard could get no further than that. I know that I myself cannot say any of the prayers of mass when I am away from the altar, and other priests have told me the same of themselves, but it seems to me very strange that a man should not at any time be able to say _paternoster_. Whether it was that Master Richard was sick, or that the officer's face troubled him, or whether that God Almighty desired to put him to a grievous test, I know not. But he could not say it. He repeated over and over again, _Paternoster ... Paternoster_, and swayed as he stood.

The officer's face grew dark and a little afraid; he blessed himself three or four times, and breathed through his nostrils heavily. Master Richard felt himself smiling again, and presently fell to laughing, and as he laughed he perceived that the men who held him drew away from him a little, and blessed themselves too.

"I cannot help it," sobbed Master Richard presently, "to think that I cannot say _paternoster_!"

When he had recovered himself somewhat, he perceived that the two other men were come up behind him.

Then the officer bade him turn and look, and he did so, with the tears of that dreadful laughter still upon his cheeks.

The two men were standing there; one had a great hangman's whip of leather in his hand, and the other a rope.

"Now, sir;" said the officer behind him, "here is enough authority for you and me. Shall I bid them begin, or will you tell us what it is that you have done to the King?"

Now, Master Richard had nothing to tell, as you know; he could not have saved himself in any case from the torment, but our Lord allowed him to have this trial, to see how he would bear himself. He might have cried out for mercy, or told a false tale as men so often have done, but he did neither of these things. The laughter again rose in his throat, but he drove it down, and after looking upon the men's faces and the arms of the man that held the whip, he turned once more to the officer.

"I have scourged myself too often," he said, "to fear such pain; and our Saviour bore stripes for me."

Then (for the men had released him that he might turn round) he undid the button at his throat, and threw back the kirtle, knotting the sleeves about his waist, and so stood, naked to his middle, awaiting the punishment.

He told me afterwards that never had he felt such lightness and freedom as he felt at this time. His body yearned for the pain, as it yearned for the sting and thrill of cold water on a cold day. When he was telling me, I understood better how it was that the holy martyrs were so merry in the midst of their torments. [Sir John relates at considerable length the Acts of St. Laurence and St. Sebastian.]....

When the officer had looked on him a moment, he bade him turn round, and so, I suppose, sat staring upon the youth's holy shoulders that were covered with the old stripes that he had given himself. At last Master Richard faced about again; and again, as he looked upon the solemn face of the man, he began to laugh. It seemed a marvellous jest, he thought, that so long a consideration should be given to so small a matter as a whipping. I am glad I was not there to bear that laughter; I think it would quite have broken my heart.

* * * * *


Well, my children, I cannot write what followed, but the end of it was that the post to which Master Richard's hands were tied, and the face of Master-Lieutenant standing behind it, and the wall behind him with the weapons upon it, grew white and frosted to the young man's eyes, and began to toss up and down, and a great roaring sounded in his ears. He thought, he told me afterwards, that he was on Calvary beneath the rood, and that the rocks were rending about him.

So he swooned clean away, and was carried back again to his prison.

* * * * *


Now I learned afterwards that the officer had no authority such as he pretended, but that he had sworn to his fellows that he could find out the truth by a pretence of it, thinking Master Richard to be a poor crazed fool who would cry out and confess at the touch of the whip.

But Master Richard did not cry out for mercy. And I hold that he passed this first trial bravely.



Of the Second Temptation of Master Richard: and how he overcame it

Exacuerunt ut gladium linguas suas: interderunt arcum rem amaram: ut sagittent in occultis immaculatum.

They have whetted their tongues like a sword: they have bent their bow a bitter thing, to shoot in secret the undefiled.--Ps. lxiii, 4, 5.

X


As Master Richard had striven to serve God in the trinity of his nature, so was he to be tried in the trinity of his nature. It was first in his body that he was tempted, by pain and the fear of it; and his second trial came later in the same day--which was in his mind.

He lay abed that morning till his dinner was brought to him, knowing sometimes what passed--how a rat came out and looked on him awhile, moving its whiskers; how the patch of sunlight upon the wall darkened and passed; and how a bee came in and hummed a great while in the room; and sometimes conscious of nothing but his own soul. He could make no effort, he told me, and he did not attempt it. He only lay still, committing himself to God Almighty.

He could not eat the meat, even had he wished it, but he drank a little broth and ate some bread, and then slept again.

* * * * *


He did not know what time it was when he awoke and found one by his bed, looking down on him, he thought, compassionately. It was growing towards evening, for it way darker, or else his eyes were heavy and confused with sickness, but he could not see very clearly the face of the man who stood by him.

The man presently kneeled down by the bed, murmuring with pity as it seemed, and Master Richard felt himself raised a little, and then laid down again, and there was something soft at the nape of his neck over the wooden pillow and against his torn shoulders. There was something, too, laid across his body and legs, as if to keep him from chill.

He said nothing for a while; he did not know what to say, but he looked steadily at the face that looked on him, and saw that it was that of a young man, not five years older than himself, shaven clean like a clerk, and the eyes of him seemed pitiful and loving.

"_Laudetur Jesus Christus!_" said Master Richard presently, as his custom was when he awoke.

"_Amen_," said the man beside the bed.

That comforted Master Richard a little--that the man should say _Amen_ to his praise of Jesu Christ, so he asked him who he was and what he did there.

The young man said nothing to that, but asked him instead how he did, and his voice was so smooth and tender that Master Richard was further encouraged.

"I do far better than our Lord did," he answered. "He had none to minister to Him."

It seemed that the young man was moved at that, for he hid his face in his hands a moment.

Then he began to pity Master Richard, saying that it was a shame that he had been so evilly treated, and that Master-Lieutenant should smart for it if it ever came to his grace's ears. But he said this so strangely that Master Richard was astonished.

"And how does the King do?" he asked.

"The King is at the point of death," said the young man solemnly.

"It is no more than the point then," said Master Richard confidently, "and a point that will not pierce him, else what of the passion that he must suffer?"

The young man seemed to look on him very steadily and earnestly at that.

"Why do you look at me like that?" he asked him. "I have done nothing to his grace save give my tidings."

"Master Hermit," said the young man very gravely, "I entreat you not to speak like that."

"How should I speak then?" he asked.

The young man did not answer immediately, but he moved on his knees a little closer to the bed, and took Master Richard's hand softly between his own, and so held it, caressing it. Master Richard told me that this action moved him more than all else; he felt the tears rise to his eyes, and he gave a sob or two. It is always so with noble natures after great pain. [Sir John relates here the curious history of a girl who