By What Authority? - Robert Hugh Benson (ebook reader for pc txt) 📗

I are not one in religion, sir, wherefore I pray you content yourself. I bar none of prayer, but I only desire them of the household of faith to pray with me; and in mine agony to say one creed."

Again he closed his eyes.

"Pater noster qui es in caelis."...

"Pray in English, pray in English!" shouted a voice from the minister's group.

Once more the priest opened his eyes; and, in spite of the badgering, his eyes shone with humour and his mouth broke into smiles, so that a great sob of pity and love broke from Anthony.

"I will pray to God in a language that both He and I well understand."

"Ask her Grace's forgiveness, Mr. Campion, and pray for her, if you be her true subject."

"Wherein have I offended her? In this I am innocent. This is my last speech; in this give me credit--I have and do pray for her."

"Aha! but which queen?--for Elizabeth?"

"Ay, for Elizabeth, your queen and my queen, unto whom I wish a long quiet reign with all prosperity."

* * * *


There was the crack of a whip, the scuffle of a horse's feet, a rippling movement over the crowd, and a great murmured roar, like the roar of the waves on a pebbly beach, as the horse's head began to move forward; and the priest's figure to sway and stagger on the jolting cart. Anthony shut his eyes, and the murmur and cries of the crowd grew louder and louder. Once more the deep sweet voice rang out, loud and penetrating:

"I die a true Catholic...."

Anthony kept his eyes closed, and his head bent, as great sobs began to break up out of his heart....

Ah! he was in his agony now! that sudden cry and silence from the crowd showed it. What was it he had asked? one creed?--

"I believe in God the Father Almighty." ...

The soft heavy murmur of the crowd rose and fell. Catholics were praying all round him, reckless with love and pity:

"Jesu, Jesu, save him! Be to him a Jesus!"...

"Mary pray! Mary pray!"...

"Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem."...

"Passus sub Pontio Pilato."...

"Crucified dead and buried."...

"The forgiveness of sins."...

"And the Life Everlasting."...

* * * *


Anthony dropped his face forward on to his horse's mane.


CHAPTER VII


A MESSAGE FROM THE CITY

Sir Francis Walsingham sat in his private room a month after Father Campion's death.

He had settled down again now to his work which had been so grievously interrupted by his mission to France in connection with a new treaty between that country and England in the previous year. The secret detective service that he had inaugurated in England chiefly for the protection of the Queen's person was a vast and complicated business, and the superintendence of this, in addition to the other affairs of his office, made him an exceedingly busy man. England was honeycombed with mines and countermines both in the political and the religious world, and it needed all this man's brilliant and trained faculties to keep abreast with them. His spies and agents were everywhere; and not only in England: they circled round Mary of Scotland like flies round a wounded creature, seeking to settle and penetrate wherever an opening showed itself. These Scottish troubles would have been enough for any ordinary man; but Walsingham was indefatigable, and his agents were in every prison, lurking round corridors in private houses, found alike in thieves' kitchens and at gentlemen's tables.

Just at present Walsingham was anxious to give all the attention he could to Scottish affairs; and on this wet dreary Thursday morning in January as he sat before his bureau, he was meditating how to deal with an affair that had come to him from the heart of London, and how if possible to shift the conduct of it on to other shoulders.

He sat and drummed his fingers on the desk, and stared meditatively at the pigeon-holes before him. His was an interesting face, with large, melancholy, and almost fanatical eyes, and a poet's mouth and forehead; but it was probably exactly his imaginative faculties that enabled him to picture public affairs from the points of view of the very various persons concerned in them; and thereby to cope with the complications arising out of these conflicting interests.

He stroked his pointed beard once or twice, and then struck a hand-bell at his side; and a servant entered.

"If Mr. Lackington is below," he said, "show him here immediately," and the servant went out.

Lackington, sometime servant to Sir Nicholas Maxwell, had entered Sir Francis' service instead, at the same time that he had exchanged the Catholic for the Protestant religion; and he was now one of his most trusted agents. But he had been in so many matters connected with recusancy, that a large number of the papists in London were beginning to know him by sight; and the affairs were becoming more and more scarce in which he could be employed among Catholics with any hope of success. It was his custom to call morning by morning at Sir Francis' office and receive his instructions; and just now he had returned from business in the country. Presently he entered, closing the door behind him, and bowed profoundly to his master.

"I have a matter on hand, Lackington," said Sir Francis, without looking at him, and without any salutation beyond a glance and a nod as he entered,--"a matter which I have not leisure to look into, as it is not, I think, anything more than mere religion; but which might, I think, repay you for your trouble, if you can manage it in any way. But it is a troublesome business. These are the facts.

"No. 3 Newman's Court, in the City, has been a suspected house for some while. I have had it watched, and there is no doubt that the papists use it. I thought at first that the Scots were mixed up with it; but that is not so. Yesterday, a boy of twelve years old, left the house in the afternoon, and was followed to a number of houses, of which I will give you the list presently; and was finally arrested in Paul's Churchyard and brought here. I frightened him with talk of the rack; and I think I have the truth out of him now; I have tested him in the usual ways--and all that I can find is that the house is used for mass now and then; and that he was going to the papists' houses yesterday to bid them come for next Sunday morning. But he was stopped too soon: he had not yet told the priest to come. Now unless the priest is told to-night by one whom he trusts, there will be no mass on Sunday, and the nest of papists will escape us. It is of no use to send the boy; as he will betray all by his behaviour, even if we frighten him into saying what we wish to the priest. I suppose it is of no use your going to the priest and feigning to be a Catholic messenger; and I cannot at this moment see what is to be done. If there were anything beyond mere religion in this, I would spare no pains to hunt them out; but it is not worth my while. Yet there is the reward; and if you think that you can do anything, you can have it for your pains. I can spare you till Monday, and of course you shall have what men you will to surround the house and take them at mass, if you can but get the priest there."

"Thank you, sir," said Lackington deferentially. "Have I your honour's leave to see the boy in your presence?"

Walsingham struck the bell again.

"Bring the lad that is locked in the steward's parlour," he said, when the servant appeared.--"Sit down, Lackington, and examine him when he comes."

And Sir Francis took down some papers from a pigeon-hole, sorted out one or two, and saying, "Here are his statements," handed them to the agent; who began to glance through them at once. Walsingham then turned to his table again and began to go on with his letters.

In a moment or two the door opened, and a little lad of twelve years old, came in, followed by the servant.

"That will do," said Walsingham, without looking up; "You can leave him here," and the servant went out. The boy stood back against the wall by the door, his face was white and his eyes full of horror, and he looked in a dazed way at the two men.

"What is your name, boy?" began Lackington in a sharp, judicial tone.

"John Belton," said the lad in a tremulous voice.

"And you are a little papist?" asked the agent.

"No sir; a Protestant."

"Then how is it that you go on errands for papists?"

"I am a servant, sir," said the boy imploringly.

Lackington turned the papers over for a moment or two.

"Now you know," he began again in a threatening voice, "that this gentleman has power to put you on the rack; you know what that is?"

The boy nodded in mute white-faced terror.

"Well, now, he will hear all you say; and will know whether you say the truth or not. Now tell me if you still hold to what you said yesterday."

And then Lackington with the aid of the papers ran quickly over the story that Sir Francis had related. "Now do you mean to tell me, John Belton," he added, "that you, a Protestant, and a lad of twelve, are employed on this work by papists, to gather them for mass?"

The boy looked at him with the same earnest horror.

"Yes, sir, yes, sir," he said, and there was a piteous sob in his voice. "Indeed it is all true: but I do not often go on these messages for my master. Mr. Roger generally goes: but he is sick."

"Oho!" said Lackington, "you did not say that yesterday."

The boy was terrified.

"No, sir," he cried out miserably, "the gentleman did not ask me."

"Well, who is Mr. Roger? What is he like?"

"He is my master's servant, sir; and he wears a patch over his eye; and stutters a little in his speech."

These kinds of details were plainly beyond a frightened lad's power of invention, and Lackington was more satisfied.

"And what was the message that you were to give to the folk and the priest?"

"Please, sir, 'Come, for all things are now ready.'"

This was such a queer answer that Lackington gave an incredulous exclamation.

"It is probably true," said Sir Francis, without looking up from his letters; "I have come across the same kind of cypher, at least once before."

"Thank you, sir," said