Chapter Twenty One.
Check!
Pandora would have spoken as soon as they left the dining-room, but she was stopped by a motion of her aunt’s hand. Mrs Collenwood took her into her own bedroom, shut and barred the door, glanced inside a hanging closet to see that no one was secreted there, and seating herself on the cushioned seat which ran round the inside of the bay window, signed to her niece to take a seat beside her.
“Now, Dorrie, speak thy desire.”
“Aunt Frances, I am surprised with wonder! Pray you, what ail I, that I must quit home thus suddenly? I feel right well, and knew not there was aught ado with mine health.”
Pandora’s voice betrayed a little alarm. It certainly was a startling thing for a girl who felt and believed herself in excellent health, to hear suddenly that unless she had instant change of air, serious consequences might be expected to ensue.
Mrs Collenwood smiled—an affectionate, almost compassionate smile—as she patted Pandora’s shoulder.
“Take thine heart to thee, Dorrie. Thou art not sick, and if I can have thee away in sufficient time, God allowing, thou shalt not be. But I fear, if thou tarry, thou mayest have an attack of a certain pestilence that is rife in Kent at this season.”
“Pestilence, Aunt Frances! I never heard of no such going about. But if so, why I alone? There be Father, and True, and Aunt Grena—should they not go likewise?”
“No fear for Gertrude,” answered Mrs Collenwood, almost sadly. “And not much, methinks, for thy father. I am lesser sure of thine Aunt Grena: but I have not yet been able to prevail with her to accompany us.”
“But what name hath this pestilence, under your good leave, Aunt Frances?”
“It is called, Dorrie—persecution.”
The colour rose slowly in Pandora’s cheeks, until her whole face was suffused.
“Methinks I take you now, Aunt,” she said. “But, if I may have liberty to ask at you, wherefore think you Father and True to be safer than Aunt Grena and I?”
“Because they would yield, Dorrie. I misdoubt any charge brought against Gertrude; ’tis not such as she that come before religious tribunals. They will know they have her safe enough.”
“Aunt Frances,” said Pandora in a whisper, “think you I should not yield?”
“I hope thou wouldst not, Dorrie.”
“But how wist you—how could you know,” asked the girl passionately, “what I had kept so carefully concealed? How could you know that I hated to go to mass, and availed myself of every whit of excuse that should serve my turn to stay away from confession?—that I besought God every night, yea, with tears, to do away this terrible state of matters, and to grant us rulers under whom we might worship Him without fear, according to His will and word? I counted I had hidden mine heart from every eye but His. Aunt Frances, how could you know?”
Mrs Collenwood drew Pandora into her arms.
“Because, my child, I had done the same.”
The girl’s arms came round her aunt’s neck, and their cheeks were pressed close.
“O Aunt Frances, I am so glad! I have so lacked one to speak withal herein! I have thought at times, if I had but one human creature to whom I might say a word!—and then there was nobody but God—I seemed driven to Him alone.”
“That is blessed suffering, my dear heart, which drives souls to God; and there he will come with nought lesser. Dorrie, methinks thou scarce mindest thy mother?”
“Oh, but I do, Aunt! She was the best and dearest mother that ever was. True loves not to talk of her, nor of any that is dead; so that here also I had to shut up my thoughts within myself; but I mind her—ay, that I do!”
“Niece, when she lay of her last sickness, she called me to her, and quoth she—‘Frances, I have been sore troubled for my little Dorrie: but methinks now I have let all go, and have left her in the hands of God. Only if ever the evil days should come again, and persecution arise because of the witness of Jesus, and the Word of God, and the testimony which we hold—tell her, if you find occasion, as her mother’s last dying word to her, that she hold fast the word of the truth of the Gospel, and be not moved away therefrom, neither by persuading nor threatening. ’Tis he that overcometh, and he only, that shall have the crown of life.’ Never till now, Pandora, my dear child, have I told thee these words of thy dead and saintly mother. I pray God lay them on thine heart, that thou mayest stand in the evil day—yea, whether thou escape these things or no, thou mayest stand before the Son of Man at His coming.”
Pandora had hidden her face on Mrs Collenwood’s shoulder.
“Oh, do pray, Aunt Frances!” she said, with a sob.
The days for a week after that were very busy ones. Every day some one or two bags were packed, and quietly conveyed at nightfall by Mrs Collenwood’s own man to an inn about four miles distant. Pandora was kept indoors, except one day, when she went with Mrs Collenwood to take leave of Christie. That morning the priest called and expressed a wish to speak to her: but being told that she was gone to see a friend, said he would call again the following day. Of this they were told on their return. Mrs Collenwood’s cheeks paled a little; then, with set lips, and a firm step, she sought her brother in his closet, or as we should say, his study.
“Tom,” she said, when the door was safely shut, “we must be gone this night.”
Mr Roberts looked up in considerable astonishment.
“This night!—what mean you, Frances? The clouds be gathering for rain, and your departure was fixed for Thursday.”
“Ay, the clouds be gathering,” repeated Mrs Collenwood meaningly, “and I am ’feared Pandora, if not I, may be caught in the shower. Have you not heard that Father Bastian desired to speak with her whilst we were hence this morrow? We must be gone, Tom, ere he come again.”
Mr Roberts, who was busy with his accounts, set down a five as the addition of eight and three, with a very faint notion of what he was doing.
“Well!” he said, in an undecided manner. “Well! it is—it is not—it shall look—”
“How should it look,” replied Mrs Collenwood, with quiet incisiveness, “to see Pandora bound to the stake for burning?”
Mr Roberts threw out his hands as if to push away the terrible suggestion.
“It may come to that, Tom, if we tarry. For, without I mistake, the girl is not made of such willowy stuff as—some folks be.”
She just checked herself from saying, “as you are.”
Mr Roberts passed his fingers through his hair, in a style which said, as plainly as words, that he was about at his wits’ end. Perhaps he had not far to go to reach that locality.
“Good lack!” he said. “Dear heart!—well-a-day!”
“She will be safe with me,” said her aunt, “for a time at least. And if danger draw near there also, I can send her thence to certain friends of mine in a remote part amongst the mountains, where a priest scarce cometh once in three years. And ere that end, God may work changes in this world.”
“Well, if it must be—”
“It must be, Tom; and it shall be for the best.”
“It had been better I had wist nought thereof. They shall be sure to question me.”
Mrs Collenwood looked with a smile of pitying contempt on the man who was weaker than herself. The contempt predominated at first: then it passed into pity.
“Thou shalt know nought more than now, Tom,” she said quietly. “Go thou up, and get thee a-bed, but leave the key of the wicket-gate on this table.”
“I would like to have heard you had gat safe away,” said poor Mr Roberts, feeling in his pockets for the key.
“You would speedily hear if we did not,” was the answer.
Mr Roberts sighed heavily as he laid down the key.
“Well, I did hope to keep me out of this mess. I had thought, by outward conforming, and divers rich gifts to the priest, and so forth— ’Tis hard a man cannot be at peace in his own house.”
“’Tis far harder when he is not at peace in his own soul.”
“Ah!” The tone of the exclamation said that was quite too good to expect, at any rate for the speaker.
Mrs Collenwood laid her hand on her brother’s shoulder.
“Tom, we are parting for a long season—it may be for all time. Suffer me speak one word with thee, for the sake of our loving mother, and for her saintly sake that sleepeth in All Saints’ churchyard, whose head lay on my bosom when her spirit passed to God. There will come a day, good brother, when thou shalt stand before an higher tribunal than that of my Lord Cardinal, to hear a sentence whence there shall be none appeal. What wouldst thou in that day that thou hadst done in this? As thou wilt wish thou hadst done then, do now.”
“I—can’t,” faltered the unhappy waverer.
“I would as lief be scalded and have done with it, Tom, as live in such endless terror of hot water coming nigh me. Depend on it, it should be the lesser suffering in the end.”
“There’s Gertrude,” he suggested in the same tone.
“Leave Gertrude be. They’ll not touch her. Gertrude shall be of that religion which is the fashion, to the end of her days—without the Lord turn her—and folks of that mettle need fear no persecution. Nay, Tom, ’tis not Gertrude that holdeth thee back from coming out on the Lord’s side. God’s side is ever the safest in the end. It is thine own weak heart and weak faith, wherein thou restest, and wilt not seek the strength that can do all things, which God is ready to grant thee but for the asking.”
“You are a good woman, Frances,” answered her brother, with more feeling than he usually showed, “and I would I were more like you.”
“Tarry not there, Tom: go on to ‘I would I were more like Christ.’ There be wishes that fulfil themselves; and aspirations after God be of that nature. And now, dear brother, I commend thee to God, and to the word of His grace. Be thou strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might!”
They kissed each other for the last time, and Mrs Collenwood stood listening to the slow, heavy step which passed up the stairs and into the bedroom overhead. When Mr Roberts had shut and barred his door, she took up the key, and with a sigh which had reference rather to his future than to her present, went to seek Pandora. Their little packages of immediate necessaries were soon made up. When the clock struck midnight—an hour at which in 1557 everybody was in bed—two well cloaked and hooded women crept out of the low-silled window of the dinning-room, and made their silent and solitary way through the shrubs of the pleasure-ground to the little wicket-gate which opened on the Goudhurst road.
Chapter Twenty Two.
Pots and pans.
Mrs Collenwood unlocked the little wicket, and let herself and Pandora out into the public road. Then she relocked the gate, and after a moment’s thought, feeling in the darkness, she hung the key on a bush close to the gate, where it could not be seen from the road. Both ladies carried lanterns, for the omission of this custom would have raised more suspicion than its observance, had they been met by any one, and there were no public street lamps in those days. They were bound first for the little hostelry, called the Nun’s Head, in the village of Lamberhurst, where Mrs Collenwood had desired her servant to await her; the landlady of which was known to those in the secret to be one of “the brethren,” and was therefore sure to befriend and not betray them, if she guessed the truth. Slowly and painfully they made their way by a circuitous route, to avoid passing through Goudhurst, and Pandora, who was not much accustomed to walking, began to be very tired before half the way was traversed. They had just reached the road again, and were making their way slowly through the ruts and puddles—for English roads at that date were in a state which happily we can do little more than imagine—when they heard the sound of hoofs a little way behind them. Mrs Collenwood laid her hand on Pandora’s arm.
“Hide the lantern under thy cloak,” she whispered; “and we will creep into this field and ’bide quat under the hedge, till the party shall have passed by.”
The advice was put into practice. The hoofs drew near, accompanied by a jingling sound which seemed to come from pottery. It was now near one o’clock. The ladies kept as still as mice. They were not reassured when the sound came to a stand-still, just before the gate of the field where they were hidden, and a man’s voice, strange to them, said—
“It was just here I lost the sight of the lanterns. They cannot be far off.”
Mrs Collenwood felt Pandora’s hand clasp her wrist tight in the darkness.
“Bide a moment, Tom, and I will search in the field,” said another voice.
Mrs Collenwood gave all up for lost.
“Mistress Pandora, are you there?” said the voice which had last spoken.
“Aunt Frances, ’tis Mr Hall!” cried Pandora joyfully.
“Ah! I am right glad I have found you,” said Roger, as he came up to them. “I have been searching you this hour, being confident, from what I heard, that you would attempt to get away to-night. I pray you to allow of my company.”
“In good sooth, Mr Hall, we be right thankful of your good company,” answered Mrs Collenwood. “’Tis ill work for two weak women such as we be.”
“Truly, my mistress, methinks you must both have lion-like hearts, so much as to think of essaying your escape after this fashion. You will be the safer for my presence. I have here an ass laden with pots and pans, and driven by a good man and true, a Gospeller to boot—one of your own men from the cloth-works, that is ready to guard his master’s daughter at the hazard of his life if need be. If you be willing, good my mistress, to sell tins and pitchers in this present need—”
“Use me as you judge best, Master Hall,” said Mrs Collenwood heartily. “I am willing to sell tins, or scour them, or anything, the better to elude suspicion.”
“Well said. Then my counsel is that we turn right about, and pass straight through Goudhurst, so soon as the dawn shall break. The boldest way is at times the safest.”
“But is not that to lose time?”
“To lose time is likewise sometimes to gun it,” said Roger, with a smile. “There is one danger, my mistresses, whereof you have not thought. To all that see you as you are, your garb speaks you gentlewomen, and gentlewomen be not wont to be about, in especial unattended, at this hour of the night. If it please you to accept of my poor provision, I have here, bound on the ass, two women’s cloaks and hoods of the common sort, such as shall better comport with the selling of pots than silken raiment; and if I may be suffered to roll up the cloaks you bear in like manner, you can shift you back to them when meet is so to do.”
“Verily, ’tis passing strange that had never come to my mind!” replied Mrs Collenwood. “Mr Hall, we owe you more thanks than we may lightly speak.”
They changed their cloaks, rolling up those they took off, and tying them securely on the donkey, covered by a piece of canvas, with which Roger was provided. The hoods were changed in like manner. The donkey was driven into the field in charge of Tom Hartley, who pulled his forelock to his ladies; and the trio sat down to await daylight.
“And if it like you, my mistresses,” added Roger, “if it should please Mistress Collenwood to speak to me by the name of Hodge, and Mistress Pandora by that of father or uncle, methinks we should do well.”
“Nay, Mr Hall; but I will call you brother,” said Pandora, smiling; “for that is what you truly are, both in the Gospel and in descent from Adam.”
In perfect quiet they passed the five hours which elapsed ere the sun rose. As soon as ever the light began to break, Roger led forth the donkey; Tom trudging behind with a stick, and the ladies walked alongside.
Rather to their surprise, Roger took his stand openly in the market place of Goudhurst, where he drove a brisk trade with his pots and pans; Mrs Collenwood taking up the business as if she had been to the manner born, and much to Pandora’s admiration.
“Brown pitchers, my mistress? The best have we, be sure. Twopence the dozen, these; but we have cheaper if your honour wish them.”
Another time it was, “What lack you, sweet sir? Chafing-dishes, shaving-basins, bowls, goblets, salts? All good and sound—none of your trumpery rubbish!”
And Roger and Tom both lifted up sonorous voices in the cry of—
“Pots and pans! Pots and pa–ans! Chargers, dishes, plates, cups, bowls, por–ring–ers! Come buy, come buy, come buy!”
The articles were good—Roger had seen to that—and they went off quickly. Ladies, country housewives, farmers, substantial yeomen, with their wives and daughters, came up to buy, until the donkey’s load was considerably diminished. At length a priest appeared as a customer. Pandora’s heart leaped into her mouth; and Mrs Collenwood, as she produced yellow basins for his inspection, was not entirely without her misgivings. But the reverend gentleman’s attention seemed concentrated on the yellow basins, of which he bought half-a-dozen for a penny, and desired them to be delivered at the Vicarage. Roger bowed extra low as he assured the priest that the basins should be there, without fail, in an hour, and having now reduced his goods to a load of much smaller dimensions, he intimated that they “might as well be moving forward.” The goods having been duly delivered, Roger took the road to Lamberhurst, and they arrived without further misadventure at the Nun’s Head, where Mrs Collenwood’s servant, Zachary, was on the look-out for them.
To Mrs Collenwood’s amusement, Zachary did not recognise her until she addressed him by name; a satisfactory proof that her disguise was sufficient for the purpose. They breakfasted at the Nun’s Head, on Canterbury brawn (for which that city was famous) and a chicken pie, and resumed their own attire, but carrying the cloaks of Roger’s providing with them, as a resource if necessity should arise.
“Aunt Frances,” said Pandora, as they sat at breakfast, “I never thought you could have made so good a tradeswoman. Pray you, how knew you what to say to the folks?”
“Why, child!” answered Mrs Collenwood, laughing, “dost reckon I have never bought a brown pitcher nor a yellow basin, that I should not know what price to ask?”
“Oh, I signified not that so much, Aunt; but—all the talk, and the fashion wherein you addressed you to the work.”
“My mother—your grandmother, Dorrie—was used to say to me, ‘Whatever thou hast ado with, Frank, put thine heart and thy wits therein.’ ’Tis a good rule, and will stand a woman in stead for better things than selling pots.”
Zachary had made full provision for his mistress’s journey. The horses were ready, and the baggage-mules also. He rode himself before Mrs Collenwood, and an old trustworthy man-servant was to sit in front of Pandora. All was ready for proceeding at half-an-hour’s notice, and Mrs Collenwood determined to go on at once.
When it came to the leave-taking, she drew a gold ring from her finger, and gave it to Tom Hartley, with a promise that his master should hear through Roger Hall, so soon as the latter deemed it safe, of the very essential service which he had rendered her. Then she turned to Roger himself.
“But to you, Mr Hall,” she said, “how can I give thanks, or in what words clothe them? Verily, I am bankrupt therein, and can only thank you to say I know not how.”
“Dear mistress,” answered Roger, “have you forgot that ’tis I owe thanks to you, that you seek to magnify my simple act into so great deserving? They that of their kindness cheer my little suffering Christie’s lonely life, deserve all the good that I can render them. My little maid prayed me to say unto you both that she sent you her right loving commendations, and that she would pray for your safe journey every day the whilst it should last, and for your safety and good weal afterward. She should miss you both sorely, quoth she; but she would pray God to bless you, and would strive to her utmost to abide by all your good and kindly counsel given unto her.”
“Dear little Christie!” said Pandora affectionately. “I pray you, Master Hall, tell her I shall never forget her, and I trust God may grant us to meet again in peace.”
“I cast no doubt of that, Mistress Pandora,” was the grave answer, “though ’twill be, very like, in a better land than this.”
“And I do hope,” added she, “that Mistress Benden may ere long be set free.”
Roger shook his head.
“I have given up that hope,” he said; “yea, well-nigh all hopes, for this lower world.”
“There is alway hope where God is,” said Mrs Collenwood.
“Truth, my mistress,” he replied; “but God is in Heaven, and hope is safest there.”
It was nearly eleven o’clock in the morning when the travellers set out from the Nun’s Head. Roger Hall stood in the doorway, looking after them, until the last glimpse could no longer be perceived. Then, with a sigh, he turned to Tom Hartley, who stood beside him.
“Come, Tom!” he said, “let us, thou and I, go home and do God’s will.”
“Ay, master, and let God do His will with us,” was the cheery answer.
Then the two men and the donkey set out for Cranbrook.
Chapter Twenty Three.
Cat and mouse.
It was Mr Roberts’s custom to go down to the cloth-works every Tuesday—saints’ days excepted—and in pursuance of this habit he made his appearance in the counting-house on the morning after the departure of the two ladies. Roger Hall was at his post as usual, waited on his master, gave in his accounts, and received his orders. When the other business was over, Roger said, in the same tone and manner as before—
“Those two parcels of rare goods, master, sent forth yester-even, that you wot of, I saw myself so far as Lamberhurst, and they be in safe hands for the further journey.”
Mr Roberts did not at once, as might now be done, ask Roger what he was talking about. The days of Romish ascendency in England were days when everybody knew that if a man’s meaning were not simple and apparent, there was probably some reason why he dared not speak too plainly, and it was perilous to ask for an explanation. Mr Roberts looked up into his manager’s face, and at once guessed his meaning. He was seriously alarmed to see it. How had Roger Hall become possessed of that dangerous secret, which might bring him to prison if it were known? For the penalty for merely “aiding and abetting” a heretic was “perpetual prison.” Those who gave a cup of cold water to one of Christ’s little ones did it at the peril of their own liberty.
Let us pause for a moment and try to imagine what that would be to ourselves. Could we run such risks for Christ’s sake—knowing that on every hand were spies and enemies who would be only too glad to bring us to ruin, not to speak of those idle gossiping people who do much of the world’s mischief, without intending harm? It would be hard work to follow the Master when He took the road to Gethsemane. Only love could do it. Would our love stand that sharp test?
All this passed in a moment. What Mr Roberts said was only—“Good. Well done.” Then he bent his head over the accounts again; raising it to say shortly—“Hall, prithee shut yon door; the wind bloweth in cold this morrow.” Roger Hall obeyed silently: but a change came over Mr Roberts as soon as the door was shut on possible listening ears. He beckoned Roger to come close to him.
“How wist you?” he whispered.
“Guessed it, Master.” It was desirable to cut words as short as possible. “Saw him go up to your house. Thought what should follow.”
“You followed them?”
“No; came too late. Searched, and found them in a field near Goudhurst.”
A shudder came over Pandora’s father at the thought of what might have been, if the priest had been the searcher.
“Any one else know?”
“Tom Hartley—true as steel, Master. Two were needful for my plan. Mistress bade me commend him to you, as he that had done her right good service.”
“He shall fare the better for it. And you likewise.”
Roger smiled. “I did but my duty, Master.”
“How many folks do so much?” asked Mr Roberts, with a sigh. He could not have said that. After a moment’s thought he added—“Raise Hartley twopence by the week; and take you twenty pounds by the year instead of sixteen as now.”
“I thank you, Master,” said Roger warmly: “but it was not for that.”
“I know—I know!” answered the master, as he held out his hand to clasp that of his manager—a rare and high favour at that time. And then, suddenly, came one of those unexpected, overpowering heart-pourings, which have been said to be scarcely more under the control of the giver than of the recipient. “Hall, I could not have done this thing. How come you to have such strength and courage? Would I had them!”
“Master, I have neither, save as I fetch them from Him that hath. ‘I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me.’”
“He doth not strengthen me!” moaned the weak man.
“Have you asked Him, Master?” quietly replied the strong one.
Mr Roberts made no answer, and Roger knew that meant a negative. In his heart the master was conscious that he had not asked. He had said multitudinous “paters” and “aves,” had repeated “Hail Marys” by the score—all the while half thinking of something else; but never once in his inmost soul had he said to the Lord—“Saviour, I am weak; make me strong.” A few minutes’ silence, and Mr Roberts turned back to the accounts, half-ashamed that he had allowed that glimpse of his true self to be seen. And Roger Hall said no more, except to God.
The master went home to supper at four o’clock. Ten was then the hour for dinner, four for supper; people who kept late hours made it eleven and five. As Mr Roberts came in sight of his own door, his heart sank down into his shoes. On the door-step stood a black-robed figure which he knew only too well, and which he would gladly have given a handful of gold to know he might have no chance of seeing for a month to come. A faint idea of hiding himself in the shrubs crossed his mind for a moment; but he could not stay there for an indefinite time, and the priest would in all probability wait for him, if it were he whom he meant to see. No, it would be better to go forward and get it over; but it was with a fervid wish that it were over that Mr Roberts went on and deferentially saluted his Rector.
That reverend gentleman thoroughly understood his man. Had it been possible to gauge the human soul with a thermometer, he could have guessed with accuracy how it would read. He met him, not with severity, but with a deep gravity which conveyed the idea that something serious required discussion, and that he earnestly hoped the culprit would be able to clear himself of the charge.
In the hall they were met by Mistress Grena and Gertrude, who had seen them coming, and who came forward, as in duty bound, to show extra respect to their spiritual pastor. The genuine spirituality was more than dubious: but that did not matter. He was a “spiritual person”—though the person was exceedingly unspiritual!
The priest gave a blessing to the ladies with two fingers extended in a style which must require some practice, and at Mistress Grena’s request sat down with them to supper. During the meal the conversation was general, though the priest retained his serious aspect of something unpleasant to come. The heavy part of the supper was over, and cheese, with late apples, Malaga raisins, and Jordan almonds, had made their appearance; the ladies prepared to withdraw.
“Mistress Holland,” said the Rector, “I beseech you to tarry yet a little season”—adding to Gertrude, “I need not detain you, my daughter.”
Gertrude escaped with great satisfaction. “Those two are going to catch it!” she said to herself; “I am glad I am out of it!” Mr Roberts knew sorrowfully that the surmise was woefully true, but he was rather relieved to find that his sister-in-law was “going to catch it” with him. Her presence was a sort of stick for him to lean on.
“My son,” said the Rector to Mr Roberts, with an air of sorrowful reluctance to begin a distasteful piece of work, “it troubleth me sorely to do that I must needs do, but necessity hath no law. Remember, I pray you, that as yesterday I called here, desiring to have speech of your youngest daughter, and was told by Osmund your butler that she was visiting a friend.”
“That was fully truth, Father,” said Mistress Grena, as if she supposed that the Rector was about to complain of some duplicity on the part of Osmund.
Mr Bastian waved aside the assurance.
“I left word,” he continued, repeating the words with emphasis, “I left word that I would call to see her this morrow. Here am I; and what have I now learned? That she left this house yester-even, without so much as a word of excuse, not to say a beseechment of pardon, when she knew that I purposed having speech of her.” His voice became more stern. “Is this the manner wherein ye deal with the ministers of holy Church? Truly, had I just cause to suspect your fidelity to her, this were enough to proceed on. But trusting ye may yet have ability to plead your excuse”—a slightly more suave tone was allowed to soften the voice—“I wait to hear it, ere I take steps that were molestous to you, and truly unwelcome unto me. What say ye in extenuation thereof?”
“We are verily sorry, Father,” came quietly from Mistress Grena, “that no meet apology hath been offered unto you for this discourtesy, and we pray you of your grace and goodness right gentilly to accept the same even now. Truly the matter stands thus: Our sister, Mistress Collenwood, had in purpose to tarry with us divers days longer; but yester-even tidings came unto her the which caused her to hasten her departure, not tarrying so much as one night more; and as she had desired to take Pandora withal, it was needful that her departure should be hastened likewise. You wot well, good Father, I am assured, the bustle and business caused by such sudden resolve, and the little time left for thought therein: but for any consequent lack of respect unto yourself and your holy office, we are full sorry, and do right humbly entreat you of pardon.”
Mr Roberts breathed more freely. He thought the woman’s wit was about to prevail, and to salve over the offence.
The priest, on his part, perceived with regret that he had made a mistake in retaining Mistress Grena. Her representations were very plausible, and she was not so easily cowed as her brother-in-law. He considered a moment how to proceed.
“In truth, my daughter,” he said, addressing her, “you have fully made your excuse, and I allow it right gladly. I may well conceive that in the haste and labour of making ready on so sudden summons, both you and your niece may easily have forgat the matter. I need not keep you longer from your household duties. God grant you a good even!”
Mistress Grena had no resource but to withdraw in answer to this dismissal, her heart filled with sore forebodings. She had hoped the excuse might be held to cover the whole family; but it was evident the priest had no intention of accepting it as including the male portion thereof. As she passed Mr Roberts, with her back to the priest, she gave him a warning look; but her hope that he would take the warning was as small as it could well be.
“And now, my son,” said the Rector softly, turning to his remaining victim, “how say you? Were you likewise busied in preparing the gentlewomen for their journey?”
Chapter Twenty Four.
Counterplot.
A man to be very much pitied was poor Mr Roberts. Not only had he to pacify the priest, but Mistress Grena’s line of defence, plausible as it sounded, had unhappily crossed and invalidated the excuse he had intended to make for himself. His faint, hazy purpose up to that time had been to deny any knowledge of the escape; but after it had been thus represented as a natural, every-day occurrence, how was he to keep up the story? Yet he had no other ready.
“No, Father—ay, it—I was a-bed,” was his blundering reply.
The priest’s voice was sweet as a newly-tuned piano.
“Was it not strange, my son, that you heard no sounds from beneath? Or went you up, knowing what was passing?”
What was the poor man to do? If he acknowledged that he knew of the escape of the fugitives, he laid himself open to the charge of “aiding and abetting”; if he denied it, he practically denied also the truth of Grena’s defence. At that moment he would have given every acre and shilling in his possession to be free from this horrible cross-questioning.
The cat watched the poor mouse wriggle with grim satisfaction. Either way, it would come to its claws at last.
Suddenly the scene of the morning was reproduced to the mind’s eye of the tortured man. Roger Hall’s voice seemed to say again—“Have you asked Him, Master?” Faintly, tremblingly in the unwontedness of the act, the request was made, and even that slight contact with the unchanging Rock steadied the wavering feet. He must speak truth, and uphold Grena.
“Father,” he said in a changed tone, “my sister told you true. The journey was hastened, and that suddenly.”
The change in his tone puzzled the priest. What had come to the man, in that momentary interval, to nerve him thus anew?
“How came the news, my son?”
Mr Roberts was thankfully able to answer that he knew not.
“But surely, with so much baggage as Mistress Collenwood must have borne withal, the number of horses that left your house could not but be noted of them in the vicinage. Yet I am told no sound was heard.”
“My sister sent the most part of her baggage away before her,” was the answer.
“Remember,” said the Rector sternly, “the sin you incur if you deceive a priest!”
“I have not spoken one untrue word, Father.”
At that moment the door-bell was rung, and answered by Osmund, who, coming into the room, deferentially informed the priest that my Lord Cardinal had sent his sumner to the Rectory, with a command that he, Mr Bastian, should attend his court at eight o’clock on the following morning. The interruption was welcome to both parties. The priest was perplexed, and wanted time to think, no less than Mr Roberts. He had anticipated an easy victory, and found himself unaccountably baffled.
In the present day, no English gentleman would bear such questioning by a priest. The latter would very soon be told, in however civil language, that an Englishman’s house was his castle, and that he held himself responsible for his actions to God alone. But the iron terror of Rome was then over every heart. No priest could be defied, nor his questions evaded, with impunity. If those days ever come back, it will be the fault and the misery of Englishmen who would not take warning by the past, but who suffered the enemy to creep in again “while men slept.” The liberties of England, let us never forget, were bought with the blood of the Marian martyrs.
No sooner had the priest departed than Mistress Grena silently slid into the room. She had evidently been on the watch.
“Brother,” she said, in a voice which trembled with doubt and fear, “what have you told him?”
“What you told him, Grena.”
“Oh!” The exclamation spoke of intense relief.
“But you may thank Roger Hall for it.”
“Roger Hall!—what ado had he therewith?”
“If you ask at him,” answered Mr Roberts with a smile, “methinks he will scarce know.”
“Will he come again?” she asked fearfully—not alluding to Roger Hall.
“I wis not. Very like he will—maybe till he have consumed us. Grena, I know not how it hath been with you, but for me, I have been an arrant coward. God aiding me, I will be thus no longer, but will go forth in the strength of the Lord God. Believe you these lying wonders and deceitful doctrines? for I do not, and have never so done, though I have made believe to do it. I will make believe no longer. I will be a man, and no more a puppet, to be moved at the priest’s pleasure. Thank God, Pan is safe, and Gertrude is not like to fall in trouble. How say you? Go you with me, or keep you Gertrude’s company?”
Then Grena Holland broke down. All her little prim preciseness vanished, and the real woman she was came out of her shell and showed herself.
“O Tom!” she said, sobbing till she could hardly speak: for when restrained, self-contained natures like hers break down, they often do it utterly. “O Tom! God bless thee, and help me to keep by thee, and both of us to be faithful to the end! I too have sinned and done foolishly, and set evil ensample. Forgive me, my brother, and God forgive us both!”
Mr Roberts passed his arm round her, and gave her the kiss of peace.
“Methinks we had best forgive each the other, Grena; and I say Amen to thy ‘God forgive us both!’”
When Mr Bastian arrived at Canterbury a little after daybreak the next morning, he found, as he had expected, that while the message had been sent in the name of Cardinal Pole, it was really the Bishop of Dover who required his attendance. The Bishop wanted to talk with the parish priest concerning the accused persons from his parish. He read their names from a paper whereon he had them noted down—“John Fishcock, butcher; Nicholas White, ironmonger; Nicholas Pardue, cloth-worker; Alice Benden, gentlewoman; Barbara Final, widow, innkeeper; Sens Bradbridge, widow; Emmet Wilson, cloth-worker’s wife.”
“Touching Alice Benden,” said the Bishop, “I require no note at your hands; I have divers times spoken with her, and know her to be a right obstinate heretic, glorying in her errors. ’Tis the other concerning whom I would have some discourse with you. First, this John Fishcock, the butcher: is he like to be persuaded or no?”
“Methinks, nay, my Lord: yet am I not so full sure of him as of some other. The two Nicholases, trow, are surer of the twain. You should as soon shake an ancient oak as White; and Pardue, though he be a man of few words, is of stubborn conditions.”
“Those men of few words oft-times are thus. And how for the women, Brother? Barbara Final—what is she?”
“A pleasant, well-humoured, kindly fashion of woman; yet methinks not one to be readily moved.”
“Sens Bradbridge?”
“A poor creature—weakly, with few wits. I should say she were most like of any to recant, save that she hath so little wit, it were scarce to our credit if she so did.”
The Bishop laughed. “Emmet Wilson?”
“A plain woman, past middle age, of small learning, yet good wit by nature. You shall not move her, holy Father, or I mistake.”
“These heretics, what labour they give us!” said Dick of Dover, rather testily. “’Tis passing strange they cannot conform and have done with it, and be content to enjoy their lives and liberties in peace.”
Having no principle himself, the Bishop was unable to comprehend its existence in other people. Mr Bastian was a shade wiser—not that he possessed much principle, but that he could realise the fact of its existence.
“There is one other point, holy Father,” said he, seeing that the Bishop was about to dismiss him, “whereon, if it stand with your Lordship’s pleasure, I would humbly seek your counsel.”
The Bishop rubbed his hands, and desired Mr Bastian to proceed. The labour which the heretics gave him was very well to complain of, but to him the excitement of discovering a new heretic was as pleasurable as the unearthing of a fox to a keen sportsman. Dick of Dover, having no distinct religious convictions, was not more actuated by personal enmity to the persecuted heretic than the sportsman to the persecuted fox. They both liked the run, the excitement, the risks, and the glory of the sport.
“To tell truth, my Lord,” continued Mr Bastian, dropping his voice, “I am concerned touching a certain parishioner of mine, a gentleman, I am sorry to say, of name and ancient family, cousin unto Mr Roberts of Glassenbury, whose name you well know as one of the oldest houses in Kent.”
The Bishop nodded assent.
“’Tis true, during King Edward’s time, he went for one of the new learning; but he conformed when the Queen came in, and ever sithence have I regarded him as a good Catholic enough, till of late, when I am fallen to doubt it, to my great concern.” And Mr Bastian proceeded to relate to the Bishop all that he knew respecting the flight of the ladies, and his subsequent unsatisfactory interview with the heads of the family. The Bishop listened intently.
“This young maid,” said he, when the narrative was finished, “what said you was her name—Gertrude?—this Gertrude, then, you account of as faithful to holy Church?”
“She hath ever been regular at mass and confession, my Lord, and performeth all her duties well enough. For other matter, methinks, she is somewhat light-minded, and one that should cast more thought to the colour of her sleeves than to the length of her prayers.”
“None the worse for that,” said Dick of Dover—adding hastily, as the unclerical character of his remark struck him—“for this purpose, of course, I signify; for this purpose. Make you a decoy of her, Brother, to catch the other.”
“I cry your Lordship mercy, but I scarce take you. Her father and aunt do come to confession—somewhat irregularly, ’tis true; but they do come; and though the woman be cautious and wily, and can baffle my questions if she will, yet is the man transparent as glass, and timid as an hare. At least, he hath been so until this time; what turned him I wis not, but I am in hopes it shall not last.”
“Move this girl Gertrude to listen behind the arras, when as they talk together,” suggested the Bishop. “Make her promises—of anything she valueth, a fine horse, a velvet gown, a rich husband—whatever shall be most like to catch her.”
Mr Bastian smiled grimly, as he began to see the plot develop.
“’Tis an easy matter to beguile a woman,” said the Bishop, who, being very ignorant of women, believed what he said: “bait but your trap with something fine enough, and they shall walk in by shoals like herrings. Saving these few obstinate simpletons such as Alice Benden, that you can do nought with, they be light enough fish to catch. Catch Gertrude, Brother.”
Chapter Twenty Five.
Before Dick of Dover.
“Perkins!” said a rather pompous voice.
Perkins was the Cathedral bell-ringer, and the gaoler of Alice Benden. He obeyed the summons of the pompous voice with obsequious celerity, for it belonged to no less a person than the Lord Bishop of Dover. His Lordship, having caught sight of the bell-ringer as he crossed the precincts, had called him, and Perkins came up, his hat in one hand, and pulling his forelock with the other.
“I desire to know, Perkins,” said the Bishop, “if that man that is your prisoner’s brother hath yet been arrested, as I bade?”
“Well, nay, my Lord, he haven’t,” said Perkins, his heart fluttering and his grammar questionable.
“And wherefore no?” asked the Bishop sternly.
“Well, my Lord, truth is, I haven’t chanced on him since.”
“He hath not visited his sister, then?”
“Well,” answered Perkins, who seemed to find that word a comfort, “ay, he have; but him and me, we hasn’t been at same time, not yet.”
“Call you that diligence in the keeping of your prisoner?”
“Please your Lordship, she’s there, all safe.”
“I bade you arrest him,” insisted the Bishop.
Perkins chewed a sprig of dried lavender, and kept silence.
“I am sore displeased with you, Perkins!”
Perkins looked provokingly obtuse. If the Bishop had only known it, he was afraid of vexing him further by saying anything, and accordingly he said nothing.
“Keep diligent watch for the man, and seize him when he cometh again. As for the woman, bring her before me to-morrow at nine o’ the clock. Be careful what you do, as you value my favour.”
Perkins pulled his forelock again, and departed.
“The man is hard as a stone,” said the Bishop to one of the Canons, with whom he was walking: “no impression can be made upon him.”
“He is scantly the worse gaoler for that, under your Lordship’s correction,” said the Canon carelessly.
“He makes an hard keeper, I cast no doubt,” answered the Bishop.
Perkins’s demeanour changed as soon as his Lordship had passed out of sight and hearing.
“Dick o’ Dover’s in a jolly fume!” he said to one of the vergers whom he met.
“Why, what’s angered him?”
“I have, belike, that I catched not yon man, Mistress Benden’s brother, a-coming to see her. Why, the loon’s full o’ wiles—never comes at after sunrise. It’d take an eel to catch him. And I’m not his thief-catcher, neither. I works hard enough without that. Old Dick may catch his eels his self if he lacks ’em.”
“Work ’ll never kill thee, Jack Perkins,” replied the verger, with a laugh. “Thou’dst best not get across with Dick o’ Dover; he’s an ugly customer when he’s in the mind.”
The right reverend prelate to whom allusion was thus unceremoniously made, was already seated on his judgment bench when, at nine o’clock the next morning, Perkins threw open the door of Monday’s Hole.
“Come forth, Mistress; you’re to come afore the Bishop.”
“You must needs help me up, then, for I cannot walk,” said Alice Benden faintly.
Perkins seized her by the arm, and dragged her up from the straw on which she was lying. Alice was unable to repress a slight moan.
“Let be,” she panted; “I will essay to go by myself; only it putteth me to so great pain.”
With one hand resting on the wall, she crept to the door, and out into the passage beyond. Again Perkins seized her—this time by the shoulder.
“You must make better speed than this, Mistress,” he said roughly. “Will you keep the Lord Bishop a-waiting?”
Partly limping by herself, partly pulled along by Perkins, and at the cost of exquisite suffering, for she was crippled by rheumatism, Alice reached the hall wherein the Bishop sat. He received her in the suavest manner.
“Now, my good daughter, I trust your lesson, which it was needful to make sharp, hath been well learned during these weeks ye have had time for meditation. Will you now go home, and go to church, and conform you to the Catholic religion as it now is in England? If you will do this, we will gladly show you all manner of favour; ye shall be our white child, I promise you, and any requests ye may prefer unto us shall have good heed. Consider, I pray you, into what evil case your obstinacy hath hitherto brought you, and how blissful life ye might lead if ye would but renounce your womanish opinions, and be of the number of the Catholics. Now, my daughter, what say you?”
Then Alice Benden lifted her head and answered.
“I am thoroughly persuaded, by the great extremity that you have already showed me, that you are not of God, neither can your doings be godly; and I see that you seek mine utter destruction. Behold, I pray you, how lame I am of cold taken, and lack of food, in that painful prison wherein I have lain now these nine weary weeks, that I am not able to move without great pain.”
“You shall find us right different unto you, if you will but conform,” replied the Bishop, who, as John Bunyan has it, had “now all besugared his lips.”
“Find you as it list you, I will have none ado with you!” answered the prisoner sturdily.
But at that moment, trying to turn round, the pain was so acute that it brought the tears to her eyes, and a groan of anguish to her lips. The Bishop’s brows were compressed.
“Take her to West Gate,” he said hastily. “Let her be clean kept, and see a physician if she have need.”
The gaoler of West Gate was no brutal, selfish Perkins, but a man who used his prisoners humanely. Here Alice once again slept on a bed, was furnished with decent clean clothing and sufficient food. But such was the effect of her previous suffering, that after a short time, we are told, her skin peeled off as if she had been poisoned.
One trouble Alice had in her new prison—that she must now be deprived of Roger’s visits. She was not even able to let him know of the change. But Roger speedily discovered it, and it was only thanks to the indolence of Mr Perkins, who was warm in bed, and greatly indisposed to turn out of it, that he was not found out and seized on that occasion. Once more he had to search for his sister. No secret was made of the matter this time; and by a few cautious inquiries Roger discovered that she had been removed to West Gate. His hopes sprang up on hearing it, not only because, as he knew, she would suffer much less in the present, but also because he fondly trusted that it hinted at a possibility of release in the future. It was with a joyful heart that he carried the news home to Christabel, and found her Aunt Tabitha sitting with her.
“O Father, how delightsome!” cried Christie, clapping her hands. “Now if those ill men will only let dear Aunt Alice come home—”
“When the sky falleth, we may catch many larks,” said Tabitha, in her usual grim fashion. “Have you told him?”
“Whom?—Edward Benden? No, I’m in no haste to go near him.”
“I would, if I knew it should vex him.”
“Tabitha!” said Roger, with gentle reproval.
“Roger Hall, if you’d had to stand up to King Ahab, you’d have made a downright poor Elijah!”
“Very like, Tabitha. I dare say you’d have done better.”
“Father,” said Christie, “did you hear what should come of Master White, and Mistress Final, and all the rest.”
“No, my dear heart: I could hear nought, save only that they were had up afore my Lord of Dover, and that he was very round with them, but all they stood firm.”
“What, Sens Bradbridge and all?” said Tabitha. “I’d have gone bail that poor sely hare should have cried off at the first shot of Dick o’ Dover’s arrow. Stood she firm, trow?”
“All of them, I heard. Why, Tabitha, the Lord’s grace could hold up Sens Bradbridge as well as Tabitha Hall.”
“There’d be a vast sight more wanted, I promise you!” said Tabitha self-righteously. “There isn’t a poorer creature in all this ’varsal world, nor one with fewer wits in her head than Sens Bradbridge. I marvel how Benedick stood her; but, dear heart! men are that stupid! Christie, don’t you never go to marry a man. I’ll cut you off with a shilling an’ you do.”
“Cut me off what, Aunt Tabitha?” inquired Christie, with some alarm in her tone.
“Off my good-will and favour, child.”
“Thank you, Aunt Tabitha, for telling me I didn’t know I was on,” said Christie simply.
“Good lack!” exclaimed Tabitha, in a tone which was a mixture of amusement and annoyance. “Did the child think I cared nought about her, forsooth?”
“O Aunt Tabitha, do you?” demanded Christie, in a voice of innocent astonishment. “I am so glad. Look you, whenever you come, you always find fault with me for something, so I thought you didn’t.”
“Bless the babe! Dost think I should take all that trouble to amend thee, if I loved thee not?”
“Well, perhaps—” said Christie hesitatingly.
“But Aunt Alice always tried to mend me, and so does Father: but somehow they don’t do it like you, Aunt Tabitha.”
“They’re both a deal too soft and sleek with thee,” growled Aunt Tabitha. “There’s nought ’ll mend a child like a good rattling scolding, without ’tis a thrashing, and thou never hast neither.”
“Art avised (are you sure) o’ that, Tabitha?” asked Roger. “God sends not all His rain in thunderstorms.”
“Mayhap not; but He does send thunderstorms, and earthquakes too,” returned Tabitha triumphantly.
“I grant you; but the thunderstorms are rare, and the earthquakes yet rarer; and the soft dew cometh every night. And ’tis the dew and the still small rain, not the earthquakes, that maketh the trees and flowers to grow.”
“Ah, well, you’re mighty wise, I cast no doubt,” answered Tabitha, getting up to go home. “But I tell you I was well thrashed, and scolded to boot, and it made a woman of me.”
“I suppose, Father,” said Christie, when Tabitha had taken her departure, “that the scolding and beating did make a woman of Aunt Tabitha; but please don’t be angry if I say that it wasn’t as pleasant a woman as Aunt Alice.”