Chapter Eleven.
According to that Beginning.
“Carry him forth and bury him. Death’s peace
Rest on his memory! Mercy by his bier
Sits silent, or says only these few words—
Let him who is without sin ’mongst ye all
Cast the first stone.”
Dinah Mulock.
A great crowd had assembled near Whitehall, and was lining Charing Cross and the Tiltyard below, on the morning of that 13th of February, when Sir Henry Bromley and his guard, with the prisoners in their midst, marched down the street to the Palace. Among them were Temperance Murthwaite and Rachel, and near them was Mrs Abbott. The crowd was deeply interested in the prisoners, especially the two priests.
“There is a Provincial!” said a respectable-looking man who stood next to Rachel.
“Ay, and there goeth a young Pope!” returned Temperance, grimly, in allusion to Hall.
“They bear a good brag, most of ’em,” said the man. “Would we were rid of ’em all, neck and crop!” said another.
“Pack ’em off to the American plantations!” suggested a third.
“If I dwelt there, I shouldn’t give you thanks,” replied the first.
“Find some land where nought dwelleth save baboons and snakes, and send ’em all there in a lump,” was the response.
“What think you, Rachel?” demanded Mrs Abbott, who was not often silent for so long at once.
“Why, they’re men, just like other folks!” was Rachel’s contribution.
“Did you think they’d have horns and tails?” said Temperance.
“Well, nay, not justly that,” answered Rachel: “but I reckoned they’d ha’ looked a bit more like wastrels (scoundrels). Yon lad’s none so bad-looking as many a man you may meet i’ th’ street. And th’ owd un’s meterly (middling), too. Happen (perhaps) they aren’t any o’ the worst.”
“Why, maid,” said the man who had first spoken, “that’s Father Garnet, the head of all the Jesuits in this country; there isn’t a craftier fox in all England than he.”
“Well, I shouldn’t ha’ thought it,” saith Rachel.
“Faces tell not alway truth,” said Temperance.
“He’s good eyes, though,” remarked Mrs Abbott, “though they be a bit heavy, as though he’d had a poor night’s rest.”
“He’s one o’ them long, narrow faces,” said the man; “I never trust such. And a long nose, too—just like a fox.”
“Ay, I’ll be bound he’s a fause (cunning) un,” commented Rachel.
“His mouth’s the worst thing about him,” said Temperance.
“It’s a little un,” observed Rachel.
“Little or big, it’s a false one,” answered Temperance. “There’s a prim, fixed, sanctimonious look about it that I wouldn’t trust with anything I cared to see safe.”
“Eh, I’d none trust one o’ them—not to sell a pound o’ butter,” said Rachel. “And by th’ same token, Mrs Temperance, I mun be home to skim th’ cream, or Charity’ll take it off like a gaumless (stupid) lass as hoo (she) is. Hoo can do some things, well enough, but hoo cannot skim cream!”
“Go, good maid, if thou canst win out of this crowd, but methinks thou shalt have thy work cut out to do so.”
“Eh, she will,” said Mrs Abbott. “And mind you, Rachel! if you pull yourself forth, you’ll find your gown in rags by the time you’re at home. I do hope, neighbour, you deal not with Simpkinson, in the Strand; that rogue sold me ten ells of green stamyn, and charged me thirty shillings the ell, and I vow it was scarce made up ere it began a-coming to bits. I’ll give it him when I can catch him! and if I serve not our Seth out for dinting in the blackjack last night, I’m a Dutch woman, and no mistake! Black jacks are half-a-crown apiece, and so I told him; but I’ll give him a bit more afore I’ve done with him; trust me. There is no keeping lads in order. The mischievousness of ’em’s past count. My husband, he says, ‘Lads will be lads,’—he’s that easy, if a mouse ran away with his supper from under his nose, he’d only call after it, ‘Much good may it do thee.’ Do you ever hear mice in your house, Mrs Murthwaite! I’m for ever and the day after plagued wi’ them, and I do wish those lads ’ud make theirselves a bit useful and catch ’em, instead o’ dinting in black jacks. But, dear heart, you’ll as soon catch the mice as catch them at aught that’s useful. They’ll—”
“My mistress,” said Mrs Abbott’s next neighbour, “may I ask if your husband be a very silent man?”
“I’m sure o’ that,” said the man who followed him.
“Eh, bless you, they all talk and chatter at our house while I can’t slip a word in,” was the lady’s answer.
“That’s why she has so many to let go out o’ door,” remarked the last speaker.
“I thought so,” observed the neighbour, “because I have marked that men and women do mostly wed with their contraries.”
“Why, what mean you?” inquired Mrs Abbott, turning round to look him in the face.
“That my way lieth down this by-street,” said he, working himself out of the crush into Channon Row, “and so I bid you all good-morrow.”
Temperance Murthwaite laughed to herself, as she let herself in at the door of the White Bear, while Mrs Abbott hurried into the Angel with a box on the ear to Dorcas and Hester, who leaned upon the gate watching the crowd.
“Get you in to your business!” said she. “Chatter, chatter, chatter! One might as well live in a cage o’ magpies at once, and ha’ done with it. Be off with the pair of ye!”
Garnet’s admissions in answer to the questions put to him were few and cautious. He allowed that for twenty years he had been the Superior of the English Jesuits, but denied any knowledge of the negotiations with Spain, carried on before the death of Queen Elizabeth. As to Fawkes, he had never seen him but once in his life, at the previous Easter. Questioned about White Webbs, he flatly denied that he ever was there, or anywhere near Enfield Chase “since Bartholomewtide.” He was not in London or the suburbs in November. The Attorney-General was very kind to the prisoner, and promised “to make the best construction that he could” of his answers to the King; but Sir William Wade was not the man to accept the word of a Jesuit, unless it should be the word “Guilty.” He accused Garnet of wholesale violation of the Decalogue in the plainest English, and coolly told him that he could not believe him on his oath, since the Pope could absolve him for any extent of lying or equivocation. It was plainly no easy matter to beguile Sir William Wade.
The next day, February 14th, Garnet and Hall were removed to the Tower of London, where the former found himself, to his satisfaction, lodged in “a very fine chamber,” next to that of his brother priest. Here, as he records in a letter to his friends, he received the best treatment, being “allowed every meal a good draught of excellent claret wine,” as well as permitted to send for additional sack out of his own purse for himself and the keeper: and he was suffered to vegetate as he thought proper, with only one sorrow to vex his soul—Sir William Wade.
Sir William Wade, the Lieutenant of the Tower, constituted himself the torment of poor Garnet’s life. He was perpetually passing through his room, or at the furthest, loitering in the gallery beyond. Sometimes he treated the prisoner as beneath contempt, and would not utter a word to him; at other times he sat down and regaled him with conversation of a free and easy character. The scornful silence was bad enough, but the conversation was considerably worse. Whatever else Garnet was, he was an English gentleman, as his letters testify; and Sir William Wade was not. He was, on the contrary, one of those distressing people who pride themselves on being outspoken, and calling a spade a spade, which they do in the most vulgar and disagreeable manner. He favoured the prisoner with his unvarnished opinion of the Society to which he belonged, and with unsavoury anecdotes of its members, mingled with the bitterest abuse: and the worthy knight was not the man to spare his adjectives when a sufficient seasoning of them would add zest to a dish of nouns. At other times Sir William dipped his tongue in honey, and used the sweetest language imaginable. It is manifest from the manner in which Garnet mentions him, that the smallest of his trials was not Sir William Wade.
Mr Garnet’s first act, on being inducted into these comfortable quarters in his Majesty’s Tower, was to bribe his keeper to wink at his peccadilloes. A few cups of that supernumerary sack, and an occasional piece of silver, were worth expending on the safe carriage of his letters and other necessities which might in time arise. He made affectionate inquiries as to the keeper’s domestic relations, and discovered that he was blessed with a wife and a mother. To the wife he despatched a little of that excellent sack, and secured permission for his letters to be placed in the custody of the mother, who dwelt just outside the walls. But he was especially rejoiced when, a few days after his incarceration, the keeper sidled up to him, with a finger on his lips and a wink in his eye, and beckoned him to a particular part of the room, where with great parade of care and silence he showed him a concealed door between his own cell and that of Hall, intimating by signs that secret communications might be held after this fashion, and he, the keeper, would take care to be conveniently blind and deaf.
This was a comfort indeed, for the imprisoned priests could now mutually forgive each others’ sins. There was a little cranny in the top of the door, which might be utilised for a mere occasional whisper; but when a regular confession was to be made, the door of communication could be opened for an inch or two. The one drawback was that the vexatious door insisted on creaking, as if it were a Protestant door desirous of giving warning of Popish practices. But the Jesuits were equal to the difficulty. When the door was to be shut, the unemployed one either fell to shovelling coals upon the fire, or was suddenly seized with a severe bronchial cough, so that the ominous creak should not be heard outside. The comfort, therefore, remained; and heartily glad were the imprisoned Jesuits to have found this means of communication by the kind help of their tender-hearted keeper.
Alas, poor Jesuits! They little knew that they were caught in their own trap. The treacherous keeper drank their sack, and pocketed their angels, but their letters rarely went further than my Lord of Salisbury’s desk; and in a convenient closet unseen by them, close to the creaking door, Mr Forset, a Justice of the Peace, and Mr Locherson, Lord Salisbury’s secretary, were listening with all their ears to their confidential whispers, and taking thereby bad “coulds” which they subsequently had to go home and nurse. It was fox versus fox. As soon as the door was closed under cover of cough or coals, the hidden spies came quickly forth, and in another chamber wrote down the conversation just passed for the benefit of his Majesty’s Judges.
Benighted Protestants were evidently Messrs Forset and Locherson, for the “Catholic practice” of auricular confession was to them a strange and perplexing matter. They innocently record that “the confession was short, with a prayer in Latin before they did confess to each other, and beating their hands on their breasts.” The Confiteor was succeeded by the whispered confession, in such low tones that scarcely anything reached the disappointed spies. Hall made his confession first, and Garnet followed. The subsequent conversation was in louder tones, though still whispered. Garnet informed his fellow-conspirator that he was suspicious of the good faith of some one whose name the spies failed to hear—to which frailty he allowed that he was very subject; that he had received a note from Thomas Rookwood, who told him of Greenway’s escape, and from Gerard, who therefore was evidently in safety, though “he had been put to great plunges;” that he believed Mrs Anne was in the Town, and would let them hear from their friends; that the keeper had accepted an angel, and sundry cups of sack for himself and his wife, and taken them very kindly,—recommending similar treatment on Hall’s part; that Garnet was very much afraid he should be driven to confess White Webbs, but if so, he would say that he “was there, but knew nothing of the matter.” Then Hall made a remark lost by the spies, to which Garnet answered, with a profane invocation—too common in all ranks at that day—“How did they know that!” If he were pressed as to his treasonable practices before the Queen’s death, he would admit them, seeing that he held a general pardon up to that time. Garnet bemoaned himself concerning Sir William Wade, and expressed his annoyance at the persistent questioning of the Court touching White Webbs.
“I think it not convenient,” said he, “to deny that we were at White Webbs, they do so much insist upon that place. Since I came out of Essex I was there two times, and so I may say I was there; but they press me to be there in October last, which I will by no means confess, but I shall tell them I was not there since Bartholomewtide.”
He expressed his apprehension lest the servants at White Webbs should be examined and tortured, which might “make them yield to some confession;” a fear which made him more resolute to admit nothing concerning the place. He was also very much afraid of being asked about certain letters which Lord Monteagle had written.
“But in truth I am well persuaded,” he concluded, “that I shall wind myself out of that matter; and for any former business, I care not.”
Just as Garnet whispered these words, footsteps were heard approaching the chamber.
“Hark you, hark you, Mr Hall!” cried Garnet in haste; “whilst I shut the door, make a hawking and a spitting.”
Mr Hall obediently and energetically cleared his throat, under cover of which Garnet closed the door, and presented himself the next moment to the edified eyes of Sir William Wade in the pious aspect of a priest telling his beads.
Another conference through the door was held on the 25th of February, wherein Garnet was heard to lament to Hall that he “held not better concurrence”—namely, that he did not use diligence to tell exactly the arranged falsehoods on which the two had previously agreed. The poor spies found themselves in difficulties on this occasion through “a cock crowing under the window of the room, and the cackling of a hen at the very same instant.” Hall, however, was heard to undertake a better adherence to his lesson. It is more than once noted by the spies that in these conferences the prisoners “used not one word of godliness or religion, or recommending themselves or their cause to God; but all hath been how to contrive safe answers.”
During Garnet’s imprisonment in the Tower, if his gaolers may be trusted, his consumption of that extra sack was not regulated by the rules of the Blue Ribbon Army. They averred that he was “indulgent to himself” in this particular, and “daily drank sack so liberally as if he meant to drown sorrow.”
On the 26th, Garnet knew that one of his apprehensions was verified, when he was confronted with poor James Johnson, who had borne the torture so bravely, and who now admitted that the prisoner thus shown to him was the man whom he had known at White Webbs as Mr Mease, the supposed brother of his mistress, Mrs Perkins. He confessed that he had seen him many times. After this, it was useless to deny White Webbs any longer. Hall was examined on the same day; but being ignorant of the evidence given by Johnson, he audaciously affirmed that he had not visited White Webbs, and knew of no such place.
That evening, Garnet gave a shilling to his keeper, with a request to have some oranges brought to him. This fruit, first introduced into England about 1568, was at that time very cheap and plentiful, about eighteen-pence the hundred being the usual price. Sir William Wade, lounging about the gallery as usual, met the keeper as he came out of the cell with the money in his hand.
“What would the old fox now?” demanded he.
“An ’t please you, Sir, Mr Garnet asked for oranges.”
“Oh, come! he may have an orange or two—he can’t do any harm with them without he choke himself, and that should spare the King the cost of a rope to hang him,” said shrewd Sir William.
But he was not quite shrewd enough, for it never occurred to his non-Jesuitical mind that one of those innocent oranges was destined to play the part of a traitorous inkstand by the Reverend Henry Garnet.
A large sheet of paper, folded letter-wise, came out of the prison in the keeper’s hand an hour later. It was addressed to the Reverend Thomas Rookwood, and contained only—in appearance—the following very unobjectionable words. They were written in ink, at the top of the first page:—
“Let these spectacles be set in leather, and with a leather case, or let the fould be fitter for the nose.—Yours for ever, Henry Garnett.”
Who could think of detaining so innocent a missive, or prevent the poor prisoner from obtaining a pair of comfortable spectacles? But when the sheet of paper was held to the fire, a very different letter started out, in faint tracings of orange-juice:—
“This bearer knoweth that I write thus, but thinks it must be read with water. The papers sent with bisket-bread I was forced to burn, and did not read. I am sorry they have, without advise of friends, adventured in so wicked an action.—I must needs acknowledge my being with the two sisters, and that at White Webbs, as is trew, for they are so jealous of White Webbs that I can no way else satisfy. My names I all confesse but that last... I have acknowledged that I went from Sir Everard’s to Coughton... Where is Mrs Anne?”
A few days later, on the 2nd of March, after a careful reconnoitre to avoid the ubiquitous Sir William, Garnet applied his lips to the cranny in the door.
“Hark you! is all well? Let us go to confession first, if you will.”
The spies, ensconced in secret, confess that they heard nothing of Hall’s confession, but that Garnet several times interrupted it with “Well, well!”
Garnet then made his own confession, “very much more softlier than he used to whisper in their interloqucions.” It was short, but unless the spy was mistaken, “he confessed that he had drunk so extraordinarily that he was forced to go two nights to bed betimes.” Then something was said concerning Jesuits, to which Garnet added—
“That cannot be; I am Chancellor. It might proceed of the malice of the priests.”
The conversation on this occasion was brought to a hasty close by Garnet’s departure to read or write a letter; Mr Hall being requested to “make a noise with the shovel” while he was shutting the door.
The second letter to Mr Thomas Rookwood followed this interview. It was equally short in its ostensible length, and piously acknowledged the receipt of two bands, two handkerchiefs, one pair of socks, and a Bible. Beneath came the important postscript “Your last letter I could not read; the pen did not cast incke. Mr Catesby did me much wrong, and hath confessed that he asked me the question in Queen Elizabeth’s time of the powder action, and I said it was lawfull: all which is most untrew. He did it to draw in others. I see no advantage they have against me for the powder action.” (Gunpowder Plot Book, article 242.)
Garnet added that his friend might communicate with him through letters left in charge of the keeper’s mother; but he begged him not to pay a personal visit unless he could first make sure that the redoubtable Wade was absent.
An answer from the Reverend Thomas consisted, to all appearance, of a simple sheet of writing-paper, enclosing a pair of spectacles in their case, and bearing the few words written outside—“I pray you prove whether the spectacles do fit your sight.” Inside, in orange-juice, was the real communication, from Anne Vaux, wherein she promised to come to the garden, and begged Garnet to appoint a time when she might hope to see him. (Gunpowder Plot Book, article 243.) This seems to show that Garnet was sometimes allowed the liberty of the Tower garden.
On the 5th of March, Hall and Garnet were re-examined, when Hall confessed the truth of the conversations through the door, and Garnet denied them. The same day, the latter wrote a long letter, addressed to Mrs Anne Vaux or any of his friends, giving a full account of his sufferings while in “the hoale” at Hendlip Hall, and of his present condition in the Tower. Remarking that he was permitted to purchase sherry out of his own purse, Garnet adds—
“This is the greatest charge I shall be at, for fire will soon be unnecessary, if I live so long, whereof I am very uncertain, and as careless... They say I was at White Webbs with the conspirators; I said, if I was ever there after the 1st of September, I was guilty of the powder action. The time of my going to Coughton is a great presumption, but all Catholics know it was necessary. I thank God, I am and have been intrepidus, wherein I marvail at myself, having had such apprehension before; but it is God’s grace.”
On the third examination, which was on the 6th of March, both Garnet and Hall confessed White Webbs at last,—the former, that he had hired the house for the meetings of the conspirators, the latter that they had met there twice in the year. Garnet also allowed that Perkins was the alias of the Hon. Anne Vaux, to avoid whose indictment he afterwards said his confession had been made. It is evident, from several allusions in his letters, that Garnet was terribly afraid of torture, and almost equally averse to confronting witnesses. The first was merely human nature; the second speaks ill for his consciousness of that innocence which he repeatedly asserts.
But not yet had the Gunpowder Plot secured its latest or its saddest victim. Soon after Sir Henry Bromley’s departure from Hendlip, Mrs Abington came to London, bringing Anne Vaux with her, and they took lodgings in Fetter Lane, then a more aristocratic locality than now. Here they remained for a few weeks, doing all that could be done to help Garnet, and poor Anne continually haunting the neighbourhood of his prison, and trying to catch glimpses of him, if not to obtain stolen interviews, at the garden gate. But on the 10th of March the authorities interfered, and Anne Vaux was a prisoner of the Tower. Examined on the following day, she deposed that she “kept the house at White Webbs at her own charge;” that she was visited there by Catesby, Thomas Winter, Tresham, and others, but said that she could not remember dates nor further names. She refused to admit that Garnet had been there, but she allowed that she had been among the party of pilgrims to Saint Winifred’s Well, in company with Lady Digby and others whom she declined to name. Lastly, she persisted in saying that she had known nothing of the plot.
She was told—not improbably by Sir William Wade, and if so, we may be sure, not very tenderly—that Garnet had been one of the chief criminals. A few sorrowful lines remain showing the spirit in which she heard it. They were written on the 12th of March.
“I am most sore to here that Father Garnet shoulde be ane wease pryue to this most wicked actione, as himselfe euer cauled it, for that hee made to mee maney greate prostertations to the contrari diuers times sence.
“Anne Vaux.” (Gunpowder Plot Book, article 201.)
After this, Garnet gave up the fiction of his total ignorance of the conspirators’ object. In his fourth examination, on the 13th of March, he said that on the demise of Queen Elizabeth, he had received a letter from the General of the Jesuits, stating that the new Pope Clement had confirmed the order of his predecessor that no such plot should be set on foot, and that Garnet had accordingly done what in him lay to turn Catesby from the idea. Catesby, however, thought himself authorised by two briefs received by Garnet about twelve months earlier, commanding the Roman Catholics of England not to consent to any successor of Elizabeth who should refuse to submit to Rome. These Garnet had shown to Catesby before destroying them. It is evident from these admissions, not only that Garnet had been privy to the plot from the first, but also that it was known at Rome, and controlled from the Vatican—forbidden when success appeared unlikely, and smiled on as soon as it seemed probable.
Shortly after this, a letter came from Anne Vaux—a letter which sadly reveals the character of its writer, and shows how different life might have been for this poor passionate-hearted woman, had she not been crushed under the iron heel of Rome.
“To live without you,” she writes to Garnet, “it is not life, but death! Now I see my los. I am and euer will be yours, and so I humbly beseche you to account me. O that I might see you!”
Her second examination took place a few days later, on the 24th of March. She now acknowledged that Tresham Catesby, and Garnet, used to meet at her house at Wandsworth: and that Garnet was wont to say to them, when they were engaged in discussion,—“Good gentlemen, be quiet; God will do all for the best; and we must get it by prayer at God’s hands, in whose hands are the hearts of princes.” The confession was carried to Garnet. Poor frail, loving heart! she meant to save him, and he knew it. He wrote calmly underneath—
“I do acknowledge these meetings.—H. Garnett.” (Gunpowder Plot Book, article 212.)
Even her very gaolers dealt pitifully with Anne Vaux. “This gentlewoman,” said Lord Salisbury to Garnet, “hath harboured you these twelve years last past, and seems to speak for you in her confessions; I think she would sacrifice herself for you to do you good, and you likewise for her.”
Garnet made no answer.
Letters continued to pass between the cells. A remarkable one was sent to Anne on the 2nd of April, written principally in orange-juice, on the question which she had submitted to Garnet as to her living abroad after her release.
“Concerning the disposal of yourself, I give you leave to go over to them. The vow of obedience ceaseth, being made to the Superior of this Mission: you may, upon deliberation, make it to some there. If you like to stay here, then I exempt you, till a Superior be appointed, whom you may acquaint: but tell him that you made your vow yourself, and then told me; and that I limited certain conditions, as that you are not bound to sin (Note 1) except you be commanded in virtute obedientiae. We may accept no vows, but men may make them as they list, and we after give directions accordingly. Mr Hall dreamed that the General... provided two fair tabernacles or seats for us: and this he dreamed twice.” (Gunpowder Plot Book, article 245.)
The sentence in italics is terrible. No Protestant ever penned a darker indictment against Popery.
Anne Vaux received this letter, for she answered it at once. She speaks of her “vow of poverty,” and adds—
“Mr Haule his dreame had been a great cumfert, if at the fute of the throne there had bin a place for me. God and you know my unworthenes.—Yours and not my own, Anne Vaux.” (Gunpowder Plot Book, article 246.)
On the following day, Garnet wrote again—eight closely covered pages, in his own hand throughout. I append a few extracts from this pathetic letter.
“My very loving and most dear Sister,—I will say what I think it best for you to do, when it please God to set you at liberty. If you can stay in England, and enjoy the use of the Sacraments as heretofore, it would be best: and then I wish that you and your sister live as before in a house of common repair of the Society, or where the Superior of the Mission shall ordinarily remain: or if this cannot be, then make choice of some one of the Society, as you shall like, which I am sure will be granted you. If you like to go over, stay at Saint Omer, and send for Friar Baldwin, with whom consult where to live: but I think Saint Omer less healthy than Brussels. In respect of your weakness, I think it better for you to live abroad, and not in a monastery. Your vow of obedience, being made to the Superior of the Mission here, when you are over, ceaseth: and then may you consult how to make it again. None of the Society can accept a vow of obedience of any; but any one may vow as he will, and then one of the Society may direct accordingly.”
Garnet proceeds to say that the vow of poverty was to cease in like manner, and might be similarly renewed. “All that which is for annuities” he had always meant to be hers, in the hope that she would afterwards leave it to the Jesuit Mission: but she is at liberty, if she wish it, to alienate a third of this, or if she should desire at any time to “retire into religion,”—i.e., to become a nun—and require a portion, she is to help herself freely. He “thanks God most humbly that in all his speeches and practices he has had a desire to do nothing against the glory of God.” He was so much annoyed by having been misunderstood by the two spies that he “thought it would make our actions much more excusable to tell the truth, than to stand to the torture, or trial by witnesses.” As to his acquaintance with the plot, he sought to hinder it more than men can imagine, as the Pope can tell: how could he have dissuaded the conspirators if he had absolutely known nothing? But he thought it not allowable to tell what he knew. None of them ever told him anything, though they used his name freely—he implies, more freely than truth justified them in doing: “yet have I hurt nobody.” He ordered the removal of certain books which he does not further describe; if they be found, “you can challenge them as your own, as in truth they are.” He will “die not as a victorious martyr, but as a penitent thief:” but “let God work His will.” The most touching words are the last. Up to this point, the spiritual director has been addressing his subject. Now the priest disappears, and the man’s heart breaks out.
“Howsoever I shall die a thief, yet you may assure yourself your innocence is such, that but if you die by reason of your imprisonment, you shall die a martyr. (From this point the letter is in Latin.) ‘The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.’ Farewell, my ever beloved in Christ, and pray for me.” (Domestic State Papers, James the First, volume 20, article 11.)
Yet a few words were to be written before the end. The execution of Hall, which took place at Worcester on the 7th of April, unnerved Garnet as nothing else had done. He wrote, a fortnight later, to her who was his last and had always been his truest friend—a few hurried, incoherent words, which betray the troubled state of his mind.
“It pleaseth God daily to multiply my crosses. I beseech Him give me patience and perseverance to the end. I was, after a week’s hiding, taken in a friend’s house, where our confessions and secret conferences were heard, and my letters taken by some indiscretion abroad;—then the taking of yourself;—after, my arraignment;—then the taking of Mr Greenwell;—then the slander of us both abroad;—then the ransacking anew of Erith and the other house;—then the execution of Mr Hall;—and now, last of all, the apprehension of Richard and Robert: with a cipher, I know not of whose, laid to my charge, and that which was a singular oversight, a letter in cipher, together with the ciphers—which letter may bring many into question.
“‘The patience of Job ye have heard, and have seen the end of the Lord,—that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.’ Blessed be the name of the Lord! (These quotations are in Latin)—Yours, eternally, as I hope, H.G.”
“21st April—I thought verily my chamber in Thames Street had been given over, and therefore I used it to save Erith; but I might have done otherwise.”
At the end of the letter is a symbolic sketch. The mystic letters I.H.S. within a circle, are surmounted by a cross, and beneath them is a heart pierced by three nails. Underneath is written, in Latin—“God is (the strength) of my heart, and God is my portion for ever.”
So end the last words which passed between the unhappy pair.
In his sixth examination, four days later, Garnet admitted that as often as he and Greenway had met, he had asked concerning the plot, “being careful of the matter;” and that “in general” he had inquired who was to be chosen protector after the explosion; Greenway having answered that this “was to be deferred until the blow was passed, and then the protector to be chosen out of the noblemen that should be saved.” This completely settles the question as to Garnet’s guilty knowledge of the plot before he received Digby’s letter. Greenway is here shown to be Garnet’s informant; whereas the letter was addressed to Garnet himself, and the occasion on which he received it was the last time that he ever saw Greenway!
A few days before his execution, the prisoner received a visit from three Deans, who essayed to converse with him upon various points of doctrine. Garnet, however, declined any discussion, on the ground that “it was unlawful for him.” He was asked whether he thought that he should die a martyr.
“I a martyr!” exclaimed Garnet, with a deep sigh. “Oh, what a martyr should I be! God forbid! If, indeed, I were really about to suffer death for the sake of the Catholic religion, and if I had never known of this project except by the means of sacramental confession, I might perhaps be accounted worthy of the honour of martyrdom, and might deservedly be glorified in the opinion of the Church. As it is, I acknowledge myself to have sinned in this respects and deny not the justice of the sentence passed upon me.” Then, after a moment’s pause, he added with apparent earnestness, “Would to God that I could recall that which has been done! Would to God that anything had happened rather than that this stain of treason should hang upon my name! I know that my offence is most grievous, though I have confidence in Christ to pardon me on my hearty penitence: but I would give the whole world, if I possessed it, to be able to die without the weight of this sin upon my soul.”
The 1st of May had been originally fixed for the execution, but it was delayed until the 3rd. To the last moment, when he received notice of it, which was on the 29th of April, Garnet fully expected a reprieve. He “could hardly be persuaded to believe” in approaching death. Yet even then, on the very night before his execution—if we may believe the testimony of his keepers—he drank so copiously that the gaoler thought it necessary to inform the Lieutenant, who came to see for himself, and was invited, in thick and incoherent accents, to join Garnet in his potations. Sir William Wade was not the man to allow such a fact to rest in silence; and Garnet is neither the first nor the last whose words have been better than his actions.
On the 3rd of May, he was drawn on a hurdle to the west end of Saint Paul’s Churchyard, where the first conspirators had suffered, and where the scaffold was again set up. His conduct on the scaffold was certainly not that of a martyr, nor that of a penitent thief: the impenitent thief appeared rather to be his model. Advised by the attendant Deans of Saint Paul’s and Winchester to “prepare and settle himself for another world, and to commence his reconciliation with God by a sincere and saving repentance,” Garnet answered that he had already done so. He showed himself very unwilling to address the people; but being strongly urged by the Recorder, he uttered a few sentences, the purport of which was that he considered all treason detestable; that he prayed the King’s pardon for not revealing that of which he had a general knowledge from Catesby, but not otherwise; that he never knew anything of the design of blowing up the Parliament House. The Dean of Winchester reminded him that he had confessed that Greenway told him all the circumstances in Essex. “That was in secret confession,” said Garnet, “which I could by no means reveal.” The Dean having reminded him that he had already allowed the contrary, the Recorder was about to read his written confessions to the people—a course commanded by the King if Garnet should deny his guilt upon the scaffold: but Garnet stopped this conviction from his own mouth, by telling the Recorder that he might spare himself that trouble; he would stand to the confessions he had signed, and acknowledge himself justly condemned for not having declared his general knowledge of the plot. He then spoke of Anne Vaux, and denounced as slander all the injurious reports concerning his relations with her: then he asked what time would be permitted him for prayer. He was told that he should choose his own time, and should not be interrupted. Kneeling down at the foot of the ladder, Garnet proceeded to his devotions in such a manner as to show that they were to him the purest formalities: as the words fell from his lips, he was gazing at the crowd, listening to the attendants, sometimes even replying to remarks they made. When he rose from his knees, he was urged once more to confess his guilt in plain terms. He answered that he had no more to confess; his guilt had been exaggerated. As he undressed for execution, he said in a low voice to those nearest to him, “There is no salvation for you, unless you hold the Catholic faith.” Their reply was that they were under the impression they did hold it. “But the only Catholic faith,” responded Garnet, “is that professed by the Church of Rome.” Having ascended the ladder, he addressed the people. He expressed in these closing words his grief that he had offended the King, and that he had not used more diligence in preventing the execution of the plot; he was sorry that he had dissembled with the Lords of the Council, and that he did not declare the truth until it was proved against him: “but,” he said, “I did not think they had such sure proofs against me”! He besought all men “not to allow the Catholics to fare worse for his sake,” and bade the latter keep out of sedition. Then he crossed himself, and added—“Jesus Maria! Mary, mother of grace, mother of mercy! Save me from mine enemies, and receive me in the hour of death. In Thine hands I commend my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth!” Crossing himself once more, he added—always in Latin—“By this sign of the cross, may all evil things be dispersed. Plant Thy cross, Lord, in mine heart!” But his last words were, “Jesus Maria! Mary, mother of grace!” Then the ladder was drawn away, and Henry Garnet, the conspirator and liar, stood before that Lord God of truth who will by no means clear the guilty. By express command of the King, the after-horrors of a traitor’s death were omitted.
Three months after that sad close of life, the Tower gates opened again—this time to release a prisoner. The Hon. Anne Vaux was bidden to go whither she would. Whither she would!—what a mockery to her to whom all the earth and the heavens had been made one vaulted grave—who had no home left anywhere in the world, for her home had been in the heart of that dead man. To what part of that great wilderness of earth she carried her bitter grief and her name of scorn, no record has been left to tell us, except one.
Thirty years later, in 1635, a Jesuit school for “Catholic youths of the nobility and gentry” was dispersed by authority. It was at Stanley, a small hamlet about six miles to the north-east of Derby, a short distance from the Nottingham road. The house was known as Stanley Grange, and it was the residence of the Hon. Anne Vaux.
So she passes out of our sight, old and full of days, true to the end to the faith for which she had so sorely suffered, and to the memory of the friend whom she had loved too well.
“O solitary love that was so strong!”
Let us leave her to the mercy of Him who died for men, and who only can presume to sit in judgment on that faithful, passionate, broken heart.
Note 1. This word is plainly sin, though Mr Lemon in his copy tried to read it him—an interpretation which he was obliged to abandon.
Chapter Twelve.
The Fruit of his own Way.
“Say not, This brackish well I will not taste;
Ere long thou may’st give thanks that even this
Is left for thee in such a burning waste.”
Reverend Horatius Bonar.
“Tell Mr Louvaine that I desire speech of him.”
The page who received this order looked up in apprehension. So exceedingly stern were Lady Oxford’s tone, and so frowning her aspect, that he trembled for himself, apart from Aubrey. Escaping from that awful presence at the earliest moment possible, he carried the message to Aubrey, who when he received it was lounging on a day-bed, or sofa, with his arms crossed behind his head.
“And you’d best go soon, Sir,” said the page, “for her Ladyship looks as though she could swallow me in two bites.”
“Then I rather count I’d best not,” said Aubrey, looking very much indisposed to stir. “What on earth would she have of me? There’s no end to the whims and conceits of women.”
He unwreathed his arms and stood up, yawned, and very slowly went upstairs to the gallery where he had learned that the Countess was awaiting him. Aubrey Louvaine was at that moment a most unhappy young man. The first sensation of amazement and horror at the discovery of the treachery and wickedness of his chosen friends was past, but the apprehensions for his own safety were not; and as the time went on, the sense of loss, weariness, and disgust of life, rather grew than lessened. Worst of all, and beyond all, were two better feelings—the honest affection which Aubrey had scarcely realised before that he entertained for Thomas Winter, and the shock and pain of his miserable fate: and even beyond this, a sense of humiliation, very wholesome yet very distressing, at the folly of his course, and the wreck which he had made of his life. How complete a wreck it was he had not discovered even now: but that he had been very foolish, he knew in his inmost heart. And when a man is just making that valuable discovery is not the best time for other men to tell him of it.
That Fate was preparing for him not a sedative but a stimulant, he had little doubt as he went slowly on his way to the gallery: but of the astringent nature of that mixture he had equally small idea, until he turned the last corner, and came in sight of the Countess’s face. There was an aspect of the avenging angel about Lady Oxford, as she stood up, tall and stately, in that corner of the gallery, and held out to Aubrey what that indiscreet young gentleman recognised as a lost solitaire that was wont to fasten the lace ruffles on his wrist.
“Is this yours, Mr Louvaine?” Her voice said, “Guilty or not guilty?” so plainly that he was almost ready to respond, “Of what?”
Aubrey gave the garnet solitaire a more prolonged examination than it needed. He felt no doubt of its identity.
“Yes, Madam, I think it is,” he answered slowly. “At the least, I have lost one that resembles it.”
“I think it is, too,” said the Countess no less sternly. “Do you know where this was found, Mr Louvaine?”
Aubrey began to feel thoroughly alarmed.
“No, Madam,” he faltered.
“In the chamber of Thomas Winter, the traitor and Papist, at the sign of the Duck, in the Strand. Perhaps you can tell me how it came thither?”
Aubrey was silent, from sheer terror. A gulf seemed to yawn before his feet, and the Countess appeared to him in the light of the minister of wrath waiting to push him into it. With the rapidity of lightning, his whole life seemed to pass in sudden review before him—his happy childhood and guarded youth at Selwick Hall, the changed circumstances of his London experiences, his foolish ways and extravagant expenditure, his friendship with Winter, the quiet home at the White Bear into which his fall would bring such disgrace and sorrow, the possible prison and scaffold as the close of all. Was it to end thus? He had meant so little ill, had done so little wrong. Yet how was he to convince any one that he had not meant the one, or even that he had not done the other?
In that moment, one circumstance of his early life stood out bright and vivid as if touched with a sunbeam:—an act of childish folly, done fifteen years before, for which his grandfather had made him learn the text, “Thou God seest me.” It came flashing back upon him now. Had God seen him all this while? Then He knew all his foolishness—ay, and his innocence as well. Could He—would He—help him in this emergency? Aubrey Louvaine had never left off the outward habit of saying prayers; but it was years since he had really prayed before that unheard cry went up in the gallery of Oxford House—“Lord, save me, for my grandmother’s sake!” He felt as if he dared not ask it for his own.
All these thoughts followed each other in so short a time that Lady Oxford was conscious of little more than a momentary hesitation, before Aubrey said—
“I suppose I can, Madam.”
He had made up his mind to speak the plain, full truth. Even that slight touch of the hem of Christ’s garment had given him strength.
“Then do so. Have you visited this man?”
“I have, Madam.”
“How many times?”
“Several times, Madam. I could not say with certainty how many.”
“How long knew you this Thomas Winter?”
“Almost as long as I have dwelt in your Ladyship’s house—not fully that time.”
“Who made you acquaint with him?”
“Mr Percy.”
“What, the arch-traitor?” Percy was then supposed to be what Catesby really was—the head and front of the offending.
“He, Madam. I will not deceive your Ladyship.”
“And pray who made you acquaint with him?” demanded the Countess, grimly. In her heart, as she looked into the eyes honestly raised to hers, she was saying, “The lad is innocent of all ill meaning—a foolish daw that these kites have plucked:” but she showed no sign of the relenting she really felt.
“Madam, that was Mr Thomas Rookwood.”
“He that dwells beside the Lady Lettice?”
“His son, Madam.”
“Were you acquaint with any of their wicked designs?”
“Not one of them, Madam, nor I never imagined no such a thing of any of those gentlemen.”
“Who of them all have you seen?”
“Madam, I have seen divers of whom I knew no more than to see them, whose names—but no more—I can specify if your Ladyship desire it. But those that I did really know and at all consort with were three only beside Mr Tom Rookwood—to wit, Mr Percy, Mr Catesby, and Mr Thomas Winter: and I saw but little save of the last.”
“The boy’s telling truth,” said Lady Oxford to herself. “He has been exceedingly foolish, but no worse.” Then aloud she asked,—“Saw you ever any priests there?”
“Not to know them for such, Madam.”
“Tampered they with you in any wise as to religion?”
“Never, Madam.”
“And you are yet at heart a true Protestant, and loyal to King James?”
“As much so as I ever was, Madam.”
But as Aubrey spoke, the question arose in his conscience,—What had he ever cared about either? Not half as much as he had cared for Tom Winter,—nay, not so much as he had cared for Tom Winter’s tobacco.
“Mr Louvaine,” said the Countess, suddenly, “have you discovered that you are a very foolish young man?”
Aubrey flushed red, and remained silent.
“It seems to me,” she continued, “that you speak truth, and that you have been no worser than foolish. Yet, so being, you must surely guess that for your own sake, no less than for the Earl’s, you must leave this house, and that quickly.”
He had not guessed it, and it came upon him like a bomb-shell. Leave Oxford House! What was to become of him?
“And if you will take my advice, you will not essay to win into any other service. Tarry as still as you can some whither, till matters be blown over, and men begin to forget the inwards of this affair: not in Town. Have you no friend in the country that would take you in for a while? ’Tis for your own good, and for my Lady Lettice’ sake, that I give you this counsel.”
“Lie hidden in the country!” Aubrey’s tones were perfectly aghast. Such an expectation had never visited his least coherent dreams.
“Mr Louvaine,” said Lady Oxford in a kinder voice, “I can see that you have never reckoned till this moment whither your course should lead you, nor what lay at the end of the road you traversed. I am sorry for you, rather than angered; for I believe you thought no ill: you simply failed to think at all, as so many have done before you. Yet is it the truest kindness not to cover your path by a deluding mist, but to point out to you plainly the end of the way you are going. Trust me, if this witness in mine hand were traced to you by them in power, they should not take your testimony for truth so easily as I may. I know you, and the stock whence you come; to them, you were but one of a thousand, without favour or distinction. Maybe you think me hard; yet I ensure you, you have no better friend, nor one that shall give you truer counsel than this which I have given. Go you into the country, the further from London the better, and lie as quiet as you may, till the whole matter be blown over, and maybe some time hence, it shall be possible to sue you a pardon from his Majesty to cover all.”
“Some time!” broke from Aubrey’s lips.
“Ay, and be thankful it is no worse. He that leaps into a volcano, counting it but a puddle, shall not find it a puddle, but a volcano. You have played with firebrands, Mr Louvaine, and must not marvel nor grumble to feel the scorching of your fingers.”
Aubrey’s silence was the issue of sheer despair.
“You must leave this house to-day,” said the Countess firmly, “and not as though you went on a journey. Go forth this afternoon, as for a walk of pleasure, and carrying nothing save what you can put in your pockets. When you have set a few miles betwixt yourself and the town, you may then hire an horse, and ride quickly. I would counsel you not to journey too direct—if you go north or south, tack about somewhat to east and west; one may ride with far more safety than many. I am not, as you know, over rich, yet I will, for my Lady Lettice’ sake, lend you a sufficiency to carry you an hundred miles—and if it fall out that you are not able to return the loan, trouble yourself not thereabout. I am doing my best for you, Mr Louvaine, not my worst.”
“I thank your Ladyship,” faltered the unhappy youth. “But—must I not so much as visit my grandmother?”
It was no very long time since the White Bear had been to Aubrey a troublesome nuisance. Now it presented itself to his eyes in the enticing form of a haven of peace. He was loved there: and he began to perceive that love, even when it crossed his wishes, was better worth having than the due reward of his deeds.
“Too great a risk to run,” said the Countess, gravely. “If any inquiration be made for you, and you not found here, the officers of justice should go straight thither. No: I will visit my Lady Lettice myself, and soften the thing as best I may to her and to Mrs Louvaine. The only thing,” she paused a moment in thought. “What other friends have you in London?”
“Truly, none, Madam, save my cousin David—”
“Not a relative. Is there no clergyman that knows you, who is of good account, and a staunch Protestant?”
“There is truly Mr Marshall, a friend of my grandmother, and an ejected Puritan.”
“Where dwelleth he?”
“In Shoe Lane, Madam.”
“Is he a wise and discreet man?”
“I think, Madam, my grandmother holds him for such.”
“It is possible,” said Lady Oxford, meditatively, “that you might be safe in his house for a day or two, and your friends from the White Bear could go as if to see him and his wife—hath he a wife?”
“He buried his wife this last summer, Madam: he hath a daughter that keeps his house, of about mine own years.”
“If you think it worth to run the risk, you might ask this good gentleman to give you a day’s shelter, so as to speak with your friends ere you depart. It were a risk: yet not, perchance, too great. You must judge for yourself. If you choose this way, I will take it on myself to let your friends know how it is with you.”
It was a bitter pill to swallow. Mr Marshall was about the last man in his world to whom Aubrey felt any inclination to lay himself under an obligation. Both as a clergyman, a Puritan, and an ejected minister, this undiscerning youth had looked down exceedingly upon his superior. The popular estimate of the clergy was just then at the lowest ebb, and it required some moral courage for any man to take holy orders, who was neither very high up in rank, nor very low down. This was the result partly of the evil lives, and partly of the gross ignorance, of the pre-Reformation priests; the lives were now greatly amended, but too much of the ignorance, remained, and the time had not been sufficient to remove the stigma. A clergyman was expected to apprentice his children to a trade, or at best to place them in domestic service; and he would have been thought forward and impertinent if, when dining with laymen in a good position, he had not spontaneously taken his departure before dessert made its appearance. To be indebted, therefore, for an essential service to one of this lowly class, Aubrey was sufficiently foolish to account a small degradation.
Happily for him, he had just enough sense left, and had been sufficiently humiliated, to perceive that he could not escape the necessity of devouring this unpalatable piece of humble pie, and that the only choice left him was a choice of bitters. The false manliness which he had been diligently cultivating had vanished into thin air, and something of the child’s spirit, so long despised, was coming back to him,—the longing for the sound of a familiar voice, and the touch of a tender hand. Even Aunt Temperance would have received, just then, a welcome which might have astonished her. But it showed the character of the women of his family that in this emergency Aubrey’s thoughts scarcely touched his mother, and dwelt longingly on his grandmother and his Aunt Edith.
The wise Countess waited quietly till Aubrey’s meditations had taken time to settle themselves into resolution.
“Madam, I thank your Ladyship,” he said at last, as he looked up, with an expression which had not dwelt for many a month in his eyes. “I think I perceive now how matters stand. Suffer me to say that I never knew, until now, how foolish I have been. Under your Ladyship’s leave, I will take your kindly counsel, and seek aid of Mr Marshall. I would like to see them again.”
His voice faltered as the last words were spoken.
“So will you do well,” said the Countess, more kindly than before. “All is not yet lost, Mr Louvaine. You have been foolish, but there is time before you wherein you may be wise.”
Aubrey bowed, took his leave, and went to his own room, where he filled his pockets with a few immediate necessaries and what little money he had. It was hard to bear, this going forth into the wilderness, not at God’s call, but as the consequence of his own folly—Egypt left behind, and no Canaan in prospect. He must take leave of none save Lady Oxford—must appear to none to be what he was—a homeless fugitive with his life in his hand. As he came down-stairs, he was met in the hall by the same page who had previously summoned him.
“My Lady would speak a word with you in her cabinet ere you walk forth.”
Aubrey found Lady Oxford at her desk, busied with household accounts, and a little pile of gold beside her. When she had reminded him that she was not rich, she had spoken very truly. That deceased husband of hers, as wanting in reason in his age as in his youth, having reduced the great Vere estates to almost nothing, his second wife, the Countess Elizabeth, and her young son Earl Henry, had to sustain the dignity of the House upon a very insufficient number of gold pieces. Twenty months had elapsed since the death of Earl Edward, and the excellent management and strict economy of the widowed Countess had done something to retrieve the ruined fortunes of the family, but much still remained to do.
Lady Oxford glanced up at Aubrey as he entered.
“Mr Louvaine, I owe you your quarter’s wages,” she said; “at least, so little time remains that it need not tarry, and ’tis to my conveniency to reckon with you this afternoon.” This was said in a voice that the page could hear. Then, as Aubrey came up to her, with a significant look, she laid another ten pounds in his hand, with a few words for his private ear. “Let me hear of you in time to come as a good man. God go with you! Farewell.”
Ten minutes later, Aubrey closed the door of Oxford House for the last time, and went out, truly not knowing whither he went. His primary destination of course was Shoe Lane; but after that—whither?
Through back streets he made his way to Aldersgate, and passed through it out of the City; over Snow Hill and Holborn Bridge, and down Shoe Lane to the small house where Mr Marshall “had his lodging”—to use the phrase of the time—in other words, where he and Agnes made their home in three rooms, the kitchen being open to all the lodgers to cook for themselves. Two of the rooms were moderately large; these formed the sitting-room, and the clergyman’s bedroom and study, the bedroom end being parted from the study end by a curtain between the two. The remaining room, a mere closet, was his daughter’s bedchamber. Pleasantest of the three was the sitting-room, the front half of which was the general and public portion, while the back was reserved as Agnes’s boudoir, where her little work-table and stool were set by a small window, looking out over the little garden towards Fetter Lane, bounded on the right hand by the wall of Saint Andrew’s Church. The door was opened by a rather slipshod girl, the landlady’s daughter.
“Pray you, is Mr Marshall at home?”
“He’s not, Sir; he’s gone for a country walk.”
“What time look you for him?”
“Well, about dark, I dare say. Mrs Agnes, she’s in.”
“Thank you; I will come again about dusk.” Aubrey walked up the lane, turned aimlessly to the left, and sauntered on towards Bloomsbury. It was no matter where he went—no matter to any one, himself least of all. Passing Saint Giles’s Church, he turned to the right, up a broad country road lined by flowery banks, wherein the first primroses of spring were just beginning to appear. There are primroses there yet—in flower-girls’ baskets: they bloom now no otherwise in Tottenham Court Road.
When he had gone some little distance, Aubrey grew tired. It was a warm day for the season; he sat down to rest on the flowery bank, and lost himself in unhappy thought.
A mile further on, Mr Marshall was coming home down the same road, in a more despondent mood than was usual with him. Things were going badly for the Puritans abroad, and for the Marshalls at home. An ejected minister was at all times an unfashionable person, and usually a very poor man. His income was small, was growing smaller, and was not at all likely to take a turn and increase. His wife was gone, and he felt her loss rather more than less as time passed on; and Agnes had her private trouble, for her affianced husband, a young tradesman to whom she had been engaged for two years, had jilted her when he heard of her father’s ejectment. Altogether, the prospect before the Marshalls was not pleasant. Rent was due, and clothes were needed, and money was exceedingly scanty.
In the outside world, too, the sky was dull and gloomy. The Puritans were in no greater favour than they had been, though the Papists were at the lowest ebb. That there was any inconsistency in their conduct did not apparently occur to the authorities, nor that the true way to repress Popery was by cultivating Puritanism. Believing the true principles of the Church of England to be the golden mean between the two, they acted under the pleasing illusion that when both halves were cut off, the middle would be left intact, and all the better for the operation.
As Mr Marshall walked on in the Tottenham road, he saw a figure seated on the grassy bank at some distance before him. When he came nearer, he perceived that it was a young man, who sat with his head cast down, in an attitude of meditation, and a light cane in his hand, with which now and then he switched off the head of an unoffending dandelion. Drawing nearer still, the minister began to suspect that the youth’s face was not unfamiliar; and when he came close, instead of passing the sitter on the bank, he stepped down, and took a seat beside him.
The youth had paid no apparent attention to his companion until that moment. His face was turned away northward, and only when Mr Marshall sat down close to him did he seem to perceive that he was not alone.
“How goes the world with you this afternoon, Mr Louvaine?”
“Mr Marshall! I ask your pardon. I had not seen you.”
“I thought not. You have taken a long walk.”
Aubrey made no reply.
“Now, how am I to get at this shut-up heart?” said Mr Marshall to himself. “To say the wrong thing just now may do considerable harm. Yet what is the right one?” Aloud he said only,—“I hope my Lady Lettice is well? I know not whether you or I saw her last.”
“I have not seen her for months,” said Aubrey, curtly.
“Then I am happier than you, for I saw her three weeks since. I thought her looking somewhat frail and feeble, even more so than her wont; yet very ripe for Heaven, when as it shall please God to take her.”
There was no answer again. Aubrey’s cane applied itself diligently to making a plantain leaf lie to the right of its neighbour instead of the left.
“Mr Louvaine, did you ever hear that my mother and your grandfather were friends of old time?”
For the first time Aubrey turned his head fully, and looked at his companion. The face which Mr Marshall saw was not, as he had imagined it might be, sullen and reluctant to converse. It was only very, very weary and sad, with heavy eyes as though they had slept little, or were holding back unshed tears.
“No, never,” was all he said.
“My mother,” said Mr Marshall, “was an Oxfordshire woman, of Minster Lovel by her birth, but she wedded a bookseller in Oxford town, where she was in service to a lady. I think you were not present when I told this to my Lady Lettice. But do you remember your old friend Mrs Elizabeth Wolvercot, that she told me you were wont to call Cousin Bess?”
“Remember Cousin Bess! Of course I do,” said Aubrey, a tone of interest coming into his voice. “What of her?”
“My mother was her sister Ellen.”
“Why, Mr Marshall! are you my cousin?”
“If it please you to acknowledge me, Cousin Aubrey.”
“That I will, indeed!” said Aubrey, clasping the hand of the ejected minister. Then, with a sudden and complete change of tone,—“But, maybe, if you knew all I know, you were not over ready to acknowledge me.”
“You are in trouble, my friend,” answered Mr Marshall sympathisingly. “Can I help you thereout? At least I can feel for you in it, if I may do no more.”
There was another minute of dead silence. The next question came suddenly and bluntly.
“Mr Marshall, did you ever in your life feel that you had been a grand fool?”
“Yes,” was the short, quiet answer.
“I am glad to hear it, though I should not have thought so. I thought you had always been a precisely proper person, and I did not suppose you could feel for me a whit. But I must tell my trouble to somebody, or I shall grow desperate. Look you, I have lost my place, and I can get none other, and I have not twenty pounds in the world, and I owe an hundred pounds, and I can’t go home.”
“Thank God!” was the strange answer.
“Well, to be sure,—Mr Marshall, what on earth are you thanking God for?”
“That your husks have lost their flavour, my son. So long as the prodigal finds the husks sweet, there is little hope of him. But let him once discover that they are dry husks, and not sweet fruits, and that his companions are swine, and not princes—then he is coming to himself, and there is hope of making a man of him again. I say therefore, Thank God!”
“I shall never make anything better than a fool.”
“A man commonly ceases to be a fool when he begins to reckon himself one.”
“You know not the worst yet. But—Mr Marshall, if I tell it you, you will not betray me, for my poor old grandmother’s sake? I never gave her much cause to love me, but I know she doth, and it would grieve her if I came to public hurt and shame.”
“It would grieve me, my cousin, more than you know. Fear not, but speak freely.”
“Well,—I know not if my grandmother told you that I was intimate with some of these poor gentlemen that have paid the penalty of their treason of late?”
“I know that you knew Percy and Winter—and, I dare say, Rookwood.”
“I knew them all, and Catesby too. And though I was not privy to the plot—not quite so bad as that!—yet I would have followed Mr Tom Winter almost anywhere,—ay, even into worse than I did.”
“Surely, Aubrey Louvaine, you never dreamed of perversion!”
“Mr Marshall, I was ready to do anything Tom Winter bade me; but he never meddled with my religion. And—come, I may as well make a clean breast, as I have begun—I loved Dorothy Rookwood, and if she had held up a finger, I should have gone after. You think the Rookwoods Protestants, don’t you? They are not.”
Mr Marshall sat in dismayed silence, for a moment.
“I doubted them somewhat,” he said: “but I never knew so much as you have told me. Then Mrs Dorothy—”
“Oh, she would have none of me. She told me I was a beggar and a fool both, and she spake but the bitter truth. Yet it was bitter when she said it.”
“My poor boy!” said Mr Marshall, compassionately.
“I thought Hans but a fool when he went and bound himself to yon mercer—he, the son of a Dutch Baron! But I see now—I was the fool, not he. Had I spent my days in selling silk stockings instead of wearing them, and taken my wages home to my mother like a good little boy, it had been better for me. I see, now,—now that the doors are all shut against me, and I dare not go home.”
“Yet tell me, Aubrey, for I scarce understand it—why dare you not go home?”
As Aubrey laid the matter before him from the point of view presented by Lady Oxford, Mr Marshall’s face grew graver every moment. He began to see that the circumstances were much more serious than he had apprehended. There was silence for a few minutes when Aubrey finished his account. Then the clergyman said—
“’Tis a tangle, and a tight one, my boy. Yet, by God’s blessing, we may see our way out. Let us take one point at a time. These debts of yours—will you tell me, are they ‘debts of honour,’ falsely so-called?”
“Only twenty pounds. The rest is due partly to Patrick the tailor and others for goods, and partly to Tom Rookwood for money I borrowed of him.”
“How much to Tom Rookwood?”
“Twenty pounds.”
“I will see what I can do with him,” said Mr Marshall, thoughtfully. “If these Rookwoods are in no wise dragged into the plot, so that they have no land escheated, nor fines to pay, then I think he can afford to wait for his money—better, very like, than the tradesfolk. But, Aubrey, you must get another place. Bear with me if I ask you,—Could you bring your pride down to serve in a shop?”
The young shapely head went up suddenly, as if in proud protest against this most unacceptable proposal. Then it dropped again, and the cane toyed with the plantain.
“I thought my pride was down,” he said in a low voice? “but I see it might be lowered yet further. Mr Marshall, I will try to humble myself even to that, if it be needful.”
Aubrey did not suspect that Mr Marshall had never come so near respecting him as at that moment.
“Well,” he said, quietly, “I will do what I can to help you. I will see Tom Rookwood; and I know a bookseller in Oxford town to whom I could speak for you if you wish it. The question for you at this moment is not, What is easy and pleasant?—but, What is right? ‘Facilis descensus Averni’—you know—‘sed revocare gradum!’ It is always hard work turning back. There is a bitter cup to be drunk; and if you would win back your lost self-respect—if you would bring help and comfort to your grandmother in her old age—if you would light up the lamp of joy where hitherto you have wrought darkness—nay, if you would win a smile from the blessed lips which said ‘Father, forgive them’ for you—then, Aubrey Louvaine, be a man, and drink off that bitter draught. You will find it sweeter afterwards than all the dainties you have been searching after for so long.”
Aubrey sat still and silent for some time, and his companion let him alone to consider his ways. Mr Marshall was a wise man; and never gave more strokes to a nail than were needful to drive it in. At last the question came, in low, unsteady tones—
“Mr Marshall, did God send you up this road this afternoon?”
“I have no doubt He did, my friend, if anything I say or do can help you to the right way. You see, I knew not of your being here, and He did.”
“When you came up,” said the low voice, “I thought all was over, and my mind was very near made up to enlist as a common soldier, and leave no trace behind. I see now, it should have been an ill deed to do.”
“An ill deed in truth for your poor friends, if the only news they had ever heard of you were your name in a list of the dead.”
“Yes, I wished to be killed as soon as might be—get to the end as fast as possible.”
“Would that have been the end, Aubrey?”
The reply was barely audible. “No, I suppose not.”
“Take up your burden instead, my son, and bear it by God’s grace. He does not refuse that, even when the burden is heaped and bound by our own hands. Unlike men, His compassion faileth never. He has maybe emptied thine heart, Aubrey, that He may fill it with Himself.”
Aubrey made no reply, but Mr Marshall did not think that a bad sign.
“Well, come now,” said he, rising from the bank, and in a more cheerful tone. “Let us go to Shoe Lane, and see if Agnes hath any supper for us. The prodigal son was not more welcome to his old father than you shall be to my poor lodging, for so long a time as may stand with your safety and conveniency. My Lady Oxford, you say, was to give my Lady Lettice to know how things went with you? but methinks it shall do none ill if I likewise visit her this evening. ‘Two heads are better than one,’ and though ’tis said ‘o’er many cooks spoil the broth,’ yet three may be better than two.”
The feeling of humiliation which grew and deepened in Aubrey’s mind, was one of the best things which could have come to him. Vanity and self-sufficiency had always been his chief failings; and he was now finding, to his surprise, that while his chosen friends surrounded him with difficulties, the people whom he had slighted and despised came forward to help him out of them. He had looked down on no one more than on Mr Marshall, and Agnes had received a share of his contempt, partly because of her father’s calling and comparative poverty, partly because she was not pretty, and partly because she showed no power of repartee or spirit in conversation. In Aubrey’s eyes she had been “a dull, humdrum thing,” only fit to cook and sew, and utterly beneath the notice of any one so elevated and spirituel as himself.
During the last few hours, Aubrey’s estimate of things in general had sustained some rude shocks, and his hitherto unfaltering faith in his own infallibility was considerably shaken. It suffered an additional blow when Mr Marshall led him into his quiet parlour, and he saw Agnes seated at her work, the supper-table spread, and a cheerful fire blazing upon a clean hearth. An expression of slight surprise came into her eyes as she rose to greet Aubrey.
“You see, daughter, I have brought home a guest,” said her father. “He will tarry with us a little season.”
Then, stepping across the room, he opened a closed door, and showed Aubrey another chamber, the size of the first, across which a red curtain was drawn.
“This is my chamber, and shall be also yours,” said he: “I pray you use it freely. At this end is my study, and beyond the curtain my bedchamber. I somewhat fear my library may scarce be to your liking,” he added, an amused smile playing round his lips; “but if you can find therein anything to please you, I shall be glad.—Now, daughter, what have we here? We so rarely have guests to supper, I fear Mr Louvaine may find our fare somewhat meagre: though ‘better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.’”
“It is a dinner of herbs, Father,” said Agnes, echoing the smile; “for ’tis a bit of gammon of bacon and spinach, with eggs in poach.”
“How say you, my friend?” asked Mr Marshall of Aubrey. “Can you make your supper of so simple a dish?”
“Indeed I can, Sir, and thankfully,” was the answer.
Agnes Marshall, though very quiet, was observant, and she perceived in a moment that something was wrong with the magnificent youth who had scarcely deigned to look at her when they had met on previous occasions. She saw also that his manner had greatly changed, and very much for the better. He spoke to her now on terms of equality, and actually addressed her father in a tone of respect. Something must have happened.
Aubrey, naturally the less observant of the two, was looking on just now with quickened senses; and discovered, also to his surprise, that the simple supper was served with as much dainty neatness as at Lord Oxford’s table; that Mr Marshall could talk intelligently and interestingly on other than religious subjects; that Agnes really was not dull, but quite able to respond to her father’s remarks; that her eyes were clear and bright, her complexion not at all bad, and her smile decidedly pleasant: and lastly, that both his hosts, though take a thus unawares, were exceedingly kind to him, and ready to put themselves to any trouble or inconvenience in order to accommodate him. He had learned more, when he lay down to sleep that night, in twelve hours than in any previous twelve months of his life, since his infancy. The lessons were of higher value, and they were not likely to be lost.
When supper was over, Mr Marshall repaired to the White Bear, and Aubrey was left to Agnes as entertainer. She was sewing a long seam, and her needle went in and out with unfailing regularity. For a few minutes he watched her in silence, discovering a sunny gleam on her hair that he had never before noticed. Then he suddenly spoke out one of his thoughts.
“Don’t you find that exceeding wearisome?”
Agnes looked up with amused surprise.
“Truly,” she said, “I never thought about it.”
“I am sure I could not work at it ten minutes,” replied Aubrey.
Agnes laughed—a low, soft, musical laugh, which struck pleasantly on the ear.
“My father would be ill off for shirts if I could not,” she answered. “You see, Mr Louvaine, things have to be done. ’Tis to no good purpose to be impatient with them. It doth but weary more the worker, and furthers not the work a whit.”
“Would you not like to lead a different life?—such a life as other young maids do—amid flowers, and sunshine, and jewels, and dancing, and laughter, and all manner of jollity?”
He was curious to hear what she would say to the question.
Agnes answered by a rather wondering smile. Then her eyes went out of the window, to the steeple of Saint Andrew’s, and the blue sky beyond it.
“I might well enjoy some of them,” she said slowly, as if the different ideas were passing in review before her. “I love sunshine, and flowers. But there is one thing I love far better.”
“And that is—?”
A light “that never was from sun nor moon” flooded the grave grey eyes of Agnes Marshall. Her voice was very low and subdued as she answered.
“That is, to do the will of God. There is nothing upon earth that I desire in comparison of Him.”
“Is not that a gloomsome, dismal sort of thing?”
There was Divine compassion, mingled with human amusement, in the smile which was on Agnes’s lips as she looked up at him.
“Have you tried it, Mr Louvaine?”
Aubrey shook his head. “I have tried a good many things, but not Puritan piety. It ever seemed to me a most weary and dreary matter,—an eternal ‘Thou shalt not’ carved o’er the gate of every garden of delight that I would fain enter. They may be angels that stand there, but they bear flaming swords.”
He spoke lightly, yet there was an accent in his voice which revealed to Agnes a deep unfilled void in his heart.
“Don’t try piety,” she said quietly. “Try Jesus Christ instead. There are no flaming swords in the way to Him, and the truest and deepest satisfaction cannot be reached without Him.”
“Have you found it thus, Mrs Agnes?”
“I have, Mr Louvaine.”
“But, then,—you see,—you have not tried other fashions of pleasure, maybe,” said Aubrey, slowly.
“Have you?” said Agnes.
“Ay—a good many.”
“And did you find them satisfying? I say not, pleasant at the moment, but satisfying?”
“Well, that is a large word,” said Aubrey.
“It is a large word,” was the reply, “yet Christ can fill it: and none can do it but He. Know you any thing or creature else that can?”
“I cannot say, for I have not needed it.”
“That is, you have not been down yet into deep places, methinks, where the floods have overflowed you. I have not visited many, in truth; yet have I been in one or two where I should have lost my footing, had not my Lord held me up.”
A very sorrowful look came into the gentle eyes. Agnes was thinking of the faithless Jonas Derwent, who had cast her off in the day of her calamity. Aubrey made no answer. He was beginning to find out that life was not, as he had always imagined it, a field of flowers, but a very sore and real battlefield, wherein to lose the victory meant to lose his very self, and to win it meant to reign for ever and ever.
And then Mr Marshall’s voice said on the other side of the door,—“This is the way,”—and another voice, dearly welcome to Aubrey, responded as Aunt Edith came into the room—
“Mine own dear boy! God be thanked that we see thee safe from harm!”
And again, for the twentieth time, Aubrey felt as he kissed her that he had not deserved it.