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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 16375 ***
+
+
+
+
+THE KING’S ACHIEVEMENT
+
+By Robert Hugh Benson
+
+Author of “By What Authority?” “The Light Invisible,”
+“A Book of the Love of Jesus,” etc.
+
+_Non minus principi turpia sunt multa supplicia, quam medico multa
+funera._
+
+(Sen. de clem. 1, 24, 1.)
+
+
+
+
+_I must express my gratitude once more to the Rev. Dom Bede Camm,
+O.S.B., as well as to the Very Rev. Mgr. Barnes, who have done me great
+service in revising proofs and making suggestions; to the Rev. E.
+Conybeare, who very kindly provided the coins for the cover-design of
+the book; to my mother and sister, to Eustace Virgo, Esq., to Dr.
+Ross-Todd, and to others, who have been extremely kind in various ways
+during the writing of this book in the summer and autumn of 1904._
+
+_I must also express my great indebtedness to the Right Rev. Abbot
+Gasquet, O.S.B., both on account of his invaluable books, which I have
+used freely, and for his personal kindness in answering my questions._
+
+ROBERT HUGH BENSON
+
+_The Catholic Rectory,
+Cambridge,
+July 14, 1905._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BOOK I.
+THE KING’S WILL.
+
+CHAPTER
+
+   I.  A DECISION
+  II.  A FORETASTE OF PEACE
+ III.  THE ARRIVAL AT LEWES
+  IV.  A COMMISSION
+   V.  MASTER MORE
+  VI.  RALPH’S INTERCESSION
+ VII.  A MERRY PRISONER
+VIII.  A HIGHER STEP
+  IX.  LIFE AT LEWES
+   X.  THE ARENA
+  XI.  A CLOSING-IN
+ XII.  A RECOVERY
+XIII.  PRISONER AND PRINCE
+ XIV.  THE SACRED PURPLE
+  XV.  THE KING’S FRIEND
+
+
+BOOK II.
+THE KING’S TRIUMPH.
+
+PART I.--THE SMALLER HOUSES.
+
+   I.  AN ACT OF FAITH
+  II.  THE BEGINNING OF THE VISITATION
+ III.  A HOUSE OF LADIES
+  IV.  AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
+   V.  FATHER AND SON
+  VI.  A NUN’S DEFIANCE
+ VII. ST. PANCRAS PRIORY
+VIII. RALPH’S RETURN
+  IX. RALPH’S WELCOME
+
+PART II--THE FALL OF LEWES.
+
+   I. INTERNAL DISSENSION
+  II. SACERDOS IN AETERNUM
+ III. THE NORTHERN RISING
+  IV. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SEAL
+   V. THE SINKING SHIP
+  VI. THE LAST STAND
+ VII. AXES AND HAMMERS
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+THE KING’S GRATITUDE.
+
+   I. A SCHEME
+  II. A DUEL
+ III. A PEACE-MAKER
+  IV. THE ELDER SON
+   V. THE MUMMERS
+  VI. A CATASTROPHE
+ VII. A QUESTION OF LOYALTY
+VIII. TO CHARING
+  IX. A RELIEF-PARTY
+   X. PLACENTIA
+  XI. THE KING’S HIGHNESS
+ XII. THE TIDINGS AT THE TOWER
+XIII. THE RELEASE
+
+
+
+
+BENEFICO--IGNOTO
+HVNC--LIBRVM
+D.
+
+
+
+
+THE KING’S ACHIEVEMENT
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A DECISION
+
+
+Overfield Court lay basking in warm June sunshine. The western side of
+the great house with its new timber and plaster faced the evening sun
+across the square lawns and high terrace; and the woods a couple of
+hundred yards away cast long shadows over the gardens that lay beyond
+the moat. The lawns, in their broad plateaux on the eastern side
+descended by steps, in cool shadow to the lake that formed a
+quarter-circle below the south-eastern angle of the house; and the
+mirrored trees and reeds on the other side were broken, circle after
+circle, by the great trout that were rising for their evening meal. The
+tall front of the house on the north, formed by the hall in the centre
+with the kitchen at its eastern end and the master’s chamber on the
+western, was faced by a square-towered gatehouse through which the
+straight drive leading into the main road approached the house under a
+lime-avenue; and on the south side the ground fell away again rapidly
+below the chapel and the morning-room, in copse and garden and wild
+meadow bright with buttercups and ox-eye daisies, down to the lake again
+and the moat that ran out of it round the entire domain.
+
+The cobbled courtyard in the centre of the house, where the tall leaded
+pump stood, was full of movement. Half a dozen trunks lay there that
+had just been carried in from the luggage-horses that were now being led
+away with patient hanging heads towards the stables that stood outside
+the gatehouse on the right, and three or four dusty men in livery were
+talking to the house-servants who had come out of their quarters on the
+left. From the kitchen corner came a clamour of tongues and dishes, and
+smoke was rising steadily from the huge outside chimney that rose beyond
+the roofs.
+
+Presently there came clear and distinct from the direction of the
+village the throb of hoofs on the hard road; and the men shouldered the
+trunks, and disappeared, staggering, under the low archway on the right,
+beside which the lamp extinguisher hung, grimy with smoke and grease.
+The yard dog came out at the sound of the hoofs, dragging his chain
+after him, from his kennel beneath the little cloister outside the
+chapel, barked solemnly once or twice, and having done his duty lay down
+on the cool stones, head on paws, watching with bright eyes the door
+that led from the hall into the Court. A moment later the little door
+from the masters chamber opened; and Sir James Torridon came out and,
+giving a glance at the disappearing servants, said a word or two to the
+others, and turned again through the hall to meet his sons.
+
+The coach was coming up the drive round toward the gatehouse, as he came
+out on the wide paved terrace; and he stood watching the glitter of
+brasswork through the dust, the four plumed cantering horses in front,
+and the bobbing heads of the men that rode behind; and there was a grave
+pleased expectancy on his bearded face and in his bright grey eyes as he
+looked. His two sons had met at Begham, and were coming home, Ralph from
+town sites a six months’ absence, and Christopher from Canterbury,
+where he had been spending a week or two in company with Mr. Carleton,
+the chaplain of the Court. He was the more pleased as the house had been
+rather lonely in their absence, since the two daughters were both from
+home, Mary with her husband, Sir Nicholas Maxwell, over at Great Keynes,
+and Margaret at her convent education at Rusper: and he himself had had
+for company his wife alone.
+
+She came out presently as the carriage rolled through the archway, a
+tall dignified figure of a woman, finely dressed in purple and black,
+and stood by him, silently, a yard or two away, watching the carriage
+out of steady black eyes. A moment later the carriage drew up at the
+steps, and a couple of servants ran down to open the door.
+
+Ralph stepped out first, a tall man like both his parents, with a face
+and slow gait extraordinarily like his mother’s, and dressed in the same
+kind of rich splendour, with a short silver-clasped travelling cloak,
+crimson hose, and plumed felt cap; and his face with its pointed black
+beard had something of the same steady impassivity in it; he was
+flicking the dust from his shoulder as he came up the steps on to the
+terrace.
+
+Christopher followed him, not quite so tall as the other, and a good ten
+years younger, with the grey eyes of his father, and a little brown
+beard beginning to sprout on his cheeks and chin.
+
+Ralph turned at the top of the steps
+
+“The bag,” he said shortly; and then turned again to kiss his parents’
+hands; as Christopher went back to the carriage, from which the priest
+was just stepping out. Sir James asked his son about the journey.
+
+“Oh, yes,” he said; and then added, “Christopher was late at Begham.”
+
+“And you are well, my son?” asked his mother, as they turned to walk up
+to the house.
+
+“Oh, yes!” he said again.
+
+Sir James waited for Christopher and Mr. Carleton, and the three
+followed the others a few yards behind.
+
+“You saw her?” said his father.
+
+Christopher nodded.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “I must speak to you, sir, before I tell the others.”
+
+“Come to me when you are dressed, then. Supper will be in an hour from
+now;” and he looked at his son with a kind of sharp expectancy.
+
+The courtyard was empty as they passed through, but half a dozen
+servants stood crowded in the little flagged passage that led from it
+into the kitchen, and watched Ralph and his mother with an awed interest
+as they came out from the hall. Mr. Ralph had come down from the heart
+of life, as they knew; had been present at the crowning of Anne Boleyn a
+week before, had mixed with great folks; and what secrets of State might
+there not be in that little strapped bag that his brother carried behind
+him?
+
+When the two first had disappeared, the servants broke into talk, and
+went back to the kitchen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lady Torridon, with her elder son and the chaplain, had to wait a few
+minutes on the dais in the hall an hour later, before the door under the
+musicians’ gallery opened, and the other two came in from the master’s
+chamber. Sir James looked a little anxious as he came across the clean
+strewed rushes, past the table at the lower end where the household sat,
+but Christopher’s face was bright with excitement. After a word or two
+of apology they moved to their places. Mr. Carleton said grace, and as
+they sat down the door behind from the kitchen opened, and the servants
+came through with the pewter dishes.
+
+Ralph was very silent at first; his mother sat by him almost as silent
+as himself; the servants sprang about noiseless and eager to wait on
+him; and Sir James and the chaplain did most of the conversation,
+pleasant harmless talk about the estate and the tenants; but as supper
+went on, and the weariness of the hot journey faded, and the talk from
+the lower tables grew louder, Ralph began to talk a little more freely.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “the crowning went well enough. The people were quiet
+enough. She looked very pretty in her robes; she was in purple velvet,
+and her gentlemen in scarlet. We shall have news of her soon.”
+
+Sir James looked up sharply at his son. They were all listening
+intently; and even a servant behind Ralph’s chair paused with a silver
+jug.
+
+“Yes,” said Ralph again with a tranquil air, setting down his Venetian
+glass; “God has blessed the union already.”
+
+“And the King?” asked his father, from his black velvet chair in the
+centre.
+
+There fell a deeper silence yet as that name was mentioned. Henry
+dominated the imagination of his subjects to an extraordinary degree, no
+less in his heavy middle-age than in the magnificent strength and
+capacity of his youth.
+
+But Ralph answered carelessly enough. He had seen the King too often.
+
+“The King looked pleased enough; he was in his throne. He is stouter
+than when I saw him last. My Lord of Canterbury did the crowning; Te
+Deum was sung after, and then solemn mass. There was a dozen abbots, I
+should think, and my Lords of York and London and Winchester with two or
+three more. My Lord of Suffolk bore the crown.”
+
+“And the procession?” asked his father again.
+
+“That, too, was well enough. There came four chariots after the Queen,
+full of ancient old ladies, at which some of the folks laughed. And then
+the rest of them.”
+
+They talked a few minutes about the coronation, Sir James asking most of
+the questions and Ralph answering shortly; and presently Christopher
+broke in--
+
+“And the Lady Katharine--” he began.
+
+“Hush, my son,” said his father, glancing at Ralph, who sat perfectly
+still a moment before answering.
+
+“Chris is always eager about the wrong thing,” he said evenly; “he is
+late at Begham, and then asks me about the Princess Dowager. She is
+still alive, if you mean that.”
+
+Lady Torridon looked from one to the other.
+
+“And Master Cromwell?” she asked.
+
+“Master Cromwell is well enough. He asked me to give you both his
+respects. I left him at Hackney.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tall southern windows of the hall, above the pargetted plaster, had
+faded through glowing ruby and blue to dusk before they rose from the
+table and went down and through the passage into the little parlour next
+the master’s chamber, where they usually took their dessert. This part
+of the house had been lately re-built, but the old woodwork had been
+re-used, and the pale oak panels, each crowned by an elaborate foliated
+head, gave back the pleasant flicker of the fire that burned between the
+polished sheets of Flemish tiles on either side of the hearth. A great
+globe stood in the corner furthest from the door, with a map of England
+hanging above it. A piece of tapestry hung over the mantelpiece,
+representing Diana bending over Endymion, and two tall candles in brass
+stands burned beneath. The floor was covered with rushes.
+
+Mr. Carleton, who had come with them as far as the door, according to
+custom, was on the point of saying-good-night, when Sir James called him
+back.
+
+“Come in, father,” he said, “we want you to-night. Chris has something
+to tell us.”
+
+The priest came in and sat down with the others, his face in shadow, at
+the corner of the hearth.
+
+Sir James looked across at his younger son and nodded; and Chris, his
+chin on his hand, and sitting very upright on the long-backed settle
+beside the chaplain, began rather nervously and abruptly.
+
+“I--I have told Ralph,” he said, “on the way here and you, sir; but I
+will tell you again. You know I was questioning whether I had a vocation
+to the religious life; and I went, with that in my mind, to see the Holy
+Maid. We saw her, Mr. Carleton and I; and--and I have made up my mind I
+must go.”
+
+He stopped, hesitating a little, Ralph and his mother sat perfectly
+still, without a word or sign of either sympathy or disapproval. His
+father leaned forward a little, and smiled encouragingly.
+
+“Go on, my son.”
+
+Chris drew a breath and leaned back more easily.
+
+“Well, we went to St. Sepulchre’s; and she could not see us for a day or
+two. There were several others staying with us at the monastery; there
+was a Carthusian from Sheen--I forget his name.”
+
+“Henry Man,” put in the chaplain.
+
+“--And some others,” went on Chris, “all waiting to see her. Dr. Bocking
+promised to tell us when we could see her; and he came to us one morning
+after mass, and told us that she was in ecstasy, and that we were to
+come at once. So we all went to the nuns’ chapel, and there she was on
+her knees, with her arms across her breast.”
+
+He stopped again. Ralph cleared his throat, crossed his legs, and drank
+a little wine.
+
+“Yes?” said the knight questioningly.
+
+“Well--she said a great deal,” went on Chris hurriedly.
+
+“About the King?” put in his mother who was looking at the fire.
+
+“A little about the King,” said Chris, “and about holy things as well.
+She spoke about heaven; it was wonderful to hear her; with her eyes
+burning, and such a voice; and then she spoke low and deep and told us
+about hell, and the devil and his torments; and I could hardly bear to
+listen; and she told us about shrift, and what it did for the soul; and
+the blessed sacrament. The Carthusian put a question or two to her, and
+she answered them: and all the while she was speaking her voice seemed
+to come from her body, and not from her mouth; and it was terrible to
+see her when she spoke of hell; her tongue lay out on her cheek, and her
+eyes grew little and afraid.”
+
+“Her tongue in her cheek, did you say?” asked Ralph politely, without
+moving.
+
+Chris flushed, and sat back silent. His father glanced quickly from one
+to the other.
+
+“Tell us more, Chris,” he said. “What did she say to you?”
+
+The young man leaned forward again.
+
+“I wish, Ralph--” he began.
+
+“I was asking--” began the other.
+
+“There, there,” said Sir James. “Go on, Chris.”
+
+“Well, after a while Dr. Bocking brought me forward; and told her to
+look at me; and her eyes seemed to see something beyond me; and I was
+afraid. But he told me to ask her, and I did. She said nothing for a
+while; and then she began to speak of a great church, as if she saw it;
+and she saw there was a tower in the middle, and chapels on either side,
+and tombs beside the high altar; and an image, and then she stopped, and
+cried out aloud ‘Saint Pancras pray for us’--and then I knew.”
+
+Chris was trembling violently with excitement as he turned to the priest
+for corroboration. Mr. Carleton nodded once or twice without speaking.
+
+“Then I knew,” went on Chris. “You know it was what I had in my mind;
+and I had not spoken a word of Lewes, or of my thought of going there.”
+
+“Had you told any?” asked his father.
+
+“Only Dr. Bocking. Then I asked her, was I to go there; but she said
+nothing for a while; and her eyes wandered about; and she began to speak
+of black monks going this way and that; and she spoke of a prior, and of
+his ring; it was of gold, she said, with figures engraved on it. You
+know the ring the Prior wears?” he added, looking eagerly at his father.
+
+Sir James nodded.
+
+“I know it,” he said. “Well?”
+
+“Well, I asked her again, was I to go there; and then she looked at me
+up and down; I was in my travelling suit; but she said she saw my cowl
+and its hanging sleeves, and an antiphoner in my hands; and then her
+face grew dreadful and afraid again, and she cried out and fell forward;
+and Dr. Bocking led us out from the chapel.”
+
+There was a long silence as Chris ended and leaned back again, taking
+up a bunch of raisins. Ralph sighed once as if wearied out, and his
+mother put her hand on his sleeve. Then at last Sir James spoke.
+
+“You have heard the story,” he said, and then paused; but there was no
+answer. At last the chaplain spoke from his place.
+
+“It is all as Chris said,” he began, “I was there and heard it. If the
+woman is not from God, she is one of Satan’s own; and it is hard to
+think that Satan would tell us of the sacraments and bid us use them
+greedily, and if she is from God--” he stopped again.
+
+The knight nodded at him.
+
+“And you, sweetheart?” he said to his wife.
+
+She turned to him slowly.
+
+“You know what I think,” she said. “If Chris believes it, he must go, I
+suppose.”
+
+“And you, Ralph?”
+
+Ralph raised himself in his chair.
+
+“Do you wish me to say what I think?” he asked deliberately, “or what
+Chris wishes me to say? I will do either.”
+
+Chris made a quick movement of his head; but his father answered for
+him.
+
+“We wish you to say what you think,” he said quietly.
+
+“Well, then,” said Ralph, “it is this. I cannot agree with the father. I
+think the woman is neither of God nor Satan; but that she speaks of her
+own heart, and of Dr. Bocking’s. I believe they are a couple of
+knaves--clever knaves, I will grant, though perhaps the woman is
+something of a fool too; for she deceives persons as wise even as Mr.
+Carleton here by speaking of shrift and the like; and so she does the
+priests’ will, and hopes to get gain for them and herself. I am not
+alone in thinking this--there are many in town who think with me, and
+holy persons too.”
+
+“Is Master Cromwell one of them?” put in Chris bitterly.
+
+Ralph raised his eyebrows a little.
+
+“There is no use in sneering,” he said, “but Master Cromwell is one of
+them. I suppose I ought not to speak of this; but I know you will not
+speak of it again; and I can tell you of my own knowledge that the Holy
+Maid will not be at St. Sepulchre’s much longer.”
+
+His father leaned forward.
+
+“Do you mean--” he began.
+
+“I mean that His Grace is weary of her prophesyings. It was all very
+well till she began to meddle with matters of State; but His Grace will
+have none of that. I can tell you no more. On the other hand if Chris
+thinks he must be a monk, well and good; I do not think so myself; but
+that is not my affair; but I hope he will not be a monk only because a
+knavish woman has put out her tongue at him, and repeated what a knavish
+priest has put into her mouth. But I suppose he had made up his mind
+before he asked me.”
+
+“He has made up his mind,” said his father, “and will hold to it unless
+reason is shown to the contrary; and for myself I think he is right.”
+
+“Very well, then,” said Ralph; and leaned back once more.
+
+The minutes passed away in silence for a while; and then Ralph asked a
+question or two about his sisters.
+
+“Mary is coming over to hunt to-morrow with her husband,” said Sir
+James. “I have told Forrest to be here by nine o’clock. Shall you come
+with us?”
+
+Ralph yawned, and sipped his Bordeaux.
+
+“I do not know,” he said, “I suppose so.”
+
+“And Margaret is at Rusper still,” went on the other. “She will not be
+here until August.”
+
+“She, too, is thinking of Religion,” put in Lady Torridon impassively.
+
+Ralph looked up lazily.
+
+“Indeed,” he said, “then Mary and I will be the only worldlings.”
+
+“She is very happy with the nuns,” said his father, smiling, “and a
+worldling can be no more than that; and perhaps not always as much.”
+
+Ralph smiled with one corner of his mouth.
+
+“You are quite right, sir,” he said.
+
+The bell for evening prayers sounded out presently from the turret in
+the chapel-corner, and the chaplain rose and went out.
+
+“Will you forgive me, sir,” said Ralph, “if I do not come this evening?
+I am worn out with travelling. The stay at Begham was very troublesome.”
+
+“Good-night, then, my son. I will send Morris to you immediately.”
+
+“Oh, after prayers,” said Ralph. “I need not deprive God of his prayers
+too.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lady Torridon had gone out silently after the chaplain, and Sir James
+and Chris walked across the Court together. Overhead the summer night
+sky was clear and luminous with stars, and the air still and fragrant.
+There were a few lights here and there round the Court, and the tall
+chapel windows shone dimly above the little cloister. A link flared
+steadily on its iron bracket by the door into the hall, and threw waves
+of flickering ruddy light across the cobble-stones, and the shadow of
+the tall pump wavered on the further side.
+
+Sir James put his hand tenderly on Chris’ shoulder.
+
+“You must not be angry at Ralph, my son,” he said. “Remember he does not
+understand.”
+
+“He should not speak like that,” said Chris fiercely. “How dare he do
+so?”
+
+“Of course he should not; but he does not know that. He thinks he is
+advising you well. You must let him alone, Chris. You must remember he
+is almost mad with business. Master Cromwell works him hard.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The chapel was but dimly lighted as Chris made his way up to the high
+gallery at the west where he usually knelt. The altar glimmered in the
+dusk at the further end, and only a couple of candles burned on the
+priest’s kneeling stool on the south side. The rest was dark, for the
+house hold knew compline by heart; and even before Chris reached his
+seat he heard the blessing asked for a quiet night and a perfect end. It
+was very soothing to him as he leaned over the oak rail and looked down
+on the dim figures of his parents in their seat at the front, and the
+heads of the servants below, and listened to the quiet pulsation of
+those waves of prayer going to and fro in the dusk, beating, as a summer
+tide at the foot of a cliff against those white steps that rose up to
+the altar where a single spark winked against the leaded window beneath
+the silk-shrouded pyx. He had come home full of excitement and joy at
+his first sight of an ecstatic, and at the message that she had seemed
+to have for him, and across these heightened perceptions had jarred the
+impatience of his brother in the inn at Begham and in the carriage on
+their way home, and above all his sharp criticism and aloofness in the
+parlour just now. But he became quieter as he knelt now; the bitterness
+seemed to sink beneath him and to leave him alone in a world of
+peaceful glory--the world of mystic life to which his face was now set,
+illuminated by the words of the nun. He had seen one who could see
+further than he himself; he had looked upon eyes that were fixed on
+mysteries and realms in which he indeed passionately believed, but which
+were apt to be faint and formless sometimes to the weary eyes of faith
+alone; and as a proof that these were more than fancies she had told him
+too of what he could verify--of the priory at Lewes which she had never
+visited, and even the details of the ring on the Prior’s finger which he
+alone of the two had seen. And then lastly she had encouraged him in his
+desires, had seen him with those same wide eyes in the habit that he
+longed to wear, going about the psalmody--the great _Opus Dei_--to which
+he longed to consecrate his life. If such were not a message from God to
+him for what further revelation could he hope?
+
+And as for Ralph’s news and interests, of what value were they? Of what
+importance was it to ask who sat on the Consort’s throne, or whether she
+wore purple velvet or red? These were little matters compared with those
+high affairs of the soul and the Eternal God, of which he was already
+beginning to catch glimpses, and even the whispers that ran about the
+country places and of which Ralph no doubt could tell him much if he
+chose, of the danger that threatened the religious houses, and of
+Henry’s intentions towards them--even these were but impotent cries of
+the people raging round the throne of the Anointed.
+
+So he knelt here now, pacified and content again, and thought with
+something of pity of his brother dozing now no doubt before the parlour
+fire, cramped by his poor ideals and dismally happy in his limitations.
+
+His father, too, was content down below in the chapel. He himself had
+at one time before his marriage looked towards the religious life; and
+now that it had turned out otherwise had desired nothing more than that
+he should be represented in that inner world of God’s favourites by at
+least one of his children. His daughter Margaret had written a week
+earlier to say that her mind was turning that way, and now Christopher’s
+decision had filled up the cup of his desires. To have a priest for a
+son, and above all one who was a monk as well was more than he had dared
+to hope, though not to pray for; if he could not be one himself, at
+least he had begotten one--one who would represent him before God, bring
+a blessing on the house, and pray and offer sacrifice for his soul until
+his time should be run out and he see God face to face. And Ralph would
+represent him before men and carry on the line, and hand on the house to
+a third generation--Ralph, at whom he had felt so sorely puzzled of
+late, for he seemed full of objects and ambitions for which the father
+had very little sympathy, and to have lost almost entirely that delicate
+relation with home that was at once so indefinable and so real. But he
+comforted himself by the thought that his elder son was not wholly
+wasting time as so many of the country squires were doing round about,
+absorbed in work that a brainless yeoman could do with better success.
+Ralph at least was occupied with grave matters, in Cromwell’s service
+and the King’s, and entrusted with high secrets the issue of which both
+temporal and eternal it was hard to predict. And, no doubt, the knight
+thought, in time he would come back and pick up the strands he had
+dropped; for when a man had wife and children of his own to care for,
+other businesses must seem secondary; and questions that could be
+ignored before must be faced then.
+
+But he thought with a little anxiety of his wife, and wondered whether
+his elder son had not after all inherited that kind of dry rot of the
+soul, in which the sap and vigour disappear little by little, leaving
+the shape indeed intact but not the powers. When he had married her,
+thirty-five years before, she had seemed to him an incarnate mystery of
+whose key he was taking possession--her silence had seemed pregnant with
+knowledge, and her words precious pieces from an immeasurable treasury;
+and then little by little he had found that the wide treasury was empty,
+clean indeed and capacious, but no more, and above all with no promise
+of any riches as yet unperceived. Those great black eyes, that high
+forehead, those stately movements, meant nothing; it was a splendid
+figure with no soul within. She did her duty admirably, she said her
+prayers, she entertained her guests with the proper conversation, she
+could be trusted to behave well in any circumstances that called for
+tact or strength; and that was all. But Ralph would not be like that; he
+was intensely devoted to his work, and from all accounts able in its
+performance; and more than that, with all his impassivity he was capable
+of passion; for his employer Sir Thomas Cromwell was to Ralph’s eyes,
+his father had begun to see, something almost more than human. A word
+against that master of his would set his eyes blazing and his voice
+trembling; and this showed that at least the soul was not more than
+sleeping, or its powers more than misdirected.
+
+And meanwhile there was Chris; and at the thought the father lifted his
+eyes to the gallery, and saw the faint outline of his son’s brown head
+against the whitewash.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A FORETASTE OF PEACE
+
+
+It was not until the party was riding home the next day that Sir
+Nicholas Maxwell and his wife were informed of Chris’ decision.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They had had a fair day’s sport in the two estates that marched with one
+another between Overfield and Great Keynes, and about fifteen stags had
+been killed as well as a quantity of smaller game.
+
+Ralph had ridden out after the party had left, and had found Sir
+Nicholas at the close of the afternoon just as the last drive was about
+to take place; and had stepped into his shelter to watch the finish. It
+was a still, hot afternoon, and the air over the open space between the
+copse in which they stood and the dense forest eighty yards away danced
+in the heat.
+
+Ralph nodded to his brother-in-law, who was flushed and sunburnt, and
+then stood behind, running his eyes up and down that sturdy figure with
+the tightly-gaitered legs set well apart and the little feathered cap
+that moved this way and that as the sportsman peered through the
+branches before him. Once he turned fierce eyes backwards at the whine
+of one of the hounds, and then again thrust his hot dripping face into
+the greenery.
+
+Then very far away came a shout, and a chorus of taps and cries followed
+it, sounding from a couple of miles away as the beaters after sweeping
+a wide circle entered the thick undergrowth on the opposite side of the
+wood. Sir Nicholas’ legs trembled, and he shifted his position a little,
+half lifting his strong spliced hunting bow as he did so.
+
+For a few minutes there was silence about them except for the distant
+cries, and once for the stamp of a horse behind them. Then Sir Nicholas
+made a quick movement, and dropped his hands again; a single rabbit had
+cantered out from the growth opposite, and sat up with cocked ears
+staring straight at the deadly shelter. Then another followed; and again
+in a sudden panic the two little furry bodies whisked back into cover.
+
+Ralph marvelled at this strange passion that could set a reasonable man
+twitching and panting like the figure in front of him. He himself was a
+good rider, and a sufficiently keen hunter when his blood was up; but
+this brother-in-law of his seemed to live for little else. Day after
+day, as Ralph knew, from the beginning of the season to the end he was
+out with his men and hounds, and the rest of the year he seemed to spend
+in talking about the sport, fingering and oiling his weapons through
+long mornings, and elaborating future campaigns, in which the quarries’
+chances should be reduced to a minimum.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On a sudden Sir Nicholas’s figure stiffened and then relaxed. A doe had
+stepped out noiselessly from the cover, head up and feet close together,
+sniffing up wind--and they were shooting no does this month. Then again
+she moved along against the thick undergrowth, stepping delicately and
+silently, and vanished without a sound a hundred yards along to the
+left.
+
+The cries and taps were sounding nearer now, and at any moment the game
+might appear. Sir Nicholas shifted his position again a little, and
+simultaneously the scolding voice of a blackbird rang out in front, and
+he stopped again. At the same moment a hare, mad with fright, burst out
+of the cover, making straight for the shelter. Sir Nicholas’ hands rose,
+steady now the crisis had come; and Ralph leaning forward touched him on
+the shoulder and pointed.
+
+A great stag was standing in the green gloom within the wood eighty
+yards away, with a couple of does at his flank. Then as a shout sounded
+out near at hand, he bolted towards the shelter in a line that would
+bring him close to it. Ralph crouched down, for he had left his bow with
+his man an hour earlier, and one of the hounds gave a stifled yelp as
+Nicholas straightened himself and threw out his left foot. Either the
+sound or the movement startled the great brown beast in front, and as
+the arrow twanged from the string he checked and wheeled round, and went
+off like the wind, untouched. A furious hiss of the breath broke from
+Nicholas, and he made a swift sign as he turned to his horse; and in a
+moment the two lithe hounds had leapt from the shelter and were flying
+in long noiseless leaps after the disappearing quarry; the does,
+confused by the change of direction, had whisked back into cover. A
+moment later Nicholas too was after the hounds, his shoulders working
+and his head thrust forward, and a stirrup clashed and jingled against
+the saddle.
+
+Ralph sat down on the ground smiling. It gave him a certain pleasure to
+see such a complete discomfiture; Nicholas was always so amusingly angry
+when he failed, and so full of reasons.
+
+The forest was full of noises now; a crowd of starlings were protesting
+wildly overhead, there were shouts far away and the throb of hoofs, and
+the ground game was pouring out of the undergrowth and dispersing in
+all directions. Once a boar ran past, grumbling as he went, turning a
+wicked and resentful eye on the placid gentleman in green who sat on the
+ground, but who felt for his long dirk as he saw the fury on the brute’s
+face and the foam on the tusks. But the pig thought discretion was best,
+and hurried on complaining. More than one troop of deer flew past, the
+does gathered round their lord to protect him, all swerving together
+like a string of geese as they turned the corner of the shelter and
+caught sight of Ralph; but the beaters were coming out now, whistling
+and talking as they came, and gathering into groups of two or three on
+the ground, for the work was done, and it had been hot going.
+
+Mary Maxwell appeared presently on her grey horse, looking slender and
+dignified in her green riding-suit with the great plume shading her
+face, and rode up to Ralph whom she had seen earlier in the afternoon.
+
+“My husband?” she enquired looking down at Ralph who was lying with his
+hat over his eyes.
+
+“He left me just now,” said her brother, “very hot and red, after a stag
+which he missed. That will mean some conversation to-night, Minnie.”
+
+She smiled down at him.
+
+“I shall agree with him, you know,” she said.
+
+“Of course you will; it is but right. And I suppose I shall too.”
+
+“Will you wait for him? Tell him we are going home by the mill. It is
+all over now.”
+
+Ralph nodded, and Mary moved off down the glade to join the others.
+
+Ralph began to wonder how Nicholas would take the news of Chris’
+decision. Mary, he knew very well, would assent to it quietly as she
+did to all normal events, even though they were not what she would have
+wished; and probably her husband would assent too, for he had a great
+respect for a churchman. For himself his opinions were divided and he
+scarcely knew what he thought. From the temporal point of view Chris’
+step would be an advantage to him, for the vow of poverty would put an
+end to any claims upon the estate on the part of the younger son; but
+Ralph was sufficiently generous not to pay much attention to this. From
+the social point of view, no great difference would be made; it was as
+respectable to have a monk for a brother as a small squire, and Chris
+could never be more than this unless he made a good marriage. From the
+spiritual point of view--and here Ralph stopped and wondered whether it
+was very seriously worth considering. It was the normal thing of course
+to believe in the sublimity of the religious life and its peculiar
+dignity; but the new learning was beginning to put questions on the
+subject that had very considerably affected the normal view in Ralph’s
+eyes. In that section of society where new ideas are generated and to
+which Ralph himself belonged, there were very odd tales being told; and
+it was beginning to be thought possible that monasticism had
+over-reached itself, and that in trying to convert the world it had
+itself been converted by the world. Ralph was proud enough of the honour
+of his family to wonder whether it was an unmixed gain that his own
+brother should join such ranks as these. And lastly there were the facts
+that he had learnt from his association with Cromwell that made him
+hesitate more than ever in giving Chris his sympathy. He had been
+thinking these points over in the parlour the night before when the
+others had left him, and during the day in the intervals of the sport;
+and he was beginning to come to the conclusion that all things
+considered he had better just acquiesce in the situation, and neither
+praise nor blame overmuch.
+
+It was a sleepy afternoon. The servants had all gone by now, and the
+horn-blowings and noises had died away in the direction of the mill;
+there was no leisure for stags to bray, as they crouched now far away in
+the bracken, listening large-eyed and trumpet-eared for the sounds of
+pursuit; only the hum of insect life in the hot evening sunshine filled
+the air; and Ralph began to fall asleep, his back against a fallen
+trunk.
+
+Then he suddenly awakened and saw his brother-in-law, black against the
+sky, looking down at him, from the saddle.
+
+“Well?” said Ralph, not moving.
+
+Nicholas began to explain. There were a hundred reasons, it seemed, for
+his coming home empty-handed; and where were his men?
+
+“They are all gone home,” said Ralph, getting up and stretching himself.
+“I waited for you. It is all over.”
+
+“You understand,” said Nicholas, putting his horse into motion, and
+beginning to explain all over again, “you understand that it had not
+been for that foul hound yelping, I should have had him here. I never
+miss such a shot; and then when we went after him--”
+
+“I understand perfectly, Nick,” said Ralph. “You missed him because you
+did not shoot straight, and you did not catch him because you did not go
+fast enough. A lawyer could say no more.”
+
+Nicholas threw back his head and laughed loudly, for the two were good
+friends.
+
+“Well, if you will have it,” he said, “I was a damned fool. There! A
+lawyer dare not say as much--not to me, at any rate.”
+
+Ralph found his man half a mile further on coming to meet him with his
+horse, and he mounted and rode on with Nicholas towards the mill.
+
+“I have something to tell you,” he said presently. “Chris is to be a
+monk.”
+
+“Mother of God!” cried Nicholas, half checking his horse, “and when was
+that arranged?”
+
+“Last night,” went on Ralph. “He went to see the Holy Maid at St.
+Sepulchre’s, and it seems that she told him he had a vocation; so there
+is an end of it.”
+
+“And what do you all think of it?” asked the other.
+
+“Oh! I suppose he knows his business.”
+
+Nicholas asked a number of questions, and was informed that Chris
+proposed to go to Lewes in a month’s time. He was already twenty-three,
+the Prior had given his conditional consent before, and there was no
+need for waiting. Yes, they were Cluniacs; but Ralph believed that they
+were far from strict just at present. It need not be the end of Chris so
+far as this world was concerned.
+
+“But you must not say that to him,” he went on, “he thinks it is heaven
+itself between four walls, and we shall have a great scene of farewell.
+I think I must go back to town before it takes place: I cannot do that
+kind of thing.”
+
+Nicholas was not attending, and rode on in silence for a few yards,
+sucking in his lower lip.
+
+“We are lucky fellows, you and I,” he said at last, “to have a monk to
+pray for us.”
+
+Ralph glanced at him, for he was perfectly grave, and a rather intent
+and awed look was in his eyes.
+
+“I think a deal of that,” he went on, “though I cannot talk to a
+churchman as I should. I had a terrible time with my Lord of Canterbury
+last year, at Oxford. He was not a hunter like this one, and I knew not
+what else to speak of.”
+
+Ralph’s eyes narrowed with amusement.
+
+“What did you say to him?” he asked.
+
+“I forget,” said Nicholas, “and I hope my lord did. Mary told me I
+behaved like a fool. But this one is better, I hear. He is at Ashford
+now with his hounds.”
+
+They talked a little more about Chris, and Ralph soon saw on which side
+Nicholas ranged himself. It was an unfeigned pleasure to this hunting
+squire to have a monk for a brother-in-law; there was no knowing how
+short purgatory might not be for them all under the circumstances.
+
+It was evident, too, when they came up with the others a couple of miles
+further on, that Nicholas’s attitude towards the young man had undergone
+a change. He looked at him with a deep respect, refrained from
+criticising his bloodless hands, and was soon riding on in front beside
+him, talking eagerly and deferentially, while Ralph followed with Mary
+and his father.
+
+“You have heard?” he said to her presently.
+
+“Father has just told me,” she said. “We are very much pleased--dear
+Chris!”
+
+“And then there is Meg,” put in her father.
+
+“Oh! Meg; yes, I knew she would. She is made for a nun.”
+
+Sir James edged his horse in presently close to Ralph, as Mary went in
+front through a narrow opening in the wood.
+
+“Be good to him,” he said. “He thinks so much of you.”
+
+Ralph glanced up and smiled into the tender keen eyes that were looking
+into his own.
+
+“Why, of course, sir,” he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was an immense pleasure to Chris to notice the difference in
+Nicholas’s behaviour towards him. There was none of that loud and
+cheerful rallying that stood for humour, no criticisms of his riding or
+his costume. The squire asked him a hundred questions, almost nervously,
+about the Holy Maid and himself, and what had passed between them.
+
+“They say the Host was carried to her through the air from Calais,
+Chris, when the King was there. Did you hear her speak of that?”
+
+Chris shook his head.
+
+“There was not time,” he said.
+
+“And then there was the matter of the divorce--” Nicholas turned his
+head slightly; “Ralph cannot hear us, can he? Well--the matter of the
+divorce--I hear she denounced that, and would have none of it, and has
+written to the Pope, too.”
+
+“They were saying something of the kind,” said Chris, “but I thought it
+best not to meddle.”
+
+“And what did she say to you?”
+
+Chris told him the story, and Nicholas’s eyes grew round and fixed as he
+listened; his mouth was a little open, and he murmured inarticulate
+comments as they rode together up from the mill.
+
+“Lord!” he said at last, “and she said all that about hell. God save us!
+And her tongue out of her mouth all the while! And did you see anything
+yourself? No devils or angels?”
+
+“I saw nothing,” said Chris. “I just listened, but she saw them.”
+
+“Lord!” said Nicholas again, and rode on in profound silence.
+
+The Maxwells were to stay to supper at the Court; and drive home
+afterwards; so there was no opportunity for Chris to go down and bathe
+in the lake as he usually did in summer after a day’s hunting, for
+supper was at seven o’clock, and he had scarcely more than time to
+dress.
+
+Nicholas was very talkative at supper, and poured out all that Chris had
+told him, with his usual lack of discretion; for the other had already
+told the others once all the details that he thought would interest
+them.
+
+“They were talking about the divorce,” he broke out, and then stopped
+and eyed Ralph craftily; “but I had better not speak of that here--eh,
+Chris?”
+
+Ralph looked blandly at his plate.
+
+“Chris did not mention that,” he said. “Tell us, Nick.”
+
+“No, no,” cried Nicholas. “I do not want you to go with tales to town.
+Your ears are too quick, my friend. Then there was that about the Host
+flying from Calais, eh, Chris? No, no; you said you had heard nothing of
+that.”
+
+Chris looked up and his face was a little flushed.
+
+“No, Nick,” he said.
+
+“There seems to have been a great deal that Chris did not tell us--”
+began Ralph.
+
+Sir James glanced swiftly from his seat under the canopy.
+
+“He told us all that was needed,” he said.
+
+“Aha!” broke out Nicholas again, “but the Holy Maid said that the King
+would not live six months if he--”
+
+Chris’s face was full of despair and misery, and his father interrupted
+once more.
+
+“We had better not speak of that, my son,” he said to Nicholas. “It is
+best to leave such things alone.”
+
+Ralph was smiling broadly with tight lips by now.
+
+“By my soul, Nick, you are the maddest wind-bag I have ever heard. All
+our heads might go for what you have said to-night. Thank God the
+servants are gone.”
+
+“Nick,” cried Mary imploringly, “do hold your tongue.”
+
+Lady Torridon looked from one to the other with serene amusement, and
+there was an odd pause such as generally fell when she showed signs of
+speaking. Her lips moved but she said nothing, and ran her eyes over the
+silver flagons before her.
+
+When the Maxwells had gone at last, and prayers were over, Chris slipped
+across the Court with a towel, and went up to the priest’s room over the
+sacristy. Mr. Carleton looked up from his lamp and rose.
+
+“Yes, Chris,” he said, “I will come. The moon will be up soon.”
+
+They went down together through the sacristy door on to the level
+plateaux of lawns that stretched step after step down to the dark lake.
+The sky was ablaze with stars, and in the East there was a growing light
+in the quarter where the moon was at its rising. The woods beyond the
+water were blotted masses against the sky; and the air was full of the
+rich fragrance of the summer night. The two said very little, and the
+priest stopped on the bank as Chris stepped out along the little boarded
+pier that ran out among the rushes into deep water. There was a scurry
+and a cry, and a moor-hen dashed out from under cover, and sped across
+the pond, scattering the silver points that hung there motionless,
+reflected from the heaven overhead.
+
+Chris was soon ready, and stood there a moment, a pale figure in the
+gloom, watching the shining dots rock back again in the ripples to
+motionlessness. Then he lifted his hands and plunged.
+
+It seemed to him, as he rose to the surface again, as if he were
+swimming between two sides. As he moved softly out across the middle,
+and a little ripple moved before him, the water was invisible. There was
+only a fathomless gulf, as deep below as the sky was high above, pricked
+with stars. As he turned his head this way and that the great trees,
+high overhead, seemed less real than those two immeasurable spaces above
+and beneath. There was a dead silence everywhere, only broken by the
+faint suck of the water over his shoulder, and an indescribably sweet
+coolness that thrilled him like a strain of music. Under its influence,
+again, as last night, the tangible, irritating world seemed to sink out
+of his soul; here he was, a living creature alone in a great silence
+with God, and nothing else was of any importance.
+
+He turned on his back, and there was the dark figure on the bank
+watching him, and above it the great towered house, with its half-dozen
+lighted windows along its eastern side, telling him of the world of men
+and passion.
+
+“Look,” came the priest’s voice, and he turned again, and over the
+further bank, between two tall trees, shone a great silver rim of the
+rising moon. A path of glory was struck now across the black water, and
+he pleased himself by travelling up it towards the remote splendour,
+noticing as he went how shadows had sprung into being in that moment,
+and how the same light that made the glory made the dark as well. His
+soul seemed to emerge a stage higher yet from the limits in which the
+hot day and the shouting and the horns and the crowded woods had
+fettered it. How remote and little seemed Ralph’s sneers and Nicholas’s
+indiscretions and Mary’s pity! Here he moved round in a cooler and
+serener mood. That keen mood, whether physical or spiritual he did not
+care to ask, made him inarticulate as he walked up with the priest ten
+minutes later. But Mr. Carleton seemed to understand.
+
+“There are some things besides the divorce best not talked about,” he
+said, “and I think bathing by starlight is one of them.”
+
+They passed under the chapel window presently, and Chris noticed with an
+odd sensation of pleasure the little translucent patch of colour between
+the slender mullions thrown by the lamp within--a kind of reflex or
+anti-type of the broad light shining over the water.
+
+“Come up for a while,” went on the priest, as they reached the
+side-entrance, “if you are not too tired.”
+
+The two went through the sacristy-door, locking it behind them, and up
+the winding stairs in the turret at the corner to the priest’s chamber.
+Chris threw himself down, relaxed and happy, in the tall chair by the
+window, where he could look out and see the moon, clear of the trees
+now, riding high in heaven.
+
+“That was a pity at supper,” said the priest presently, as he sat at the
+table. “I love Sir Nicholas and think him a good Christian, but he is
+scarcely a discreet one.”
+
+“Tell me, father,” broke out Chris, “what is going to happen?”
+
+Mr. Carleton looked at him smiling. He had a pleasant ugly face, with
+little kind eyes and sensitive mouth.
+
+“You must ask Mr. Ralph,” he said, “or rather you must not. But he knows
+more than any of us.”
+
+“I wish he would not speak like that.”
+
+“Dear lad,” said the priest, “you must not feel it like that. Remember
+our Lord bore contempt as well as pain.”
+
+There was silence a moment, and then Chris began again. “Tell me about
+Lewes, father. What will it be like?”
+
+“It will be bitterly hard,” said the priest deliberately. “Christ Church
+was too bitter for me, as you know. I came out after six months, and the
+Cluniacs are harder. I do not know if I lost my vocation or found it;
+but I am not the man to advise you in either case.”
+
+“Ralph thinks it is easy enough. He told me last night in the carriage
+that I need not trouble myself, and that monks had a very pleasant time.
+He began to tell me some tale about Glastonbury, but I would not hear
+it.”
+
+“Ah,” said the chaplain regretfully, “the world’s standard for monks is
+always high. But you will find it hard enough, especially in the first
+year. But, as I said, I am not the man to advise you--I failed.”
+
+Chris looked at him with something of pity in his heart, as the priest
+fingered the iron pen on the table, and stared with pursed lips and
+frowning forehead. The chaplain was extraordinarily silent in public,
+just carrying on sufficient conversation not to be peculiar or to seem
+morose, but he spoke more freely to Chris, and would often spend an hour
+or two in mysterious talk with Sir James. Chris’s father had a very
+marked respect for the priest, and had had more than one sharp word with
+his wife, ten years before when he had first come to the house, and had
+found Lady Torridon prepared to treat her chaplain with the kind of
+respect that she gave to her butler. But the chaplain’s position was
+secured by now, owing in a large measure to his own tact and
+unobtrusiveness, and he went about the house a quiet, sedate figure of
+considerable dignity and impressiveness, performing his duties
+punctually and keeping his counsel. He had been tutor to both the sons
+for a while, to Ralph only for a few months, but to Chris since his
+twelfth birthday, and the latter had formed with him a kind of peaceful
+confederacy, often looking in on him at unusual hours, always finding
+him genial, although very rarely confidential. It was to Mr. Carleton,
+too, that Chris owed his first drawings to the mystical life of prayer;
+there was a shelf of little books in the corner by the window of the
+priest’s room, from which he would read to the boy aloud, first
+translating them into English as he went, and then, as studies
+progressed, reading the Latin as it stood; and that mysteriously
+fascinating world in which great souls saw and heard eternal things and
+talked familiarly with the Saviour and His Blessed Mother had first
+dawned on the boy there. New little books, too, appeared from time to
+time, and the volumes had overflowed their original home; and from that
+fact Christopher gathered that the priest, though he had left the
+external life of Religion, still followed after the elusive spirit that
+was its soul.
+
+“But tell me,” he said again, as the priest laid the pen down and sat
+back in his chair, crossing his buckled feet beneath the cassock; “tell
+me, why is it so hard? I am not afraid of the discipline or the food.”
+
+“It is the silence,” said the priest, looking at him.
+
+“I love silence,” said Chris eagerly.
+
+“Yes, you love an hour or two, or there would be no hope of a vocation
+for you. But I do not think you will love a year. However, I may be
+wrong. But it is the day after day that is difficult. And there is no
+relaxation; not even in the infirmary. You will have to learn signs in
+your novitiate; that is almost the first exercise.”
+
+The priest got up and fetched a little book from the corner cupboard.
+
+“Listen,” he said, and then began to read aloud the instructions laid
+down for the sign-language of novices; how they were to make a circle in
+the air for bread since it was round, a motion of drinking for water,
+and so forth.
+
+“You see,” he said, “you are not even allowed to speak when you ask for
+necessaries. And, you know, silence has its peculiar temptations as well
+as its joys. There is accidie and scrupulousness and contempt of
+others, and a host of snares that you know little of now.”
+
+“But--” began Chris.
+
+“Oh, yes; it has its joys, and gives a peculiar strength.”
+
+Chris knew, of course, well enough by now in an abstract way what the
+Religious discipline would mean, but he wished to have it made more
+concrete by examples, and he sat long with the chaplain asking him
+questions. Mr. Carleton had been, as he said, in the novitiate at
+Canterbury for a few months, and was able to tell him a good deal about
+the life there; but the differences between the Augustinians and the
+Cluniacs made it impossible for him to go with any minuteness into the
+life of the Priory at Lewes. He warned him, however, of the tendency
+that every soul found in silence to think itself different from others,
+and of so peculiar a constitution that ordinary rules did not apply to
+it. He laid so much stress on this that the other was astonished.
+
+“But it is true,” said Chris, “no two souls are the same.”
+
+The priest smiled.
+
+“Yes, that is true, too; no two sheep are the same, but the sheep nature
+is one, and you will have to learn that for yourself. A Religious rule
+is drawn up for many, not for one; and each must learn to conform
+himself. It was through that I failed myself; I remembered that I was
+different from others, and forgot that I was the same.”
+
+Mr. Carleton seemed to take a kind of melancholy pleasure in returning
+to what he considered his own failure, and Chris began to wonder whether
+the thought of it was not the secret of that slight indication to
+moroseness that he had noticed in him.
+
+The moon was high and clear by now, and Chris often leaned his cheek on
+the sash as the priest talked, and watched that steady shining shield
+go up the sky, and the familiar view of lawns and water and trees,
+ghostly and mystical now in the pale light.
+
+The Court was silent as he passed through it near midnight, as the
+household had been long in bed; the flaring link had been extinguished
+two hours before, and the shadows of the tall chimneys lay black and
+precise at his feet across the great whiteness on the western side of
+the yard. Again the sense of the smallness of himself and his
+surroundings, of the vastness of all else, poured over his soul; these
+little piled bricks and stones, the lawns and woods round about, even
+England and the world itself, he thought, as his mind shot out towards
+the stars and the unfathomable spaces--all these were but very tiny
+things, negligeable quantities, when he looked at them in the eternal
+light. It was this thought, after all, that was calling him out of the
+world, and had been calling him fitfully ever since his soul awoke eight
+years ago, and knew herself and her God: and his heart expanded and grew
+tremulous as he remembered once more that his vocation had been sealed
+by a divine messenger, and that he would soon be gone out of this little
+cell into the wide silent liberty of the most dear children of God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE ARRIVAL AT LEWES
+
+
+Ralph relented as the month drew on, and was among those who wished
+Chris good-bye on the afternoon of the July day on which he was to
+present himself at Lewes. The servants were all drawn up at the back of
+the terrace against the hall, watching Ralph, even more than his
+departing brother, with the fascinated interest that the discreet and
+dignified friend of Cromwell always commanded. Ralph was at his best on
+such occasions, genial and natural, and showed a pleasing interest in
+the girths of the two horses, and the exact strapping of the couple of
+bags that Chris was to take with him. His own man, too, Mr. Morris, who
+had been with him ever since he had come to London, was to ride with
+Chris, at his master’s express wish; stay with him in the guest-house
+that night, and return with the two horses and a precise report the next
+morning.
+
+“You have the hares for my Lord Prior,” he said impressively, looking at
+the game that was hanging head downwards from the servant’s saddle.
+“Tell him that they were killed on Tuesday.”
+
+Sir James and his younger son were walking together a few yards away in
+deep talk; and Lady Torridon had caused a chair to be set for her at the
+top of the terrace steps where she could at once do her duty as a
+mother, and be moderately comfortable at the same time. She hardly spoke
+at all, but looked gravely with her enigmatic black eyes at the horses’
+legs and the luggage, and once held up her hand to silence a small dog
+that had begun to yelp with excitement.
+
+“They must be going,” said Ralph, when all was ready; and at the same
+moment Chris and his father came up, Sir James’s arm thrown over his
+son’s shoulders.
+
+The farewells were very short; it was impossible to indulge in sentiment
+in the genial business-atmosphere generated by Ralph, and a minute later
+Chris was mounted. Sir James said no more, but stood a little apart
+looking at his son. Lady Torridon smiled rather pleasantly and nodded
+her head two or three times, and Ralph, with Mr. Carleton, stood on the
+gravel below, his hand on Chris’s crupper, smiling up at him.
+
+“Good-bye, Chris,” he said, and added with an unusual piety, “God keep
+you!”
+
+As the two horses passed through the gatehouse, Chris turned once again
+with swimming eyes, and saw the group a little re-arranged. Sir James
+and Ralph were standing together, Ralph’s arm thrust through his
+father’s; Mr. Carleton was still on the gravel, and Lady Torridon was
+walking very deliberately back to the house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The distance to Lewes was about fourteen miles, and it was not until
+they had travelled some two of them, and had struck off towards Burgess
+Hill that Chris turned his head for Mr. Morris to come up.
+
+It was very strange to him to ride through that familiar country, where
+he had ridden hundreds of times before, and to know that this was
+probably the last time that he would pass along those lanes, at least
+under the same circumstances. It had the same effect on him, as a death
+in the house would have; the familiar things were the same, but they
+wore a new and strange significance. The few men and children he passed
+saluted him deferentially as usual, and then turned fifty yards further
+on and stared at the young gentleman who, as they knew, was riding off
+on such an errand, and with such grave looks.
+
+Mr. Morris came up with an eager respectfulness at Chris’s sign, keeping
+a yard or two away lest the swinging luggage on his own horse should
+discompose the master, and answered a formal question or two about the
+roads and the bags, which Chris put to him as a gambit of conversation.
+The servant was clever and well trained, and knew how to modulate his
+attitude to the precise degree of deference due to his master and his
+master’s relations; he had entered Ralph’s service from Cromwell’s own
+eight years before. He liked nothing better than to talk of London and
+his experiences there, and selected with considerable skill the topics
+that he knew would please in each case. Now he was soon deep on the
+subject of Wolsey, pausing respectfully now and again for corroboration,
+or to ask a question the answer to which he knew a good deal better than
+Chris himself.
+
+“I understand, sir, that the Lord Cardinal had a wonderful deal of
+furniture at York House: I saw some of it at Master Cromwell’s; his
+grace sent it to him, at least, so I heard. Is that so, sir?”
+
+Chris said he did not know.
+
+“Well, I believe it was so, sir; there was a chair there, set with
+agates and pearl, that I think I heard Mr. Ralph say had come from
+there. Did you ever see my lord, sir?”
+
+Chris said he had seen him once in a narrow street at Westminster, but
+the crowd was so great he could not get near.
+
+“Ah! sir; then you never saw him go in state. I remember once seeing
+him, sir, going down to Hampton Court, with his gentlemen bearing the
+silver pillars before him, and the two priests with crosses. What might
+the pillars mean, sir?”
+
+Again Chris confessed he did not know.
+
+“Ah, sir!” said Morris reflectively, as if he had received a
+satisfactory answer. “And there was his saddle, Mr. Christopher, with
+silver-gilt stirrups, and red velvet, set on my lord’s mule. And there
+was the Red Hat borne in front by another gentleman. At mass, too, he
+would be served by none under the rank of an earl; and I heard that he
+would have a duke sometimes for his lavabo. I heard Mr. Ralph say that
+there was more than a hundred and fifty carts that went with the Lord
+Cardinal up to Cawood, and that was after the King’s grace had broken
+with him, sir; and he was counted a poor man.”
+
+Chris asked what was in the carts.
+
+“Just his stuff, sir,” said Mr. Morris reverentially.
+
+The servant seemed to take a melancholy pleasure in recounting these
+glories, but was most discreet about the political aspects of Wolsey,
+although Chris tried hard to get him to speak, and he would neither
+praise nor blame the fallen prelate; he was more frank, however, about
+Campeggio, who as an Italian, was a less dangerous target.
+
+“He was not a good man, I fear, Mr. Christopher. They told some very
+queer tales of him when he was over here. But he could ride, sir, Master
+Maxwell’s man told me, near as well as my Lord of Canterbury himself.
+You know they say, sir, that the Archbishop can ride horses that none of
+his grooms can manage. But I never liked to think that a foreigner was
+to be sent over to do our business for us, and more than ever not such
+an one as that.”
+
+He proceeded to talk a good deal about Campeggio; his red silk and his
+lace, his gout, his servants, his un-English ways; but it began to get a
+little tiresome to Chris, and soon after passing through Ditchling, Mr.
+Morris, having pointed across the country towards Fatton Hovel, and
+having spoken of the ghost of a cow that was seen there with two heads,
+one black and one white, fell gradually behind again, and Chris rode
+alone.
+
+They were coming up now towards the downs, and the great rounded green
+shoulders heaved high against the sky, gashed here and there by white
+strips and patches where the chalk glared in the bright afternoon sun.
+Ditchling beacon rose to their right, a hundred feet higher than the
+surrounding hills, and the high country sloped away from it parallel
+with their road, down to Lewes. The shadows were beginning to lie
+eastwards and to lengthen in long blue hollows and streaks against the
+clear green turf.
+
+Chris wondered when he would see that side of the downs again; his ride
+was like a kind of farewell progress, and all that he looked on was
+dearer than it had ever been before, but he comforted himself by the
+thought of that larger world, so bright with revelation and so
+enchanting in its mystery that lay before him. He pleased himself by
+picturing this last journey as a ride through an overhung lane,
+beautiful indeed, but dusky, towards shining gates beyond which lay
+great tracts of country set with palaces alive with wonderful presences,
+and watered by the very river of life.
+
+He did not catch sight of Lewes until he was close upon it, and it
+suddenly opened out beneath him, with its crowded roofs pricked by a
+dozen spires, the Norman castle on its twin mounds towering to his left,
+a silver gleam of the Ouse here and there between the plaster and timber
+houses as the river wound beneath its bridges, and beyond all the vast
+masses of the Priory straight in front of him to the South of the town,
+the church in front with its tall central tower, a huddle of convent
+roofs behind, all white against the rich meadows that lay beyond the
+stream.
+
+Mr. Morris came up as Chris checked his horse here.
+
+“See, Mr. Christopher,” he said, and the other turned to see the town
+gallows on the right of the road, not fifty yards away, with a ragged
+shape or two hanging there, and a great bird rising heavily and winging
+its way into the west. Mr. Morris’s face bore a look of judicial
+satisfaction.
+
+“We are making a sweep of them,” he said, and as a terrible figure, all
+rags and sores, with blind red eyes and toothless mouth rose croaking
+and entreating from the ditch by the road, the servant pointed with
+tight lips and solemn eyes to Hangman’s Acre. Chris fumbled in his
+purse, threw a couple of groats on to the ground, and rode on down the
+hill.
+
+His heart was beating fast as he went down Westgate Lane into the High
+Street, and it quickened yet further as the great bells in the Priory
+church began to jangle; for it was close on vesper time, and
+instinctively he shook his reins to hasten his beast, who was picking
+his way delicately through the filth and tumbled stones that lay
+everywhere, for the melodious roar seemed to be bidding him haste and be
+welcome. Mr. Morris was close beside him, and remarked on this and that
+as they went, the spire of St. Ann’s away to the right, with St.
+Pancras’s Bridge, a swinging sign over an inn with Queen Katharine’s
+face erased, but plainly visible under Ann Boleyn’s, the tall mound
+beyond the Priory crowned by a Calvary, and the roof of the famous
+dove-cote of the Priory, a great cruciform structure with over two
+thousand cells. But Christopher knew it all better than the servant,
+and paid little attention, and besides, his excitement was running too
+high. They came down at last through Antioch Street, Puddingbag Lane,
+and across the dry bed of the Winterbourne, and the gateway was before
+them.
+
+The bells had ceased by now, after a final stroke. Mr. Morris sprang off
+his horse, and drew on the chain that hung by the smaller of the two
+doors. There was a sound of footsteps and a face looked out from the
+grating. The servant said a word or two; the face disappeared, and a
+moment later there was the turning of a key, and one leaf of the
+horse-entrance rolled back. Chris touched his beast with his heel,
+passed through on to the paved floor, and sat smiling and flushed,
+looking down at the old lay-brother, who beamed up at him pleasantly and
+told him he was expected.
+
+Chris dismounted at once, telling the servant to take the horses round
+to the stables on the right, and himself went across the open court
+towards the west end of the church, that rose above him fifty feet into
+the clear evening air, faced with marble about the two doors, and
+crowned by the western tower and the high central spire beyond where the
+bells hung. On the right lay the long low wall of the Cellarer’s
+offices, with the kitchen jutting out at the lower end, and the
+high-pitched refectory roof above and beyond it. The church was full of
+golden light as he entered, darkening to dusk in the chapels on either
+side, pricked with lights here and there that burned before the images,
+and giving an impression of immense height owing to its narrowness and
+its length. The air was full of rolling sound, sonorous and full, that
+echoed in the two high vaults on this side and that of the high altar,
+was caught in the double transepts, and lost in the chapels that opened
+in a corona of carved work at the further end, for the monks were busy
+at the _Opus Dei_, and the psalms rocked from side to side, as if the
+nave were indeed a great ship ploughing its way to the kingdom of
+heaven.
+
+There were a few seats at the western end, and into one of these
+Christopher found his way, signing himself first from the stoup at the
+door, and inclining before he went in. Then he leaned his chin on his
+hands and looked eagerly.
+
+It was difficult to make out details clearly at the further end, for the
+church was poorly lighted, and there was no western window; the glare
+from the white roads, too, along which he had come still dazzled him,
+but little by little, helped by his own knowledge of the place, he began
+to see more clearly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+High above him ran the lines of the clerestory, resting on the rounded
+Norman arches, broken by the beam that held the mighty rood, with the
+figures of St. Mary and St. John on either side; and beyond, yet higher,
+on this side of the high altar, rose the lofty air of the vault ninety
+feet above the pavement. To left and right opened the two western
+transepts, and from where he knelt he could make out the altar of St.
+Martin in the further one, with its apse behind. The image of St.
+Pancras himself stood against a pillar with the light from the lamp
+beneath flickering against his feet. But Christopher’s eyes soon came
+back to the centre, beyond the screen, where a row of blackness on
+either side in the stalls, marked where the monks rested back, and where
+he would soon be resting with them. There were candles lighted at sparse
+intervals along the book-rests, that shone up into the faces bent down
+over the wide pages beneath; and beyond all rose the altar with two
+steady flames crowning it against the shining halpas behind that cut it
+off from the four groups of slender carved columns that divided the five
+chapels at the extreme east. Half-a-dozen figures sat about the nave,
+and Christopher noticed an old man, his white hair falling to his
+shoulders, two seats in front, beginning to nod gently with sleep as the
+soft heavy waves of melody poured down, lulling him.
+
+He began now to catch the words, as his ears grew accustomed to the
+sound, and he, too, sat back to listen.
+
+“_Fiat pax in virtute tua: et abundantia in turribus tuis;” “Propter
+fratres meos et proximos meos_:” came back the answer, “_loquebar pacem
+de te_.” And once more: “_Propter domum Domini Dei nostri: quaesivi bona
+tibi_.”
+
+Then there was a soft clattering roar as the monks rose to their feet,
+and in double volume from the bent heads sounded out the _Gloria Patri_.
+
+It was overwhelming to the young man to hear the melodious tumult of
+praise, and to remember that in less than a week he would be standing
+there among the novices and adding his voice. It seemed to him as if he
+had already come into the heart of life that he had felt pulsating round
+him as he swam in the starlight a month before. It was this that was
+reality, and the rest illusion. Here was the end for which man was made,
+the direct praise of God; here were living souls eager and alert on the
+business of their existence, building up with vibration after vibration
+the eternal temple of glory in which God dwelt. Once he began to sing,
+and then stopped. He would be silent here until his voice had been
+authorized to join in that consecrated offering.
+
+He waited until all was over, and the two lines of black figures had
+passed out southwards, and the sacristan was going round putting out
+the lights; and then he too rose and went out, thrilled and excited,
+into the gathering twilight, as the bell for supper began to sound out
+from the refectory tower.
+
+He found Mr. Morris waiting for him at the entrance to the guest-house,
+and the two went up the stairs at the porter’s directions into the
+parlour that looked out over the irregular court towards the church and
+convent.
+
+Christopher sat down in the window seat.
+
+Over the roofs opposite the sky was still tender and luminous, with rosy
+light from the west, and a little troop of pigeons were wheeling over
+the church in their last flight before returning home to their huge
+dwelling down by the stream. The porter had gone a few minutes before,
+and Christopher presently saw him returning with Dom Anthony Marks, the
+guest-master, whom he had got to know very well on former visits. In a
+fit of shyness he drew back from the window, and stood up, nervous and
+trembling, and a moment later heard steps on the stairs. Mr. Morris had
+slipped out, and now stood in the passage, and Chris saw him bowing with
+a nicely calculated mixture of humility and independence. Then a black
+figure appeared in the doorway, and came briskly through.
+
+“My dear Chris,” he said warmly, holding out his hands, and Chris took
+them, still trembling and excited.
+
+They sat down together in the window-seat, and the monk opened the
+casement and threw it open, for the atmosphere was a little heavy, and
+then flung his arm out over the sill and crossed his feet, as if he had
+an hour at his disposal. Chris had noticed before that extraordinary
+appearance of ease and leisure in such monks, and it imperceptibly
+soothed him. Neither would Dom Anthony speak on technical matters, but
+discoursed pleasantly about the party at Overfield Court and the beauty
+of the roads between there and Lewes, as if Chris were only come to pay
+a passing visit.
+
+“Your horses are happy enough,” he said. “We had a load of fresh beans
+sent in to-day. And you, Chris, are you hungry? Supper will be here
+immediately. Brother James told the guest-cook as soon as you came.”
+
+He seemed to want no answer, but talked on genially and restfully about
+the commissioners who had come from Cluny to see after their possessions
+in England, and their queer French ways.
+
+“Dom Philippe would not touch the muscadel at first, and now he cannot
+have too much. He clamoured for claret at first, and we had to give him
+some. But he knows better now. But he says mass like a holy angel of
+God, and is a very devout man in all ways. But they are going soon.”
+
+Dom Anthony fulfilled to perfection the ideal laid down for a
+guest-master in the Custumal. He showed, indeed, the “cheerful
+hospitality to guests” by which “the good name of the monastery was
+enhanced, friendships multiplied, enmities lessened, God honoured, and
+charity increased.” He recognised perfectly well the confused terror in
+Christopher’s mind and his anxiety to make a good beginning, and
+smoothed down the tendency to awkwardness that would otherwise have
+shown itself. He had a happy tranquil face, with wide friendly eyes that
+almost disappeared when he laughed, and a row of even white teeth.
+
+As he talked on, Christopher furtively examined his habit, though he
+knew every detail of it well enough already. He had, of course, left his
+cowl, or ample-sleeved singing gown, in the sacristy on leaving the
+church, and was in his black frock girded with the leather belt, and
+the scapular over it, hanging to the ground before and behind. His hood,
+Christopher noticed, was creased and flat as if he were accustomed to
+sit back at his ease. He wore strong black leather boots that just
+showed beneath his habit, and a bunch of keys, duplicates of those of
+the camerarius and cook, hung on his right side. He was tonsured
+according to the Benedictine pattern, and his lips and cheeks were
+clean-shaven.
+
+He noticed presently that Christopher was eyeing him, and put his hand
+in friendly fashion on the young man’s knee.
+
+“Yes,” he said, smiling, “yours is ready too. Dom Franklin looked it out
+to-day, and asked me whether it would be the right size. But of the
+boots I am not so sure.”
+
+There was a clink and a footstep outside, and the monk glanced out.
+
+“Supper is here,” he said, and stood up to look at the table--the
+polished clothless top laid ready with a couple of wooden plates and
+knives, a pewter tankard, salt-cellar and bread. There was a plain chair
+with arms drawn up to it. The rest of the room, which Christopher had
+scarcely noticed before, was furnished plainly and efficiently, and had
+just that touch of ornament that was intended to distinguish it from a
+cell. The floor was strewn with clean rushes; a couple of iron
+candlesticks stood on the mantelpiece, and the white walls had one or
+two religious objects hanging on them--a wooden crucifix opposite the
+table, a framed card bearing an “Image of Pity” with an indulgenced
+prayer illuminated beneath, a little statue of St. Pancras on a bracket
+over the fire, and a clear-written copy of rules for guests hung by the
+low oak door.
+
+Dom Anthony nodded approvingly at the table, took up a knife and rubbed
+it delicately on the napkin, and turned round.
+
+“We will look here,” he said, and went towards the second door by the
+fire. Christopher followed him, and found himself in the bedroom,
+furnished with the same simplicity as the other; but with an iron
+bedstead in the corner, a kneeling stool beside it, with a little French
+silver image of St. Mary over it, and a sprig of dried yew tucked in
+behind. A thin leather-bound copy of the Little Office of Our Lady lay
+on the sloping desk, with another book or two on the upper slab. Dom
+Anthony went to the window and threw that open too.
+
+“Your luggage is unpacked, I see,” he said, nodding to the press beside
+which lay the two trunks, emptied now by Mr. Morris’s careful hands.
+
+“There are some hares, too,” said Christopher. “Ralph has sent them to
+my Lord Prior.”
+
+“The porter has them,” said the monk, “they look strangely like a
+bribe.” And he nodded again with a beaming face, and his eyes grew
+little and bright at his own humour.
+
+He examined the bed before he left the room again, turned back the
+sheets and pressed them down, and the straw rustled drily beneath;
+glanced into the sweating earthenware jug, refolded the coarse towel on
+its wooden peg, and then smiled again at the young man.
+
+“Supper,” he said briefly.
+
+Christopher stayed a moment with a word of excuse to wash off the dust
+of his ride from his hands and face, and when he came back into the
+sitting-room found the candles lighted, the wooden shutters folded over
+the windows, and a basin of soup with a roast pigeon steaming on the
+table. The monk was standing, waiting for him by the door.
+
+“I must be gone, Chris,” he said, “but I shall be back before compline.
+My Lord Prior will see you to-morrow. There is nothing more? Remember
+you are at home now.”
+
+And on Christopher’s assurances that he had all he could need, he was
+gone, leisurely and cheerfully, and his footsteps sounded on the stairs.
+
+Mr. Morris came up before Chris had finished supper, and as he silently
+slipped away his plate and set another for the cheese, Chris remembered
+with a nervous exultation that this would be probably the last time that
+he would have a servant to wait on him. He was beginning to feel
+strangely at home already; the bean soup was strong and savoury, the
+beer cool; and he was pleasantly exercised by his ride. Mr. Morris, too,
+in answer to his enquiries, said that he had been well looked after in
+the servants’ quarters of the guest-house, and had had an entertaining
+supper with an agreeable Frenchman who, it seemed, had come with the
+Cluniac commissioners. Respect for his master and a sense of the
+ludicrous struggled in Mr. Morris’s voice as he described the
+foreigner’s pronunciation and his eloquent gestures.
+
+“He’s not like a man, sir,” he said, and shook with reminiscent
+laughter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was half an hour before Dom Anthony returned, and after hospitable
+enquiries, sat down by Chris again in the wide window-seat and began to
+talk.
+
+He told him that guests were not expected to attend the night-offices,
+and that indeed he strongly recommended Chris doing nothing of the kind
+at any rate that night; that masses were said at all hours from five
+o’clock onwards; that prime was said at seven, and was followed by the
+_Missa familiaris_ for the servants and work-people of the house.
+Breakfast would be ready in the guest-house at eight; the chapter-mass
+would be said at the half-hour and after the daily chapter which
+followed it had taken place, the Prior wished to see Christopher. The
+high mass was sung at ten, and dinner would be served at eleven. He
+directed his attention, too, to the card that hung by the door on which
+these hours were notified.
+
+Christopher already knew that for the first three or four days he would
+have to remain in the guest-house before any formal step was taken with
+regard to him, but he said a word to Father Anthony about this.
+
+“Yes,” said the monk, “my Lord Prior will tell you about that. But you
+will be here as a guest until Sunday, and on that day you will come to
+the morning chapter to beg for admission. You will do that for three
+days, and then, please God, you will be clothed as a novice.”
+
+And once more he looked at him with deep smiling eyes.
+
+Chris asked him a few more questions, and Dom Anthony told him what he
+wished to know, though protesting with monastic etiquette that it was
+not his province.
+
+“Dom James Berkely is the novice-master,” he said, “you will find him
+very holy and careful. The first matter you will have to learn is how to
+wear the habit, carry your hands, and to walk with gravity. Then you
+will learn how to bow, with the hands crossed on the knees, so--” and he
+illustrated it by a gesture--“if it is a profound inclination; and when
+and where the inclinations are to be made. Then you will learn of the
+custody of the eyes. It is these little things that help the soul at
+first, as you will find, like--like--the bindings of a peach-tree, that
+it may learn how to grow and bear its fruit. And the Rule will be given
+you, and what a monk must have by rote, and how to sing. You will not be
+idle, Chris.”
+
+It was no surprise to Christopher to hear how much of the lessons at
+first were concerned with external behaviour. In his visits to Lewes
+before, as well as from the books that Mr. Carleton had lent him, he had
+learnt that the perfection of the Religious Life depended to a
+considerable extent upon minutiæ that were both aids to, and the result
+of, a tranquil and recollected mind, the acquirement of which was part
+of the object of the monk’s ambition. The ideal, he knew, was the
+perfect direction of every part of his being, of hands and eyes, as well
+as of the great powers of the soul; what God had joined together man
+must not put asunder, and the man who had every physical movement under
+control, and never erred through forgetfulness or impulse in these
+little matters, presumably also was master of his will, and retained
+internal as well as external equanimity.
+
+The great bell began to toll presently for compline, and the
+guest-master rose in the midst of his explanations.
+
+“My Lord Prior bade me thank you for the hares,” he said. “Perhaps your
+servant will take the message back to Mr. Ralph to-morrow. Come.”
+
+They went down the stairs together and out into the summer twilight, the
+great strokes sounding overhead in the gloom as they walked. Over the
+high wall to the left shone a light or two from Lewes town, and beyond
+rose up the shadowy masses of the downs over which Christopher had
+ridden that afternoon. Over those hills, too, he knew, lay his old home.
+As they walked together in silence up the paved walk to the west end of
+the church, a vivid picture rose before the young man’s eyes of the
+little parlour where he had sat last night--of his silent mother in her
+black satin; his father in the tall chair, Ralph in an unwontedly easy
+and genial mood lounging on the other side and telling stories of town,
+of the chaplain with his homely, pleasant face, slipping silently out at
+the door. That was the last time that all that was his,--that he had a
+right and a place there. If he ever saw it again it would be as a guest
+who had become the son of another home, with new rights and relations,
+and at the thought a pang of uncontrollable shrinking pricked at his
+heart.
+
+But at the door of the church the monk drew his arm within his own for a
+moment and held it, and Chris saw the shadowed eyes under his brows rest
+on him tenderly.
+
+“God bless you, Chris!” he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A COMMISSION
+
+
+Within a few days of Christopher’s departure to Lewes, Ralph also left
+Overfield and went back to London.
+
+He was always a little intolerant at home, and generally appeared there
+at his worst--caustic, silent, and unsympathetic. It seemed to him that
+the simple country life was unbearably insipid; he found there neither
+wit nor affairs: to see day after day the same faces, to listen to the
+same talk either on country subjects that were distasteful to him, or,
+out of compliment to himself, political subjects that were unfamiliar to
+the conversationalists, was a very hard burden, and he counted such
+things as the price he must pay for his occasional duty visits to his
+parents. He could not help respecting the piety of his father, but he
+was none the less bored by it; and the atmosphere of silent cynicism
+that seemed to hang round his mother was his only relief. He thought he
+understood her, and it pleased him sometimes to watch her, to calculate
+how she would behave in any little domestic crisis or incident that
+affected her, to notice the slight movement of her lips and her eyelids
+gently lowering and rising again in movements of extreme annoyance. But
+even this was not sufficient compensation for the other drawbacks of
+life at Overfield Court, and it was with a very considerable relief that
+he stepped into his carriage at last towards the end of July, nodded and
+smiled once more to his father who was watching him from the terrace
+steps with a wistful and puzzled face, anxious to please, and heard the
+first crack of the whip of his return journey.
+
+He had, indeed, a certain excuse for going, for a despatch-rider had
+come down from London with papers for him from Sir Thomas Cromwell, and
+it was not hard to assume a serious face and announce that he was
+recalled by affairs; and there was sufficient truth in it, too, for one
+of the memoranda bore on the case of Elizabeth Barton, the holy maid of
+Kent, and announced her apprehension. Cromwell however, did not actually
+recall him, but mentioned the fact of her arrest, and asked if he had
+heard much said of her in the country, and what the opinion of her was
+in that district.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The drive up to London seemed very short to him now; he went slowly
+through the bundle of papers on which he had to report, annotating them
+in order here and there, and staring out of the window now and again
+with unseeing eyes. There were a dozen cases on which he was engaged,
+which had been forwarded to him during his absence in the country--the
+priest at High Hatch was reported to have taken a wife, and Cromwell
+desired information about this; Ralph had ridden out there one day and
+gossipped a little outside the parsonage; an inn-keeper a few miles to
+the north of Cuckfield had talked against the divorce and the reigning
+Consort; a mistake had been made in the matter of a preaching license,
+and Cranmer had desired Cromwell to look into it; a house had been sold
+in Cheapside on which Ralph had been told to keep a suspicious eye, and
+he was asked his opinion on the matter; and such things as these
+occupied his time fully, until towards four o’clock in the afternoon his
+carriage rolled up to the horse-ferry at Lambeth, and he thrust the
+papers back into his bag before stepping out.
+
+On arriving at his own little house in Westminster, the rent of which
+was paid by his master, he left his other servants to carry up the
+luggage, and set out himself again immediately with Morris in a hackney
+carriage for Chancery Lane.
+
+As he went, he found himself for the hundredth time thinking of the
+history of the man to whom he was going.
+
+Sir Thomas Cromwell was beginning to rise rapidly from a life of
+adventure and obscurity abroad. He had passed straight from the
+Cardinal’s service to the King’s three years before, and had since then
+been knighted, appointed privy-councillor, Master of the Jewel-house,
+and Clerk of the Hanaper in the Court of Chancery. At the same time he
+was actively engaged on his amazing system of espionage through which he
+was able to detect disaffection in all parts of the country, and thereby
+render himself invaluable to the King, who, like all the Tudors, while
+perfectly fearless in the face of open danger was pitiably terrified of
+secret schemes.
+
+And it was to this man that he was confidential agent! Was there any
+limit to the possibilities of his future?
+
+Ralph found a carriage drawn up at the door and, on enquiry, heard that
+his master was on the point of leaving; and even as he hesitated in the
+entrance, Cromwell shambled down the stairs with a few papers in his
+hand, his long sleeveless cloak flapping on each step behind him, and
+his felt plumed cap on his head in which shone a yellow jewel.
+
+His large dull face, clean shaven like a priest’s, lighted up briskly as
+he saw Ralph standing there, and he thrust his arm pleasantly through
+his agent’s.
+
+“Come home to supper,” he said, and the two wheeled round and went out
+and into the carriage. Mr. Morris handed the bag through the window to
+his master, and stood bare-headed as the carriage moved off over the
+newly laid road.
+
+It would have been a very surprising sight to Sir James Torridon to see
+his impassive son’s attitude towards Cromwell. He was deferential, eager
+to please, nervous of rebuke, and almost servile, for he had found his
+hero in that tremendous personality. He pulled out his papers now, shook
+them out briskly, and was soon explaining, marking and erasing. Cromwell
+leaned back in his corner and listened, putting in a word of comment now
+and again, or dotting down a note on the back of a letter, and watching
+Ralph with a pleasant, oblique look, for he liked to see his people
+alert and busy. But he knew very well what his demeanour was like at
+other times, and had at first indeed been drawn to the young man by his
+surprising insolence of manner and impressive observant silences.
+
+“That is very well, Mr. Torridon,” he said. “I will see to the license.
+Put them all away.”
+
+Ralph obeyed, and then sat back too, silent indeed, but with a kind of
+side-long readiness for the next subject; but Cromwell spoke no more of
+business for the present, only uttering short sentences about current
+affairs, and telling his friend the news.
+
+“Frith has been burned,” he said. “Perhaps you knew it. He was obstinate
+to the end, my Lord Bishop reported. He threw Saint Chrysostom and Saint
+Augustine back into their teeth. He gave great occasion to the funny
+fellows. There was one who said that since Frith would have no
+purgatory, he was sent there by my Lord to find out for himself whether
+there be such a place or not. There was a word more about his manner of
+going there, ‘Frith frieth,’ but ’twas not good. Those funny fellows
+over-reach themselves. Hewet went with him to Smithfield and hell.”
+
+Ralph smiled, and asked how they took it.
+
+“Oh, very well. A priest bade the folk pray no more for Frith than for a
+dog, but Frith smiled on him and begged the Lord to forgive him his
+unkind words.”
+
+He was going on to tell him a little more about the talk of the Court,
+when the carriage drove up to the house in Throgmorton Street, near
+Austin Friars, which Cromwell had lately built for himself.
+
+“My wife and children are at Hackney,” he said as he stepped out. “We
+shall sup alone.”
+
+It was a great house, built out of an older one, superbly furnished with
+Italian things, and had a large garden at the back on to which looked
+the windows of the hall. Supper was brought up almost immediately--a
+couple of woodcocks and a salad--and the two sat down, with a pair of
+servants in blue and silver to wait on them. Cromwell spoke no more word
+of business until the bottle of wine had been set on the table, and the
+servants were gone. And then he began again, immediately.
+
+“And what of the country?” he said. “What do they say there?” He took a
+peach from the carved roundel in the centre of the table, and seemed
+absorbed in its contemplation.
+
+Ralph had had some scruples at first about reporting private
+conversations, but Cromwell had quieted them long since, chiefly by the
+force of his personality, and partly by the argument that a man’s duty
+to the State over-rode his duty to his friends, and that since only talk
+that was treasonable would be punished, it was simpler to report all
+conversations in general that had any suspicious bearing, and that he
+himself was most competent to judge whether or no they should be
+followed up. Ralph, too, had become completely reassured by now that no
+injury would be done to his own status among his friends, since his
+master had never yet made direct use of any of his information in such a
+manner as that it was necessary for Ralph to appear as a public witness.
+And again, too, he had pointed out that the work had to be done, and
+that was better for the cause of justice and mercy that it should be
+done by conscientious rather than by unscrupulous persons.
+
+He talked to him now very freely about the conversations in his father’s
+house, knowing that Cromwell did not want more than a general specimen
+sketch of public feeling in matters at issue.
+
+“They have great faith in the Maid of Kent, sir,” he said. “My
+brother-in-law, Nicholas, spoke of her prophecy of his Grace’s death. It
+is the devout that believe in her; the ungodly know her for a fool or a
+knave.”
+
+“_Filii hujus saeculi prudentiores sunt_,”--quoted Cromwell gravely.
+“Your brother-in-law, I should think, was a child of light.”
+
+“He is, sir.”
+
+“I should have thought so. And what else did you hear?”
+
+“There is a good deal of memory of the Lady Katharine, sir. I heard the
+foresters talking one day.”
+
+“What of the Religious houses?”
+
+Ralph hesitated.
+
+“My brother Christopher has just gone to Lewes,” he said. “So I heard
+more of the favourable side, but I heard a good deal against them, too.
+There was a secular priest talking against them one day, with our
+chaplain, who is a defender of them.”
+
+“Who was he?” asked Cromwell, with the same sharp, oblique glance.
+
+“A man of no importance, sir; the parson of Great Keynes.”
+
+“The Holy Maid is in trouble,” went on the other after a minute’s
+silence. “She is in my Lord of Canterbury’s hands, and we can leave her
+there. I suppose she will be hanged.”
+
+Ralph waited. He knew it was no good asking too much.
+
+“What she said of the King’s death and the pestilence is enough to cast
+her,” went on Cromwell presently. “And Bocking and Hadleigh will be in
+his hands soon, too. They do not know their peril yet.”
+
+They went on to talk of the friars, and of the disfavour that they were
+in with the King after the unfortunate occurrences of the previous
+spring, when Father Peto had preached at Greenwich before Henry on the
+subject of Naboth’s vineyard and the end of Ahab the oppressor. There
+had been a dramatic scene, Cromwell said, when on the following Sunday a
+canon of Hereford, Dr. Curwin, had preached against Peto from the same
+pulpit, and had been rebuked from the rood-loft by another of the
+brethren, Father Elstow, who had continued declaiming until the King
+himself had fiercely intervened from the royal pew and bade him be
+silent.
+
+“The two are banished,” said Cromwell, “but that is not the end of it.
+Their brethren will hear of it again. I have never seen the King so
+wrathful. I suppose it was partly because the Lady Katharine so
+cossetted them. She was always in the church at the night-office when
+the Court was at Greenwich, and Friar Forrest, you know, was her
+confessor. There is a rod in pickle.”
+
+Ralph listened with all his ears. Cromwell was not very communicative
+on the subject of the Religious houses, but Ralph had gathered from
+hints of this kind that something was preparing.
+
+When supper was over and the servants were clearing away, Cromwell went
+to the window where the glass glowed overhead with his new arms and
+scrolls--a blue coat with Cornish choughs and a rose on a fess between
+three rampant lions--and stood there, a steady formidable figure, with
+his cropped head and great jowl, looking out on to the garden.
+
+When the men had gone he turned again to Ralph.
+
+“I have something for you,” he said, “but it is greater than those other
+matters--a fool could not do it. Sit down.”
+
+He came across the room to the fireplace, as Ralph sat down, and himself
+took a chair by the table, lifting the baudkin cushion and settling it
+again comfortably behind him.
+
+“It is this,” he said abruptly. “You know that Master More has been in
+trouble. There was the matter of the gilt flagon which Powell said he
+had taken as a bribe, and the gloves lined with forty pound. Well, he
+disproved that, and I am glad of it, glad of it,” he repeated steadily,
+looking down at his ring and turning it to catch the light. “But there
+is now another matter--I hear he has been practising with the Holy Maid
+and hearkening to her ravings, and that my Lord of Rochester is in it
+too. But I am not sure of it.”
+
+Cromwell stopped, glanced up at Ralph a moment, and then down again.
+
+“I am not sure of it,” he said again, “and I wish to be. And I think you
+can help me.”
+
+Ralph waited patiently, his heart beginning to quicken. This was a great
+matter.
+
+“I wish you to go to him,” said his master, “and to get him into talk.
+But I do not see how it can be managed.”
+
+“He knows I am in your service, sir,” suggested Ralph.
+
+“Yes, yes,” said Cromwell a little impatiently, “that is it. He is no
+fool, and will not talk. This is what I thought of. That you should go
+to him from me, and feign that you are on his side in the matter. But
+will he believe that?” he ended gloomily, looking at the other
+curiously.
+
+There was silence for a minute, while Cromwell drummed his fingers
+softly on the table. Then presently Ralph spoke.
+
+“There is this, sir,” he said. “I might speak to him about my brother
+Chris who, as I told you, has gone to Lewes at the Maid’s advice, and
+then see what Master More has to say.”
+
+Cromwell still looked at him.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “that seems reasonable. And for the rest--well, I will
+leave that in your hands.”
+
+They talked a few minutes longer about Sir Thomas More, and Cromwell
+told the other what a quiet life the ex-Chancellor had led since his
+resignation of office, of his house at Chelsea, and the like, and of the
+decision that he had apparently come to not to mix any further in public
+affairs.
+
+“There is thunder in the air,” he said, “as you know very well, and
+Master More is no mean weather-prophet. He mis-liked the matter of the
+Lady Katharine, and Queen Anne is no friend of his. I think he is wise
+to be quiet.”
+
+Ralph knew perfectly well that this tolerant language did not represent
+Cromwell’s true attitude towards the man of whom they were speaking, but
+he assented to all that was said, and added a word or two about Sir
+Thomas More’s learning, and of the pleasant manner in which he himself
+had been received when he had once had had occasion to see him before.
+
+“He was throwing Horace at me,” said the other, with a touch of
+bitterness, “the last time that I was there. I do not know which he
+loves best, that or his prayers.”
+
+Again Ralph recognised an animus. Cromwell had suffered somewhat from
+lack of a classical education.
+
+“But it is a good thing to love the classics and devotion,” he went on
+presently with a sententious air, “they are solaces in time of trouble.
+I have found that myself.”
+
+He glanced up at the other and down again.
+
+“I was caught saying our Lady matins one day,” he said, “when the
+Cardinal was in trouble. I remember I was very devout that morning.”
+
+He went on to talk of Wolsey and of his relations with him, and Ralph
+watched that heavy smooth face become reminiscent and almost
+sentimental.
+
+“If he had but been wiser;” he said. “I have noticed again and again the
+folly of wise men. There is always clay mixed with gold. I suppose
+nothing but the fire that Frith denied can purge it out; and my lord’s
+was ambition.”
+
+He wagged his head in solemn reprobation, and Ralph did not know whether
+to laugh or to look grave. Then there fell a long silence, and Cromwell
+again fell to fingering his signet-ring, taking it off his thumb and
+rolling it on the smooth oak, and at last stood up with a brisker air.
+
+“Well,” he said, “I have a thousand affairs, and my son Gregory is
+coming here soon. Then you will see about that matter. Remember I wish
+to know what Master More thinks of her, that--that I may know what to
+think.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph understood sufficiently clearly, as he walked home in the evening
+light, what it was that his master wanted. It was no less than to catch
+some handle against the ex-chancellor, though he had carefully abstained
+from saying so. Ralph recognised the adroitness, and saw that while the
+directions had been plain and easy to understand, yet that not one word
+had been spoken that could by any means be used as a handle against
+Cromwell. If anyone in England at that time knew how to wield speech it
+was his master; it was by that weapon that he had prevailed with the
+King, and still kept him in check; it was that weapon rashly used by his
+enemies that he was continually turning against them, and under his
+tutoring Ralph himself had begun to be practised in the same art.
+
+Among other causes, too, of his admiration for Cromwell, was the
+latter’s extraordinary business capacity. There was hardly an affair of
+any importance in which he did not have a finger at least, and most of
+them he held in the palm of his hand, and that, not only in the mass but
+in their minutest details. Ralph had marvelled more than once at the
+minutiæ that he had seen dotted down on the backs of old letters lying
+on his master’s table. Matters of Church and State, inextricably
+confused to other eyes, were simple to this man; he understood
+intuitively where the key of each situation lay, and dealt with them one
+after another briefly and effectively. And yet with all this no man wore
+an appearance of greater leisure; he would gossip harmlessly for an
+hour, and yet by the end had said all that he wished to say, and
+generally learnt, too, from his companion whoever he might be, all he
+wished to learn. Ralph had watched him more than once at this business;
+had seen delicate subjects introduced in a deft unsuspicious sentence
+that roused no alarm, and had marvelled at his power to play with men
+without their dreaming of what was going forward.
+
+And now it was Master More that was threatened. Ralph knew well that
+there was far more behind the scenes than he could understand or even
+perceive, and recognised that the position of Sir Thomas was more
+significant than would appear, and that developments might be expected
+to follow soon.
+
+For himself he had no shrinking from his task. He understood that
+government was carried on by such methods, and that More himself would
+be the first to acknowledge that in war many things were permissible
+that would be outrageous in times of peace, and that these were times of
+war. To call upon a friend, to eat his bread and salt, and talk
+familiarly with him, and to be on the watch all the while for a weak
+spot through which that friend might be wounded, seemed to Ralph,
+trained now and perfected in Cromwell’s school, a perfectly legitimate
+policy, and he walked homewards this summer evening, pleased with this
+new mark of confidence, and anxious to acquit himself well in his task.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The house that Ralph occupied in Westminster was in a street to the west
+of the Abbey, and stood back a little between its neighbours. It was a
+very small one, of only two rooms in width and one in depth, and three
+stories high; but it had been well furnished, chiefly with things
+brought up from Overfield Court, to which Ralph had taken a fancy, and
+which his father had not denied him. He lived almost entirely in the
+first floor, his bedroom and sitting-room being divided by the narrow
+landing at the head of the stairs that led up to the storey above, which
+was occupied by Mr. Morris and a couple of other servants. The lower
+storey Ralph used chiefly for purposes of business, and for interviews
+which were sufficiently numerous for one engaged in so many affairs.
+Cromwell had learnt by now that he could be trusted to say little and to
+learn much, and the early acts of many little dramas that had ended in
+tragedy had been performed in the two gravely-furnished rooms on the
+ground floor. A good deal of the law-business, in its early stages,
+connected with the annulling of the King’s marriage with Queen Katharine
+had been done there; a great canonist from a foreign university had
+explained there his views in broken English, helped out with Latin, to a
+couple of shrewd-faced men, while Ralph watched the case for his master;
+and Cromwell himself had found the little retired house a convenience
+for meeting with persons whom he did not wish to frighten over much,
+while Ralph and Mr. Morris sat alert and expectant on the other side of
+the hall, with the door open, listening for raised voices or other signs
+of a quarrel.
+
+The rooms upstairs had been furnished with considerable care. The floors
+of both were matted, for the plan involved less trouble than the
+continual laying of clean rushes. The sitting-room was panelled up six
+feet from the floor, and the three feet of wall above were covered with
+really beautiful tapestry that Ralph had brought up from Overfield.
+There was a great table in the centre, along one side of which rested a
+set of drawers with brass handles, and in the centre of the table was a
+deep well, covered by a flap that lay level with the rest of the top.
+Another table stood against the wall, on which his meals were served,
+and the door of a cupboard in which his plate and knives were kept
+opened immediately above it, designed in the thickness of the wall.
+There were half-a-dozen chairs, two or three other pieces of furniture,
+a backed settle by the fire and a row of bookshelves opposite the
+windows; and over the mantelpiece, against the tapestry, hung a picture
+of Cromwell, painted by Holbein, and rejected by him before it was
+finished. Ralph had begged it from the artist who was on the point of
+destroying it. It represented the sitter’s head and shoulders in
+three-quarter face, showing his short hair, his shrewd heavy face, with
+its double chin, and the furred gown below.
+
+Mr. Morris was ready for his master and opened the door to him.
+
+“There are some letters come, Mr. Ralph, sir,” he said. “I have laid
+them on your table.”
+
+Ralph nodded, slipped off his thin cloak into his servant’s hands
+without speaking, laid down his cane and went upstairs.
+
+The letters were very much what he expected, and dealt with cases on
+which he was engaged. There was an entreaty from a country squire near
+Epping Forest, whose hounds had got into trouble with the King’s
+foresters that he would intercede for him to Cromwell. A begging letter
+from a monk who had been ejected from his monastery for repeated
+misconduct, and who represented himself as starving; Ralph lifted this
+to his nostrils and it smelt powerfully of spirits, and he laid it down
+again, smiling to himself. A torrent of explanation from a schoolmaster
+who had been reported for speaking against the sacrament of the altar,
+calling the saints to witness that he was no follower of Frith in such
+detestable heresy. A dignified protest from a Justice of the Peace in
+Kent who had been reproved by Cromwell, through Ralph’s agency, for
+acquitting a sturdy beggar, and who begged that he might in future deal
+with a responsible person; and this Ralph laid aside, smiling again and
+promising himself that he would have the pleasure of granting the
+request. An offer, written in a clerkly hand, from a fellow who could
+not sign his name but had appended a cross, to submit some important
+evidence of a treasonable plot, on the consideration of secrecy and a
+suitable reward.
+
+A year ago such a budget would have given Ralph considerable pleasure,
+and a sense of his own importance; but business had been growing on him
+rapidly of late, as his master perceived his competence, and it gave him
+no thrill to docket this one, write a refusal to that, a guarded answer
+to another, and finally to open the well of his table and drop the
+bundle in.
+
+Then he turned round his chair, blew out one candle carefully, and set
+to thinking about Master Thomas More.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+MASTER MORE
+
+
+It was not until nearly a month later that Ralph made an opportunity to
+call upon Sir Thomas More. Cromwell had given him to understand that
+there was no immediate reason for haste; his own time was tolerably
+occupied, and he thought it as well not to make a show of over-great
+hurry. He wrote to Sir Thomas, explaining that he wished to see him on a
+matter connected with his brother Christopher, and received a courteous
+reply begging him to come to dinner on the following Thursday, the
+octave of the Assumption, as Sir Thomas thought it proper to add.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a wonderfully pleasant house, Ralph thought, as his wherry came
+up to the foot of the garden stairs that led down from the lawn to the
+river. It stood well back in its own grounds, divided from the river by
+a wall with a wicket gate in it. There was a little grove of trees on
+either side of it; a flock of pigeons were wheeling about the
+bell-turret that rose into the clear blue sky, and from which came a
+stroke or two, announcing the approach of dinner-time as he went up the
+steps.
+
+There was a figure lying on its face in the shadow by the house, as
+Ralph came up the path, and a small dog, that seemed to be trying to dig
+the head out from the hands in which it was buried, ceased his
+excavations and set up a shrill barking. The figure rolled over, and sat
+up; the pleasant brown face was all creased with laughter; small pieces
+of grass were clinging to the long hair, and Ralph, to his amazement,
+recognised the ex-Lord Chancellor of England.
+
+“I beg your pardon, sir,” said More, rising and shaking himself. “I had
+no idea--you take me at a disadvantage; it is scarcely dignified”--and
+he stopped, smiling and holding out one hand, while he stretched the
+other deprecatingly, to quiet that insistent barking.
+
+Ralph had a sensation of mingled contempt and sympathy as he took his
+hand.
+
+“I had the honour of seeing you once before, Master More,” he said.
+
+“Why, yes,” said More, “and I hope I cut a better figure last time, but
+Anubis would take no refusal. But I am ashamed, and beg you will not
+speak of it to Mrs. More. She is putting on a new coif in your honour.”
+
+“I will be discreet,” said Ralph, smiling.
+
+They went indoors almost immediately, when Sir Thomas had flicked the
+grass sufficiently off his gown to escape detection, and straight
+through to the hall where the table was laid, and three or four girls
+were waiting.
+
+“Your mother is not here yet, I see,” said Sir Thomas, when he had made
+Ralph known to his daughters, and the young man had kissed them
+deferentially, according to the proper etiquette--“I will tell you
+somewhat--hush--” and he broke off again sharply as the door from the
+stairs opened, and a stately lady, with a rather solemn and
+uninteresting face, sailed in, her silk skirts rustling behind her, and
+her fresh coif stiff and white on her head. A middle-aged man followed
+her in, looking a little dejected, and made straight across to where the
+ladies were standing with an eagerness that seemed to hint at a sense of
+escape.
+
+“Mrs. Alice,” said Sir Thomas, “this is Mr. Ralph Torridon, of whom you
+have heard me speak. I was fortunate enough to welcome him on the lawn
+just now.”
+
+“I saw you, Mr. More,” said his wife with dignity, as she took Ralph’s
+hand and said a word about the weather.
+
+“Then I will confess,” said Sir Thomas, smiling genially round, “I
+welcomed Mr. Torridon with the back of my head, and with Anubis biting
+my ears.”
+
+Ralph felt strangely drawn to this schoolboy kind of man, who romped
+with dogs and lay on his stomach, and was so charmingly afraid of his
+wife. His contempt began to melt as he looked at him and saw those wise
+twinkling eyes, and strong humorous mouth, and remembered once more who
+he was, and his reputation.
+
+Sir Thomas said grace with great gravity and signed himself reverently
+before he sat down. There was a little reading first of the Scriptures
+and a commentary on it, and then as dinner went on Ralph began to attend
+less and less to his hostess, who, indeed appeared wholly absorbed in
+domestic details of the table and with whispering severely to the
+servants behind her hand, and to listen and look towards the further end
+where Sir Thomas sat in his tall chair, his flapped cap on his head, and
+talked to his daughters on either side. Mr. Roper, the man who had come
+in with Mrs. More, was sitting opposite Ralph, and seemed to be chiefly
+occupied in listening too. A bright-looking tall girl, whom her father
+had introduced by the name of Cecily, sat between Ralph and her father.
+
+“Not at all,” cried Sir Thomas, in answer to something that Ralph did
+not catch, “nothing of the kind! It was Juno that screamed. Argus would
+not condescend to it. He was occupied in dancing before the bantams.”
+
+Ralph lost one of the few remarks that Mrs. More addressed to him, in
+wondering what this meant, and the conversation at the other end swept
+round a corner while he was apologising. When he again caught the
+current Sir Thomas was speaking of wherries.
+
+“I would love to row a wherry,” he said. “The fellows do not know their
+fortune; they might lead such sweet meditative lives; they do not, I am
+well aware, for I have never heard such blasphemy as I have heard from
+wherrymen. But what opportunities are theirs! If I were not your father,
+my darling, I would be a wherryman. _Si cognovisses et tu quae ad pacem
+tibi_! Mr. Torridon, would you not be a wherryman if you were not Mr.
+Torridon?”
+
+“I thought not this morning,” said Ralph, “as I came here. It seemed hot
+rowing against the stream.”
+
+“It is part of the day’s work,” said More. “When I was Chancellor I
+loved nothing more than a hot summer’s day in Court, for I thought of my
+cool garden where I should soon be walking. I must show you the New
+Building after dinner, Mr. Torridon.”
+
+Cecily and Margaret presently had a short encounter across the table on
+some subject that Ralph did not catch, but he saw Margaret on the other
+side flush up and bring her lips sharply together. Sir Thomas leapt into
+the breach.
+
+“_Unde leves animae tanto caluere furore?_” he cried, and glanced up at
+Ralph to see if he understood the quotation, as the two girls dropped
+their eyes ashamed.
+
+“_Pugnavare pares, succubuere pares_,” said Ralph by a flash of
+inspiration, and looking at the girls.
+
+Sir Thomas’s eyes shone with pleasure.
+
+“I did not know you were such a treasure, Mr. Torridon. Now, Master
+Cromwell could not have done that.”
+
+There fell a silence as that name was spoken, and all at the table eyed
+Ralph.
+
+“He was saying as much to me the other day,” went on Ralph, excited by
+his success. “He told me you knew Horace too well.”
+
+“And that my morals were corrupted by him,” went on More. “I know he
+thinks that, but I had the honour of confuting him the other day with
+regard to the flagon and gloves. Now, there is a subject for Martial,
+Mr. Torridon. A corrupt statesman who has retired on his ill-gotten
+gains disproves an accusation of bribery. Let us call him Atticus
+‘Attice ... Attice’ ...--We might say that he put on the gloves lest his
+forgers should be soiled while he drank from the flagon, or something of
+the kind.”
+
+Sir Thomas’s eyes beamed with delight as he talked. To make an apt
+classical quotation was like wine to him, but to have it capped
+appropriately was like drunkenness. Ralph blessed his stars that he had
+been so lucky, for he was no great scholar, and he guessed he had won
+his host’s confidence.
+
+Dinner passed on quietly, and as they rose from table More came round
+and took his guest by the arm.
+
+“You must come with me and see my New Building,” he said, “you are
+worthy of it, Mr. Torridon.”
+
+He still held his arm affectionately as they walked out into the garden
+behind the house, and as he discoursed on the joys of a country life.
+
+“What more can I ask of God?” he said. “He has given me means and tastes
+to correspond, and what man can say more. I see visions, and am able to
+make them realities. I dream of a dovecote with a tiled roof, and
+straightway build it; I picture a gallery and a chapel and a library
+away from the clack of tongues, and behold there it is. The eye cannot
+say to the hand, ‘I have no need of thee.’ To see and dream without the
+power of performance is heart-breaking. To perform without the gift of
+imagination is soul-slaying. The man is blessed that hath both eye and
+hand, tastes and means alike.”
+
+It was a very pleasant retreat that Sir Thomas More had built for
+himself at the end of his garden, where he might retire when he wanted
+solitude. There was a little entrance hall with a door at one corner
+into the chapel, and a long low gallery running out from it, lined with
+bookshelves on one side, and with an open space on the other lighted by
+square windows looking into the garden. The polished boards were bare,
+and there was a path marked on them by footsteps going from end to end.
+
+“Here I walk,” said More, “and my friends look at me from those shelves,
+ready to converse but never to interrupt. Shall we walk here, Mr.
+Torridon, while you tell me your business?”
+
+Ralph had, indeed, a touch of scrupulousness as he thought of his host’s
+confidence, but he had learnt the habit of silencing impulses and of
+only acting on plans deliberately formed; so he was soon laying bare his
+anxiety about Chris, and his fear that he had been misled by the Holy
+Maid.
+
+“I am very willing, Mr. More,” he said, “that my brother should be a
+monk if it is right, but I could not bear he should be so against God’s
+leading. How am I to know whether the maid’s words are of God or no?”
+
+Sir Thomas was silent a moment.
+
+“But he had thoughts of it before, I suppose,” he said, “or he would not
+have gone to her. In fact, you said so.”
+
+Ralph acknowledged that this was so.
+
+“--And for several years,” went on the other.
+
+Again Ralph assented.
+
+“And his tastes and habits are those of a monk, I suppose. He is long
+at his prayers, given to silence, and of a tranquil spirit?”
+
+“He is not always tranquil,” said Ralph. “He is impertinent sometimes.”
+
+“Yes, yes; we all are that. I was very impertinent to you at dinner in
+trying to catch you with Martial his epigram, though I shall not offend
+again. But his humour may be generally tranquil in spite of it. Well, if
+that is so, I do not see why you need trouble about the Holy Maid. He
+would likely have been a monk without that. She only confirmed him.”
+
+“But,” went on Ralph, fighting to get back to the point, “if I thought
+she was trustworthy I should be the more happy.”
+
+“There must always be doubtfulness,” said More, “in such matters. That
+is why the novitiate is so severe; it is to show the young men the worst
+at once. I do not think you need be unhappy about your brother.”
+
+“And what is your view about the Holy Maid?” asked Ralph, suddenly
+delivering his point.
+
+More stopped in his walk, cocked his head a little on one side like a
+clever dog, and looked at his companion with twinkling eyes.
+
+“It is a delicate subject,” he said, and went on again.
+
+“That is what puzzles me,” said Ralph. “Will you not tell me your
+opinion, Mr. More?”
+
+There was again a silence, and they reached the further end of the
+gallery and turned again before Sir Thomas answered.
+
+“If you had not answered me so briskly at dinner, Mr. Torridon, do you
+know that I should have suspected you of coming to search me out. But
+such a good head, I think, cannot be allied with a bad heart, and I
+will tell you.”
+
+Ralph felt a prick of triumph but none of remorse.
+
+“I will tell you,” went on More, “and I am sure you will keep it
+private. I think the Holy Maid is a good woman who has a maggot.”
+
+Ralph’s spirits sank again. This was a very non-committing answer.
+
+“I do not think her a knave as some do, but I think, to refer to what we
+said just now, that she has a large and luminous eye, and no hand worth
+mentioning. She sees many visions, but few facts. That tale about the
+Host being borne by angels from Calais to my mind is nonsense. Almighty
+God does not work miracles without reason, and there is none for that.
+The blessed sacrament is the same at Dover as at Calais. And a woman who
+can dream that can dream anything, for I am sure she did not invent it.
+On other matters, therefore, she may be dreaming too, and that is why
+once more I tell you that to my mind you can leave her out of your
+thoughts with regard to your brother. She is neither prophetess nor
+pythoness.”
+
+This was very unsatisfactory, and Ralph strove to remedy it.
+
+“And in the matter of the King’s death, Mr. More?” he said.
+
+Again Sir Thomas stopped in his walk.
+
+“Do you know, Mr. Torridon, I think we may leave that alone,” he said a
+little abruptly. And Ralph sucked in his lip and bit it sharply at the
+consciousness of his own folly.
+
+“I hope your brother will be very happy,” went on the other after a
+moment, “and I am sure he will be, if his call is from God, as I think
+likely. I was with the Carthusians myself, you know, for four years,
+and sometimes I think I should have stayed there. It is a blessed life.
+I do not envy many folks, but I do those. To live in the daily
+companionship of our blessed Lord and of his saints as those do, and to
+know His secrets--_secreta Domini_--even the secrets of His Passion and
+its ineffable joys of pain--that is a very fortunate lot, Mr. Torridon.
+I sometimes think that as it was with Christ’s natural body so it is
+with His mystical body: there be some members, His hands and feet and
+side, through which the nails are thrust, though indeed there is not one
+whole spot in His body--_inglorius erit inter viros aspectus ejus--nos
+putavimus eum quasi leprosum_--but those parts of His body that are
+especially pained are at once more honourable and more happy than those
+that are not. And the monks are those happy members.”
+
+He was speaking very solemnly, his voice a little tremulous, and his
+kindly eyes were cast down, and Ralph watched him sidelong with a little
+awe and pity mingled. He seemed so natural too, that Ralph thought that
+he must have over-rated his own indiscretion.
+
+A shadow fell across the door into the garden as they came near it, and
+one of the girls appeared in the opening.
+
+“Why, Meg,” cried her father, “what is it, my darling?”
+
+“Beatrice has come, sir,” said the girl. “I thought you would wish to
+know.”
+
+More put out his arm and laid it round his daughter’s waist as she
+turned with him.
+
+“Come, Mr. Torridon,” he said, “if you have no more to say, let us go
+and see Beatrice.”
+
+There was a group on the lawn under one of the lime trees, two or three
+girls and Mr. Roper, who all rose to their feet as the three came up.
+More immediately sat down on the grass, putting his feet delicately
+together before him.
+
+“Will, fetch this gentleman a chair. It is not fit for Master
+Cromwell’s friend to sit on the grass like you and me.”
+
+Ralph threw himself down on the lawn instantly, entreating Mr. Roper not
+to move.
+
+“Well, well,” said Sir Thomas, “let be. Sit down too, Will, _et cubito
+remanete presso_. Mr. Torridon understands that, I know, even if Master
+Cromwell’s friend does not. Why, tillie-vallie, as Mrs. More says, I
+have not said a word to Beatrice. Beatrice, this is Mr. Ralph Torridon,
+and this, Mr. Torridon, is Beatrice. Her other name is Atherton, but to
+me she is a feminine benediction, and nought else.”
+
+Ralph rose swiftly and looked across at a tall slender girl that was
+sitting contentedly on an outlying root of the lime tree, beside of Sir
+Thomas, and who rose with him.
+
+“Mr. More cannot let my name alone, Mr. Torridon,” she said tranquilly,
+as she drew back after the salute. “He made a play upon it the other
+day.”
+
+“And have been ashamed of it ever since,” said More; “it was sacrilege
+with such a name. Now, I am plain Thomas, and more besides. Why did you
+send for me, Beatrice?”
+
+“I have no defence,” said the girl, “save that I wanted to see you.”
+
+“And that is the prettiest defence you could have made--if it does not
+amount to corruption. Mr. Torridon, what is the repartee to that?”
+
+“I need no advocate,” said the girl; “I can plead well enough.”
+
+Ralph looked up at her again with a certain interest. She seemed on
+marvellously good terms with the whole family, and had an air of being
+entirely at her ease. She had her black eyes bent down on to a piece of
+grass that she was twisting into a ring between her slender jewelled
+fingers, and her white teeth were closed firmly on her lower lip as she
+worked. Her long silk skirts lay out unregarded on the grass, and her
+buckles gleamed beneath. Her voice was pleasant and rather deep, and
+Ralph found himself wondering who she was, and why he had not seen her
+before, for she evidently belonged to his class, and London was a small
+place.
+
+“I see you are making one more chain to bind me to you,” said More
+presently, watching her.
+
+She held it up.
+
+“A ring only,” she said.
+
+“Then it is not for me,” said More, “for I do not hold with Dr.
+Melanchthon, nor yet Solomon in the matter of wives. Now, Mr. Torridon,
+tell us all some secrets. Betray your master. We are all agog. Leave off
+that ring, Beatrice, and attend.”
+
+“I am listening,” said the girl as serenely as before, still intent on
+her weaving.
+
+“The King breakfasted this morning at eight of the clock,” said Ralph
+gravely. “It is an undoubted fact, I had it on the highest authority.”
+
+“This is excellent,” said Sir Thomas. “Let us all talk treason. I can
+add to that. His Grace had a fall last night and lay senseless for
+several hours.”
+
+He spoke with such gravity that Ralph glanced up. At the same moment
+Beatrice looked up from her work and their eyes met.
+
+“He fell asleep,” added Sir Thomas.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was very pleasant to lie there in the shadow of the lime that
+afternoon, and listen to the mild fooling, and Ralph forgot his
+manners, and almost his errand too, and never offered to move. The grass
+began to turn golden as the sun slanted to the West, and the birds began
+to stir after the heat of the day, and to chirp from tree to tree. A
+hundred yards away the river twinkled in the sun, seen beyond the trees
+and the house, and the voices of the boatmen came, softened by distance
+and water, as they plied up and down the flowing highway. Once a barge
+went past under the Battersea bank, with music playing in the stern, and
+Ralph raised himself on his elbow to watch it as it went down the stream
+with flags flying behind, and the rhythmical throb of the row-locks
+sounding time to the dancing melody.
+
+Ralph did his best to fall in with the humour of the day, and told a
+good story or two in his slow voice--among them one of his mother
+exercising her gift of impressive silence towards a tiresome chatterbox
+of a man, with such effect that the conversationalist’s words died on
+his lips, after the third or fourth pause made for applause and comment.
+He told the story well, and Lady Torridon seemed to move among them, her
+skirts dragging majestically on the grass, and her steady, sombre face
+looking down on them all beneath half-closed languid eye-lids.
+
+“He has never been near us again,” said Ralph, “but he never fails to
+ask after my mother’s distressing illness when I meet him in town.”
+
+He was a little astonished at himself as he talked, for he was not
+accustomed to take such pains to please, but he was conscious that
+though he looked round at the faces, and addressed himself to More, he
+was really watching for the effect on the girl who sat behind. He was
+aware of every movement that she made; he knew when she tossed the ring
+on the little sleeping brown body of the dog that had barked at him
+earlier in the day, and set to work upon another. She slipped that on
+her finger when she had done, and turned her hand this way and that, her
+fingers bent back, a ruby catching the light as she did so, looking at
+the effect of the green circle against the whiteness. But he never
+looked at her again, except once when she asked him some question, and
+then he looked her straight in her black eyes as he answered.
+
+A bell sounded out at last again from the tower, and startled him. He
+got up quickly.
+
+“I am ashamed,” he said smiling, “how dare I stay so long? It is your
+kindness, Mr. More.”
+
+“Nay, nay,” said Sir Thomas, rising too and stretching himself. “You
+have helped us to lose another day in the pleasantest manner
+possible--you must come again, Mr. Torridon.”
+
+He walked down with Ralph to the garden steps, and stood by him talking,
+while the wherry that had been hailed from the other side made its way
+across.
+
+“Beatrice is like one of my own daughters,” he said, “and I cannot give
+her better praise than that. She is always here, and always as you saw
+her to-day. I think she is one of the strongest spirits I know. What did
+you think of her, Mr. Torridon?”
+
+“She did not talk much,” said Ralph.
+
+“She talks when she has aught to say,” went on More, “and otherwise is
+silent. It is a good rule, sir; I would I observed it myself.”
+
+“Who is she?” asked Ralph.
+
+“She is the daughter of a friend I had, and she lives just now with my
+wife’s sisters, Nan and Fan. She is often in town with one of them. I am
+astonished you have not met her before.”
+
+The wherry slid up to the steps and the man in his great boots slipped
+over the side to steady it.
+
+“Now is the time to begin your philosophy,” said More as Ralph stepped
+in, “and a Socrates is ready. Talk it over, Mr. Torridon.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+RALPH’S INTERCESSION
+
+
+Ralph was astonished to find how the thought of the tall girl he had met
+at Sir Thomas More’s house remained with him. He had reported the result
+of his interview with More himself to his master; and Cromwell had
+received it rather coldly. He had sniffed once or twice.
+
+“That was not very well done, Mr. Torridon. I fear that you have
+frightened him, and gained nothing by it.”
+
+Ralph stood silent.
+
+“But I see you make no excuses,” went on Cromwell, “so I will make them
+for you. I daresay he was frightened already; and knew all about what
+had passed between her and the Archbishop. You must try again, sir.”
+
+Ralph felt his heart stir with pleasure.
+
+“I may say I have made friends with Mr. More, sir,” he said. “I had good
+fortune in the matter of a quotation, and he received me kindly. I can
+go there again without excusing my presence, as often as you will.”
+
+Cromwell looked at him.
+
+“There is not much to be gained now,” he said, “but you can go if you
+will; and you may perhaps pick up something here and there. The more
+friends you make the better.”
+
+Ralph went away delighted; he had not wholly failed then in his master’s
+business, and he seemed to have set on foot a business of his own; and
+he contemplated with some excitement his future visits to Chelsea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He had his first word with the King a couple of months later. He had
+often, of course, seen him before, once or twice in the House of Lords,
+formidable and frowning on his throne, his gross chin on his hand,
+barking out a word or two to his subjects, or instructing them in
+theology, for which indeed he was very competent; and several times in
+processions, riding among his gentlemen on his great horse, splendid in
+velvet and gems; and he had always wondered what it was that gave him
+his power. It could not be mere despotism, he thought, or his burly
+English nature; and it was not until he had seen him near at hand, and
+come within range of his personality that he understood why it was that
+men bore such things from him.
+
+He was sent for one afternoon by Cromwell to bring a paper and was taken
+up at once by a servant into the gallery where the minister and the King
+were walking together. They were at the further end from that at which
+he entered, and he stood, a little nervous at his heart, but with his
+usual appearance of self-possession, watching the two great backs turned
+to him, and waiting to be called.
+
+They turned again in a moment, and Cromwell saw him and beckoned,
+himself coming a few steps to meet him. The King waited, and Ralph was
+aware of, rather than saw, that wide, coarse, strong face, and the long
+narrow eyes, with the feathered cap atop, and the rich jewelled dress
+beneath. The King stood with his hands behind his back and his legs well
+apart.
+
+Cromwell took the paper from Ralph, who stepped back, hesitating what to
+do.
+
+“This is it, your Grace,” said the minister going back again. “Your
+Grace will see that it is as I said.”
+
+Ralph perceived a new tone of deference in his master’s voice that he
+had never noticed before, except once when Cromwell was ironically
+bullying a culprit who was giving trouble.
+
+The King said nothing, took the paper and glanced over it, standing a
+little aside to let the light fall on it.
+
+“Your Grace will understand--” began Cromwell again.
+
+“Yes, yes, yes,” said the harsh voice impatiently. “Let the fellow take
+it back,” and he thrust the paper into Cromwell’s hand, who turned once
+more to Ralph.
+
+“Who is he?” said the King. “I have seen his face. Who are you?”
+
+“This is Mr. Ralph Torridon,” said Cromwell; “a very useful friend to
+me, your Grace.”
+
+“The Torridons of Overfield?” questioned Henry once more, who never
+forgot a face or a name.
+
+“Yes, your Grace,” said Cromwell.
+
+“You are tall enough, sir,” said the King, running his narrow eyes up
+and down Ralph’s figure;--“a strong friend.”
+
+“I hope so, your Grace,” said Ralph.
+
+The King again looked at him, and Ralph dropped his eyes in the glare of
+that mighty personality. Then Henry abruptly thrust out his hand to be
+kissed, and as Ralph bent over it he was aware of the thick straight
+fingers, the creased wrist, and the growth of hair on the back of the
+hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph was astonished, and a little ashamed at his own excitement as he
+passed down the stairs again. It was so little that had happened; his
+own part had been so insignificant; and yet he was tingling from head to
+foot. He felt he knew now a little better how it was that the King’s
+will, however outrageous in its purposes, was done so quickly. It was
+the sheer natural genius of authority and royalty that forced it
+through; he had felt himself dominated and subdued in those few moments,
+so that he was not his own master. As he went home through the street or
+two that separated the Palace gate from his own house, he found himself
+analysing the effect of that presence, and, in spite of its repellence,
+its suggestion of coarseness, and its almost irritating imperiousness,
+he was conscious that there was a very strong element of attractiveness
+in it too. It seemed to him the kind of attractiveness that there is for
+a beaten dog in the chastising hand: the personality was so overwhelming
+that it compelled allegiance, and that not wholly one of fear. He found
+himself thinking of Queen Katharine and understanding a little better
+how it was that the refined, delicately nurtured and devout woman, so
+constant in her prayers, so full of the peculiar fineness of character
+that gentle birth and religion alone confer, could so cling to this
+fierce lord of hers, throw herself at his feet with tears before all the
+company, and entreat not to be separated from him, calling him her “dear
+lord,” her “love,” and her most “merciful and gracious prince.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The transition from this train of thought to that bearing on Beatrice
+was not a difficult one; for the memory of the girl was continually in
+his mind. He had seen her half a dozen times now since their first
+meeting; for he had availed himself to the full of Cromwell’s
+encouragement to make himself at home at Chelsea; and he found that his
+interest in her deepened every time. With a touch of amusement he found
+himself studying Horace and Terence again, not only for Sir Thomas
+More’s benefit, but in order to win his approval and his good report to
+his household, among whom Beatrice was practically to be reckoned.
+
+He was pleased too by More’s account of Beatrice.
+
+“She is nearly as good a scholar as my dear Meg,” he had said one day.
+“Try her, Mr. Torridon.”
+
+Ralph had carefully prepared an apt quotation that day, and fired it off
+presently, not at Beatrice, but, as it were, across her; but there was
+not the faintest response or the quiver of an eyelid.
+
+There was silence a moment; and then Sir Thomas burst out--
+
+“You need not look so demure, my child; we all know that you
+understand.”
+
+Beatrice had given him a look of tranquil amusement in return.
+
+“I will not be made a show of,” she said.
+
+Ralph went away that day more engrossed than ever. He began to ask
+himself where his interest in her would end; and wondered at its
+intensity.
+
+As he questioned himself about it, it seemed that to him it was to a
+great extent her appearance of detached self-possession that attracted
+him. It was the quality that he most desired for himself, and one which
+he had in measure attained; but he was aware that in the presence of
+Cromwell at least it deserted him. He knew well that he had found his
+master there, and that he himself was nothing more than a
+hero-worshipper before a shrine; but it provoked him to feel that there
+was no one who seemed to occupy the place of a similar divinity with
+regard to this girl. Obviously she admired and loved Sir Thomas
+More--Ralph soon found out how deeply in the course of his visits--but
+she was not in the least afraid of her friend. She serenely contradicted
+him when she disagreed with what he said, would fail to keep her
+appointments at his house with the same equanimity, and in spite of Sir
+Thomas’s personality never appeared to give him more than a friendly and
+affectionate homage. With regard to Ralph himself, it was the same. She
+was not in the least awed by him, or apparently impressed by his
+reputation which at this time was growing rapidly as that of a capable
+and daring agent of Cromwell’s; and even once or twice when he
+condescended to hint at the vastness of the affairs on which he was
+engaged, in a desperate endeavour to rouse her admiration, she only
+looked at him steadily a moment with very penetrating eyes, and began to
+speak of something else. He began to feel discouraged.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first hint that Ralph had that he had been making a mistake in his
+estimate of her, came from Margaret Roper, who was still living at
+Chelsea with her husband Will.
+
+Ralph had walked up to the house one bleak afternoon in early spring
+along the river-bank from Westminster, and had found Margaret alone in
+the dining-hall, seated by the window with her embroidery in her hand,
+and a Terence propped open on the sill to catch the last gleams of light
+from the darkening afternoon. She greeted Ralph warmly, for he was a
+very familiar figure to them all by now, and soon began to talk, when he
+had taken a seat by the wide open fireplace whence the flames flickered
+out, casting shadows and lights round the high room, across the
+high-hung tapestries and in the gloomy corners.
+
+“Beatrice is here,” she said presently, “upstairs with father. I think
+she is doing some copying for him.”
+
+“She is a great deal with him,” observed Ralph.
+
+“Why, yes; father thinks so much of her. He says that none can write so
+well as she, or has such a quick brain. And then she does not talk, he
+says, nor ask foolish woman-questions like the rest of us.” And Margaret
+glanced up a moment, smiling.
+
+“I suppose I must not go up,” said Ralph, a little peevishly; for he was
+tired with his long day.
+
+“Why, no, you must not,” said Margaret, “but she will be down soon, Mr.
+Torridon.”
+
+There was silence for a moment or two; and then Margaret spoke again.
+
+“Mr. Torridon,” she said, “may I say something?” Ralph made a little
+sound of assent. The warmth of the fire was making him sleepy.
+
+“Well, it is this,” said Margaret slowly, “I think you believe that
+Beatrice does not like you. That is not true. She is very fond of you;
+she thinks a great deal of you,” she added, rather hastily.
+
+Ralph sat up; his drowsiness was gone.
+
+“How do you know that, Mrs. Roper?” he asked. His voice sounded
+perfectly natural, and Margaret was reassured at the tone of it. She
+could not see Ralph well; it was getting dark now.
+
+“I know it well,” she said. “Of course we talk of you when you are
+gone.”
+
+“And does Mrs. Beatrice talk of me?”
+
+“Not so much,” said Margaret, “but she listens very closely; and asks us
+questions sometimes.” The girl’s heart was beating with excitement as
+she spoke; but she had made up her mind to seek this opportunity. It
+seemed a pity, she thought, that two friends of hers should so
+misunderstood one another.
+
+“And what kind of questions?” asked Ralph again.
+
+“She wonders--what you really think--” went on Margaret slowly, bending
+down over her embroidery, and punctuating her words with
+stitches--“about--about affairs--and--and she said one day that--”
+
+“Well?” said Ralph in the same tone.
+
+“That she thought you were not so severe as you seemed,” ended Margaret,
+her voice a little tremulous with amusement.
+
+Ralph sat perfectly still, staring at the great fire-plate on which a
+smoky Phoebus in relief drove the chariot of the sun behind the tall
+wavering flames that rose from the burning logs. He knew very well why
+Margaret had spoken, and that she would not speak without reason; but
+the fact revealed was so bewilderingly new to him that he could not take
+it in. Margaret looked at him once or twice a little uneasily; and at
+last sighed.
+
+“It is too dark,” she said, “I must fetch candles.”
+
+She slipped out of the side-door that led to the servants’ quarters, and
+Ralph was left alone. All his weariness was gone now; the whirl of
+images and schemes with which his brain had been seething as he walked
+up the river-bank half-an-hour before, had receded into obscurity; and
+one dominating thought filled their place: What if Margaret were right?
+And what did he mean to do himself? Surely he was not--
+
+The door from the entrance passage opened, and a tall slender figure
+stood there, now in light, now in shadow, as the flames rose and fell.
+
+“Meg,” said a voice.
+
+Ralph sat still a moment longer.
+
+“Meg,” said Beatrice again, “how dark you are.”
+
+Ralph stood up.
+
+“Mrs. Roper has just gone,” he said, “you must put up with me, Mrs.
+Beatrice.”
+
+“Who is it?” said the girl advancing. “Mr. Torridon?”
+
+She had a paper in her hand as she came across the floor, and Ralph drew
+out a chair for her on the other side of the hearth.
+
+“Yes,” he said. “Mrs. Roper has gone for lights. She will be back
+immediately.”
+
+Beatrice sat down.
+
+“It is a troublesome word,” she said. “Master More cannot read it
+himself, and has sent me to ask Meg. He says that every dutiful daughter
+should be able to read her father’s hand.”
+
+And Ralph could see a faint amused smile in her black eyes, as the
+firelight shone on them.
+
+“Master More always has an escape ready,” he said, as he too sat down.
+
+The girl’s hand holding the paper suddenly dropped on to her knee, and
+the man saw she was looking at him oddly.
+
+“Yes?” he said interrogatively; and then--
+
+“Why do you look at me like that, Mrs. Beatrice?”
+
+“It is what you said. Do you really think that, Mr. Torridon?”
+
+Ralph was bewildered for a moment.
+
+“I do not understand,” he said.
+
+“Do you truly think he always has an escape ready?” repeated the girl.
+
+Then Ralph understood.
+
+“You mean he is in danger,” he said steadily. “Well, of course he is.
+There is no great man that is not. But I do not see why he should not
+escape as he has always done.”
+
+“You think that, Mr. Torridon?”
+
+“Why, yes;” went on Ralph, a little hastily. “You remember the matter
+of the bribe. See how he cleared himself. Surely, Mrs. Beatrice--”
+
+“And you really think so,” said the girl. “I know that you know what we
+do not; and I shall believe what you say.”
+
+“How can I tell?” remonstrated Ralph. “I can only tell you that in this
+matter I know nothing that you do not. Master More is under no
+suspicion.”
+
+Beatrice drew a breath of relief.
+
+“I am glad I spoke to you, sir,” she said. “It has been on my mind. And
+something that he said a few minutes ago frightened me.”
+
+“What did he say?” asked Ralph curiously.
+
+“Ah! it was not much. It was that no man knew what might come next; that
+matters were very strange and dismaying--and--and that he wanted this
+paper copied quickly, for fear--”
+
+The girl stopped again, abruptly.
+
+“I know what you feel, Mrs. Beatrice,” said Ralph gently. “I know how
+you love Master More, and how terrified we may become for our friends.”
+
+“What do you think yourself, Mr. Torridon,” she said suddenly, almost
+interrupting him.
+
+He looked at her doubtfully a moment, and half wished that Margaret
+would come back.
+
+“That is a wide question,” he said.
+
+“Well, you know what I mean,” she said coolly, completely herself again.
+She was sitting back in her chair now, drawing the paper serenely to and
+fro between her fingers; and he could see the firelight on her chin and
+brows, and those steady eyes watching him. He had an impulse of
+confidence.
+
+“I do think changes are coming,” he said. “I suppose we all do.”
+
+“And you approve?”
+
+“Oh! how can I say off-hand?--But I think changes are needed.”
+
+She was looking down at the fire again now, and did not speak for a
+moment.
+
+“Master More said you were of the new school,” she said meditatively.
+
+Ralph felt a curious thrill of exultation. Margaret was right then; this
+girl had been thinking about him.
+
+“There is certainly a stirring,” he said; and his voice was a little
+restrained.
+
+“Oh, I am not blind or deaf,” said the girl. “Of course, there is a
+stirring--but I wondered--”
+
+Then Margaret came in with the candles.
+
+Ralph went away that evening more excited than he liked. It seemed as if
+Mistress Roper’s words had set light to a fire ready laid, and he could
+perceive the warmth beginning to move about his heart and odd wavering
+lights flickering on his circumstances and business that had not been
+there before.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He received his first letter from Beatrice a few weeks later, and it
+threw him into a strait between his personal and official claims.
+
+Cromwell at this time was exceedingly occupied with quelling the ardour
+of the House of Lords, who were requesting that the Holy Maid of Kent
+and her companions might have an opportunity of defending themselves
+before the Act of Attainder ordered by the King was passed against them;
+but he found time to tell his agent that trouble was impending over More
+and Fisher; and to request him to hand in any evidence that he might
+have against the former.
+
+“I suppose we shall have to let the Bishop off with a fine,” said the
+minister, “in regard to the Maid’s affair; but we shall catch him
+presently over the Act; and Mr. More is clear of it. But we shall have
+him too in a few days. Put down what you have to say, Mr. Torridon, and
+let me have it this evening.”
+
+And then he rustled off down the staircase to where his carriage was
+waiting to take him to Westminster, where he proposed to tell the
+scrupulous peers that the King was not accustomed to command twice, and
+that to suspect his Grace of wishing them to do an injustice was a piece
+of insolence that neither himself nor his royal master had expected of
+them.
+
+Ralph was actually engaged in putting down his very scanty accusations
+against Sir Thomas More when the letter from Beatrice was brought up to
+him. He read it through twice in silence; and then ordered the courier
+to wait below. When the servant had left the room, he read it through a
+third time.
+
+It was not long; but it was pregnant.
+
+“I entreat you, sir,” wrote the girl, “for the love of Jesu, to let us
+know if anything is designed against our friend. Three weeks ago you
+told me it was not so; I pray God that may be true still. I know that
+you would not lift a finger against him yourself--” (Ralph glanced at
+his own neat little list at these words, and bit his pen)--“but I wish
+you to do what you can for him and for us all.” Then followed an
+erasure.
+
+Ralph carried the paper to the window, flattened it against the panes
+and read clearly the words, “If my” under the scratching lines, and
+smiled to himself as he guessed what the sentence was that she was
+beginning.
+
+Then the letter continued.
+
+“I hear on good authority that there is something against him. He will
+not escape; and will do nothing on such hearsay, but only tells us to
+trust God, and laughs at us all. Good Mr. Torridon, do what you can.
+Your loving friend, B.A.”
+
+Ralph went back from the window where he was still standing, and sat
+down again, bending his head into his hands. He had no sort of scruples
+against lying as such or betraying Mr. More’s private conversation; his
+whole training was directed against such foolishness, and he had learnt
+at last from Cromwell’s incessant precept and example that the good of
+the State over-rode all private interests. But he had a disinclination
+to lie to Beatrice; and he felt simply unable to lose her friendship by
+telling her the truth.
+
+As he sat there perfectly still, the servant peeped in once softly to
+see if the answer was ready, and noiselessly withdrew. Ralph did not
+stir; but still sat on, pressing his eyeballs till they ached and fiery
+rings twisted before him in the darkness. Then he abruptly sat up,
+blinked a moment or two, took up a pen, bit it again, and laid it down
+and sat eyeing the two papers that lay side by side on his desk.
+
+He took up his own list, and read it through. After all, it was very
+insignificant, and contained no more than minute scraps of conversation
+that Sir Thomas More had let drop. He had called Queen Katharine “poor
+woman” three or four times; had expressed a reverence for the Pope of
+Rome half a dozen times, and had once called him the Vicar of Christ. He
+had been silent when someone had mentioned Anne Boleyn’s name; he had
+praised the Carthusians and the Religious Life generally, at some
+length.
+
+They were the kind of remarks that might mean nothing or a great deal;
+they were consistent with loyalty; they were not inconsistent with
+treason; in fact they were exactly the kind of material out of which
+serious accusations might be manufactured by a skilled hand, though as
+they stood they proved nothing.
+
+A further consideration to Ralph was his duty to Cromwell; he scarcely
+felt it seemly to lie whole-heartedly to him; and on the other hand he
+felt now simply unable to lie to Beatrice. There was only one way out of
+it,--to prevaricate to them both.
+
+He took up his own paper, glanced at it once more; and then with a
+slightly dramatic gesture tore it across and across, and threw it on the
+ground. Then he took up his pen and wrote to Beatrice.
+
+“I have only had access to one paper against our friend--that I have
+destroyed, though I do not know what Master Cromwell will say. But I
+tell you this to show at what a price I value your friendship.
+
+“Of course our friend is threatened. Who is not in these days? But I
+swear to you that I do not know what is the design.”
+
+He added a word or two more for politeness’ sake, prayed that “God might
+have her in His keeping,” and signed himself as she had done, her
+“loving friend.”
+
+Then he dried the ink with his pounce box, sealed the letter with great
+care, and took it down to the courier himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He faced Cromwell in the evening with a good deal of terror, but with
+great adroitness; swore positively that More had said nothing actually
+treasonable, and had found, on putting pen to paper, that the
+accusations were flimsier than he thought.
+
+“But it is your business to see that they be not so,” stormed his
+master. Ralph paused a moment respectfully.
+
+“I cannot make a purse out of a sow’s ear, sir. I must have at least
+some sort of silk.”
+
+When Cromwell had ceased to walk up and down, Ralph pointed out with
+considerable shrewdness that he did not suppose that his evidence was
+going to form the main ground of the attack on More; and that it would
+merely weaken the position to bring such feeble arguments to bear.
+
+“Why he would tear them to shreds, sir, in five minutes; he would make
+out that they were our principal grounds--he is a skilled lawyer. If I
+may dare to say so, Master Cromwell, let your words against Mr. More be
+few and choice.”
+
+This was bolder speaking than he had ever ventured on before; but
+Cromwell was in a good humour. The peers had proved tractable and had
+agreed to pass the attainder against Elizabeth Barton without any more
+talk of justice and the accused’s right of defence; and he looked now at
+Ralph with a grim approval.
+
+“I believe you are right, Mr. Torridon. I will think over it.”
+
+A week later the blow fell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cromwell looked up at him one Sunday evening as he came into the room,
+with his papers, and without any greeting spoke at once.
+
+“I wish you to go to Lambeth House to-morrow morning early, Mr.
+Torridon. Master More is to be there to have the Oath of Succession
+tendered to him with the others. Do your best to persuade him to take
+it; be his true friend.”
+
+A little grim amusement shone in his eyes as he spoke. Ralph looked at
+him a moment.
+
+“I mean it, Mr. Torridon: do your best. I wish him to think you his
+friend.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Ralph went across the Thames in a wherry the following morning, he
+was still thinking out the situation. Apparently Cromwell wished to keep
+in friendly touch with More; and this now, of course, was only possible
+through Ralph, and would have been impossible if the latter’s evidence
+had been used, or were going to be used. It was a relief to him to know
+that the consummation of his treachery was postponed at least for the
+present; (but he would not have called it treachery).
+
+As Lambeth towers began to loom ahead, Ralph took out Beatrice’s letter
+that had come in answer to his own a few days before, and ran his eyes
+over it. It was a line of passionate thanks and blessing. Surely he had
+reached her hidden heart at last. He put the letter back in his inner
+pocket, just before he stepped ashore. It no doubt would be a useful
+evidence of his own sincerity in his interview with More.
+
+There was a great crowd in the court as he passed through, for many were
+being called to take the oath, which, however, was not made strictly
+legal until the following Second Act in the autumn. Several carriages
+were drawn up near the house door, and among them Ralph recognised the
+liveries of his master and of Lord Chancellor Audley. A number of horses
+and mules too were tethered to rings in the wall on the other side with
+grooms beside them, and ecclesiastics and secretaries were coming and
+going, disputing in groups, calling to one another, in the pleasant
+April sunshine.
+
+On enquiry he found that the Commissioners were sitting in one of the
+downstair parlours; but one of Cromwell’s servants at the door told him
+that he was not to go in there, but that Mr. More was upstairs by
+himself, and that if he pleased he would show him the way.
+
+It was an old room looking on to the garden, scantily furnished, with a
+patch of carpet by the window and a table and chair set upon it. More
+turned round from the window-seat on which he was kneeling to look out,
+and smiled genially as Ralph heard the servant close the door.
+
+“Why, Mr. Torridon, are you in trouble too? This is the detention-room
+whither I am sent to consider myself.”
+
+He led Ralph, still holding his hand, to the window-seat, where he
+leaned again looking eagerly into the garden.
+
+“There go the good boys,” he said, “to and fro in the playground; and
+here sit I. I suppose I have nothing but the rod to look for.”
+
+Ralph felt a little awkward in the presence of this gaiety; and for a
+minute or two leaned out beside More, staring mechanically at the
+figures that passed up and down. He had expected almost to find him at
+his prayers, or at least thoughtfully considering himself.
+
+More commented agreeably on the passers-by.
+
+“Dr. Wilson was here a moment ago; but he is off now, with a man on
+either side. He too is a naughty fellow like myself, and will not listen
+to reason. There is the Vicar of Croydon, good man, coming out of the
+buttery wiping his mouth.”
+
+Ralph looked down at the priest’s flushed excited face; he was talking
+with a kind of reckless gaiety to a friend who walked beside him.
+
+“He was sad enough just now,” went on the other, “while he was still
+obstinate; but his master hath patted him on the head now and given him
+cake and wine. He was calling out for a drink just now (which he hath
+got, I see) either for gladness or for dryness, or else that we might
+know _quod ille notus erat pontifici_.”
+
+Dr. Latimer passed presently, his arms on either side flung round a
+priest’s neck; he too was talking volubly and laughing; and the skirts
+of his habit wagged behind him.
+
+“He is in high feather,” said More, “and I have no doubt that his
+conscience is as clear as his eyes. Come, Mr. Torridon; sit you down.
+What have you come for?”
+
+Ralph sat back on the window-seat with his back to the light, and his
+hat between his knees.
+
+“I came to see you, sir; I have not been to the Commissioners. I heard
+you were here.”
+
+“Why, yes,” said More, “here I am.”
+
+“I came to see if I could be of any use to you, Master More; I know a
+friend’s face is a good councillor sometimes, even though that friend be
+a fool.”
+
+More patted him softly on the knee.
+
+“No fool,” he said, “far from it.”
+
+He looked at him so oddly that Ralph feared that he suspected him; so he
+made haste to bring out Beatrice’s letter.
+
+“Mistress Atherton has written me this,” he said. “I was able to do her
+a little service--at least I thought it so then.”
+
+More took the letter and glanced at it.
+
+“A very pretty letter,” he said, “and why do you show it me?”
+
+Ralph looked at him steadily.
+
+“Because I am Master Cromwell’s servant; and you never forget it.”
+
+More burst into a fit of laughter; and then took Ralph kindly by the
+hand.
+
+“You are either very innocent or very deep,” he said. “And what have you
+come to ask me?”
+
+“I have come to ask nothing, Master More,” said Ralph indignantly,
+withdrawing his hand--“except to be of service to you.”
+
+“To talk about the oath,” corrected the other placidly. “Very well then.
+Do you begin, Mr. Torridon.”
+
+Ralph made a great effort, for he was sorely perplexed by Sir Thomas’
+attitude, and began to talk, putting all the reasons forward that he
+could think of for the accepting of the oath. He pointed out that
+government and allegiance would be impossible things if every man had to
+examine for himself the claims of his rulers; when vexed and elaborate
+questions arose--and this certainly was one such--was it not safer to
+follow the decrees of the King and Parliament, rather than to take up a
+position of private judgment, and decide upon details of which a subject
+could have no knowledge? How, too, could More, under the circumstances,
+take upon himself to condemn those who had subscribed the oath?--he
+named a few eminent prelates, the Abbot of Westminster and others.
+
+“I do not condemn them,” put in More, who was looking interested.
+
+“Then you are uncertain of the matter?” went on Ralph who had thought
+out his line of argument with some care.
+
+More assented.
+
+“But your duty to the King’s grace is certain; therefore it should
+outweigh a thing that is doubtful.”
+
+Sir Thomas sucked in his lower lip, and stared gravely on the young
+man.
+
+“You are very shrewd, sir,” he said. “I do not know how to answer that
+at this moment; but I have no reasonable doubt but that there is an
+answer.”
+
+Ralph was delighted with his advantage, and pursued it eagerly; and
+after a few minutes had won from More an acknowledgment that he might be
+willing to consider the taking of the oath itself; it was the other
+clauses that touched his conscience more. He could swear to be loyal to
+Anne’s children; but he could not assent to the denunciation of the Pope
+contained in the preamble of the Act, and the oath would commit him to
+that.
+
+“But you will tell that to the Commissioners, sir?” asked Ralph eagerly.
+
+“I will tell them all that I have told you,” said More smiling.
+
+Ralph himself was somewhat doubtful as to whether the concession would
+be accepted; but he professed great confidence, and secretly
+congratulated himself with having made so much way. But presently a
+remark of More’s showed that he appreciated the situation.
+
+“I am very grateful to you, Mr. Torridon, for coming and talking to me;
+and I shall tell my wife and children so. But it is of no use. They are
+resolved to catch me. First there was the bribe; then the matter of the
+Maid; then this; and if I took a hundred oaths they would find one more
+that I could not, without losing my soul; and that indeed I do not
+propose to do. _Quid enim proficit homo?_”
+
+There was a knock at the door a moment later, and a servant came in to
+beg Mr. More to come downstairs again; the Commissioners were ready for
+him.
+
+“Then good-day, Mr. Torridon. You will come and see me sometimes, even
+if not at Chelsea. Wherever I may be it will be as nigh heaven as
+Chelsea.”
+
+Ralph went down with him, and parted from him at the door of the
+Commissioner’s room; and half-an-hour later a message was sent out to
+him by Cromwell that he need wait no longer; Mr. More had refused the
+oath, and had been handed over to the custody of the Abbot of
+Westminster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A MERRY PRISONER
+
+
+The arrest of Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher and their committal to
+the Tower a few days later caused nothing less than consternation in
+England and of furious indignation on the Continent. It was evident that
+greatness would save no man; the best hope lay in obscurity, and men who
+had been loud in self-assertion now grew timorous and silent.
+
+Ralph was now in the thick of events. Besides his connection with More,
+he had been present at one of the examinations of the Maid of Kent and
+her admirers; had formed one of the congregation at Paul’s Cross when
+the confession drawn up for her had been read aloud in her name by Dr.
+Capon, who from the pulpit opposite the platform where the penitents
+were set, preached a vigorous sermon against credulity and superstition.
+Ralph had read the confession over a couple of days before in Cromwell’s
+room, and had suggested a few verbal alterations; and he had been
+finally present, a few days after More’s arrest, at the last scene of
+the drama, when Elizabeth Barton, with six priests, suffered, under the
+provisions of an act of attainder, on Tyburn gallows.
+
+All these events were indications of the course that things were taking
+in regard to greater matters. Parliament had now advanced further than
+ever in the direction of a breach with Rome, and had transferred the
+power of nomination to bishoprics from the Holy See to the Crown, and,
+what was at least as significant, had dealt in a similar manner with the
+authority over Religious houses.
+
+On the other side, Rome had declared definitely against the annulling of
+Queen Katharine’s marriage, and to this the King had retorted by turning
+the pulpits against the Pope, and in the course of this had found
+himself compelled to deal sharply with the Franciscans, who were at the
+same time the most popular and the most papal of all preachers. In the
+following out of this policy, first several notable friars were
+imprisoned, and next a couple of subservient Religious, a Dominican and
+an Augustinian, were appointed grand visitors of the rebellious Order.
+
+A cloud of terror now began to brood over the Religious houses in
+England, as the news of these proceedings became known, and Ralph had a
+piteous letter from his father, entreating him to give some explanation
+of the course of affairs so far as was compatible with loyalty to his
+master, and at least his advice as to Christopher’s profession.
+
+“We hear sad tales, dear son,” wrote Sir James, “on all sides are fears,
+and no man knows what the end will be. Some even say that the Orders
+will be reduced in number. And who knows what may be toward now that the
+Bishop and Mr. More are in trouble. I know not what is all this that
+Parliament has been doing about the Holy Father his authority; but I am
+sure that it cannot be more than what other reigns have brought about in
+declaring that the Prince is temporal lord of his land. But, however
+that may be, what do you advise that your brother should do? He is to be
+professed in August, unless it is prevented, and I dare not put out my
+hand to hinder it, until I know more. I do not ask you, dear son, to
+tell me what you should not; I know my duty and yours too well for that.
+But I entreat you to tell me what you can, that I may not consent to
+your brother’s profession if it is better that it should not take place
+until affairs are quieter. Your mother would send you her dear love, I
+know, if she knew I were writing, but she is in her chamber, and the
+messenger must go with this. Jesu have you in His blessed keeping!”
+
+Ralph wrote back that he knew no reason against Christopher’s
+profession, except what might arise from the exposure of the Holy Maid
+on whose advice he had gone to Lewes, and that if his father and brother
+were satisfied on that score, he hoped that Christopher would follow
+God’s leading.
+
+At the same time that he wrote this he was engaged, under Cromwell’s
+directions, in sifting the evidence offered by the grand visitors to
+show that the friars refused to accept the new enactments on the subject
+of the papal jurisdiction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the other hand, the Carthusians in London had proved more submissive.
+There had been a struggle at first when the oath of the succession had
+been tendered to them, and Prior Houghton, with the Procurator, Humphrey
+Middlemore, had been committed to the Tower. The oath affirmed the
+nullity of Queen Katharine’s marriage with the King on the alleged
+ground of her consummated marriage with Henry’s elder brother, and
+involved, though the Carthusians did not clearly understand it so at the
+time, a rejection of the Pope’s authority as connected with the
+dispensation for Katharine’s union with Henry. In May their scruples
+were removed by the efforts of some who had influence with them, and the
+whole community took the oath as required of them, though with the
+pathetic addition of a clause that they only submitted “so far as it
+was lawful for them so to do.” This actual submission, to Cromwell’s
+mind and therefore to Ralph’s, was at first of more significance than
+was the uneasy temper of the community, as reported to them, which
+followed their compliance; but as the autumn drew on this opinion was
+modified.
+
+It was in connection with this that Ralph became aware for the first
+time of what was finally impending with regard to the King’s supremacy
+over the Church.
+
+He had been sitting in Cromwell’s room in the Chancery all through one
+morning, working at the evidence that was flowing in from all sides of
+disaffection to Henry’s policy, sifting out worthless and frivolous
+charges from serious ones. Every day a flood of such testimony poured in
+from the spies in all parts of the country, relating to the deepening
+dissatisfaction with the method of government; and Cromwell, as the
+King’s adviser, came in for much abuse. Every kind of manifestation of
+this was reported, the talk in the ale-houses and at gentlemen’s tables
+alike, words dropped in the hunting-field or over a game of cards; and
+the offenders were dealt with in various ways, some by a sharp rebuke or
+warning, others by a sudden visit of a pursuivant and his men.
+
+Ralph made his report as usual at the end of the morning, and was on the
+point of leaving, when his master called him back from the door.
+
+“A moment,” he said, “I have something to say. Sit down.”
+
+When Ralph had taken the chair again that he had just left, Cromwell
+took up a pen, and began to play with it delicately as he talked.
+
+“You will have noticed,” he began, “how hot the feeling runs in the
+country, and I am sure you will also have understood why it is so. It
+is not so much what has happened,--I mean in the matter of the marriage
+and of the friars,--but what folk fear is going to happen. It seems to
+the people that security is disappearing; they do not understand that
+their best security lies in obedience. And, above all, they think that
+matters are dangerous with regard to the Church. They know now that the
+Pope has spoken, and that the King pays no heed, but, on the other hand,
+waxes more bold. And that because his conscience bids him. Remember
+that, sir, when you have to do with his Highness.”
+
+He glanced at Ralph again, but there was no mockery in his solemn eyes.
+Then he went on.
+
+“I am going to tell you, Mr. Torridon, that these folks are partly
+right, and that his Grace has not yet done all that he intends. There is
+yet one more step to take--and that is to declare the King supreme over
+the Church of England.”
+
+Ralph felt those strong eyes bent upon him, and he nodded, making no
+sign of approval or otherwise.
+
+“This is no new thing, Mr. Torridon,” went on Cromwell, after a moment’s
+silence. “The King of England has always been supreme, though I will
+acknowledge that this has become obscured of late. But it is time that
+it be re-affirmed. The Popes have waxed presumptuous, and have laid
+claim to titles that Christ never gave them, and it is time that they be
+reminded that England is free, and will not suffer their domination. As
+for the unity of the Catholic Church, that can be attended to later on,
+and on firmer ground; when the Pope has been taught not to wax so proud.
+There will be an Act passed by Parliament presently, perhaps next year,
+to do this business, and then we shall know better what to do. Until
+that, it is very necessary, as you have already seen, to keep the folks
+quiet, and not to suffer any contradiction of his Grace’s rights. Do you
+understand me, Mr. Torridon?”
+
+Cromwell laid the pen clown and leaned back in his chair, with his
+fingers together.
+
+“I understand, sir,” said Ralph, in a perfectly even tone.
+
+“Well, that is all that I have to say,” ended his master, still watching
+him. “I need not tell you how necessary secrecy is in the matter.”
+
+Ralph was considerably startled as he went home, and realized better
+what it was that he had heard. While prudent persons were already
+trembling at the King’s effrontery and daring in the past, Henry was
+meditating a yet further step. He began to see now that the instinct of
+the country was, as always, sharper than that of the individual, and
+that these uneasy strivings everywhere rose from a very definite
+perception of danger. The idea of the King’s supremacy, as represented
+by Cromwell, would not seem to be a very startling departure; similar
+protests of freedom had been made in previous reigns, but now, following
+as it did upon overt acts of disobedience to the Sovereign Pontiff, and
+of disregard of his authority in matters of church-law and even of the
+status of Religious houses, it seemed to have a significance that
+previous protests had lacked.
+
+And behind it all was the King’s conscience! This was a new thought to
+Ralph, but the more he considered it the more it convinced him. It was a
+curious conscience, but a mighty one, and it was backed by an
+indomitable will. For the first time there opened out to Ralph’s mind a
+glimpse of the possibility that he had scarcely dreamed of hitherto--of
+a Nationalism in Church affairs that was a reality rather than a
+theory--in which the Bishop of Rome while yet the foremost bishop of
+Christendom and endowed with special prerogatives, yet should have no
+finger in national affairs, which should be settled by the home
+authorities without reference to him. No doubt, he told himself, a
+readjustment was needed--visions and fancies had encrusted themselves so
+quickly round the religion credible by a practical man that a scouring
+was called for. How if this should be the method by which not only such
+accretions should be done away, but yet more practical matters should be
+arranged, and steps taken to amend the unwarranted interferences and
+pecuniary demands of this foreign bishop?
+
+He had had more than one interview with Sir Thomas More in the Tower,
+and once was able to take him news of his own household at Chelsea. For
+a month none of his own people, except his servant, was allowed to visit
+him, and Ralph, calling on him about three weeks after the beginning of
+his imprisonment, found him eager for news.
+
+He was in a sufficiently pleasant cell in the Beauchamp Tower, furnished
+with straw mats underfoot, and straw hangings in place of a wainscot;
+his bed stood in one corner, with his crucifix and beads on a little
+table beside it, and his narrow window looked out through eleven feet of
+wall towards the Court and the White Tower. His books, too, which his
+servant, John Wood, had brought from Chelsea, and which had not yet been
+taken from him, stood about the room, and several lay on the table among
+his papers, at which he was writing when Ralph was admitted by the
+warder.
+
+“I am very glad to see you, Mr. Torridon,” he said, “I knew you would
+not forget an old friend, even though he could not take your counsel. I
+daresay you have come to give it me again, however.”
+
+“If I thought you would take it,” began Ralph.
+
+“But I will not,” said More smiling, “no more than before. Sit down, Mr.
+Torridon.”
+
+Ralph had come at Cromwell’s suggestion, and with a very great
+willingness of his own, too. He knew he could not please Beatrice more
+than by visiting her friend, and he himself was pleased and amused to
+think that he could serve his master’s interests from one side and his
+own from another by one action.
+
+He talked a little about the oath again, and mentioned how many had
+taken it during the last week or two.
+
+“I am pleased that they can do it with a good conscience,” observed
+More. “And now let us talk of other matters. If I would not do it for my
+daughter’s sake, who begged me, I would not do it for the sake of both
+the Houses of Parliament, nor even, dear Mr. Torridon, for yours and
+Master Cromwell’s.”
+
+Ralph saw that it was of no use, and began to speak of other things. He
+gave him news of Chelsea.
+
+“They are not very merry there,” he said, “and I hardly suppose you
+would wish them to be.”
+
+“Why not?” cried More, with a beaming face, “I am merry enough. I would
+not be a monk; so God hath compelled me to be one, and treats me as one
+of His own spoilt children. He setteth me on His lap and dandleth me. I
+have never been so happy.”
+
+He told Ralph presently that his chief sorrow was that he could not go
+to mass or receive the sacraments. The Lieutenant, Sir Edward
+Walsingham, who had been his friend, had told him that he would very
+gladly have given him liberties of this kind, but that he dared not, for
+fear of the King’s displeasure.
+
+“But I told him,” said More, “not to trouble himself that I liked his
+cheer well enough as it was, and if ever I did not he was to put me out
+of his doors.”
+
+After a little more talk he showed Ralph what he was writing. It was a
+treatise called a “Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation.”
+
+“It is to persuade myself,” he said, “that I am no more a prisoner than
+I was before; I know I am, but sometimes forget it. We are all God’s
+prisoners.”
+
+Ralph glanced down the page just written and was astonished at its good
+humour.
+
+“Some prisoner of another gaol,” he read, “singeth, danceth in his two
+fetters, and feareth not his feet for stumbling at a stone; while God’s
+prisoner, that hath but his one foot fettered by the gout, lieth
+groaning on a couch, and quaketh and crieth out if he fear there would
+fall on his foot no more than a cushion.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph went straight up the river from the Tower to Chelsea to take them
+news of the prisoner, and was silent and moody as he went. He had been
+half touched and half enraged by More’s bearing--touched by his
+simplicity and cheerfulness and enraged by his confidence in a bad
+cause.
+
+Mrs. Alice More behaved as usual when he got there: she had a genius for
+the obvious; commented on the weariness of living in one room, the
+distress at the thought that one was fastened in at the will of another;
+deplored the plainness of the prison fare, and the folly of her husband
+in refusing an oath that she herself and her children and the vast
+majority of the prominent persons in England had found so simple in
+accepting. She left nothing unsaid.
+
+Finally, she apologized for the plainness of her dress.
+
+“You must think me a slattern, Mr. Torridon, but I cannot help it. I
+have not the heart nor the means, now that my man is in prison, to do
+better.”
+
+And her solemn eyes filled with tears.
+
+When he had given the news to the family he went aside from the group in
+the garden to where Beatrice Atherton was sitting below the Jesu tree,
+with work on her lap.
+
+He had noticed as he talked that she was sitting there, and had raised
+his voice for her benefit. He fancied, and with a pleasure at the
+delicate instinct, that she did not wish to appear as intimately
+interested in the news from the Tower as those who had a better right to
+be. He was always detecting now faint shades in her character, as he
+knew her better, that charmed and delighted him.
+
+She was doing some mending, and only glanced up and down again without
+ceasing or moving, as Ralph stood by her.
+
+“I thought you never used the needle,” he began in a moment.
+
+“It is never too late to mend,” she said, without the faintest movement.
+
+Ralph felt again an odd prick of happiness. It gave him a distinct
+thrill of delight that she would make such an answer and so swiftly; and
+at such a time, when tragedy was round her and in her heart, for he knew
+how much she loved the man from whom he had just come.
+
+He sat down on the garden chair opposite, and watched her fingers and
+the movements of her wrist as she passed the needle in and out, and
+neither spoke again till the others had dispersed.
+
+“You heard all I said?” said Ralph at last.
+
+She bowed her head without answering.
+
+“Shall I go and bring you news again presently?”
+
+“If you please,” she said.
+
+“I hope to be able to do some little things for him,” went on Ralph,
+dropping his eyes, and he was conscious that she momentarily looked up.
+
+--“But I am afraid there is not much. I shall speak for him to Master
+Cromwell and the Lieutenant.”
+
+The needle paused and then went on again.
+
+Ralph was conscious of an extraordinary momentousness in every word that
+he said. He was well aware that this girl was not to be wooed by
+violence, but that he must insinuate his mind and sympathies delicately
+with hers, watching for every movement and ripple of thought. He had
+known ever since his talk with Margaret Roper that Beatrice was, as it
+were, turned towards him and scrutinising him, and that any mistake on
+his part, however slight, might finally alienate her. Even his gestures,
+the tones of his voice, his manner of walking, were important elements.
+He knew now that he was the kind of person who might be acceptable to
+her--or rather that his personality contained one facet that pleased
+her, and that he must be careful now to keep that facet turned towards
+her continually at such an angle that she caught the flash. He had
+sufficient sense, not to act a part, for that, he knew, she would soon
+discover, but to be natural in his best way, and to use the fine
+instincts that he was aware of possessing to tell him exactly how she
+would wish him to express himself. It would be a long time yet, he
+recognised, before he could attain his final object; in fact he was not
+perfectly certain what he wanted; but meanwhile he availed himself of
+every possible opportunity to get nearer, and was content with his
+progress.
+
+He was sorely tempted now to discuss Sir Thomas’s position and to
+describe his own, but he perceived from her own aloofness just now that
+it would seem a profanity, so he preserved silence instead, knowing that
+it would be eloquent to her. At last she spoke again, and there was a
+suggestion of a tremor in her voice.
+
+“I suppose you can do nothing for him really? He must stay in the
+Tower?”
+
+Ralph threw out his hands, silently, expostulating.
+
+“Nothing?” she said again, bending over her work.
+
+Ralph stood up, looking down at her, but made no answer.
+
+“I--I would do anything,” she said deliberately, “anything, I think, for
+the man--” and then broke off abruptly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph went away from Chelsea that afternoon with a whirling head and
+dancing heart. She had said no more than that, but he knew what she had
+meant, and knew, too that she would not have said as much to anyone to
+whom she was indifferent. Of course, it was hopeless to think of
+bringing about More’s release, but he could at least pretend to try, and
+Ralph was aware that to chivalrous souls a pathetic failure often
+appeals more than an excellent success.
+
+Folks turned to look after him more than once as he strode home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A HIGHER STEP
+
+
+As Chris, on the eve of his profession, looked back over the year that
+had passed since his reception at the guest-house, he scarcely knew
+whether it seemed like a week or a century. At times it appeared as if
+the old life in the world were a kind of far-away picture in which he
+saw himself as one detached from his present personality, moving among
+curious scenes in which now he had no part; at other times the familiar
+past rushed on him fiercely, deafened him with its appeal, and claimed
+him as its own. In such moods the monastery was an intolerable prison,
+the day’s round an empty heart-breaking formality in which his soul was
+being stifled, and even his habit, which he had once touched so
+reverently, the badge of a fool.
+
+The life of the world at such times seemed to him the only sanity; these
+men used the powers that God had given them, were content with simple
+and unostentatious doings and interests, reached the higher vocation by
+their very naiveté, and did not seek to fly on wings that were not meant
+to bear them. How sensible, Christopher told himself, was Ralph’s ideal!
+God had made the world, so Ralph lived in it--a world in which great and
+small affairs were carried on, and in which he interested himself. God
+had made horses and hawks, had provided materials for carriages and fine
+clothes and cross-bows, had formed the sexes and allowed for love and
+domestic matters, had created brains with their capacities of passion
+and intellect; and so Ralph had taken these things as he found them,
+hunted, dressed, lived, managed and mixed with men. At times in his cell
+Chris saw that imposing figure in all its quiet bravery of dress, that
+sane, clever face, those pitying and contemptuous eyes looking at him,
+and heard the well-bred voice asking and commenting and wondering at the
+misguided zeal of a brother who could give all this up, and seek to live
+a life that was built on and sustained by illusions.
+
+One event during his first six months of the novitiate helped to
+solemnise him and to clear the confusion.
+
+Old Dom Augustine was taken sick and died, and Chris for the first time
+in his life watched the melting tragedy of death. The old monk had been
+moved from the dormitory to the sick-room when the end seemed imminent,
+and one afternoon Chris noticed the little table set outside the door,
+with its candles and crucifix, the basin of cotton-wool, and the other
+signs that the last sacraments were to be administered. He knew little
+of the old man, except his bleared face and shaking hands as he had
+seen them in choir, and had never been greatly impressed by him; but it
+was another matter when in the evening of the same day, at his master’s
+order he passed into the cell and knelt down with the others to see the
+end.
+
+The old monk was lying now on the cross of ashes that had been spread on
+the floor; his features looked pinched and white in the candlelight; his
+old mouth moved incessantly, and opened now and again to gasp; but there
+was an august dignity on his face that Chris had never seen there
+before.
+
+Outside the night was still and frosty; only now and again the heavy
+stroke of the bell told the town that a soul was passing.
+
+Dom Augustine had received Viaticum an hour before. Chris had heard the
+steady tinkle of the bell, like the sound of Aaron’s garments, as the
+priest who had brought him Communion passed back with his sacred burden,
+and Chris had fallen on his knees where he stood as he caught a glimpse
+of the white procession passing back to the church, their frosty breath
+going up together in the winter night air, the wheeling shadows, and the
+glare of the torches giving a pleasant warm light in the dull cloister.
+
+But all that was over now, and the end was at hand.
+
+As Chris knelt there, mechanically responding to the prayers on which
+the monk’s soul was beginning to lift itself and flutter for escape,
+there fell a great solemnity on his spirit. The thought, as old as
+death, made itself real to him, that this was the end of every man and
+of himself too. Where Dom Augustine lay, he would lie, with his past
+behind him, of which every detail would be instinct with eternal import.
+All the tiny things of the monastic life--the rising in time for the
+night office, attention during it, the responses to grace, the little
+movements prescribed by etiquette, the invisible motions of a soul that
+had or had not acted for the love of God, those stirrings, falls,
+aspirations, that incessant activity of eighty years--all so incredibly
+minute from one point of view, so incredibly weighty from another--the
+account of all those things was to be handed in now, and an eternal
+judgment given.
+
+He looked at the wearied, pained old face again, at the tight-shut eyes,
+the jerking movements of the unshaven lips, and wondered what was
+passing behind;--what strange colloquy of the soul with itself or its
+Master or great personages of the Court of Heaven. And all was set in
+this little bare setting of white walls, a tumbled bed, a shuttered
+window, a guttering candle or two, a cross of ashes on boards, a ring
+of faces, and a murmur of prayers!
+
+The solemnity rose and fell in Chris’s soul like a deep organ-note
+sounding and waning. How homely and tender were these last rites, this
+accompaniment of the departing soul to the edge of eternity with all
+that was dear and familiar to it--the drops of holy water, the mellow
+light of candles, and the sonorous soothing Latin! And yet--and yet--how
+powerless to save a soul that had not troubled to make the necessary
+efforts during life, and had lost the power of making them now!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When all was over he went out of the cell with an indescribable gravity
+at his heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the great events in the spring of ’34 began to take place, Chris
+was in a period of abstracted peace, and the rumours of them came to him
+as cries from another planet.
+
+Dom Anthony Marks came into the cloister one day from the guest-house
+with a great excitement in his face.
+
+“Here is news!” he said, joining himself to Chris and another young monk
+with whom the lonely novice was sometimes allowed to walk. “Master
+Humphreys, from London, tells me they are all in a ferment there.”
+
+Chris looked at him with a deferential coldness, and waited for more.
+
+“They say that Master More hath refused the oath, and that he is lodged
+in the Tower, and my Lord of Rochester too.”
+
+The young monk burst into exclamations and questions, but Chris was
+silent. It was sad enough, but what did it matter to him? What did it
+really matter to anyone? God was King.
+
+Dom Anthony was in a hurry, and scuffled off presently to tell the
+Prior, and in an hour or two there was an air of excitement through the
+house. Chris, however, heard nothing more except the little that the
+novice-master chose to tell him, and felt a certain contempt for the
+anxious-eyed monks who broke the silence by whispers behind doors, and
+the peace of the monastery by their perturbed looks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even when a little later in the summer the commissioner came down to
+tender the oath of succession Chris heard little and cared less. He was
+aware of a fine gentleman striding through the cloister, lolling in the
+garth, and occupying a prominent seat in the church; he noticed that his
+master was long in coming to him after the protracted chapter-meetings,
+but it appeared to him all rather an irrelevant matter. These things
+were surely quite apart from the business for which they were all
+gathered in the house--the _opus Dei_ and the salvation of souls; this
+or that legal document did not seriously affect such high matters.
+
+The novice-master told him presently that the community had signed the
+oath, as all others were doing, and that there was no need for anxiety:
+they were in the hands of their Religious Superiors.
+
+“I was not anxious,” said Chris abruptly, and Dom James hastened to snub
+him, and to tell him that he ought to have been, but that novices always
+thought they knew everything, and were the chief troubles that Religious
+houses had to put up with.
+
+Chris courteously begged pardon, and went to his lessons wondering what
+in the world all the pother was about.
+
+But such moods of detachment were not continuous; they visited him for
+weeks at a time, when his soul was full of consolation, and he was
+amazed that any other life seemed possible to anyone. He seemed to
+himself to have reached the very heart and secret of existence--surely
+it was plain enough; God and eternity were the only things worth
+considering; a life passed in an ecstasy, if such were possible, was
+surely more consonant with reality than one of ordinary activities.
+Activities were, after all, but concessions to human weakness and desire
+for variety; contemplation was the simple and natural attitude of a soul
+that knew herself and God.
+
+But he was a man as well as a novice, and when these moods ebbed from
+his soul they left him strangely bitter and dry: the clouds would
+gather; the wind of discontent would begin to shrill about the angles of
+his spirit, and presently the storm of desolation would be up.
+
+He had one such tempestuous mood immediately before his profession.
+
+During its stress he had received a letter from his father which he was
+allowed to read, in which Sir James half hinted at the advisability of
+postponing the irrevocable step until things were quieter, and his heart
+had leaped at the possibility of escape. He did not know till then how
+strong had grown the motive of appearing well in the eyes of his
+relatives and of fearing to lose their respect by drawing back; and now
+that his father, too, seemed to suggest that he had better re-consider
+himself, it appeared that a door was opened in the high monastery wall
+through which he might go through and take his honour with him.
+
+He passed through a terrible struggle that night.
+
+Never had the night-office seemed so wearisomely barren. The glamour
+that had lighted those dark walls and the double row of cowls and
+down-bent faces, the mystical beauty of the single flames here and
+there that threw patches of light on the carving of the stalls and the
+sombre habits, and gave visibility and significance to what without them
+was obscure, the strange suggestiveness of the high-groined roof and the
+higher vault glimmering through the summer darkness--all this had faded
+and left him, as it seemed, sane and perceptive of facts at last. Out
+there through those transepts lay the town where reasonable folk slept,
+husband and wife together, and the children in the great bed next door,
+with the tranquil ordinary day behind them and its fellow before; there
+were the streets, still now and dark and empty but for the sleeping
+dogs, where the signs swung and the upper stories leaned together, and
+where the common life had been transacted since the birth of the town
+and would continue till its decay. And beyond lay the cool round hills,
+with their dark dewy slopes, over which he had ridden a year ago, and
+all England beyond them again, with its human life and affairs and
+interests; and over all hung the serene stars whence God looked down
+well pleased with all that He had made.
+
+And, meanwhile, here he stood in his stall in his night shoes and black
+habit and cropped head, propped on his misericorde, with the great pages
+open before him, thumbed and greasy at their corners, from which he was
+repeating in a loud monotone formula after formula that had had time to
+grow familiar from repetition, but not yet sweet from associations--here
+he stood with heavy eyelids after his short sleep, his feet aching and
+hot, and his whole soul rebellious.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was sent by his novice-master next day to the Prior, with his
+father’s letter in his hand, and stood humbly by the door while the
+Prior read it. Chris watched him under half-raised eye-lids; saw the
+clean-cut profile with its delicate mouth bent over the paper, and the
+hand with the enamelled ring turn the page. Prior Crowham was a
+cultivated, well-bred man, not over strong-willed, but courteous and
+sympathetic. He turned a little to Chris in his carved chair, as he laid
+the letter down.
+
+“Well,” he said, smiling, “it is for you to choose whether you will
+offer yourself. Of course, there is uneasiness abroad, as this letter
+says, but what then?”
+
+He smiled pleasantly at the young man, and Chris felt a little ashamed.
+There was silence for a moment.
+
+“It is for you to choose,” said the Prior again, “you have been happy
+with us, I think?”
+
+Chris pressed his lips together and looked down.
+
+“Of course Satan will not leave you alone,” went on the monk presently.
+“He will suggest many reasons against your profession. If he did not, I
+should be afraid that you had no vocation.”
+
+Again he waited for an answer, and again Chris was silent. His soul was
+so desolate that he could not trust himself to say all that he felt.
+
+“You must wait a little,” went on the Prior, “recommend yourself to our
+Lady and our Patron, and then leave yourself in their hands. You will
+know better when you have had a few days. Will you do this, and then
+come to me again?”
+
+“Yes, my Lord Prior,” said Chris, and he took up the letter, bowed, and
+went out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Within the week relief and knowledge came to him. He had done what the
+monk had told him, and it had been followed by a curious sense of relief
+at the thought suggested to him that the responsibility of decision did
+not rest on him but on his heavenly helpers. And then as he served mass
+the answer came.
+
+It was in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, a little building entered
+from the north transept, with its windows opening directly on to the
+road leading up into the town; there was no one there but the two. It
+was about seven o’clock on the feast of the Seven Martyrs, and the
+chapel was full of a diffused tender morning light, for the chapel was
+sheltered from the direct sunshine by the tall church on its south.
+
+As they went up to the altar the bell sounded for the Elevation at the
+high-altar of the church, at the _missa familiaris_, and the footstep of
+someone passing through the north transept ceased instantly at the
+sound. The priest ascended the steps, set down the vessels, spread the
+corporal, opened the book, and came down again for the preparation.
+There was no one else in the chapel, and the peace of the place in the
+summer light, only vitalized by the brisk chirping of a sparrow under
+the eaves, entered into Christopher’s soul.
+
+As the mass went on it seemed as if a veil were lifting from his spirit,
+and leaving it free and sensible again. The things around him fell into
+their proper relationships, and there was no doubt in his mind that this
+newly restored significance of theirs was their true interpretation.
+They seemed penetrated and suffused by the light of the inner world; the
+red-brocaded chasuble moving on a level with his eyes, stirring with the
+shifting of the priest’s elbows, was more than a piece of rich stuff,
+the white alb beneath more than mere linen, the hood thrown back in the
+amice a sacramental thing. He looked up at the smoky yellow flames
+against the painted woodwork at the back of the altar, at the
+discoloured stones beside the grey window-mouldings still with the
+slanting marks of the chisel upon them, at the black rafters overhead,
+and last out through the shafted window at the heavy July foliage of the
+elm that stood by the road and the brilliant morning sky beyond; and
+once more he saw what these things meant and conveyed to an immortal
+soul. The words that he had said during these last weeks so mechanically
+were now rich and alive again, and as he answered the priest he
+perceived the spiritual vibration of them in the inner world of which
+his own soul was but a part. And then the climax was reached, and he
+lifted the skirt of the vestment with his left hand and shook the bell
+in his right; the last shreds of confusion were gone, and his spirit
+basked tranquil and content and certain again in the light that was
+newly risen on him.
+
+He went to the novice-master after the morning-chapter, and told him
+that he had made up his mind to offer himself for profession if it was
+thought advisable by the authorities.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Towards the end of August he presented himself once more before the
+chapter to make his solemn demand; his petition was granted, and a day
+appointed for his profession.
+
+Then he withdrew into yet stricter seclusion to prepare for the step.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+LIFE AT LEWES
+
+
+Under the direction of the junior-master who overlooked the young monks
+for some years after their profession, Chris continued his work of
+illumination, for which he had shown great aptitude during his year of
+noviceship.
+
+The art was beginning to disappear, since the introduction of printing
+had superseded the need of manuscript, but in some Religious Houses it
+was still thought a suitable exercise during the hours appointed for
+manual labour.
+
+It was soon after the beginning of the new year that Chris was entrusted
+with a printed antiphonary that had its borders and initials left white;
+and he carried the great loose sheets with a great deal of pride to the
+little carrel or wooden stall assigned to him in the northern cloister.
+
+It was a tiny room, scarcely six feet square, lighted by the window into
+the cloister-garth, and was almost entirely filled by the chair, the
+sloping desk against the wall, and the table where the pigments and
+brushes lay ready to the hand. The door opened on to the cloister itself
+where the professed monks were at liberty to walk, and on the opposite
+side stood the broad aumbries that held the library of the house; and it
+was from the books here that Chris was allowed to draw ideas for his
+designs. It was a great step in that life of minute details when now for
+the first time he was permitted to follow his own views, instead of
+merely filling in with colour outlines already drawn for him; and he
+found his scheme for the decoration a serious temptation to distraction
+during the office. As he stood among the professed monks, in his own
+stall at last, he found his eyes wandering away to the capitals of the
+round pillars, the stone foliage and fruit that burst out of the slender
+shafts, the grim heads that strained forward in mitre and crown
+overhead, and even the living faces of his brethren and superiors, clear
+against the dark woodwork. When he bent his eyes resolutely on his book
+he found his mind still intent on his more secular business; he mentally
+corrected this awkward curve of the initial, substituted an oak spray
+with acorns for that stiff monstrosity, and set my Lord Prior’s face
+grinning among griffins at the foot of the page where humour was more
+readily admitted.
+
+It was an immense joy when he closed his carrel-door, after his hour’s
+siesta in the dormitory, and sat down to his work. He was still warm
+with sleep, and the piercing cold of the unwarmed cloister did not
+affect him, but he set his feet on the sloping wooden footstool that
+rested on the straw for fear they should get cold, and turned smiling to
+his side-table.
+
+There were all the precious things laid out; the crow’s quills sharpened
+to an almost invisible point for the finer lines, the two sets of
+pencils, one of silver-point that left a faint grey line, and the other
+of haematite for the burnishing of the gold, the badger and minever
+brushes, the sponge and pumice-stone for erasures; the horns for black
+and red ink lay with the scissors and rulers on the little upper shelf
+of his desk. There were the pigments also there, which he had learnt to
+grind and prepare, the crushed lapis lazuli first calcined by heat
+according to the modern degenerate practice, with the cheap German blue
+beside it, and the indigo beyond; the prasinum; the vermilion and red
+lead ready mixed, and the rubrica beside it; the yellow orpiment, and,
+most important of all, the white pigments, powdered chalk and egg
+shells, lying by the biacca. In a separate compartment covered carefully
+from chance draughts or dust lay the precious gold leaf, and a little
+vessel of the inferior fluid gold used for narrow lines.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His first business was to rule the thick red lines down the side of the
+text, using a special metal pen for it; and then to begin to sketch in
+his initials and decorations. For this latter part of the work he had
+decided to follow the lines of Foucquet from a Book of the Hours that he
+had taken out of its aumbry; a mass of delicate foliage and leaves, with
+medallions set in it united by twisted thorn-branches twining upwards
+through the broad border. These medallions on the first sheet he
+purposed to fill with miniatures of the famous relics kept at Lewes, the
+hanging sleeve of the Blessed Virgin in its crystal case, the
+drinking-cup of Cana, the rod of Moses, and the Magdalene’s box of
+ointment. In the later pages which would be less elaborate he would
+introduce the other relics, and allow his humour free play in designing
+for the scrolls at the foot tiny portraits of his brethren; the Prior
+should be in a mitre and have the legs and tail of a lion, the
+novice-master, with a fox’s brush emerging from his flying cowl, should
+be running from a hound who carried a discipline in his near paw. But
+there was time yet to think of these things; it would be weeks before
+that page could be reached, and meanwhile there was the foliage to be
+done, and the rose leaf that lay on his desk to be copied minutely from
+a hundred angles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His distractions at mass and office were worse than ever now that the
+great work was begun, and week after week in confession there was the
+same tale. The mere process was so absorbing, apart from the joy of
+creation and design. More than once he woke from a sweating nightmare in
+the long dormitory, believing that he had laid on gold-leaf without
+first painting the surface with the necessary mordant, or had run his
+stilus through his most delicate miniature. But he made extraordinary
+progress in the art; and the Prior more than once stepped into his
+carrel and looked over his shoulder, watching the slender fingers with
+the bone pen between them polishing the gold till it shone like a
+mirror, or the steady lead pencil moving over the white page in
+faultless curve. Then he would pat him on the shoulder, and go out in
+approving silence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris was supremely content that he had done right in asking for
+profession. It appeared to him that he had found a life that was above
+all others worthy of an immortal soul. The whole day’s routine was
+directed to one end, the performance of the _Opus Dei_, the uttering of
+praises to Him who had made and was sustaining and would receive again
+all things to Himself.
+
+They rose at midnight for the night-office that the sleeping world might
+not be wholly dumb to God; went to rest again; rose once more with the
+world, and set about a yet sublimer worship. A stream of sacrifice
+poured up to the Throne through the mellow summer morning, or the cold
+winter darkness and gloom, from altar after altar in the great church.
+Christopher remembered pleasantly a morning soon after the beginning of
+his novitiate when he had been in the church as a set of priests came in
+and began mass simultaneously; the mystical fancy suggested itself as
+the hum of voices began that he was in a garden, warm and bright with
+grace, and that bees were about him making honey--that fragrant
+sweetness of which it had been said long ago that God should eat--and as
+the tinkle of the Elevation sounded out here and there, it seemed to him
+as a signal that the mysterious confection was done, and that every
+altar sprang into perfume from those silver vessels set with jewel and
+crystal.
+
+When the first masses were over, there was a pause in which the _mixtum_
+was taken--bread and wine or beer--standing in the refectory, after a
+short prayer that the Giver of all good gifts might bless the food and
+drink of His servants, and was closed again by another prayer said
+privately for all benefactors. Meanwhile the bell was ringing for the
+Lady mass, to remind the monks that the interval was only as it were a
+parenthetical concession; and after Terce and the Lady Mass followed the
+Chapter, in which faults were confessed and penances inflicted, and the
+living instruments of God’s work were examined and scoured for use. The
+martyrology was read at this time, as well as some morning prayers, to
+keep before the monks’ minds the remembrance of those great vessels of
+God’s household called to so high an employment. It was then, too, that
+other business of the house was done, and the seal affixed to any
+necessary documents. Christopher had an opportunity once of examining
+this seal when it had been given him to clean, and he looked with awe on
+the figures of his four new patrons, St. Peter, St. Pancras, St. Paul
+and Our Lady, set in niches above a cliff with the running water of the
+Ouse beneath, and read the petition that ran round the circle--
+
+“_Dulcis agonista tibi convertit domus ista Pancrati memorum precibus
+memor esto tuorum._”
+
+When the chapter was over, and the deaths of any brethren of the order
+had been announced, and their souls prayed for, there was a pause for
+recreation in the cloister and the finishing of further business before
+they assembled again in time to go into church for the high mass, at
+which the work and prayers of the day were gathered up and consecrated
+in a supreme offering. Even the dinner that followed was a religious
+ceremony; it began by a salutation of the Christ in glory that was on
+the wall over the Prior’s table, and then a long grace was sung before
+they took their seats. The reader in the stone-pulpit on the south wall
+of the refectory began his business on the sounding of a bell; and at a
+second stroke there was a hum and clash of dishes from the kitchen end,
+and the aproned servers entered in line bearing the dishes. Immediately
+the meal was begun the drink destined for the poor at the gate was set
+aside, and a little later a representative of them was brought into the
+refectory to receive his portion; at the close again what was left over
+was collected for charity; while the community after singing part of the
+grace after meat went to finish it in the church.
+
+Chris learned to love the quiet religious graciousness of the refectory.
+The taking of food here was a consecrated action; it seemed a
+sacramental thing. He loved the restraint and preciseness of it, ensured
+by the solemn crucifix over the door with its pathetic inscription
+“SITIO,” the polished oak tables, solid and narrow, the shining pewter
+dishes, the folded napkins, the cleanly-served plentiful food, to each
+man his portion, the indescribable dignity of the prior’s little table,
+the bowing of the servers before it, the mellow grace ringing out in its
+monotone that broke into minor thirds and octaves of melody, like a
+grave line of woodwork on the panelling bursting into a stiff leaf or
+two at its ends. There was a strange and wonderful romance it about on
+early autumn evenings as the light died out behind the stained windows
+and the reader’s face glowed homely and strong between his two candles
+on the pulpit. And surely these tales of saints, the extract from the
+Rule, these portions of Scripture sung with long pauses and on a
+monotone for fear that the reader’s personality should obscure the
+message of what he read--surely this was a better accompaniment to the
+taking of food, in itself so gross a thing, than the feverish chatter of
+a secular hall and the bustling and officiousness of paid servants.
+
+After a general washing of hands the monks dispersed to their work, and
+the novices to bowls or other games; the Prior first distributing the
+garden instruments, and then beginning the labour with a commendation of
+it to God; and after finishing the manual work and a short time of
+study, they re-assembled in the cloister to go to Vespers. This, like
+the high mass, was performed with the ceremonial proper to the day, and
+was followed by supper, at which the same kind of ceremonies were
+observed as at dinner. When this was over, after a further short
+interval the evening reading or Collation took place in the
+chapter-house, after which the monks were at liberty to go and warm
+themselves at the one great fire kept up for the purpose in the
+calefactory; and then compline was sung, followed by Our Lady’s Anthem.
+
+This for Chris was one of the climaxes of the day’s emotions. He was
+always tired out by now with the day’s work, and longing for bed, and
+this approach to the great Mother of Monks soothed and quieted him. It
+was sung in almost complete darkness, except for a light or two in the
+long nave where a dark figure or two would be kneeling, and the pleasant
+familiar melody, accompanied softly by the organ overhead after the bare
+singing of Compline, seemed like a kind of good-night kiss. The
+infinite pathos of the words never failed to touch him, the cry of the
+banished children of Eve, weeping and mourning in this vale of tears to
+Mary whose obedience had restored what Eve’s self-will had ruined, and
+the last threefold sob of endearment to the “kindly, loving, sweet,
+Virgin Mary.” After the high agonisings and aspirations of the day’s
+prayer, the awfulness of the holy Sacrifice, the tramping monotony of
+the Psalter, the sting of the discipline, the aches and sweats of the
+manual labour, the intent strain of the illuminating, this song to Mary
+was a running into Mother’s arms and finding compensation there for all
+toils and burdens.
+
+Finally in complete silence the monks passed along the dark cloister,
+sprinkled with holy water as they left the church, up to the dormitory
+which ran over the whole length of the chapter house, the bridges and
+other offices, to sleep till midnight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The effect of this life, unbroken by external distractions, was to make
+Chris’s soul alert and perceptive to the inner world, and careless or
+even contemptuous of the ordinary world of men. This spiritual realm
+began for the first time to disclose its details to him, and to show
+itself to some extent a replica of nature. It too had its varying
+climate, its long summer of warmth and light, its winter of dark
+discontent, its strange and bewildering sunrises of Christ upon the
+soul, when He rose and went about His garden with perfume and music, or
+stayed and greeted His creature with the message of His eyes. Chris
+began to learn that these spiritual changes were in a sense independent
+of him, that they were not in his soul, but rather that his soul was in
+them. He could be happy and content when the winds of God were cold and
+His light darkened, or sad and comfortless when the flowers of grace
+were apparent and the river of life bright and shining.
+
+And meanwhile the ordinary world went on, but far away and dimly heard
+and seen; as when one looks down from a castle-garden on to humming
+streets five hundred feet below; and the old life at Overfield, and
+Ralph’s doings in London seemed unreal and fantastic activities,
+purposeless and empty.
+
+Little by little, however, as the point of view shifted, Chris began to
+find that the external world could not be banished, and that the
+annoyances from the clash of characters discordant with his own were as
+positive as those which had distressed him before. Dom Anselm Bowden’s
+way of walking and the patch of grease at the shoulder of his cowl,
+never removed, and visible as he went before him into the church was as
+distractingly irritating as Ralph’s contempt; the buzz in the voice of a
+cantor who seemed always to sing on great days was as distressing as his
+own dog’s perversity at Overfield, or the snapping of a bow-string.
+
+When _accidie_ fell upon Chris it seemed as if this particular house was
+entirely ruined by such incidents; the Prior was finikin, the
+junior-master tyrannical, the paints for illumination inferior in
+quality, the straw of his bed peculiarly sharp, the chapter-house
+unnecessarily draughty. And until he learnt from his confessor that this
+spiritual ailment was a perfectly familiar one, and that its symptoms
+and effects had been diagnosed centuries before, and had taken him at
+his word and practised the remedies he enjoined, Chris suffered
+considerably from discontent and despair alternately. At times others
+were intolerable, at times he was intolerable to himself, reproaching
+himself for having attempted so high a life, criticising his fellows
+for so lowering it to a poor standard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first time that he was accused in chapter of a fault against the
+Rule was a very great and shocking humiliation.
+
+He had accused himself as usual on his knees of his own remissions, of
+making an unnecessarily loud noise in drinking, of intoning a wrong
+antiphon as cantor, of spilling crumbs in the refectory; and then leaned
+back on his heels well content with the insignificance of his list, to
+listen with a discreet complacency to old Dom Adrian, who had overslept
+himself once, spilled his beer twice, criticised his superior, and
+talked aloud to himself four times during the Greater Silence, and who
+now mumbled out his crimes hastily and unconcernedly.
+
+When the self-accusations were done, the others began, and to his horror
+Chris heard his own name spoken.
+
+“I accuse Dom Christopher Torridon of not keeping the guard of the eyes
+at Terce this morning.”
+
+It was perfectly true; Chris had been so much absorbed in noticing an
+effect of shade thrown by a corbel, and in plans for incorporating it
+into his illumination that he had let a verse pass as far as the star
+that marked the pause. He felt his heart leap with resentment. Then a
+flash of retort came to him, and he waited his turn.
+
+“I accuse Dom Bernard Parr of not keeping the guard of the eyes at Terce
+this morning. He was observing me.”
+
+Just the faintest ripple passed round the line; and then the Prior spoke
+with a tinge of sharpness, inflicting the penances, and giving Chris a
+heavy sentence of twenty strokes with the discipline.
+
+When Chris’s turn came he threw back his habit petulantly, and
+administered his own punishment as the custom was, with angry fervour.
+
+As he was going out the Prior made him a sign, and took him through into
+his own cell.
+
+“Counter-accusations are contrary to the Rule,” he said. “It must not
+happen again,” and dismissed him sternly.
+
+And then Chris for a couple of days had a fierce struggle against
+uncharitableness, asking himself whether he had not eyed Dom Bernard
+with resentment, and then eyeing him again. It seemed too as if a fiend
+suggested bitter sentences of reproach, that he rehearsed to himself,
+and then repented. But on the third morning there came one of those
+strange breezes of grace that he was beginning to experience more and
+more frequently, and his sore soul grew warm and peaceful again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in those kinds of temptation now that he found his warfare to
+lie; internal assaults so fierce that it was terribly difficult to know
+whether he had yielded or not, sudden images of pride and anger and lust
+that presented themselves so vividly and attractively that it seemed he
+must have willed them; it was not often that he was tempted to sin in
+word or deed--such, when they came, rushed on him suddenly; but in the
+realm of thought and imagination and motive he would often find himself,
+as it were, entering a swarm of such things, that hovered round him,
+impeding his prayer, blinding his insight, and seeking to sting the very
+heart of his spiritual life. Then once more he would fight himself free
+by despising and rejecting them, or would emerge without conscious will
+of his own into clearness and serenity.
+
+But as he looked back he regretted nothing. It was true that the
+warfare was more subtle and internal, but it was more honourable too;
+for to conquer a motive or tame an imagination was at once more arduous
+and more far-reaching in its effects than a victory in merely outward
+matters, and he seldom failed to thank God half-a-dozen times a day for
+having given him the vocation of a monk.
+
+There was one danger, however, that he did not realise, and his
+confessor failed to point it out to him; and that was the danger of the
+wrong kind of detachment. As has been already seen the theory of the
+Religious Life was that men sought it not merely for the salvation of
+their own souls, but for that of the world. A monastery was a place
+where in a special sense the spiritual commerce of the world was carried
+on: as a workman’s shed is the place deputed and used by the world for
+the manufacture of certain articles. It was the manufactory of grace
+where skilled persons were at work, busy at a task of prayer and
+sacrament which was to be at other men’s service. If the father of a
+family had a piece of spiritual work to be done, he went to the
+monastery and arranged for it, and paid a fee for the sustenance of
+those he employed, as he might go to a merchant’s to order a cargo and
+settle for its delivery.
+
+Since this was so then, it was necessary that the spiritual workmen
+should be in a certain touch with those for whom they worked. It was
+true that they must be out of the world, undominated by its principles
+and out of love with its spirit; but in another sense they must live in
+its heart. To use another analogy they were as windmills, lifted up from
+the earth into the high airs of grace, but their base must be on the
+ground or their labour would be ill-spent. They must be mystically one
+with the world that they had resigned.
+
+Chris forgot this; and laboured, and to a large extent succeeded, in
+detaching himself wholly; and symptoms of this mistake showed themselves
+in such things as tending to despise secular life, feeling impatient
+with the poor to whom he had to minister, in sneering in his heart at
+least at anxious fussy men who came to arrange for masses, at
+troublesome women who haunted the sacristy door in a passion of
+elaborateness, and at comfortable families who stamped into high mass
+and filled a seat and a half, but who had yet their spiritual burdens
+and their claims to honour.
+
+But he was to be brought rudely down to facts again. He was beginning to
+forget that England was about him and stirring in her agony; and he was
+reminded of it with some force in the winter after his profession.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was going out to the gate-house one day on an errand from the
+junior-master when he became aware of an unusual stir in the court.
+There were a couple of palfreys there, and half-a-dozen mules behind,
+whilst three or four strange monks with a servant or two stood at their
+bridles.
+
+Chris stopped to consider, for he had no business with guests; and as he
+hesitated the door of the guest-house opened, and two prelates came out
+with Dom Anthony behind them--tall, stately men in monks’ habits with
+furred cloaks and crosses. Chris slipped back at once into the cloister
+from which he had just come out, and watched them go past to the Prior’s
+lodging.
+
+They appeared at Vespers that afternoon again, sitting in the first
+returned stalls near the Prior, and Chris recognised one of them as the
+great Abbot of Colchester. He looked at him now and again during Vespers
+with a reverential awe, for the Abbot was a great man, a spiritual peer
+of immense influence and reputation, and watched that fatherly face,
+his dignified bows and stately movements, and the great sapphire that
+shone on his hand as he turned the leaves of his illuminated book.
+
+The two prelates were at supper, sitting on either side of the Prior on
+the dais; and afterwards the monks were called earlier than usual from
+recreation into the chapter-house.
+
+The Prior made them a little speech saying that the Abbot had something
+to say to them, and then sat down; his troubled eyes ran over the faces
+of his subjects, and his fingers twitched and fidgetted on his knees.
+
+The Abbot did not make them a long discourse; but told them briefly that
+there was trouble coming; he spoke in veiled terms of the Act of
+Supremacy, and the serious prayer that was needed; he said that a time
+of testing was close at hand, and that every man must scrutinise his own
+conscience and examine his motives; and that the unlearned had better
+follow the advice and example of their superiors.
+
+It was all very vague and unsatisfactory; but Chris became aware of
+three things. First, that the world was very much alive and could not be
+dismissed by a pious aspiration or two; second, that the world was about
+to make some demand that would have to be seriously dealt with, and
+third, that there was nothing really to fear so long as their souls were
+clean and courageous. The Abbot was a melting speaker, full at once of a
+fatherly tenderness and vehemence, and as Chris looked at him he felt
+that indeed there was nothing to fear so long as monks had such
+representatives and protectors as these, and that the world had better
+look to itself for fear it should dash itself to ruin against such rocks
+of faith and holiness.
+
+But as the spring drew on, an air of suspense and anxiety made itself
+evident in the house. News came down that More and Fisher were still in
+prison, that the oath was being administered right and left, that the
+King had thrown aside all restraints, and that the civil breach with
+Rome seemed in no prospect of healing. As for the spiritual breach the
+monks did not seriously consider it yet; they regarded themselves as
+still in union with the Holy See whatever their rulers might say or do,
+and only prayed for the time when things might be as before and there
+should be no longer any doubt or hesitation in the minds of weak
+brethren.
+
+But the Prior’s face grew more white and troubled, and his temper
+uncertain.
+
+Now and again he would make them speeches assuring them fiercely that
+all was well, and that all they had to do was to be quiet and obedient;
+and now he would give way to a kind of angry despair, tell them that all
+was lost, that every man would have to save himself; and then for days
+after such an exhibition he would be silent and morose, rapping his
+fingers softly as he sat at his little raised table in the refectory,
+walking with downcast eyes up and down the cloister muttering and
+staring.
+
+Towards the end of April he sent abruptly for Chris, told him that he
+had news from London that made his presence there necessary, and ordered
+him to be ready to ride with him in a week or two.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE ARENA
+
+
+It was in the evening of a warm May day that the Prior and Chris arrived
+at the hostelry in Southwark, which belonged to Lewes Priory.
+
+It was on the south side of Kater Lane, opposite St. Olave’s church, a
+great house built of stone with arched gates, with a large porch opening
+straight into the hall, which was high and vaulted with a frieze of
+grotesque animals and foliage running round it. There were a few
+servants there, and one or two friends of the Prior waiting at the porch
+as they arrived; and one of them, a monk himself from the cell at
+Farley, stepped up to the Prior’s stirrup and whispered to him.
+
+Chris heard an exclamation and a sharp indrawing of breath, but was too
+well trained to ask; so he too dismounted and followed the others into
+the hall, leaving his beast in the hands of a servant.
+
+The Prior was already standing by the monk at the upper end, questioning
+him closely, and glancing nervously this way and that.
+
+“To-day?” he asked sharply, and looked at the other horrified.
+
+The monk nodded, pale-faced and anxious, his lower lip sucked in.
+
+The Prior turned to Chris.
+
+“They have suffered to-day,” he said.
+
+News had reached Lewes nearly a week before that the Carthusians had
+been condemned, for refusing to acknowledge the King as head of the
+English Church, but it had been scarcely possible to believe that the
+sentence would be carried out, and Chris felt the blood beat in his
+temples and his lips turn suddenly dry as he heard the news.
+
+“I was there, my Lord Prior,” said the monk.
+
+He was a middle-aged man, genial and plump, but his face was white and
+anxious now, and his mouth worked. “They were hanged in their habits,”
+he went on. “Prior Houghton was the first despatched;” and he added a
+terrible detail or two.
+
+“Will you see the place, my Lord Prior?” he said, “You can ride there.
+Your palfrey is still at the door.”
+
+Prior Robert Crowham looked at him a moment with pursed lips; and then
+shook his head violently.
+
+“No, no,” he said. “I--I must see to the house.” The monk looked at
+Chris.
+
+“May I go, my Lord Prior?” he asked.
+
+The Prior stared at him a moment, in a desperate effort to fix his
+attention; then nodded sharply and wheeled round to the door that led to
+the upper rooms.
+
+“Mother of God!” he said. “Mother of God!” and went out.
+
+Chris went through with the strange priest, down the hall and out into
+the porch again. The others were standing there, fearful and whispering,
+and opened out to let the two monks pass through.
+
+Chris had been tired and hot when he arrived, but he was conscious now
+of no sensation but of an overmastering desire to see the place; he
+passed straight by his horse that still stood with a servant at his
+head, and turned up instinctively toward the river.
+
+The monk called after him.
+
+“There, there,” he cried, “not so fast--we have plenty of time.”
+
+They took a wherry at the stairs and pushed out with the stream. The
+waterman was a merry-looking man who spoke no word but whistled to
+himself cheerfully as he laid himself to the oars, and the boat began to
+move slantingly across the flowing tide. He looked at the monks now and
+again; but Chris was seated, staring out with eyes that saw nothing down
+the broad stream away to where the cathedral rose gigantic and graceful
+on the other side. It was the first time he had been in London since a
+couple of years before his profession, but the splendour and strength of
+the city was nothing to him now. It only had one significance to his
+mind, and that that it had been this day the scene of a martyrdom. His
+mind that had so long lived in the inner world, moving among
+supernatural things, was struggling desperately to adjust itself.
+
+Once or twice his lips moved, and his hands clenched themselves under
+his scapular; but he saw and heard nothing; and did not even turn his
+head when a barge swept past them, and a richly dressed man leaned from
+the stern and shouted something mockingly. The other monk looked
+nervously and deprecatingly up, for he heard the taunting threat across
+the water that the Carthusians were a good riddance, and that there
+would be more to follow.
+
+They landed at the Blackfriars stairs, paid the man, who was still
+whistling as he took the money, and passed up by the little stream that
+flowed into the river, striking off to the left presently, and leaving
+the city behind them. They were soon out again on the long straight road
+that led to Tyburn, for Chris walked desperately fast, paying little
+heed to his companion except at the corners when he had to wait to know
+the way; and presently Tyburn-gate began to raise its head high against
+the sky.
+
+Once the strange monk, whose name Chris had not even troubled to ask,
+plucked him by his hanging sleeve.
+
+“The hurdles came along here,” he said; and Chris looked at him vacantly
+as if he did not understand.
+
+Then they were under Tyburn-gate, and the clump of elms stood before
+them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a wide open space, dusty now and trampled.
+
+What grass there had been in patches by the two little streams that
+flowed together here, was crushed and flat under foot. The elms cast
+long shadows from the west, and birds were chirping in the branches;
+there was a group or two of people here and there looking curiously
+about them. A man’s voice came across the open space, explaining; and
+his arm rose and wheeled and pointed and paused--three or four children
+hung together, frightened and interested.
+
+But Chris saw little of all this. He had no eyes for the passing
+details; they were fixed on the low mound that rose fifty yards away,
+and the three tall posts, placed in a triangle and united by
+cross-beams, that stood on it, gaunt against the sky.
+
+As he came nearer to it, walking as one in a dream across the dusty
+ground and trampled grass, and paying no heed to the priest behind him
+who whispered with an angry nervousness, he was aware of the ends of
+three or four ropes that hung motionless from the beams in the still
+evening air; and with his eyes fixed on these in exaltation and terror
+he stumbled up the sloping ground and came beneath them.
+
+There was a great peace round him as he stood there, stroking one of
+the uprights with a kind of mechanical tenderness; the men were silent
+as they saw the two monks there, and watched to see what they would do.
+
+The towers of Tyburn-gate rose a hundred yards away, empty now, but
+crowded this morning; and behind them the long road with the fields and
+great mansions on this side and that, leading down to the city in front
+and Westminster on the right, those two dens of the tiger that had
+snarled so fiercely a few hours before, as she licked her lips red with
+martyrs’ blood. It was indescribably peaceful now; there was no sound
+but the birds overhead, and the soft breeze in the young leaves, and the
+trickle of the streams defiled to-day, but running clean and guiltless
+now; and the level sunlight lay across the wide flat ground and threw
+the shadow of the mound and gallows nearly to the foot of the gate.
+
+But to Chris the place was alive with phantoms; the empty space had
+vanished, and a sea of faces seemed turned up to him; he fancied that
+there were figures about him, watching him too, brushing his sleeve,
+faces looking into his eyes, waiting for some action or word from him.
+For a moment his sense of identity was lost; the violence of the
+associations, and perhaps even the power of the emotions that had been
+wrought there that day, crushed out his personality; it was surely he
+who was here to suffer; all else was a dream and an illusion. From his
+very effort of living in eternity, a habit had been formed that now
+asserted itself; the laws of time and space and circumstance for the
+moment ceased to exist; and he found himself for an eternal instant
+facing his own agony and death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then with a rush facts re-asserted themselves, and he started and
+looked round as the monk touched him on the arm.
+
+“You have seen it,” he said in a sharp undertone, “it is enough. We
+shall be attacked.” Chris paid him no heed beyond a look, and turned
+once more.
+
+It was here that they had suffered, these gallant knights of God; they
+had stood below these beams, their feet on the cart that was their
+chariot of glory, their necks in the rope that would be their heavenly
+badge; they had looked out where he was looking as they made their
+little speeches, over the faces to Tyburn-gate, with the same sun that
+was now behind him, shining into their eyes.
+
+He still stroked the rough beam; and as the details came home, and he
+remembered that it was this that had borne their weight, he leaned and
+kissed it; and a flood of tears blinded him.
+
+Again the priest pulled his sleeve sharply.
+
+“For God’s sake, brother!” he said.
+
+Chris turned to him.
+
+“The cauldron,” he said; “where was that?”
+
+The priest made an impatient movement, but pointed to one side, away
+from where the men were standing still watching them; and Chris saw
+below, by the side of one of the streams a great blackened patch of
+ground, and a heap of ashes.
+
+The two went down there, for the other monk was thankful to get to any
+less conspicuous place; and Chris presently found himself standing on
+the edge of the black patch, with the trampled mud and grass beyond it
+beside the stream. The grey wood ashes had drifted by now far across the
+ground, but the heavy logs still lay there, charred and smoked, that had
+blazed beneath the cauldron where the limbs of the monks had been
+seethed; and he stared down at them, numbed and fascinated by the
+horror of the thought. His mind, now in a violent reaction, seemed
+unable to cope with its own knowledge, crushed beneath its weight; and
+his friend heard him repeating with a low monotonous insistence--
+
+“Here it was,” he said, “here; here was the cauldron; it was here.”
+
+Then he turned and looked into his friend’s eyes.
+
+“It was here,” he said; “are you sure it was here?”
+
+The other made an impatient sound.
+
+“Where else?” he said sharply. “Come, brother, you have seen enough.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He told him more details as they walked home; as to what each had said,
+and how each had borne himself. Father Reynolds, the Syon monk, had
+looked gaily about him, it seemed, as he walked up from the hurdle; the
+secular priest had turned pale and shut his eyes more than once; the
+three Carthusian priors had been unmoved throughout, showing neither
+carelessness nor fear; Prior Houghton’s arm had been taken off to the
+London Charterhouse as a terror to the others; their heads, he had
+heard, were on London Bridge.
+
+Chris walked slowly as he listened, holding tight under his scapular the
+scrap of rough white cloth he had picked up near the cauldron, drinking
+in every detail, and painting it into the mental picture that was
+forming in his mind; but there was much more in the picture than the
+other guessed.
+
+The priest was a plain man, with a talent for the practical, and knew
+nothing of the vision that the young monk beside him was seeing--of the
+air about the gallows crowded with the angels of the Agony and Passion,
+waiting to bear off the straggling souls in their tender experienced
+hands; of the celestial faces looking down, the scarred and glorious
+arms stretched out in welcome; of Mary with her mother’s eyes, and her
+virgins about her--all ring above ring in deepening splendour up to the
+white blinding light above, where the Everlasting Trinity lay poised in
+love and glory to receive and crown the stalwart soldiers of God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A CLOSING-IN
+
+
+Ralph kept his resolution to pretend to try and save Sir Thomas More,
+and salved his own conscience by protesting to Beatrice that his efforts
+were bound to fail, and that he had no influence such as she imagined.
+He did certainly more than once remark to Cromwell that Sir Thomas was a
+pleasant and learned man, and had treated him kindly, and once had gone
+so far as to say that he did not see that any good would be served by
+his death; but he had been sharply rebuked, and told to mind his own
+business; then, softening, Cromwell had explained that there was no
+question of death for the present; but that More’s persistent refusal to
+yield to the pressure of events was a standing peril to the King’s
+policy.
+
+This policy had now shaped itself more clearly. In the autumn of ’34 the
+bill for the King’s supremacy over the Church of England began to take
+form; and Ralph had several sights of the documents as all business of
+this kind now flowed through Cromwell’s hands, and he was filled with
+admiration and at the same time with perplexity at the adroitness of the
+wording. It was very short, and affected to assume rather than to enact
+its object.
+
+“Albeit the King’s Majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be,” it
+began, “the supreme head of the Church of England, and so is recognised
+by the clergy of this realm in their Convocations, yet, nevertheless,
+for corroboration and confirmation thereof ... and to repress and extirp
+all errors, heresies and other enormities ... be it enacted by authority
+of this present Parliament that the King our sovereign lord ... shall be
+taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the
+Church of England, called _Anglicans Ecclesia_.” The bill then proceeded
+to confer on him a plenitude of authority over both temporal and
+spiritual causes.
+
+There was here considerable skill in the manner of its drawing up, which
+it owed chiefly to Cromwell; for it professed only to re-state a matter
+that had slipped out of notice, and appealed to the authority of
+Convocation which had, truly, under Warham allowed a resolution to the
+same effect, though qualified by the clause, “as far as God’s law
+permits,” to pass in silence.
+
+Ralph was puzzled by it: he was led to believe that it could contain no
+very radical change from the old belief, since the clergy had in a sense
+already submitted to it; and, on the other hand, the word “the only
+supreme head in earth” seemed not only to assert the Crown’s civil
+authority over the temporalities of the Church, but to exclude
+definitely all jurisdiction on the part of the Pope.
+
+“It is the assertion of a principle,” Cromwell said to him when he asked
+one day for an explanation; “a principle that has always been held in
+England; it is not intended to be precise or detailed: that will follow
+later.”
+
+Ralph was no theologian, and did not greatly care what the bill did or
+did not involve. He was, too, in that temper of inchoate agnosticism
+that was sweeping England at the time, and any scruples that he had in
+his more superstitious moments were lulled by the knowledge that the
+clergy had acquiesced. What appeared more important to him than any
+hair-splittings on the exact provinces of the various authorities in
+question, was the necessity of some step towards the crippling of the
+spiritual empire whose hands were so heavy, and whose demands so
+imperious. He felt, as an Englishman, resentful of the leading strings
+in which, so it seemed to him, Rome wished to fetter his country.
+
+The bill passed through parliament on November the eighteenth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph lost no opportunity of impressing upon Beatrice how much he had
+risked for the sake of her friend in the Tower, and drew very moving
+sketches of his own peril.
+
+The two were sitting together in the hall at Chelsea one winters evening
+soon after Christmas. The high panelling was relieved by lines of
+greenery, with red berries here and there; a bunch of mistletoe leaned
+forward over the sloping mantelpiece, and there was an acrid smell of
+holly and laurel in the air. It was a little piteous, Ralph thought,
+under the circumstances.
+
+Another stage had been passed in More’s journey towards death, in the
+previous month, when he had been attainted of misprision of treason by
+an act designed to make good the illegality of his former conviction,
+and the end was beginning to loom clear.
+
+“I said it would be no use, Mistress Beatrice, and it is none--Master
+Cromwell will not hear a word.”
+
+Beatrice looked up at Ralph, and down again, as her manner was. Her
+hands were lying on her lap perfectly still as she sat upright in her
+tall chair.
+
+“You have done what you could, I know,” she said, softly.
+
+“Master Cromwell did not take it very well,” went on Ralph with an
+appearance of resolute composure, “but that was to be expected.”
+
+Again she looked up, and Ralph once more was seized with the desire to
+precipitate matters and tell her what was in his heart, but he repressed
+it, knowing it was useless to speak yet.
+
+It was a very stately and slow wooing, like the movement of a minuet;
+each postured to each, not from any insincerity, except perhaps a little
+now and then on Ralph’s side, but because for both it was a natural mode
+of self-expression. It was an age of dignity abruptly broken here and
+there by violence. There were slow and gorgeous pageants followed by
+brutal and bestial scenes, like the life of a peacock who paces
+composedly in the sun and then scuttles and screams in the evening. But
+with these two at present there was no occasion for abruptness, and
+Ralph, at any rate, contemplated with complacency his own graciousness
+and grandeur, and the skilfully posed tableaux in which he took such a
+sedate part.
+
+As the spring drew on and the crocuses began to star the grass along the
+river and the sun to wheel wider and wider, the chill and the darkness
+began to fall more heavily on the household at Chelsea. They were
+growing very poor by now; most of Sir Thomas’s possessions elsewhere had
+been confiscated by the King, though by his clemency Chelsea was still
+left to Mrs. Alice for the present; and one by one the precious things
+began to disappear from the house as they were sold to obtain
+necessaries. All the private fortune of Mrs. More had gone by the end of
+the winter, and her son still owed great sums to the Government on
+behalf of his father.
+
+At the beginning of May she told Ralph that she was making another
+appeal to Cromwell for help, and begged him to forward her petition.
+
+“My silks are all gone,” she said, “and the little gold chain and cross
+that you may remember, Mr. Torridon, went last month, too--I cannot tell
+what we shall do. Mr. More is so obstinate”--and her eyes filled with
+tears--“and we have to pay fifteen shillings every week for him and John
+a’ Wood.”
+
+She looked so helpless and feeble as she sat in the window seat,
+stripped now of its tapestry cushions, with the roofs of the New
+Building rising among its trees at the back, where her husband had
+walked a year ago with such delight, that Ralph felt a touch of
+compunction, and promised to do his best.
+
+He said a word to Cromwell that evening as he supped with him at
+Hackney, and his master looked at him curiously, sitting forward in the
+carved chair he had had from Wolsey, in his satin gown, twisting the
+stem of his German glass in his ringed fingers.
+
+“And what do you wish me to do, sir?” he asked Ralph with a kind of
+pungent irony.
+
+Ralph explained that he scarcely knew himself; perhaps a word to his
+Grace--
+
+“I will tell you what it is, Mr. Torridon,” broke in his master, “you
+have made another mistake. I did not intend you to be their friend, but
+to seem so.”
+
+“I can scarcely seem so,” said Ralph quietly, but with a certain
+indignation at his heart, “unless I do them little favours sometimes.”
+
+“You need not seem so any longer,” said Cromwell drily, “the time is
+past.”
+
+And he set his glass down and sat back.
+
+Yet Ralph’s respect and admiration for his master became no less. He had
+the attractiveness of extreme and unscrupulous capability. It gave Ralph
+the same joy to watch him as he found in looking on at an expert fencer;
+he was so adroit and strong and ready; mighty and patient in defence,
+watchful for opportunities of attack and merciless when they came. His
+admirers scarcely gave a thought to the piteousness of the adversary;
+they were absorbed in the scheme and proud to be included in it; and men
+of heart and sensibility were as hard as their master when they carried
+out his plans.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fate of the Carthusians would have touched Ralph if he had been a
+mere onlooker, as it touched so many others, but he had to play his part
+in the tragedy, and was astonished at the quick perceptions of Cromwell
+and his determined brutality towards these peaceful contemplatives whom
+he recognised as a danger-centre against the King’s policy.
+
+He was present first in Cromwell’s house when the three Carthusian
+priors of Beauvale, Axholme and London called upon him of their own
+accord to put their questions on the meaning of the King’s supremacy:
+but their first question, as to how was it possible for a layman to hold
+the keys of the kingdom of heaven was enough, and without any further
+evidence they were sent to the Tower.
+
+Then, again, he was present in the Court of the Rolls a few days later
+when Dom Laurence, of Beauvale, and Dom Webster, of Axholme, were
+examined once more. There were seven or eight others present, laymen and
+ecclesiastics, and the priors were once more sent back to the Tower.
+
+And so examination after examination went on, and no answer could be got
+out of the monks, but that they could never reconcile it with their
+conscience to accept the King to be what the Act of Supremacy declared
+that he was.
+
+Ralph’s curiosity took him down to the Charterhouse one day shortly
+before the execution of the priors; he had with him an order from
+Cromwell that carried him everywhere he wished to go; but he did not
+penetrate too deeply. He was astonished at the impression that the place
+made on him.
+
+As he passed up the Great Cloister there was no sound but from a bird or
+two singing in the afternoon sunlight of the garth; each cell-door, with
+its hatch for the passage of food, was closed and silent; and Ralph felt
+a curious quickening of his heart as he thought of the human life passed
+in the little houses, each with its tiny garden, its workshop, its two
+rooms, and its paved ambulatory, in which each solitary lived. How
+strangely apart this place was from the buzz of business from which he
+had come! And yet he knew very well that the whole was as good as
+condemned already.
+
+He wondered to himself how they had taken the news of the tragedy that
+was beginning--those white, demure men with shaved heads and faces, and
+downcast eyes. He reflected what the effect of that news must be; as it
+penetrated each day, like a stone dropped softly into a pool, leaving no
+ripple. There, behind each brown door, he fancied to himself, a strange
+alchemy was proceeding, in which each new terror and threat from outside
+was received into the crucible of a beating heart and transmuted by
+prayer and welcome into some wonderful jewel of glory--at least so these
+poor men believed; and Ralph indignantly told himself it was nonsense;
+they were idlers and dreamers. He reminded himself of a sneer he had
+heard against the barrels of Spanish wine that were taken in week by
+week at the monastery door; if these men ate no flesh too, at least they
+had excellent omelettes.
+
+But as he passed at last through the lay-brothers’ choir and stood
+looking through the gates of the Fathers’ choir up to the rich altar
+with its hangings and its posts on either side crowned with gilded
+angels bearing candles, to the splendid window overhead, against which,
+as in a glory, hung the motionless silk-draped pyx, the awe fell on him
+again.
+
+This was the place where they met, these strange, silent men; every
+panel and stone was saturated with the prayers of experts, offered three
+times a day--in the night-office of two or three hours when the world
+was asleep; at the chapter-mass; and at Vespers in the afternoon.
+
+His heart again stirred a little, superstitiously he angrily told
+himself, at the memory of the stories that were whispered about in town.
+
+Two years ago, men said, a comet had been seen shining over the house.
+As the monks went back from matins, each with his lantern in his hand,
+along the dark cloister, a ray had shot out from the comet, had glowed
+upon the church and bell-tower, and died again into darkness. Again, a
+little later, two monks, one in his cell-garden and the other in the
+cemetery, had seen a blood-red globe, high and menacing, hanging in the
+air over the house.
+
+Lastly, at Pentecost, at the mass of the Holy Ghost, offered at the end
+of a triduum with the intention of winning grace to meet any sacrifice
+that might be demanded, not one nor two, but the whole community,
+including the lay-brothers outside the Fathers’ Choir, had perceived a
+soft whisper of music of inexpressible sweetness that came and went
+overhead at the Elevation. The celebrant bowed forward in silence over
+the altar, unable to continue the mass, the monks remained petrified
+with joy and awe in their stalls.
+
+Ralph stared once more at the altar as he remembered this tale; at the
+row of stalls on either side, the dark roof overhead, the glowing glass
+on either side and in front--and asked himself whether it was true,
+whether God had spoken, whether a chink of the heavenly gate had been
+opened here to let the music escape.
+
+It was not true, he told himself; it was the dream of a man mad with
+sleeplessness, foolish with fasting and discipline and vigils: one had
+dreamed it and babbled of it to the rest and none had liked to be less
+spiritual or perceptive of divine manifestations.
+
+A brown figure was by the altar now to light the candles for Vespers; a
+taper was in his hand, and the spot of light at the end moved like a
+star against the gilding and carving. Ralph turned and went out.
+
+Then on the fourth of May he was present at the execution of the three
+priors and the two other priests at Tyburn. There was an immense crowd
+there, nearly the whole Court being present; and it was reported here
+and there afterwards that the King himself was there in a group of five
+horsemen, who came in the accoutrements of Borderers, vizored and armed,
+and took up their position close to the scaffold. There fell a terrible
+silence as the monks were dragged up on the hurdles, in their habits,
+all three together behind one horse. They were cut down almost at once,
+and the butchery was performed on them while they were still alive.
+
+Ralph went home in a glow of resolution against them. A tragedy such as
+that which he had seen was of necessity a violent motive one way or the
+other, and it found him determined that the sufferers were in the wrong,
+and left him confirmed in his determination. Their very passivity
+enraged him.
+
+Meanwhile, he had of course heard nothing of his brother’s presence in
+London, and it was with something of a shock that on the next afternoon
+he heard the news from Mr. Morris that Mr. Christopher was below and
+waiting for him in the parlour.
+
+As he went down he wondered what Chris was doing in London, and what he
+himself could say to him. He was expecting Beatrice, too, to call upon
+him presently with her maid to give him a message and a bundle of
+letters which he had promised to convey to Sir Thomas More. But he was
+determined to be kind to his brother.
+
+Chris was standing in his black monk’s habit on the other side of the
+walnut table, beside the fire-place, and made no movement as Ralph came
+forward smiling and composed. His face was thinner than his brother
+remembered it, clean-shaven now, with hollows in the cheeks, and his
+eyes were strangely light.
+
+“Why, Chris!” said Ralph, and stopped, astonished at the other’s
+motionlessness.
+
+Then Chris came round the table with a couple of swift steps, his hands
+raised a little from the wide, drooping sleeves.
+
+“Ah! brother,” he said, “I have come to bring you away: this is a wicked
+place.”
+
+Ralph was so amazed that he fell back a step.
+
+“Are you mad?” he said coldly enough, but he felt a twitch of
+superstitious fear at his heart.
+
+Chris seized the rich silk sleeve in both his hands, and Ralph felt them
+trembling and nervous.
+
+“You must come away,” he said, “for Jesu’s sake, brother! You must not
+lose your soul.”
+
+Ralph felt the old contempt surge up and drown his fear. The familiarity
+of his brother’s presence weighed down the religious suggestion of his
+habit and office. This is what he had feared and almost expected;--that
+the cloister would make a fanatic of this fantastic brother of his.
+
+He glanced round at the door that he had left open, but the house was
+silent. Then he turned again.
+
+“Sit down, Chris,” he said, with a strong effort at self-command, and he
+pulled his sleeve away, went back and shut the door, and then came
+forward past where his brother was standing, to the chair that stood
+with its back to the window.
+
+“You must not be fond and wild,” he said decidedly. “Sit down, Chris.”
+
+The monk came past him to the other side of the hearth, and faced him
+again, but did not sit down. He remained standing by the fire-place,
+looking down at Ralph, who was in his chair with crossed legs.
+
+“What is this folly?” said Ralph again.
+
+Chris stared down at him a moment in silence.
+
+“Why, why--” he began, and ceased.
+
+Ralph felt himself the master of the situation, and determined to be
+paternal.
+
+“My dear lad,” he said, “you have dreamed yourself mad at Lewes. When
+did you come to London?”
+
+“Yesterday,” said Chris, still with that strange stare.
+
+“Why, then--” began Ralph.
+
+“Yes--you think I was too late, but I saw it,” said Chris; “I was there
+in the evening and saw it all again.”
+
+All his nervous tension seemed relaxed by the warm common-sense
+atmosphere of this trim little room, and his brother’s composure. His
+lips were beginning to tremble, and he half turned and gripped the
+mantel-shelf with his right hand. Ralph noticed with a kind of
+contemptuous pity how the heavy girded folds of the frock seemed to
+contain nothing, and that the wrist from which the sleeve had fallen
+back was slender as a reed. Ralph felt himself so infinitely his
+brother’s superior that he could afford to be generous and kindly.
+
+“Dear Chris,” he said, smiling, “you look starved and miserable. Shall I
+tell Morris to bring you something? I thought you monks fared better
+than that.”
+
+In a moment Chris was on his knees on the rushes; his hands gripped his
+brother’s arms, and his wild eyes were staring up with a fanatical fire
+of entreaty in them. His words broke out like a torrent.
+
+“Ralph,” he said, “dear brother! for Jesu’s sake, come away! I have
+heard everything. I know that these streets are red with blood, and that
+your hands have been dipped in it. You must not lose your soul. I know
+everything; you must come away. For Jesu’s sake!”
+
+Ralph tore himself free and stood up, pushing back his chair.
+
+“Godbody!” he said, “I have a fool for a brother. Stand up, sir. I will
+have no mumming in my house.”
+
+He rapped his foot fiercely on the floor, staring down at Chris who had
+thrown himself back on his heels.
+
+“Stand up, sir,” he said again.
+
+“Will you hear me, brother?”
+
+Ralph hesitated.
+
+“I will hear you if you will talk reason. I think you are mad.”
+
+Chris got up again. He was trembling violently, and his hands twitched
+and clenched by his sides.
+
+“Then you shall hear me,” he said, and his voice shook as he spoke. “It
+is this--”
+
+“You must sit down,” interrupted Ralph, and he pointed to the chair
+behind.
+
+Chris went to it and sat down. Ralph took a step across to the door and
+opened it.
+
+“Morris,” he called, and came back to his chair.
+
+There was silence a moment or two, till the servant’s step sounded in
+the hall, and the door opened. Mr. Morris’s discreet face looked
+steadily and composedly at his master.
+
+“Bring the pasty,” said Ralph, “and the wine.”
+
+He gave the servant a sharp look, seemed to glance out across the hall
+for a moment and back again. There was no answering look on Mr. Morris’s
+face, but he slipped out softly, leaving the door just ajar.
+
+Then Ralph turned to Chris again.
+
+Chris had had time to recover himself by now, and was sitting very pale
+and composed after his dramatic outburst, his hands hidden under his
+scapular, and his fingers gripped together.
+
+“Now tell me,” said Ralph, with his former kindly contempt. He had begun
+to understand now what his brother had come about, and was determined to
+be at once fatherly and decisive. This young fool must be taught his
+place.
+
+“It is this,” said Chris, still in a trembling voice, but it grew
+steadier as he went on. “God’s people are being persecuted--there is no
+longer any doubt. They were saints who died yesterday, and Master
+Cromwell is behind it all; and--and you serve him.”
+
+Ralph jerked his head to speak, but his brother went on.
+
+“I know you think me a fool, and I daresay you are right. But this I
+know, I would sooner be a fool than--than--”
+
+--“than a knave” ended Ralph. “I thank you for your good opinion, my
+brother. However, let that pass. You have come to teach me my business,
+then?”
+
+“I have come to save your soul,” said Chris, grasping the arms of his
+chair, and eyeing him steadily.
+
+“You are very good to me,” said Ralph bitterly. “Now, I do not want any
+more play-acting--” He broke off suddenly as the door opened. “And here
+is the food. Chris, you are not yourself”--he gave a swift look at his
+servant again--“and I suppose you have had no food to-day.”
+
+Again he glanced out through the open door as Mr. Morris turned to go.
+
+Chris paid no sort of attention to the food. He seemed not to have seen
+the servant’s entrance and departure.
+
+“I tell you,” he said again steadily, with his wide bright eyes fixed on
+his brother, “I tell you, you are persecuting God’s people, and I am
+come, not as your brother only, but as a monk, to warn you.”
+
+Ralph waved his hand, smiling, towards the dish and the bottle. It
+seemed to sting Chris with a kind of fury, for his eyes blazed and his
+mouth tightened as he stood up abruptly.
+
+“I tell you that if I were starving I would not break bread in this
+house: it is the house of God’s enemy.”
+
+He dashed out his left hand nervously, and struck the bottle spinning
+across the table; it crashed over on to the floor, and the red wine
+poured on to the boards.
+
+“Why, there is blood before your eyes,” he screamed, mad with hunger and
+sleeplessness, and the horrors he had seen; “the ground cries out.”
+
+Ralph had sprung up as the bottle fell, and stood trembling and glaring
+across at the monk; the door opened softly, and Mr. Morris stood alert
+and discreet on the threshold, but neither saw him.
+
+“And if you were ten times my brother,” cried Chris, “I would not touch
+your hand.”
+
+There came a knocking at the door, and the servant disappeared.
+
+“Let him come, if it be the King himself,” shouted the monk, “and hear
+the truth for once.”
+
+The servant was pushed aside protesting, and Beatrice came straight
+forward into the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A RECOVERY
+
+
+There was a moment of intense silence, only emphasized by the settling
+rustle of the girl’s dress. The door had closed softly, and Mr. Morris
+stood within, in the shadow by the window, ready to give help if it were
+needed. Beatrice remained a yard inside the room, very upright and
+dignified, a little pale, looking from one to the other of the two
+brothers, who stared back at her as at a ghost.
+
+Ralph spoke first, swallowing once or twice in his throat before
+speaking, and trying to smile.
+
+“It is you then,” he said.
+
+Beatrice moved a step nearer, looking at Chris, who stood white and
+tense, his eyes wide and burning.
+
+“Mr. Torridon,” said Beatrice softly, “I have brought the bundle. My
+woman has it.”
+
+Still she looked, as she spoke, questioningly at Chris.
+
+“Oh! this is my brother, the monk,” snapped Ralph bitterly, glancing at
+him. “Indeed, he is.”
+
+Then Chris lost his self-control again.
+
+“And this is my brother, the murderer; indeed, he is.”
+
+Beatrice’s lips parted, and her eyes winced. She put out her hand
+hesitatingly towards Ralph, and dropped it again as he moved a little
+towards her.
+
+“You hear him?” said Ralph.
+
+“I do not understand,” said the girl, “your brother--”
+
+“Yes, I am his brother, God help me,” snarled Chris.
+
+Beatrice’s lips closed again, and a look of contempt came into her
+face.
+
+“I have heard enough, Mr. Torridon. Will you come with me?”
+
+Chris moved forward a step.
+
+“I do not know who you are, madam,” he said, “but do you understand what
+this gentleman is? Do you know that he is a creature of Master
+Cromwell’s?”
+
+“I know everything,” said Beatrice.
+
+“And you were at Tyburn, too?” questioned Chris bitterly, “perhaps with
+this brother of mine?”
+
+Beatrice faced him defiantly.
+
+“What have you to say against him, sir?”
+
+Ralph made a movement to speak, but the girl checked him.
+
+“I wish to hear it. What have you to say?”
+
+“He is a creature of Cromwell’s who plotted the death of God’s saints.
+This brother of mine was at the examinations, I hear, and at the
+scaffold. Is that enough?”
+
+Chris had himself under control again by now, but his words seemed to
+burn with vitriol. His lips writhed as he spoke.
+
+“Well?” said Beatrice.
+
+“Well, if that is not enough; how of More and my Lord of Rochester?”
+
+“He has been a good friend to Mr. More,” said Beatrice, “that I know.”
+
+“He will get him the martyr’s crown, surely,” sneered Chris.
+
+“And you have no more to say?” asked the girl quietly.
+
+A shudder ran over the monk’s body; his mouth opened and closed, and the
+fire in his eyes flared up and died; his clenched hands rose and fell.
+Then he spoke quietly.
+
+“I have no more to say, madam.”
+
+Beatrice moved across to Ralph, and put her hand on his arm, looking
+steadily at Chris. Ralph laid his other hand on hers a moment, then
+raised it, and made an abrupt motion towards the door.
+
+Chris went round the table; Mr. Morris opened the door with an impassive
+face, and followed him out, leaving Beatrice and Ralph alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris had come back the previous evening from Tyburn distracted almost
+to madness. He had sat heavily all the evening by himself, brooding and
+miserable, and had not slept all night, but waking visions had moved
+continually before his eyes, as he turned to and fro on his narrow bed
+in the unfamiliar room. Again and again Tyburn was before him, peopled
+with phantoms; he had seen the thick ropes, and heard their creaking,
+and the murmur of the multitude; had smelt the pungent wood-smoke and
+the thick drifting vapour from the cauldron. Once it seemed to him that
+the very room was full of figures, white-clad and silent, who watched
+him with impassive pale faces, remote and unconcerned. He had flung
+himself on his knees again and again, had lashed himself with the
+discipline that he, too, might taste of pain; but all the serenity of
+divine things was gone. There was no heaven, no Saviour, no love. He was
+bound down here, crushed and stifled in this apostate city whose sounds
+and cries came up into his cell. He had lost the fiery vision of the
+conqueror’s welcome; it was like a tale heard long ago. Now he was
+beaten down by physical facts, by the gross details of the tragedy, the
+strangling, the blood, the smoke, the acrid smell of the crowd, and
+heaven was darkened by the vapour.
+
+It was not until the next day, as he sat with the Prior and a stranger
+or two, and heard the tale once more, and the predictions about More and
+Fisher, that the significance of Ralph’s position appeared to him
+clearly. He knew no more than before, but he suddenly understood what he
+knew.
+
+A monk had said a word of Cromwell’s share in the matters, and the Prior
+had glanced moodily at Chris for a moment, turning his eyes only as he
+sat with his chin in his hand; and in a moment Chris understood.
+
+This was the work that his brother was doing. He sat now more distracted
+than ever: mental pictures moved before him of strange council-rooms
+with great men in silk on raised seats, and Ralph was among them. He
+seemed to hear his bitter questions that pierced to the root of the
+faith of the accused, and exposed it to the world, of their adherence to
+the Vicar of Christ, their uncompromising convictions.
+
+He had sat through dinner with burning eyes, but the Prior noticed
+nothing, for he himself was in a passion of absorption, and gave Chris a
+hasty leave as he rose from table to go and see his brother if he
+wished.
+
+Chris had walked up and down his room that afternoon, framing sentences
+of appeal and pity and terror, but it was useless: he could not fix his
+mind; and he had gone off at last to Westminster at once terrified for
+Ralph’s soul, and blazing with indignation against him.
+
+And now he was walking down to the river again, in the cool of the
+evening, knowing that he had ruined his own cause and his right to speak
+by his intemperate fury.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was another strange evening that he passed in the Prior’s chamber
+after supper. The same monk, Dom Odo, who had taken him to Tyburn the
+day before, was there again; and Chris sat in a corner, with the
+reaction of his fury on him, spent and feverish, now rehearsing the
+scene he had gone through with Ralph, and framing new sentences that he
+might have used, now listening to the talk, and vaguely gathering its
+meaning.
+
+It seemed that the tale of blood was only begun.
+
+Bedale, the Archdeacon of Cornwall, had gone that day to the
+Charterhouse; he had been seen driving there, and getting out at the
+door with a bundle of books under his arm, and he had passed in through
+the gate over which Prior Houghton’s arm had been hung on the previous
+evening. It was expected that some more arrests would be made
+immediately.
+
+“As for my Lord of Rochester,” said the monk, who seemed to revel in the
+business of bearing bad news, “and Master More, I make no doubt they
+will be cast. They are utterly fixed in their opinions. I hear that my
+lord is very sick, and I pray that God may take him to Himself. He is
+made Cardinal in Rome, I hear; but his Grace has sworn that he shall
+have no head to wear the hat upon.”
+
+Then he went off into talk upon the bishop, describing his sufferings in
+the Tower, for he was over eighty years old, and had scarcely sufficient
+clothes to cover him.
+
+Now and again Chris looked across at his Superior. The Prior sat there
+in his great chair, his head on his hand, silent and absorbed; it was
+only when Dom Odo stopped for a moment that he glanced up impatiently
+and nodded for him to go on. It seemed as if he could not hear enough,
+and yet Chris saw him wince, and heard him breathe sharply as each new
+detail came out.
+
+The monk told them, too, of Prior Houghton’s speech upon the cart.
+
+“They asked him whether even then he would submit to the King’s laws,
+and he called God to witness that it was not for obstinacy or perversity
+that he refused, but that the King and the Parliament had decreed
+otherwise than our Holy Mother enjoins; and that for himself he would
+sooner suffer every kind of pain than deny a doctrine of the Church. And
+when he had prayed from the thirtieth Psalm, he was turned off.”
+
+The Prior stared almost vacantly at the monk who told his story with a
+kind of terrified gusto, and once or twice his lips moved to speak; but
+he was silent, and dropped his chin upon his hand again when the other
+had done.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris scarcely knew how the days passed away that followed his arrival
+in London. He spent them for the most part within doors, writing for the
+Prior in the mornings, or keeping watch over the door as his Superior
+talked with prelates and churchmen within, for ecclesiastical London was
+as busy as a broken ant-hill, and men came and went continually--scared,
+furtive monks, who looked this way and that, an abbot or two up for the
+House of Lords, priors and procurators on business. There were continual
+communications going to and fro among the religious houses, for the
+prince of them, the contemplative Carthusian, had been struck at, and no
+one knew where the assault would end.
+
+Meanwhile, Chris had heard no further news from Ralph. He thought of
+writing to him, and even of visiting him again, but his heart sickened
+at the thought of it. It was impossible, he told himself, that any
+communication should pass between them until his brother had forsaken
+his horrible business; the first sign of regret must come from the one
+who had sinned. He wondered sometimes who the girl was, and, as a
+hot-headed monk, suspected the worst. A man who could live as Ralph was
+living could have no morals left. She had been so friendly with him, so
+ready to defend him, so impatient, Chris thought, of any possibility of
+wrong. No doubt she, too, was one of the corrupt band, one of the great
+ladies that buzzed round the Court, and sucked the blood of God’s
+people.
+
+His own interior life, however, so roughly broken by his new
+experiences, began to mend slowly as the days went on.
+
+He had begun, like a cat in a new house, to make himself slowly at home
+in the hostel, and to set up that relation between outward objects and
+his own self that is so necessary to interior souls not yet living in
+detachment. He arranged his little room next the Prior’s to be as much
+as possible like his cell, got rid of one or two pieces of furniture
+that distracted him, set his bed in another corner, and hung up his
+beads in the same position that they used to occupy at Lewes. Each
+morning he served the Prior’s mass in the tiny chapel attached to the
+house, and did his best both then and at his meditation to draw in the
+torn fibres of his spirit. At moments of worship the supernatural world
+began to appear again, like points of living rock emerging through sand,
+detached and half stifled by external details, but real and abiding.
+Little by little his serenity came back, and the old atmosphere
+reasserted itself. After all, God was here as there; grace, penance, the
+guardianship of the angels and the sacrament of the altar was the same
+at Southwark as at Lewes. These things remained; while all else was
+accidental--the different height of his room, the unfamiliar angles in
+the passages, the new noises of London, the street cries, the clash of
+music, the disordered routine of daily life.
+
+Half-way through June, after a long morning’s conversation with a
+stranger, the Prior sent for him.
+
+He was standing by the tall carved fire-place with his back to the door,
+his head and one hand leaning against the stone, and he turned round
+despondently as Chris came in. Chris could see he was deadly pale and
+that his lips twitched with nervousness.
+
+“Brother,” he said, “I have a perilous matter to go through, and you
+must come with me.”
+
+Chris felt his heart begin to labour with heavy sick beats.
+
+“I am to see my Lord of Rochester. A friend hath obtained the order. We
+are to go at five o’clock. See that you be ready. We shall take boat at
+the stairs.”
+
+Chris waited, with his eyes deferentially cast down.
+
+“He is to be tried again on Thursday,” went on the Prior, “and my
+friends wish me to see him, God knows--”
+
+He stopped abruptly, made a sign with his hand, and as Chris left the
+room he saw that he was leaning once more against the stone-work, and
+that his head was buried in his arms.
+
+Three more Carthusians had been condemned in the previous week, but the
+Bishop’s trial, though his name was in the first indictment, was
+postponed a few days.
+
+He too, like Sir Thomas More, had been over a year in the Tower; he had
+been deprived of his see by an Act of Parliament, his palace had been
+broken into and spoiled, and he himself, it was reported, was being
+treated with the greatest rigour in the Tower.
+
+Chris was overcome with excitement at the thought that he was to see
+this man. He had heard of his learning, his holiness, and his
+austerities on all hands since his coming to London. When the bishop had
+left Rochester at his summons to London a year before there had been a
+wonderful scene of farewell, of which the story was still told in town.
+The streets had been thronged with a vast crowd weeping and praying, as
+he rode among them bare-headed, giving his blessing as he went. He had
+checked his horse by the city-gate, and with a loud voice had bidden
+them all stand by the old religion, and let no man take it from them.
+And now here he lay himself in prison for the Faith, a Cardinal of the
+Holy Roman Church, with scarcely clothes to cover him or food to eat. At
+the sacking of his palace, too, as the men ran from room to room tearing
+down the tapestries, and piling the plate together, a monk had found a
+great iron box hidden in a corner. They cried to one another that it
+held gold “for the bloody Pope”; and burst it open to find a hair shirt,
+and a pair of disciplines.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a long row down to the Tower from Southwark against the
+in-flowing tide. As they passed beneath the bridge Chris stared up at
+the crowding houses, the great gates at either end, and the faces
+craning down; and he caught one glimpse as they shot through the narrow
+passage between the piers, of the tall wall above the gate, the poles
+rising from it, and the severed heads that crowned them. Somewhere among
+that forest of grim stems the Carthusian priors looked down.
+
+As he turned in his seat he saw the boatman grinning to himself, and
+following his eyes observed the Prior beside him with a white fixed face
+looking steadily downwards towards his feet.
+
+They found no difficulty when they landed at the stairs, and showed the
+order at the gate. The warder called to a man within the guard-room who
+came out and went before them along the walled way that led to the
+inner ward. They turned up to the left presently and found themselves in
+the great court that surrounded the White Tower.
+
+The Prior walked heavily with his face downcast as if he wished to avoid
+notice, and Chris saw that he paid no attention to the men-at-arms and
+other persons here and there who saluted his prelate’s insignia. There
+were plenty of people going about in the evening sunshine, soldiers and
+attendants, and here and there at the foot of a tower stood a halberdier
+in his buff jacket leaning on his weapon. There were many distinguished
+persons in the Tower now, both ecclesiastics and laymen who had refused
+to take one or both of the oaths, and Chris eyed the windows
+wonderingly, picturing to himself where each lay, and with what courage.
+
+But more and more as he went he wondered why the Prior and he were here,
+and who had obtained the order of admittance, for he had not had a sight
+of it.
+
+When they reached the foot of the prison-tower the warder said a word to
+the sentry, and took the two monks straight past, preceding them up the
+narrow stairs that wound into darkness. There were windows here and
+there, slits in the heavy masonry, through which Chris caught glimpses,
+now of the moat on the west, now of the inner ward with the White Tower
+huge and massive on the east.
+
+The Prior, who went behind the warder and in front of Chris, stopped
+suddenly, and Chris could hear him whispering to himself; and at the
+same time there sounded the creaking of a key in front.
+
+As the young monk stood there waiting, grasping the stone-work on his
+right, again the excitement surged up; and with it was mingled something
+of terror. It had been a formidable experience even to walk those few
+hundred yards from the outer gate, and the obvious apprehensiveness of
+the Prior who had spoken no audible word since they had landed, was far
+from reassuring.
+
+Here he stood now for the first time in his life within those terrible
+walls; he had seen the low Traitor’s Gate on his way that was for so
+many the gate of death. Even now as he gripped the stone he could see
+out to the left through the narrow slit a streak of open land beyond the
+moat and the wall, and somewhere there he knew lay the little rising
+ground, that reddened week after week in an ooze of blood and slime. And
+now he was at the door of one who without doubt would die there soon for
+the Faith that they both professed.
+
+The Prior turned sharply round.
+
+“You!” he said, “I had forgotten: you must wait here till I call you
+in.”
+
+There was a sounding of an opening door above; the Prior went up and
+forward, leaving him standing there; the door closed, but not before
+Chris had caught a glimpse of a vaulted roof; and then the warder stood
+by him again, waiting with his keys in his hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+PRISONER AND PRINCE
+
+
+The sun sank lower and had begun to throw long shadows before the door
+opened again and the Prior beckoned. As Chris had stood there staring
+out of the window at the green water of the moat and the shadowed wall
+beyond, with the warder standing a few steps below, now sighing at the
+delay, now humming a line or two, he had heard voices now and again from
+the room above, but it had been no more than a murmur that died once
+more into silence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris was aware of a dusty room as he stepped over the threshold, bare
+walls, one or two solid pieces of furniture, and of the Prior’s figure
+very upright in the light from the tiny window at one side; and then he
+forgot everything as he looked at the man that was standing smiling by
+the table.
+
+It was a very tall slender figure, dressed in a ragged black gown
+turning green with age; a little bent now, but still dignified; the face
+was incredibly lean, with great brown eyes surrounded by wrinkles, and a
+little white hair, ragged, too, and long, hung down under the old
+flapped cap. The hand that Chris kissed seemed a bundle of reeds bound
+with parchment, and above the wrist bones the arm grew thinner still
+under the loose, torn sleeve.
+
+Then the monk stood up and saw those kindly proud eyes looking into his
+own.
+
+The Prior made a deferential movement and said a word or two, and the
+bishop answered him.
+
+“Yes, yes, my Lord Prior; I understand--God bless you, my son.”
+
+The bishop moved across to the chair, and sat down, panting a little,
+for he was torn by sickness and deprivation, and laid his long hands
+together.
+
+“Sit down, brother,” he said, “and you too, my Lord Prior.”
+
+Chris saw the Prior move across to an old broken stool, but he himself
+remained standing, awed and almost terrified at that worn face in which
+the eyes alone seemed living; so thin that the cheekbones stood out
+hideously, and the line of the square jaw. But the voice was wonderfully
+sweet and penetrating.
+
+“My Lord Prior and I have been talking of the times, and what is best to
+be done, and how we must all be faithful. You will be faithful,
+brother?”
+
+Chris made an effort against the absorbing fascination of that face and
+voice.
+
+“I will, my lord.”
+
+“That is good; you must follow your prior and be obedient to him. You
+will find him wise and courageous.”
+
+The bishop nodded gently towards the Prior, and Chris heard a sobbing
+indrawn breath from the corner where the broken stool stood.
+
+“It is a time of great moment,” went on the bishop; “much hangs on how
+we carry ourselves. His Grace has evil counsellors about him.”
+
+There was silence for a moment or two; Chris could not take his eyes
+from the bishop’s face. The frightful framework of skin and bones seemed
+luminous from within, and there was an extraordinary sweetness on those
+tightly drawn lips, and in the large bright eyes.
+
+“His Grace has been to the Tower lately, I hear, and once to the
+Marshalsea, to see Dom Sebastian Newdegate, who, as you know, was at
+Court for many years till he entered the Charterhouse; but I have had no
+visit from him, nor yet, I should think, Master More--you must not judge
+his Grace too hardly, my son; he was a good lad, as I knew very well--a
+very gallant and brave lad. A Frenchman said that he seemed to have come
+down from heaven. And he has always had a great faith and devotion, and
+a very strange and delicate conscience that has cost him much pain. But
+he has been counselled evilly.”
+
+Chris remembered as in a dream that the bishop had been the King’s tutor
+years before.
+
+“He is a good theologian too,” went on the bishop, “and that is his
+misfortune now, though I never thought to say such a thing. Perhaps he
+will become a better one still, if God has mercy on him, and he will
+come back to his first faith. But we must be good Catholics ourselves,
+and be ready to die for our Religion, before we can teach him.”
+
+Again, after another silence, he went on.
+
+“You are to be a priest, I hear, my son, and to take Christ’s yoke more
+closely upon you. It is no easy one in these days, though love will make
+it so, as Himself said. I suppose it will be soon now?”
+
+“We are to get a dispensation, my lord, for the interstices,” said the
+Prior.
+
+Chris had heard that this would be done, before he left Lewes, and he
+was astonished now, not at the news, but at the strange softness of the
+Prior’s voice.
+
+“That is very well,” went on the bishop. “We want all the faithful
+priests possible. There is a great darkness in the land, and we need
+lights to lighten it. You have a brother in Master Cromwell’s service,
+sir, I hear?”
+
+Chris was silent.
+
+“You must not grieve too much. God Almighty can set all right. It may be
+he thinks he is serving Him. We are not here to judge, but to give our
+own account.”
+
+The bishop went on presently to ask a few questions and to talk of
+Master More, saying that he had managed to correspond with him for a
+while, but that now all the means for doing so had been taken away from
+them both, as well as his own books.
+
+“It is a great grief to me that I cannot say my office, nor say nor hear
+mass: I must trust now to the Holy Sacrifice offered by others.”
+
+He spoke so tenderly and tranquilly that Chris was hardly able to keep
+back his tears. It seemed that the soul still kept its serene poise in
+that wasted body, and was independent of it. There was no weakness nor
+peevishness anywhere. The very room with its rough walls, its cobwebbed
+roof, its uneven flooring, its dreadful chill and gloom, seemed alive
+with a warm, redolent, spiritual atmosphere generated by this keen, pure
+soul. Chris had never been near so real a sanctity before.
+
+“You have seen nothing of my Rochester folk, I suppose?” went on the
+bishop to the Prior.
+
+The Prior shook his head.
+
+“I am very downcast about them sometimes; I saw many of them at the
+court the other day. I forget that the Good Shepherd can guard His own
+sheep. And they were so faithful to me that I know they will be faithful
+to Him.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There came a sound of a key being knocked upon the door outside, and the
+bishop stood up, slowly and painfully.
+
+“That will be Mr. Giles,” he said, “hungry for supper.”
+
+The two monks sank down on their knees, and as Chris closed his eyes he
+heard a soft murmur of blessing over his head.
+
+Then each kissed his hand and Chris went to the door, half blind with
+tears.
+
+He heard a whisper from the bishop to the Prior, who still lingered a
+moment, and a half sob--
+
+“God helping me!”--said the Prior.
+
+There was no more spoken, and the two went down the stairs together into
+the golden sunshine with the warder behind them.
+
+Chris dared not look at the other. He had had a glimpse of his face as
+he stood aside on the stairs to let him pass, and what he saw there told
+him enough.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were plenty of boats rocking on the tide at the foot of the river
+stairs outside the Tower, and they stepped into one, telling the man to
+row to Southwark.
+
+It was a glorious summer evening now. The river lay bathed in the level
+sunshine that turned it to molten gold, and it was covered with boats
+plying in all directions. There were single wherries going to and from
+the stairs that led down on all sides into the water, and barges here
+and there, of the great merchants or nobles going home to supper, with a
+line of oars on each side, and a glow of colour gilding in the stem and
+prow, were moving up stream towards the City. London Bridge stood out
+before them presently, like a palace in a fairy-tale, blue and romantic
+against the western glow, and above it and beyond rose up the tall spire
+of the Cathedral. On the other side a fringe of houses began a little to
+the east of the bridge, and ran up to the spires of Southwark on the
+other side, and on them lay a glory of sunset with deep shadows barring
+them where the alleys ran down to the water’s edge. Here and there
+behind rose up the heavy masses of the June foliage. A troop of swans,
+white patches on the splendour, were breasting up against the
+out-flowing tide.
+
+The air was full of sound; the rattle and dash of oars, men’s voices
+coming clear and minute across the water; and as they got out near
+mid-stream the bell of St. Paul’s boomed indescribably
+solemn and melodious; another church took it up, and a chorus of mellow
+voices tolled out the Angelus.
+
+Chris was half through saying it to himself, when across the soft murmur
+sounded the clash of brass far away beyond the bridge.
+
+The boatman paused at his oars, turned round a moment, grasping them in
+one hand, and stared up-stream under the other. Chris could see a
+movement among the boats higher up, and there seemed to break out a
+commotion at the foot of the houses on London Bridge, and then far away
+came the sound of cheering.
+
+“What is it?” asked the Prior sharply, lifting his head, as the boatman
+gave an exclamation and laid furiously to his oars again.
+
+The man jerked his head backwards.
+
+“The King’s Grace,” he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a minute or two nothing more was to be seen. A boat or two near them
+was seen making off to the side from mid-stream, to leave a clear
+passage, and there were cries from the direction of the bridge where
+someone seemed to be in difficulties with the strong stream and the
+piers. A wherry that was directly between them and the bridge moved
+off, and the shining water-way was left for the King’s Grace to come
+down.
+
+Then, again, the brass horns sounded nearer.
+
+Chris was conscious of an immense excitement. The dramatic contrast of
+the scene he had just left with that which he was witnessing overpowered
+him. He had seen one end of the chain of life, the dying bishop in the
+Tower, in his rags; now he was to see the other end, the Sovereign at
+whose will he was there, in all the magnificence of a pageant. The Prior
+was sitting bolt upright on the seat beside him; one hand lay on his
+knee, the knuckles white with clenching, the other gripped the side of
+the boat.
+
+Then, again, the fierce music sounded, and the first boat appeared under
+one of the wider spans of the bridge, a couple of hundred yards away.
+
+The stream was running out strongly by now, and the boatman tugged to
+get out of it into the quieter water at the side, and as he pulled an
+oar snapped. The Prior half started up as the man burst out into an
+exclamation, and began to paddle furiously with the other oar, but the
+boat revolved helplessly, and he was forced to change it to the opposite
+side.
+
+Meanwhile the boats were beginning to stream under the bridge, and
+Chris, seeing that the boat in which he sat was sufficiently out of the
+way to allow a clear passage in mid-stream even if not far enough
+removed for proper deference, gave himself up to watching the splendid
+sight.
+
+The sun had now dropped behind the high houses by the bridge, and a
+shadow lay across the water, but nearer at hand the way was clear, and
+in a moment more the leading boat had entered the sunlight.
+
+There was no possibility of mistake as to whether this were the royal
+barge or no. It was a great craft, seventy feet from prow to stem at
+the very least, and magnificent with colour. As it burst out into the
+sun, it blazed blindingly with gold; the prow shone with blue and
+crimson; the stern, roofed in with a crimson canopy with flying tassels,
+trailed brilliant coarse tapestries on either side; and the Royal
+Standard streamed out behind.
+
+Chris tried to count the oars, as they swept into the water with a
+rhythmical throb and out again, flashing a fringe of drops and showing a
+coat painted on each blade. There seemed to be eight or ten a side. A
+couple of trumpeters stood in the bows, behind the gilded carved
+figurehead, their trumpets held out symmetrically with the square
+hangings flapping as they came.
+
+He could see now the heads of the watermen who rowed, with the caps of
+the royal livery moving together like clockwork at the swing of the
+oars.
+
+Behind followed the other boats, some half dozen in all; and as each
+pair burst out into the level sunlight with a splendour of gold and
+colour, and the roar from London Bridge swelled louder and louder, for a
+moment the young monk forgot the bitter underlying tragedy of all that
+he had seen and knew--forgot oozy Tower-hill and trampled Tyburn and the
+loaded gallows--forgot even the grim heads that stared out with dead
+tortured eyes from the sheaves of pikes rising high above him at this
+moment against the rosy sky--forgot the monks of the Charterhouse and
+their mourning hearts; the insulted queen, repudiated and declared a
+concubine--forgot all that made life so hard to live and understand at
+this time--as this splendid vision of the lust of the eyes broke out in
+pulsating sound and colour before him.
+
+But it was only for a moment.
+
+There was a group of half-a-dozen persons under the canopy of the
+seat-of-state of the leading boat; the splendid centre of the splendid
+show, brilliant in crimson and gold and jewels.
+
+On the further side sat two men. Chris did not know their faces, but as
+his eyes rested on them a moment he noticed that one was burly and
+clean-shaven, and wore some insignia across his shoulders. At the near
+side were the backs of two ladies, silken clad and slashed with crimson,
+their white jewelled necks visible under their coiled hair and tight
+square cut caps. And in the centre sat a pair, a man and a woman; and on
+these he fixed his eyes as the boat swept up not twenty yards away, for
+he knew who they must be.
+
+The man was leaning back, looking gigantic in his puffed sleeves and
+wide mantle; one great arm was flung along the back of the tapestried
+seat, and his large head, capped with purple and feathers, was bending
+towards the woman who sat beyond. Chris could make out a fringe of
+reddish hair beneath his ear and at the back of the flat head between
+the high collar and the cap. He caught a glimpse, too, of a sedate face
+beyond, set on a slender neck, with downcast eyes and red lips. And then
+as the boat came opposite, and the trumpeters sent out a brazen crash
+from the trumpets at their lips, the man turned his head and stared
+straight at the boat.
+
+It was an immensely wide face, fringed with reddish hair, scanty about
+the lips and more full below; and it looked the wider from the narrow
+drooping eyes set near together and the small pursed mouth. Below, his
+chin swelled down fold after fold into his collar, and the cheeks were
+wide and heavy on either side.
+
+It was the most powerful face that Chris had ever seen or dreamed
+of--the animal brooded in every line and curve of it--it would have
+been brutish but for the steady pale stare of the eyes and the tight
+little lips. It fascinated and terrified him.
+
+The flourish ended, the roar of the rowlocks sounded out again like the
+beating of a furious heart; the King turned his head again and said
+something, and the boat swept past.
+
+Chris found that he had started to his feet, and sat down again,
+breathing quickly and heavily, with a kind of indignant loathing that
+was new to him.
+
+This then was the master of England, the heart of all their
+troubles--that gorgeous fat man with the broad pulpy face, in his
+crimson and jewels; and that was his concubine who sat demure beside
+him, with her white folded ringed hands on her lap, her beautiful eyes
+cast down, and her lord’s hot breath in her ear! It was these that were
+purifying the Church of God of such men as the Cardinal-bishop in the
+Tower, and the witty holy lawyer! It was by the will of such as these
+that the heads of the Carthusian Fathers, bound brow and chin with
+linen, stared up and down with dead eyes from the pikes overhead.
+
+He sat panting and unseeing as the other boats swept past, full of the
+King’s friends all going down to Greenwich.
+
+There broke out a roar from the Tower behind, and he started and turned
+round to see the white smoke eddying up from the edge of the wall beside
+the Traitor’s gate; a shrill cheer or two, far away and thin, sounded
+from the figures on the wharf and the boatmen about the stairs.
+
+The wherryman sat down again and put on his cap.
+
+“Body of God!” he said, “there was but just time.”
+
+And he began to pull again with his single oar towards the shore.
+
+Chris looked at the Prior a moment and down again. He was sitting with
+tight lips, and hands clasped in his lap, and his eyes were wild and
+piteous.
+
+They borrowed an oar presently from another boat, and went on up towards
+Southwark. The wherryman pawed once to spit on his hands as they neared
+the rush of the current below the bridge.
+
+“That was Master Cromwell with His Grace,” he said.
+
+Chris looked at him questioningly.
+
+“Him with the gold collar,” he added, “and that was Audley by him.”
+
+The Prior had glanced at Chris as Cromwell’s name was mentioned; but
+said nothing for the present. And Chris himself was lost again in
+musing. That was Ralph’s master then, the King’s right-hand man, feared
+next in England after the King himself--and Chancellor Audley, too, and
+Anne, all in one wooden boat. How easy for God to put out His hand and
+finish them! And then he was ashamed at his own thought, so faithless
+and timid; and he remembered Fisher once more and his gallant spirit in
+that broken body.
+
+A minute or two later they had landed at the stairs, and were making
+their way up to the hostel.
+
+The Prior put out his hand and checked him as he stepped ahead to knock.
+
+“Wait,” he said. “Do you know who signed the order we used at the
+Tower?”
+
+Chris shook his head.
+
+“Master Cromwell,” said the Prior. “And do you know by whose hand it
+came?”
+
+Chris stared in astonishment.
+
+“It was by your brother,” he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE SACRED PURPLE
+
+
+It was a bright morning a few days later when the Bishop of Rochester
+suffered on Tower Hill.
+
+Chris was there early, and took up his position at the outskirts of the
+little crowd, facing towards the Tower itself; and for a couple of hours
+watched the shadows creep round the piles of masonry, and the light
+deepen and mellow between him and the great mass of the White Tower a
+few hundred yards away. There was a large crowd there a good while
+before nine o’clock, and Chris found himself at the hour no longer on
+the outskirts but in the centre of the people.
+
+He had served the Prior’s mass at six o’clock, and had obtained leave
+from him the night before to be present at the execution; but the Prior
+himself had given no suggestion of coming. Chris had begun to see that
+his superior was going through a conflict, and that he wished to spare
+himself any further motives of terror; he began too to understand that
+the visit to the bishop had had the effect of strengthening the Prior’s
+courage, whatever had been the intention on the part of the authorities
+in allowing him to go. He was still wondering why Ralph had lent himself
+to the scheme; but had not dared to press his superior further.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The bishop had made a magnificent speech at his trial, and had
+protested with an extraordinary pathos, that called out a demonstration
+from the crowd in court, against Master Rich’s betrayal of his
+confidence. Under promise of the King that nothing that he said to his
+friend should be used against him, the bishop had shown his mind in a
+private conversation on the subject of the Supremacy Act, and now this
+had been brought against him by Rich himself at the trial.
+
+“Seeing it pleased the King’s Highness,” said the bishop, “to send to me
+thus secretly to know my poor advice and opinion, which I most gladly
+was, and ever will be, ready to offer to him when so commanded, methinks
+it very hard to allow the same as sufficient testimony against me, to
+prove me guilty of high treason.”
+
+Rich excused himself by affirming that he said or did nothing more than
+what the King commanded him to do; and the trial ended by the bishop’s
+condemnation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Chris waited by the scaffold he prayed almost incessantly. There was
+sufficient spur for prayer in the menacing fortress before him with its
+hundred tiny windows, and the new scaffold, some five or six feet high,
+that stood in the foreground. He wondered how the bishop was passing his
+time and thought he knew. The long grey wall beyond the moat, and the
+towers that rose above it, were suggestive in their silent strength.
+From where he stood too he could catch a glimpse of the shining reaches
+of the river with the green slopes on the further side; and the freedom
+and beauty of the sight, the delicate haze that hung over the water, the
+birds winging their way across, the boats plying to and fro, struck a
+vivid contrast to the grim fatality of the prison and the scaffold.
+
+A bell sounded out somewhere from the Tower, and a ripple ran through
+the crowd. There was an immensely tall man a few yards from Chris, and
+Chris could see his face turn suddenly towards the lower ground by the
+river where the gateway rose up dark against the bright water. The man’s
+face suddenly lighted with interest, and Chris saw his lips move and his
+eyes become intent. Then a surging movement began, and the monk was
+swept away to the left by the packed crowd round him. There were faces
+lining the wall and opposite, and all were turned one way. A great
+murmur began to swell up, and a woman beside him turned white and began
+to sob quietly.
+
+His eyes caught a bright point of light that died again, flashed out,
+and resolved itself into a gleaming line of halberds, moving on towards
+the right above the heads, up the slope to the scaffold. He saw a horse
+toss his head; and then a feathered cap or two swaying behind.
+
+Then for one instant between the shifting heads in front he caught sight
+of a lean face framed in a flapped cap swaying rhythmically as if borne
+on a chair. It vanished again.
+
+The flashing line of halberds elongated itself, divided, and came
+between the scaffold and him; and the murmur of the crowd died to a
+heart-shaking silence. A solemn bell clanged out again from the interior
+of the prison, and Chris, his wet hands knit together, began to count
+the strokes mechanically, staring at the narrow rail of the scaffold,
+and waiting for the sight that he knew would come. Then again he was
+swept along a yard or two to the right, and when he had recovered his
+feet a man was on the scaffold, bending forwards and gesticulating.
+Another head rose into the line of vision, and this man too turned
+towards the steps up which he had come, and stood, one hand
+outstretched.
+
+Again a murmur and movement began; Chris had to look to his foothold,
+and when he raised his head again a solemn low roar was rising up and
+swelling, of pity and excitement, for, silhouetted against the sunlit
+Tower behind, stood the man for whose sake all were there.
+
+He was in a black gown and tippet, and carried his two hands clasped to
+his breast; and in them was a book and a crucifix. His cap was on his
+head, and the white face, incredibly thin, looked out over the heads of
+the crowd.
+
+Chris hardly noticed that the scaffold was filling with people, until a
+figure came forward, in black, with a masked face, and bowed
+deferentially to the bishop; and in an instant silence fell again.
+
+He saw the bishop turn and bow slightly in return, and in the stillness
+that wonderful voice sounded out, with the clear minuteness of words
+spoken in the open air, clear and penetrating over the whole ground.
+
+“I forgive you very heartily; and I hope you will see me overcome this
+storm lustily.”
+
+The black figure fell back, and the bishop stood hesitating, looking
+this way and that as if for direction.
+
+The Lieutenant of the Tower came forward; but Chris could only see his
+lips move, as a murmur had broken out again at the bishop’s answer; but
+he signed with his hand and stepped behind the prisoner.
+
+The bishop nodded, lifted his hand and took off his cap; and his white
+hair appeared; then he fumbled at his throat, holding the book and
+crucifix in his other hand; and, with the Lieutenant’s help, slipped off
+his tippet and loose gown; and as he freed himself, and stood in his
+doublet and hose, a great sobbing cry of horror and compassion rose from
+the straining faces, for he seemed scarcely to be a living man, so
+dreadful was his emaciation. Above that lean figure of death looked out
+the worn old face, serene and confident. He was again holding the book
+and crucifix clasped to his breast, as he stepped to the edge of the
+scaffold.
+
+The cry died to a murmur and ceased abruptly as he began his speech,
+every word of which was audible.
+
+“Christian people,” he began, “I am come hither to die for the faith of
+Christ’s holy Catholic Church.” He raised his voice a little, and it
+rang out confidently. “And I thank God that hitherto my stomach hath
+served me very well thereunto, so that yet I have not feared death.
+Wherefore I desire you all to help and assist with your prayers, that at
+the very point and instant of death’s stroke I may in that very moment
+stand steadfast, without fainting in any one point of the Catholic
+Faith, free from any fear.”
+
+He paused again; his hands closed one on the other. He glanced up.
+
+“And I beseech the Almighty God of His infinite goodness and mercy, to
+save the King and this realm; and that it may please Him to hold His
+hand over it, and send the King’s Highness good counsel.”
+
+He ceased abruptly; and dropped his head.
+
+A gentle groan ran through the crowd.
+
+Chris felt his throat contract, and a mist blinded his eyes for a
+moment.
+
+Then he saw the bishop slip the crucifix into his other hand, and open
+the book, apparently at random. His lean finger dropped upon the page;
+and he read aloud softly, as if to himself.
+
+“This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the one true God, and
+Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the earth; I
+have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.”
+
+Again there was silence, for it seemed as if he was going to make a
+sermon, but he looked down at the book a moment or two. Then he closed
+it gently.
+
+“Here is learning enough for me,” he said, “to my life’s end.”
+
+There was a movement among the silent figures at the back of the
+scaffold; and the Lieutenant stepped forward once more. The bishop
+turned to meet him and nodded; handing him the book; and then with the
+crucifix still in his hands, and with the officer’s help, sank on to his
+knees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seemed to Chris as if he waited an eternity; but he could not take
+his eyes off him. Round about was the breathing mass of the crowd,
+overhead the clear summer sky; up from the river came the sounds of
+cries and the pulse of oars, and from the Tower now and again the call
+of a horn and the stroke of a bell; but all this was external, and
+seemed to have no effect upon the intense silence of the heart that
+radiated from the scaffold, and in which the monk felt himself
+enveloped. The space between himself and the bishop seemed annihilated;
+and Chris found himself in company with a thousand others close beside
+the man’s soul that was to leave the world so soon. He could not pray;
+but he had the sensation of gripping that imploring spirit, pulsating
+with it, furthering with his own strained will that stream of effort
+that he knew was going forth.
+
+Meanwhile his eyes stared at him; and saw without seeing how the old man
+now leaned back with closed eyes and moving lips; now he bent forward,
+and looked at the crucified figure that he held between his hands, now
+lifted it and lingeringly kissed the pierced feet. Behind stood the
+stiff line of officers, and in front below the rail rose the glitter of
+the halberds.
+
+The minutes went by and there was no change. The world seemed to have
+grown rigid with expectancy; it was as if time stood still. There fell
+upon the monk’s soul, not suddenly but imperceptibly, something of that
+sense of the unseen that he had experienced at Tyburn. For a certain
+space all sorrow and terror left him; he knew tangibly now that to which
+at other times his mere faith assented; he knew that the world of spirit
+was the real one; that the Tower, the axe, the imminent shadow of death,
+were little more than illusions; they were part of the staging,
+significant and necessary, but with no substance of reality. The eternal
+world in which God was all, alone was a fact. He felt no longer pity or
+regret. Nothing but the sheer existence of a Being of which all persons
+there were sharers, poised in an eternal instant, remained with him.
+
+This strange sensation was scarcely disturbed by the rising of the lean
+black figure from its knees; Chris watched him as he might have watched
+the inevitable movement of an actor performing his pre-arranged part.
+The bishop turned eastward, to where the sun was now high above the
+Tower gate, and spoke once more.
+
+“_Accedite ad eum, et illuminamini; et facies vestræ non confundentur_.”
+
+Then once more in the deathly stillness he turned round; and his eyes
+ran over the countless faces turned up to his own. But there was a
+certain tranquil severity in his face--the severity of one who has taken
+a bitter cup firmly into his hand; his lips were tightly compressed, and
+his eyes were deep and steady.
+
+Then very slowly he lifted his right hand, touched his forehead, and
+enveloped himself in a great sign of the cross, still looking out
+unwaveringly over the faces; and immediately, without any hesitation,
+sank down on his knees, put his hands before him on to the scaffold, and
+stretched himself flat.
+
+He was now invisible to Chris; for the low block on which he had laid
+his neck was only a few inches high.
+
+There was again a surge and a murmur as the headsman stepped forward
+with the huge-headed axe over his shoulder, and stood waiting.
+
+Then again the moments began to pass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris lost all consciousness of his own being; he was aware of nothing
+but the objective presence of the scaffold, of an overpowering
+expectancy. It seemed as if something were stretched taut in his brain,
+at breaking point; as if some vast thing were on the point of
+revelation. All else had vanished,--the scene round him, the sense of
+the invisible; there was but the point of space left, waiting for an
+explosion.
+
+There was a sense of wrenching torture as the headsman lifted the axe,
+bringing it high round behind him; the motion seemed shockingly slow,
+and to wring the strained nerves to agony....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then in a blinding climax the axe fell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE KING’S FRIEND
+
+
+Overfield Court was mildly stirred at the news that Master Christopher
+would stay there a few days on his way back from London to Lewes. It was
+not so exciting as when Master Ralph was to come, as the latter made
+more demands than a mere monk; for the one the horses must be in the
+pink of condition, the game neither too wild nor too tame, his rooms
+must be speckless, neither too full nor too empty of furniture; for the
+other it did not matter so much, for he was now not only a younger
+brother, but a monk, and therefore accustomed to contradiction and
+desirous to acquiesce in arrangements.
+
+Lady Torridon indeed took no steps at all when she heard that Chris was
+coming, beyond expressing a desire that she might not be called upon to
+discuss the ecclesiastical situation at every meal; and when Chris
+finally arrived a week after Bishop Fisher’s execution, having parted
+with the Prior at Cuckfield, she was walking in her private garden
+beyond the moat.
+
+Sir James was in a very different state. He had caused two rooms to be
+prepared, that his son might take his choice, one next to Mr. Carleton’s
+and therefore close to the chapel, and the other the old chamber that
+Chris had occupied before he went to Lewes; and when the monk at last
+rode up on alone on his tired mule with his little bag strapped to the
+crupper, an hour before sunset, his father was out at the gatehouse to
+meet him, and walked up beside him to the house, with his hand laid on
+his son’s knee.
+
+They hardly spoke a word as they went; Sir James had looked up at
+Chris’s white strained face, and had put one question; and the other had
+nodded; and the hearts of both were full as they went together to the
+house.
+
+The father and son supped together alone that night in the private
+parlour, for no one had dared to ask Lady Torridon to postpone her usual
+supper hour; and as soon as that was over and Chris had told what he had
+seen, with many silences, they went into the oak-room where Lady
+Torridon and Mr. Carleton were awaiting them by the hearth with the
+Flemish tiles.
+
+The mother was sitting as usual in her tall chair, with her beautiful
+hands on her lap, and smiled with a genial contempt as she ran her eyes
+up and down her son’s figure.
+
+“The habit suits you very well, my son--in every way,” she added,
+looking at him curiously.
+
+Chris had greeted her an hour before at his arrival, so there was no
+ceremony of salute to be gone through now. He sat down by his father.
+
+“You have seen Ralph, I hear,” observed Lady Torridon.
+
+Chris did not know how much she knew, and simply assented. He had told
+his father everything.
+
+“I have some news,” she went on in an unusually talkative mood, “for you
+both. Ralph is to marry Beatrice Atherton--the girl you saw in his
+rooms, Christopher.”
+
+Sir James gave an exclamation and leant forward; and Chris tightened his
+lips.
+
+“She is a friend of Mr. More’s,” went on Lady Torridon, apparently
+unconscious of the sensation she was making, “but that is Ralph’s
+business, I suppose.”
+
+“Why did Ralph not write to me?” asked his father, with a touch of
+sternness.
+
+Lady Torridon answered him by a short pregnant silence, and then went
+on--
+
+“I suppose he wished me to break it to you. It will not be for two or
+three years. She says she cannot leave Mrs. More for the present.”
+
+Chris’s brain was confused by the news, and yet it all seemed external
+to him. As he had ridden up to the house in the evening he had
+recognised for the first time how he no longer belonged to the place;
+his two years at Lewes had done their work, and he came to his home now
+not as a son but as a guest. He had even begun to perceive the
+difference after his quarrel with Ralph, for he had not been conscious
+of the same personal sting at his brother’s sins that he would have felt
+five years ago. And now this news, while it affected him, did not
+penetrate to the still sanctuary that he had hewn out of his heart
+during those months of discipline.
+
+But his father was roused.
+
+“He should have written to me,” he said sternly. “And, my wife, I will
+beg you to remember that I have a right to my son’s business.”
+
+Lady Torridon did not move or answer. He leaned back again, and passed
+his hand tenderly through Chris’s arm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was very strange to the younger son to find himself a few minutes
+later up again in the west gallery of the chapel, where he had knelt two
+years before; and for a few moments he almost felt himself at home. But
+the mechanical shifting of his scapular aside as he sat down for the
+psalms, recalled facts. Then he had been in his silk suit, his hands had
+been rough with his cross-bow, his beard had been soft on his chin, and
+the blood hot in his cheeks. Now he was in his habit, smooth-faced and
+shaven, tired and oppressed, still weak from the pangs of soul-birth. He
+was further from human love, but nearer the Divine, he thought.
+
+He sat with his father a few minutes after compline; and Sir James spoke
+more frankly of the news that they had heard.
+
+“If she is really a friend of Mr. More’s,” he said, “she may be his
+salvation. I am sorely disappointed in him. I did not know Master
+Cromwell when I sent him to him, as I do now. Is it my fault, Chris?”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris told his father presently of what the Prior had said as to Ralph’s
+assistance in the matter of the visit that the two monks had paid to the
+Tower; and asked an interpretation.
+
+Sir James sat quiet a minute or two, stroking his pointed grey beard
+softly, and looking into the hearth.
+
+“God forgive me if I am wrong, my son,” he said at last, “but I wonder
+whether they let the my Lord Prior go to the Tower in order to shake the
+confidence of both. Do you think so, Chris?”
+
+Chris too was silent a moment; he knew he must not speak evil of
+dignities.
+
+“It may be so. I know that my Lord Prior--”
+
+“Well, my son?”
+
+“My Lord Prior has been very anxious--”
+
+Sir James patted his son on the knee, and reassured him.
+
+“Prior Crowham is a very holy man, I think; but--but somewhat delicate.
+However their designs have come to nothing. The bishop is in glory; and
+the other more courageous than he was.”
+
+Chris also had a few words with Mr. Carleton before he went to bed,
+sitting where he had sat in the moonlight two years before.
+
+“If they have done so much,” said the priest, “they will do more. When a
+man has slipped over a precipice he cannot save his fall. Master More
+will be the next to go; I make no doubt of that. You are to be a priest
+soon, Chris?”
+
+“They have applied for leave,” said the monk shortly. “In two years I
+shall be a priest, no doubt, if God wills.”
+
+“You are happy?” asked the other.
+
+Chris made a little gesture.
+
+“I do not know what that means,” he said, “but I know I have done right.
+I feel nothing. God’s ways and His world are too strange.”
+
+The priest looked at him oddly, without speaking.
+
+“Well, father?” asked Chris, smiling.
+
+“You are right,” said the chaplain brusquely. “You have done well. You
+have crossed the border.”
+
+Chris felt the blood surge in his temples.
+
+“The border?” he asked.
+
+“The border of dreams. They surround the Religious Life; and you have
+passed through them.”
+
+Chris still looked at him with parted lips. This praise was sweet, after
+the bitterness of his failure with Ralph. The priest seemed to know what
+was passing in his mind.
+
+“Oh! you will fail sometimes,” he said, “but not finally. You are a
+monk, my son, and a man.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lady Torridon retired into her impregnable silence again after her
+sallies of speech on the previous evening; but as the few days went on
+that Chris had been allowed to spend with his parents he was none the
+less aware that her attitude towards him was one of contempt. She
+showed it in a hundred ways--by not appearing to see him, by refusing to
+modify her habits in the smallest particular for his convenience, by a
+rigid silence on the subject that was in the hearts of both him and his
+father. She performed her duties as punctually and efficiently as ever,
+dealt dispassionately and justly with an old servant who had been
+troublesome, and with regard to whom her husband was both afraid and
+tender; but never asked for confidences or manifested the minutest
+detail of her own accord.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the fourth day after Chris’s arrival news came that Sir Thomas More
+had been condemned, but it roused no more excitement than the fall of a
+threatening rod. It had been known to be inevitable. And then on Chris’s
+last evening at home came the last details.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir James and Chris had been out for a long ride up the estate, talking
+but little, for each knew what was in the heart of the other; and they
+were just dismounting at the terrace-steps when there was a sound of
+furious galloping; and a couple of riders burst through the gateway a
+hundred yards away.
+
+Chris felt his heart leap and hammer in his throat, but stood passively
+awaiting what he knew was coming; and a few seconds later, Nicholas
+Maxwell checked his horse passionately at the steps.
+
+“God damn them!” he cried, with a crimson quivering face.
+
+Sir James stepped up at once and took him by the arm.
+
+“Nick,” he said, and glanced at the staring grooms.
+
+Nicholas showed his teeth like a dog.
+
+“God damn them!” he said again.
+
+The other rider had come up by now; he was dusty and seemed spent. He
+was a stranger to the father and son who waited on the steps; but he
+looked like a groom, and slipped off his horse deftly and took Sir
+Nicholas’s bridle.
+
+“Come in Nick,” said Sir James. “We can talk in the house.”
+
+As the three went up together, with the strange rider at a respectful
+distance behind, Nicholas broke out again in one sentence.
+
+“They have done it,” he said, “he is dead. Mother of God!”
+
+His whip twitched in his clenching hand. He turned and jerked his head
+beckoningly to the man who followed; and the four went on together,
+through the hall and into Sir James’s parlour. Sir James shut the door.
+
+“Tell us, Nick.”
+
+Nicholas stood at the hearth, glaring and shifting.
+
+“This fellow knows--he saw it; tell them, Dick.”
+
+The man gave his account. He was one of the servants of Sir Nicholas’
+younger brother, who lived in town, and had been sent down to Great
+Keynes immediately after the execution that had taken place that
+morning. He was a man of tolerable education, and told his story well.
+
+Sir James sat as he listened, with his hand shading his eyes; Nicholas
+was fidgetting at the hearth, interrupting the servant now and again
+with questions and reminders; and Chris leaned in the dark corner by the
+window. There floated vividly before his mind as he listened the setting
+of the scene that he had looked upon a few days ago, though there were
+new actors in it now.
+
+“It was this morning, sir, on Tower Hill. There was a great company
+there long before the time. He came out bravely enough, walking with
+the Lieutenant that was his friend, and with a red cross in his hand.”
+
+“You were close by,” put in Nicholas
+
+“Yes, sir; I was beside the stairs. They shook as he went up; they were
+crazy steps, and he told the Lieutenant to have a care to him.”
+
+“The words, man, the words!”
+
+“I am not sure, sir; but they were after this fashion: ‘See me safe up,
+Master Lieutenant; I will shift for myself at the coming down.’ So he
+got up safe, and stamped once or twice merrily to see if all were firm.
+Then he made a speech, sir, and begged all there to pray for him. He
+told them that he was to die for the faith of the Catholic Church, as my
+Lord of Rochester did.”
+
+“Have you heard of my lord’s head being taken to Nan Boleyn?” put in
+Nicholas fiercely.
+
+Sir James looked up.
+
+“Presently, Nick,” he said.
+
+The man went on.
+
+“Master More kneeled down presently at his prayers; and all the folk
+kept very quiet. There was not one that cried against him. Then he stood
+up again, put off his gown, so that his neck was bare; and passed his
+hand over it smiling. Then he told the headsman that it was but a short
+one, and bade him be brave and strike straight, lest his good name
+should suffer. Then he laid himself down to the block, and put his neck
+on it; but he moved again before he gave the sign, and put his beard out
+in front--for he had grown one in prison”--
+
+“Give us the words,” snarled Nicholas.
+
+“He said, sir, that his beard had done no treason, and need not
+therefore suffer as he had to do. And then he thrust out his hand for a
+sign--and ’twas done at a stroke.”
+
+“God damn them!” hissed Nicholas again as a kind of Amen, turning
+swiftly to the fire-place so that his face could not be seen.
+
+There was complete silence for a few seconds. The groom had his eyes
+cast down, and stood there--then again he spoke.
+
+“As to my Lord of Rochester’s head, that was taken off to the--the
+Queen, they say, in a white bag, and she struck it on the mouth.”
+
+Nicholas dropped his head against his hand that rested on the wood-work.
+
+“And the body rested naked all day on the scaffold, with the halberd-men
+drinking round about; and ’twas tumbled into a hole in Barking
+Churchyard that night.”
+
+“At whose orders?”
+
+“At Master Cromwell’s, sir.”
+
+Again there was silence; and again the groom broke it.
+
+“There was more said, sir--” and hesitated.
+
+The old man signed to him to go on.
+
+“They say that my lord’s head shone with light each night on the
+bridge,” said the man reverently; “there was a great press there, I
+know, all day, so that the streets were blocked, and none could come or
+go. And so they tumbled that into the river at last; at least ’tis
+supposed so--for ’twas gone when I looked.”
+
+Nicholas turned round; and his eyes were bright and his face fiery and
+discoloured.
+
+Sir James stood up, and his voice was broken as he spoke.
+
+“Thank you, my man. You have told your story well.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the groom turned to go out, Sir Nicholas wheeled round swiftly to the
+hearth, and buried his face on his arm; and Chris saw a great heaving
+begin to shake his broad shoulders.
+
+
+
+
+THE KING’S TRIUMPH--BOOK II
+
+
+
+
+PART I--THE SMALLER HOUSES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+AN ACT OF FAITH
+
+
+Towards the end of August Beatrice Atherton was walking up the north
+bank of the river from Charing to Westminster to announce to Ralph her
+arrival in town on the previous night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She had gone through horrors since the June day on which she had seen
+the two brothers together. With Margaret beside her she had watched
+Master More in court, in his frieze gown, leaning on his stick, bent and
+grey with imprisonment, had heard his clear answers, his searching
+questions, and his merry conclusion after sentence had been pronounced;
+she had stayed at home with the stricken family on the morning of the
+sixth of July, kneeling with them at her prayers in the chapel of the
+New Building, during the hours until Mr. Roper looked in grey-faced and
+trembling, and they knew that all was over. She went with them to the
+burial in St. Peter’s Chapel in the Tower; and last, which was the most
+dreadful ordeal of all, she had stood in the summer darkness by the
+wicket-gate, had heard the cautious stroke of oars, and the footsteps
+coming up the path, and had let Margaret in bearing her precious burden
+robbed from the spike on London Bridge.
+
+Then for a while she had gone down to the country with Mrs. More and
+her daughters; and now she was back once more, in a kind of psychical
+convalescence, at her aunt’s new house on the river-bank at Charing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her face was a little paler than it used to be, but there was a
+quickening brightness in her eyes as she swept along in her blue mantle,
+with her maid beside her, in the rear of the liveried servant, who
+carried a silver-headed wand a few yards in front.
+
+She was rehearsing to herself the scene in which Ralph had asked her to
+be his wife.
+
+Where Chris had left the room the two had remained perfectly still until
+the street-door had closed; and then Ralph had turned to her with a
+question in his steady eyes.
+
+She had told him then that she did not believe one word of what the monk
+had insinuated; but she had been conscious even at the time that she was
+making what theologians call an act of faith. It was not that there were
+not difficulties to her in Ralph’s position--there were plenty--but she
+had determined by a final and swift decision to disregard them and
+believe in him. It was a last step in a process that continued ever
+since she had become interested by this strong brusque man; and it had
+been precipitated by the fanatical attack to which she had just been a
+witness. The discord, as she thought it, of Ralph’s character and
+actions had not been resolved; yet she had decided in that moment that
+it need not be; that her data as concerned those actions were
+insufficient; and that if she could not explain, at least she could
+trust.
+
+Ralph had been very honest, she told herself now. He had reminded her
+that he was a servant of Cromwell’s whom many believed to be an enemy
+of Church and State. She had nodded back to him steadily and silently,
+knowing what would follow from the paleness of his face, and his bright
+eyes beneath their wide lids. She had felt her own breast rise and fall
+and a pulse begin to hammer at the spring of her throat. Even now as she
+thought of it her heart quickened, and her hands clenched themselves.
+
+And then in one swift moment it had come. She had found her hands caught
+fiercely, and her eyes imprisoned by his; and then all was over, and she
+had given him an answer in a word.
+
+It had not been easy even after that. Cecily had questioned her more
+than once. Mrs. More had said a few indiscreet things that had been hard
+to bear; her own aunt had received the news in silence.
+
+But that was over now. The necessary consent on both sides had been
+given; and here she was once more walking up the road to Westminster
+with Ralph’s image before her eyes, and Ralph himself a hundred yards
+away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She turned the last corner from the alley, passed up the little street,
+and turned again across the little cobbled yard that lay before the
+house.
+
+Mr. Morris was at the door as she came up, and he now stood aside. He
+seemed doubtful.
+
+“Mr. Torridon has gentlemen with him, madam.”
+
+“Then I will wait,” said Beatrice serenely, and made a motion to come
+in. The servant still half-hesitating opened the door wider; and
+Beatrice and her maid went through into the little parlour on the right.
+
+As she passed in she heard voices from the other door. Mr. Morris’s
+footsteps went down the passage.
+
+She had not very long to wait. There was the sound of a carriage
+driving up to the door presently, and her maid who sat in view of the
+window glanced out. Her face grew solemn.
+
+“It is Master Cromwell’s carriage,” she said.
+
+Beatrice was conscious of a vague discomfort; Master Cromwell, in spite
+of her efforts, was the shadowed side of Ralph’s life.
+
+“Is he coming in?” she said.
+
+The maid peeped again.
+
+“No, madam.”
+
+The door of the room they were in was not quite shut, and there was
+still a faint murmur of voices from across the hall; but almost
+immediately there was the sound of a lifted latch, and then Ralph’s
+voice clear and distinct.
+
+“I will see to it, my lord.”
+
+Beatrice stood up, feeling a little uneasy. She fancied that perhaps she
+ought not to be here; she remembered now the servant’s slight air of
+unwillingness to let her in. There was a footfall in the hall, and the
+sound of talking; and as Mr. Morris’s hasty step came up the passage,
+the door was pushed abruptly open, and Ralph was looking into the room,
+with one or two others beyond him.
+
+“I did not know,” he began, and flushed a little, smiling and making as
+if to close the door. But Cromwell’s face, with its long upper lip and
+close-set grey eyes, appeared over his shoulder, and Ralph turned round,
+almost deprecatingly.
+
+“I beg your pardon, sir; this is Mistress Atherton, and her woman.”
+
+Cromwell came forward into the room, with a kind of keen smile, in his
+rich dress and chain.
+
+“Mistress Beatrice Atherton?” he said with a questioning deference; and
+Ralph introduced them to one another. Beatrice was conscious of a good
+deal of awkwardness. It was uncomfortable to be caught here, as if she
+had come to spy out something. She felt herself flushing as she
+explained that she had had no idea who was there.
+
+Cromwell looked at her very pleasantly.
+
+“There is nothing to ask pardon for, Mistress,” he said. “I knew you
+were a friend of Mr. Torridon. He has told me everything.”
+
+Ralph seemed strangely ill-at-ease, Beatrice thought, as Cromwell
+congratulated them both with a very kindly air, and then turned towards
+the hall again.
+
+“My lord,” he called, “my lord--”
+
+Then Beatrice saw a tall ecclesiastic, clean-shaven, with a strangely
+insignificant but kindly face, with square drooping lip and narrow hazel
+eyes, come forward in his prelate’s dress; and at the sight of him her
+eyes grew hard and her lips tight.
+
+“My lord,” said Cromwell, “this is Mistress Beatrice Torridon.”
+
+The prelate put out his hand, smiling faintly, with the ring uppermost
+to be kissed. Beatrice stood perfectly still. She could see Ralph at an
+angle looking at her imploringly.
+
+“You know my Lord of Canterbury,” said Cromwell, in an explanatory
+voice.
+
+“I know my Lord of Canterbury,” said Beatrice.
+
+There was a dead silence for a moment, and then a faint whimper from the
+maid.
+
+Cranmer dropped his hand, but still smiled, turning to Ralph.
+
+“We must be gone, Mr. Torridon. Master Cromwell has very kindly--”
+
+Cromwell, who had stood amazed for a moment, turned round at his name.
+
+“Yes,” he said to Ralph, “my lord is to come with me. And you will be
+at my house to-morrow.”
+
+He said good-day to the girl, looking at her with an amused interest
+that made her flush; and as Dr. Cranmer passed out of the street-door to
+the carriage with Ralph bare-headed beside him, he spoke very softly.
+
+“You are like the others, mistress,” he said; and shook his heavy head
+at her like an indulgent father. Then he too turned and went out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Beatrice went across at once to the other room, leaving her maid behind,
+and stood by the hearth as Ralph came in. She heard the door close and
+his footstep come across the floor beside her.
+
+“Beatrice,” said Ralph.
+
+She turned round and looked at him.
+
+“You must not scold me,” she said with great serenity. “You must leave
+me my conscience.” Ralph’s face cleared instantly.
+
+“No, no,” he said. “I feared it would be the other way.”
+
+“A married priest, they say!” remarked the girl, but without bitterness.
+
+“I daresay, my darling,--but--but I have more tenderness for marriage
+than I had.”
+
+Beatrice’s black eyes just flickered with amusement.
+
+“Yes; but priests!” she said.
+
+“Yes--even priests--” said Ralph, smiling back.
+
+Beatrice turned to a chair and sat down.
+
+“I suppose I must not ask any questions,” she said, glancing up for a
+moment at Ralph’s steady eyes. She thought he looked a little uneasy
+still.
+
+“Oh! I scarcely know,” said Ralph; and he took a turn across the room
+and came back. She waited, knowing that she had already put her
+question, and secretly pleased that he knew it, and was perplexed by it.
+
+“I scarcely know,” he said again, standing opposite her.
+“Well,--yes--all will know it soon.”
+
+“Oh! I can wait till then,” said Beatrice quickly, not sure whether she
+were annoyed or not by being told a secret of such a common nature.
+Ralph glanced at her, not sure either.
+
+“I am afraid--” he began.
+
+“No--no,” she said, ashamed of her doubt. “I do not wish to know; I can
+wait.”
+
+“I will tell you,” said Ralph. He went and sat down in the chair
+opposite, crossing his legs.
+
+“It is about the Visitation of the Religious Houses. I am to go with the
+Visitors in September.”
+
+Beatrice felt a sudden and rather distressed interest; but she showed no
+sign of it.
+
+“Ah, yes!” she said softly, “and what will be your work?”
+
+Ralph was reassured by her tone.
+
+“We are to go to the southern province. I am with Dr. Layton’s party. We
+shall make enquiries of the state of Religion, how it is observed and so
+forth; and report to Master Cromwell.”
+
+Beatrice looked down in a slightly side-long way.
+
+“I know what you are thinking,” said Ralph, his tone a mixture of
+amusement and pride. She looked up silently.
+
+“Yes I knew it was so,” he went on, smiling straight at her. “You are
+wondering what in the world I know about Religious Houses. But I have a
+brother--”
+
+A shadow went over her face; Ralph saw she did not like the allusion.
+
+“Besides,” he went on again, “they need intelligent men, not
+ecclesiastics, for this business.”
+
+“But Dr. Layton?” questioned Beatrice.
+
+“Well, you might call him an ecclesiastic; but you would scarcely guess
+it from himself. And no man could call him a partisan on that side.”
+
+“He would do better in one of his rectories, I should think,” said
+Beatrice.
+
+“Well, that is not my business,” observed Ralph.
+
+“And what is your business?”
+
+“Well, to ride round the country; examine the Religious, and make
+enquiries of the country folk.”
+
+Beatrice began to tap her foot very softly. Ralph glanced down at the
+bright buckle and smiled in spite of himself.
+
+The girl went on.
+
+“And by whose authority?”
+
+“By his Grace’s authority.”
+
+“And Dr. Cranmer’s?”
+
+“Well, yes; so far as he has any.”
+
+“I see,” said Beatrice; and cast her eyes down again.
+
+There was silence for a moment or two.
+
+“You see too that I cannot withdraw,” explained Ralph, a little
+distressed at her air. “It is part of my duty.”
+
+“Oh! I understand that,” said Beatrice.
+
+“And so long as I act justly, there is no harm done.”
+
+The girl was silent.
+
+“You understand that?” he asked.
+
+“I suppose I do,” said Beatrice slowly.
+
+Ralph made a slight impatient movement.
+
+“No--wait,” said the girl, “I do understand. If I cannot trust you, I
+had better never have known you. I do understand that I can trust you;
+though I cannot understand how you can do such work.”
+
+She raised her eyes slowly to his; and Ralph as he looked into them saw
+that she was perfectly sincere, and speaking without bitterness.
+
+“Sweetheart,” he said. “I could not have taken that from any but you;
+but I know that you are true, and mean no more nor less than your words.
+You do trust me?”
+
+“Why, yes,” said the girl; and smiled at him as he took her in his arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When she had gone again Ralph had a difficult quarter of an hour.
+
+He knew that she trusted him, but was it not simply because she did not
+know? He sat and pondered the talk he had had with Cromwell and the
+Archbishop. Neither had expressly said that what was wanted was adverse
+testimony against the Religious Houses; but that, Ralph knew very well,
+was what was asked of him. They had talked a great deal about the
+corruptions that the Visitors would no doubt find, and Cranmer had told
+a story or two, with an appearance of great distress, of scandalous
+cases that had come under his own notice. Cromwell too had pointed out
+that such corruptions did incalculable evil; and that an immoral monk
+did far more harm in a countryside than his holy brethren could do of
+good. Both had said a word too about the luxury and riches to be found
+in the houses of those who professed poverty, and of the injury done to
+Christ’s holy religion by such insincere pretences.
+
+Ralph knew too, from previous meetings with the other Visitors, the kind
+of work for which such men would be likely to be selected.
+
+There was Dr. Richard Layton first, whom Ralph was to join in Sussex at
+the end of September, a priest who had two or three preferments and
+notoriously neglected them; Ralph had taken a serious dislike to him. He
+was a coarse man who knew how to cringe effectively; and Ralph had
+listened to him talking to Cromwell, with some dismay. But he would be
+to a large extent independent of him, and only in his company at some of
+the larger houses that needed more than one Visitor. Thomas Legh, too, a
+young doctor of civil law, was scarcely more attractive. He was a man of
+an extraordinary arrogance, carrying his head high, and looking about
+him with insolently drooping eyes. Ralph had been at once amused and
+angry to see him go out into the street after his interview with
+Cromwell, where his horse and half-a-dozen footmen awaited him, and to
+watch him ride off with the airs of a vulgar prince. The Welshman Ap
+Rice too, and the red-faced bully, Dr. London, were hardly persons whom
+he desired as associates, and the others were not much better; and Ralph
+found himself feeling a little thankful that none of these men had been
+in his house just now, when Cromwell and the Archbishop had called in
+the former’s carriage, and when Beatrice had met them there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph had a moment, ten minutes after Beatrice had left, when he was
+inclined to snatch up his hat and go after Cromwell to tell him to do
+his own dirty work; but his training had told, and he had laughed at the
+folly of the thought. Why, of course, the work had to be done! England
+was rotten with dreams and superstition. Ecclesiasticism had corrupted
+genuine human life, and national sanity could not be restored except by
+a violent process. Innocent persons would no doubt suffer--innocent
+according to conscience, but guilty against the commonwealth. Every
+great movement towards good was bound to be attended by individual
+catastrophes; but it was the part of a strong man to carry out
+principles and despise details.
+
+The work had to be done; it was better then that there should be at
+least one respectable workman. Of course such a work needed coarse men
+to carry it out; it was bound to be accompanied by some brutality; and
+his own presence there might do something to keep the brutality within
+limits.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And as for Beatrice--well, Beatrice did not yet understand. If she
+understood all as he did, she would sympathise, for she was strong too.
+Besides--he had held her in his arms just now, and he knew that love was
+king.
+
+But he sat for ten minutes more in silence, staring with unseeing eyes
+at the huddled roofs opposite and the clear sky over them; and the point
+of the quill in his fingers was split and cracked when Mr. Morris looked
+in to see if his master wanted anything.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE VISITATION
+
+
+It was on a wet foggy morning in October that Ralph set out with Mr.
+Morris and a couple more servants to join Dr. Layton in the Sussex
+visitation. He rode alone in front; and considered as he went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Visitation itself, Cromwell had told him almost explicitly, was in
+pursuance of the King’s policy to get the Religious Houses, which were
+considered to be the strongholds of the papal power in England, under
+the authority of the Crown; and also to obtain from them reinforcements
+of the royal funds which were running sorely low. The crops were most
+disappointing this year, and the King’s tenants were wholly unable to
+pay their rents; and it had been thought wiser to make up the deficit
+from ecclesiastical wealth rather than to exasperate the Commons by a
+direct call upon their resources.
+
+So far, he knew very well, the attempt to get the Religious Houses into
+the King’s power had only partially succeeded. Bishop Fisher’s influence
+had availed to stave off the fulfilment of the royal intentions up to
+the present; and the oath of supremacy, in which to a large extent the
+key of the situation lay, had been by no means universally accepted.
+Now, however, the scheme was to be pushed forward; and as a preparation
+for it, it was proposed to visit every monastery and convent in the
+kingdom, and to render account first of the temporal wealth of each,
+and then of the submissiveness of its inmates; and, as Cromwell had
+hinted to Ralph, anything that could damage the character of the
+Religious would not be unacceptable evidence.
+
+Ralph was aware that the scheme in which he was engaged was supported in
+two ways; first, by the suspension of episcopal authority during the
+course of the visitation, and secondly by the vast powers committed to
+the visitors. In one of the saddle-bags strapped on to Mr. Morris’s
+horse was a sheaf of papers, containing eighty-six articles of enquiry,
+and twenty-five injunctions, as well as certificates from the King
+endowing Ralph with what was practically papal jurisdiction. He was
+authorised to release from their vows all Religious who desired it, and
+ordered to dismiss all who had been professed under twenty years of age,
+or who were at the present date under twenty-four years old. Besides
+this he was commissioned to enforce the enclosure with the utmost
+rigour, to set porters at the doors to see that it was observed, and to
+encourage all who had any grievance against their superiors to forward
+complaints through himself to Cromwell.
+
+Ralph understood well enough the first object of these regulations,
+namely to make monastic life impossible. It was pretty evident that a
+rigorous confinement would breed discontent; which in its turn would be
+bound to escape through the vent-hole which the power of appeal
+provided; thus bringing about a state of anarchy within the house, and
+the tightening of the hold of the civil authority upon the Religious.
+
+Lastly the Visitors were authorised to seize any church furniture or
+jewels that they might judge would be better in secular custody.
+
+Once more, he had learned both from Cromwell, and from his own
+experience at Paul’s Cross, how the laity itself was being carefully
+prepared for the blow that was impending, by an army of selected
+preachers who could be trusted to say what they were told. Only a few
+days before Ralph had halted his horse at the outskirts of a huge crowd
+gathered round Paul’s Cross, and had listened to a torrent of
+vituperation poured out by a famous orator against the mendicant friars;
+and from the faces and exclamations of the people round him he had
+learned once more that greed was awake in England.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a somewhat dismal ride that he had this day. The sky was heavy
+and overcast, it rained constantly, and the roads were in a more dreary
+condition even than usual. He splashed along through the mud with his
+servants behind him, wrapped in his cloak; and his own thoughts were not
+of a sufficient cheerfulness to compensate for the external discomforts.
+His political plane of thought was shot by a personal idea. He guessed
+that he would have to commit himself in a manner that he had never done
+before; and was not wholly confident that he would be able to explain
+matters satisfactorily to Beatrice. Besides, the particular district to
+which he was appointed included first Lewes, where Chris would have an
+eye on his doings, and secondly the little Benedictine house of Rusper,
+where his sister Margaret had been lately professed; and he wondered
+what exactly would be his relation with his own family when his work was
+done.
+
+But for the main object of his visitation he had little but sympathy. It
+was good, he thought, that a scouring should be made of these idle
+houses, and their inmates made more profitable to the commonwealth. And
+lastly, whether or no he sympathised, it would be fatal to his career
+to refuse the work offered to him.
+
+As he did not feel very confident at first, he had arranged to meet with
+Dr. Layton’s party at the Premonstratension Abbey of Durford, situated
+at the borders of Sussex and Hampshire, and there learn the exact
+methods to be employed in the visitation; but it was a long ride, and he
+took two days over it, sleeping on the way at Waverly in the Cistercian
+House. This had not yet been visited, as Dr. Layton was riding up
+gradually from the west country, but the rumour of his intentions had
+already reached there, and Ralph was received with a pathetic deference
+as one of the representatives of the Royal Commission.
+
+The Abbot was a kindly nervous man, and welcomed Ralph with every sign
+of respect at the gate of the abbey, giving contradictory orders about
+the horses and the entertainment of the guests to his servants who
+seemed in very little awe of him.
+
+After mass and breakfast on the following morning the Abbot came into
+the guest-house and begged for a short interview.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He apologised first for the poorness of the entertainment, saying that
+he had done his best. Ralph answered courteously; and the other went on
+immediately, standing deferentially before the chair where Ralph was
+seated, and fingering his cross.
+
+“I hope, Mr. Torridon, that it will be you who will visit us; you have
+found us all unprepared, and you know that we are doing our best to keep
+our Rule. I hope you found nothing that was not to your liking.”
+
+Ralph bowed and smiled.
+
+“I would sooner that it were you,” went on the Abbot, “and not another
+that visited us. Dr. Layton--”
+
+He stopped abruptly, embarrassed.
+
+“You have heard something of him?” questioned Ralph.
+
+“I know nothing against him,” said the other hastily, “except that they
+say that he is sharp with us poor monks. I fear he would find a great
+deal here not to his taste. My authority has been so much weakened of
+late; I have some discontented brethren--not more than one or two, Mr.
+Torridon--and they have learned that they will be able to appeal now to
+the King’s Grace, and get themselves set free; and they have ruined the
+discipline of the house. I do not wish to hide anything, sir, you see;
+but I am terribly afraid that Dr. Layton may be displeased.”
+
+“I am very sorry, my lord,” said Ralph, “but I fear I shall not be
+coming here again.”
+
+The Abbot’s face fell.
+
+“But you will speak for us, sir, to Dr. Layton? I heard you say you
+would be seeing him to-night.”
+
+Ralph promised to do his best, and was overwhelmed with thanks.
+
+He could not help realising some of the pathos of the situation as he
+rode on through the rain to Durford. It was plain that a wave of terror
+and apprehensiveness was running through the Religious Houses, and that
+it brought with it inevitable disorder. Lives that would have been
+serene and contented under other circumstances were thrown off their
+balance by the rumours of disturbance, and authority was weakened. If
+the Rule was hard of observance in tranquil times, it was infinitely
+harder when doors of escape presented themselves on all sides.
+
+And yet he was impatient too. Passive or wavering characters irritated
+his own strong temperament, and he felt a kind of anger against the
+Abbot and his feeble appeal. Surely men who had nothing else to do might
+manage to keep their own subjects in order, and a weak crying for pity
+was in itself an argument against their competence. And meanwhile, if he
+had known it, he would have been still more incensed, for as he rode on
+down towards the south west, the Abbot and his monks in the house he had
+left were prostrate before the high altar in the dark church, each in
+his stall, praying for mercy.
+
+“O God, the heathens are come into thine inheritance,” they murmured,
+“they have defiled thy holy temple.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not until the sun was going down in the stormy west that Ralph
+rode up to Durford abbey. The rain had ceased an hour before sunset, and
+the wet roofs shone in the evening light.
+
+There were certain signs of stir as he came up. One or two idlers were
+standing outside the gate-house; the door was wide open, and a couple of
+horses were being led away round the corner.
+
+Inside the court as he rode through he saw further signs of confusion.
+Half a dozen packhorses were waiting with hanging heads outside the
+stable door, and an agitated lay brother was explaining to a canon in
+his white habit, rochet and cap, that there was no more room. He threw
+out his hands with a gesture of despair towards Ralph as he came in.
+
+“Mother of God!” he said, “here is another of them.”
+
+The priest frowned at him, and hurried up to Ralph.
+
+“Yes, father,” said Ralph, “I am another of them.”
+
+The canon explained that the stable was full, that they were
+exceedingly sorry, but that they were but a poor house; and that he was
+glad to say there was an outhouse round the corner outside where the
+beasts could be lodged.
+
+“But as for yourself, sir,” he said, “I know not what to do. We have
+every room full. You are a friend of Dr. Layton’s, sir?”
+
+“I am one of the Visitors,” said Ralph. “You must make room.”
+
+The priest sucked his lips in.
+
+“I see nothing for it,” he said, “Dr. Layton and you, sir, must share a
+room.”
+
+Ralph threw a leg over the saddle and slipped to the ground.
+
+“Where is he?” he asked.
+
+“He is with my Lord Abbot, sir,” he said. “Will you come with me?”
+
+The canon led the way across the court, his white fur tails swinging as
+he went, and took Ralph through the cloister into one of the parlours.
+There was a sound of a high scolding voice as he threw open the door.
+
+“What in God’s name are ye for then, if ye have not hospitality?”
+
+Dr. Layton turned round as Ralph came in. He was flushed with passion;
+his mouth worked, and his eyes were brutal.
+
+“See this, Mr. Torridon,” he said. “There is neither room for man or
+beast in this damned abbey. The guest house has no more than half a
+dozen rooms, and the stable--why, it is not fit for pigs, let alone the
+horses of the King’s Visitors.”
+
+The Abbot, a young man with a delicate face, very pale now and
+trembling, broke in deprecatingly.
+
+“I am very sorry, gentlemen,” he said, looking from one to the other,
+“but it is not my fault. It is in better repair than when I came to it.
+I have done my best with my Lord Abbot of Welbeck; but we are very poor,
+and he can give me no more.”
+
+Layton growled at him.
+
+“I don’t say it’s you, man; we shall know better when we have looked
+into your accounts; but I’ll have a word to say at Welbeck.”
+
+“We are to share a room, Dr. Layton,” put in Ralph. “At least--”
+
+The doctor turned round again at that, and stormed once more.
+
+“I cannot help it, gentlemen,” retorted the Abbot desperately. “I have
+given up my own chamber already. I can but do my best.”
+
+Ralph hastened to interpose. His mind revolted at this coarse bullying,
+in spite of his contempt at this patient tolerance on the part of the
+Abbot.
+
+“I shall do very well, my Lord Abbot,” he said. “I shall give no
+trouble. You may put me where you please.”
+
+The young prelate looked at him gratefully.
+
+“We will do our best, sir,” he said. “Will you come, gentlemen, and see
+your chambers?”
+
+Layton explained to Ralph as they went along the poor little cloister
+that he himself had only arrived an hour before.
+
+“I had a rare time among the monks,” he whispered, “and have some tales
+to make you laugh.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He grew impatient again presently at the poor furnishing of the rooms,
+and kicked over a broken chair.
+
+“I will have something better than that,” he said. “Get me one from the
+church.”
+
+The young Abbot faced him.
+
+“What do you want of us, Dr. Layton? Is it riches or poverty? Which
+think you that Religious ought to have?”
+
+The priest gave a bark of laughter.
+
+“You have me there, my lord,” he said; and nudged Ralph.
+
+They sat down to supper presently in the parlour downstairs, a couple of
+dishes of meat, and a bottle of Spanish wine. Dr. Layton grew voluble.
+
+“I have a deal to tell you, Mr. Torridon,” he said, “and not a few
+things to show you,--silver crosses and such like; but those we will
+look at to-morrow. I doubt whether we shall add much to it here, though
+there is a relic-case that would look well on Master Cromwell’s table;
+it is all set with agates. But the tales you shall have now. My servant
+will be here directly with the papers.”
+
+A man came in presently with a bag of documents, and Layton seized them
+eagerly.
+
+“See here, Mr. Torridon,” he said, shaking the papers on to the table,
+“here is a story-box for the ladies. Draw your chair to the fire.”
+
+Ralph felt an increasing repugnance for the man; but he said nothing;
+and brought up his seat to the wide hearth on which the logs burned
+pleasantly in the cold little room.
+
+The priest lifted the bundle on to his lap, crossed his legs
+comfortably, with a glass of wine at his elbow, and began to read.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a while Ralph wondered how the man could have the effrontery to call
+his notes by the name of evidence. They consisted of a string of obscene
+guesses, founded upon circumstances that were certainly compatible with
+guilt, but no less compatible with innocence. There was a quantity of
+gossip gathered from country-people and coloured by the most flagrant
+animus, and even so the witnesses did not agree. Such sentences as “It
+is reported in the country round that the prior is a lewd man” were
+frequent in the course of the reading, and were often the chief evidence
+offered in a case.
+
+In one of the most categorical stories, Ralph leaned forward and
+interrupted.
+
+“Forgive me, Master Layton,” he said, “but who is Master What’s-his-name
+who says all this?”
+
+The priest waved the paper in the air.
+
+“A monk himself,” he said, “a monk himself! That is the cream of it.”
+
+“A monk!” exclaimed Ralph.
+
+“He was one till last year,” explained the priest.
+
+“And then?” said the other.
+
+“He was expelled the monastery. He knew too much, you see.”
+
+Ralph leaned back.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half an hour later there was a change in his attitude: his doubts were
+almost gone; the flood of detail was too vast to be dismissed as wholly
+irrelevant; his imagination was affected by the evidence from without
+and his will from within, and he listened without hostility, telling
+himself that he desired only truth and justice.
+
+There were at least half a dozen stories in the mass of filthy suspicion
+that the priest exultingly poured out which appeared convincing;
+particularly one about which Ralph put a number of questions.
+
+In this there was first a quantity of vague evidence gathered from the
+country-folk, who were, unless Layton lied quite unrestrainedly,
+convinced of the immoral life of a certain monk. The report of his sin
+had penetrated ten miles from the house where he lived. There was
+besides definite testimony from one of his fellows, precise and
+detailed; and there was lastly a half admission from the culprit
+himself. All this was worked up with great skill--suggestive epithets
+were plastered over the weak spots in the evidence; clever theories put
+forward to account for certain incompatibilities; and to Ralph at least
+it was convincing.
+
+He found himself growing hot with anger at the thought of the hypocrisy
+of this monk’s life. Here the fellow had been living in gross sin month
+after month, and all the while standing at the altar morning by morning,
+and going about in the habit of a professed servant of Jesus Christ!
+
+“But I have kept the cream till the last,” put in Dr. Layton. And he
+read out a few more hideous sentences, that set Ralph’s heart heaving
+with disgust.
+
+He began now to feel the beginnings of that fury against white-washed
+vice with which worldly souls are so quick to burn. He would have said
+that he himself professed no holiness beyond the average, and would have
+acknowledged privately at least that he was at any rate uncertain of the
+whole dogmatic scheme of religion; but that he could not tolerate a man
+whose whole life was on the outside confessedly devoted to both sides of
+religion, faith and morals, and who claimed the world’s reverence for
+himself on the score of it. He knit his forehead in a righteous fury,
+and his fingers began to drum softly on his chair-arms.
+
+Dr. Layton now began to recur to some of the first stories he had told,
+and to build up their weak places; and now that Ralph was roused his
+critical faculty subsided. They appeared more convincing than before in
+the light of this later evidence. _Ex pede Herculem_--from the fellow
+who had confessed he interpreted the guilt of those who had not. The
+seed of suspicion sprang quickly in the soil that hungered for it.
+
+This then was the fair religious system that was dispersed over England;
+and this the interior life of those holy looking roofs and buildings
+surmounted by the sign of the Crucified, visible in every town to point
+men to God. When he saw a serene monk’s face again he would know what
+kind of soul it covered; he would understand as never before how vice
+could wear a mask of virtue.
+
+The whole of that flimsy evidence that he had heard before took a new
+colour; those hints and suspicions and guesses grew from shadow to
+substance. Those dark spots were not casual filth dropped from above,
+they were the symptoms of a deep internal infection.
+
+As Dr. Layton went on with his tales, gathered and garnered with
+devilish adroitness, and presented as convincingly as a clever brain
+could do it, the black certainty fell deeper and deeper on Ralph’s soul,
+and by the time that the priest chuckled for the last time that evening,
+and gathered up his papers from the boards where they had fallen one by
+one, he had done his work in another soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A HOUSE OF LADIES
+
+
+They parted the next day, Dr. Layton to Waverly, where he proposed to
+sleep on Saturday night, and Ralph to the convent at Rusper.
+
+He had learnt now how the work was to be done; and he had been equipped
+for it in a way that not even Dr. Layton himself suspected; for he had
+been set aflame with that filth-fed fire with which so many hearts were
+burning at this time. He had all the saint’s passion for purity, without
+the charity of his holiness.
+
+He had learnt too the technical details of his work--those rough methods
+by which men might be coerced, and the high-sounding phrases with which
+to gild the coercion. All that morning he had sat side by side with Dr.
+Layton in the chapter-house, inspecting the books, comparing the
+possessions of the monastery with the inventories of them, examining
+witnesses as to the credibility of the lists offered, and making
+searching enquiries as to whether any land or plate had been sold. After
+that, when a silver relic-case had been added to Dr. Layton’s
+collection, the Religious and servants and all else who cared to offer
+evidence on other matters, were questioned one by one and their answers
+entered in a book. Lastly, when the fees for the Visitation had been
+collected, arrangements had been made, which in the Visitors’ opinion,
+would be most serviceable to the carrying out of the injunctions; fresh
+officials were appointed to various posts, and the Abbot himself
+ordered to go up to London and present himself to Master Cromwell; but
+he was furnished with a letter commending his zeal and discretion, for
+the Visitors had found that he had done his duty to the buildings and
+lands; and stated that they had nothing to complain of except the
+poverty of the house.
+
+“And so much for Durford,” said Layton genially, as he closed the last
+book just before dinner-time, “though it had been better called
+Dirtyford.” And he chuckled at his humour.
+
+After dinner he had gone out with Ralph to see him mount; had thanked
+him for his assistance, and had reminded him that they would meet again
+at Lewes in the course of a month or so.
+
+“God speed you!” he cried as the party rode off.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph’s fury had died to a glow, but it was red within him; the reading
+last night had done its work well, driven home by the shrewd conviction
+of a man of the world, experienced in the ways of vice. It had not died
+with the dark. He could not say that he was attracted to Dr. Layton; the
+priest’s shocking familiarity with the more revolting forms of sin, as
+well as his under-breeding and brutality, made him a disagreeable
+character; but Ralph had very little doubt now that his judgment on the
+religious houses was a right one. Even the nunneries, it seemed, were
+not free from taint; there had been one or two terrible tales on the
+previous evening; and Ralph was determined to spare them nothing, and at
+any rate to remove his sister from their power. He remembered with
+satisfaction that she was below the age specified, and that he would
+have authority to dismiss her from the home.
+
+He knew very little of Margaret; and had scarcely seen her once in two
+years. He had been already out in the world before she had ceased to be
+a child, and from what little he had seen of her he had thought of her
+but as little more than a milk-and-water creature, very delicate and
+shy, always at her prayers, or trailing about after nuns with a pale
+radiant face. She had been sent to Rusper for her education, and he
+never saw her except now and then when they chanced to be at home
+together for a few days. She used to look at him, he remembered, with
+awe-stricken eyes and parted lips, hardly daring to speak when he was in
+the room, continually to be met with going from or to the tall quiet
+chapel.
+
+He had always supposed that she would be a nun, and had acquiesced in it
+in a cynical sort of way; but he was going to acquiesce no longer now.
+Of course she would sob, but equally of course she would not dare to
+resist.
+
+He called Morris up to him presently as they emerged from one of the
+bridle paths on to a kind of lane where two could ride abreast. The
+servant had seemed oddly silent that morning.
+
+“We are going to Rusper,” said Ralph.
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Mistress Margaret is there.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“She will come away with us. I may have to send you on to Overfield with
+her. You must find a horse for her somehow.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+There was silence between the two for a minute or two. Mr. Morris had
+answered with as much composure as if he had been told to brush a coat.
+Ralph began to wonder what he really felt.
+
+“What do you think of all this, Morris?” he asked in a moment or two.
+
+The servant was silent, till Ralph glanced at him impatiently.
+
+“It is not for me to have an opinion, sir,” said Mr. Morris.
+
+Ralph gave a very short laugh.
+
+“You haven’t heard what I have,” he said, “or you would soon have an
+opinion.”
+
+“Yes, sir,” said Morris as impassively as before.
+
+“I tell you--” and then Ralph broke off, and rode on silent and moody.
+Mr. Morris gradually let his horse fall back behind his master.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They began to come towards Rusper as the evening drew in, by a bridle
+path that led from the west, and on arriving at the village found that
+they had overshot their mark, and ought to have turned sooner. The
+nunnery, a man told them, was a mile away to the south-west. Ralph made
+a few enquiries, and learnt that it was a smallish house, and that it
+was scarcely likely that room could be found for his party of four; so
+he left Morris to make enquiries for lodgings in the village, and
+himself rode on alone to the nunnery, past the church and the
+timberhouses.
+
+It was a bad road, and his tired horse had to pick his way very slowly,
+so that it was nearly dark before he came to his destination, and the
+pointed roofs rose before him against the faintly luminous western sky.
+There were lights in one or two windows as he came up that looked warm
+and homely in the chill darkness; and as he sat on his horse listening
+to the jangle of the bell within, just a breath of doubtfulness touched
+his heart for a moment as he thought of the peaceful home-life that lay
+packed within those walls, and of the errand on which he had come.
+
+But the memory of the tales he had heard, haunted him still; and he
+spoke in a harsh voice as the shutter slid back, and a little
+criss-crossed square of light appeared in the black doorway.
+
+“I am one of the King’s Visitors,” he said. “Let my Lady Abbess know I
+am here. I must speak with her.”
+
+There was a stifled sound behind the grating; and Ralph caught a glimpse
+of a pair of eyes looking at him. Then the square grew dark again. It
+was a minute or two before anything further happened, and Ralph as he
+sat cold and hungry on his horse, began to grow impatient. His hand was
+on the twisted iron handle to ring again fiercely, when there was a step
+within, and a light once more shone out.
+
+“Who is it?” said an old woman’s voice, with a note of anxiety in it.
+
+“I have sent word in,” said Ralph peevishly, “that I am one of the
+King’s Visitors. I should be obliged if I might not be kept here all
+night.”
+
+There was a moment’s silence; the horse sighed sonorously.
+
+“How am I to know, sir?” said the voice again.
+
+“Because I tell you so,” snapped Ralph. “And if more is wanted, my name
+is Torridon. You have a sister of mine in there.”
+
+There was an exclamation from within; and the sound of whispering; and
+then hasty footsteps went softly across the paved court inside.
+
+The voice spoke again.
+
+“I ask your pardon, sir; but have you any paper--or--”
+
+Ralph snatched out a document of identification, and leaned forward
+from his horse to pass it through the opening. He felt trembling fingers
+take it from him; and a moment later heard returning footsteps.
+
+There was a rustle of paper, and then a whisper within.
+
+“Well, my dear?”
+
+Something shifted in the bright square, and it grew gloomy as a face
+pressed up against the bars. Then again it shifted and the light shone
+out, and a flutter of whispers followed.
+
+“Really, madam--” began Ralph; but there was the jingle of keys, and the
+sound of panting, and almost immediately a bolt shot back, followed by
+the noise of a key turning. A chorus of whispers broke out and a scurry
+of footsteps, and then the door opened inwards and a little old woman
+stood there in a black habit, her face swathed in white above and below.
+The others had vanished.
+
+“I am very sorry, Mr. Torridon, to have kept you at the door; but we
+have to be very careful. Will you bring your horse in, sir?”
+
+Ralph was a little abashed by the sudden development of the situation,
+and explained that he had only come to announce his arrival; he had
+supposed that there would not be room at the nunnery.
+
+“But we have a little guest-house here,” announced the old lady with a
+dignified air, “and room for your horse.”
+
+Ralph hesitated; but he was tired and hungry.
+
+“Come in, Mr. Torridon. You had better dismount and lead your horse in.
+Sister Anne will see to it.”
+
+“Well, if you are sure--” began Ralph again, slipping a foot out of the
+stirrup.
+
+“I am sure,” said the Abbess; and stood aside for him and his beast to
+pass.
+
+There was a little court, lighted by a single lamp burning within a
+window, with the nunnery itself on one side, and a small cottage on the
+other. Beyond the latter rose the roofs of an outhouse.
+
+As Ralph came in, the door from the nunnery opened again, and a lay
+sister came out hastily; she moved straight across and took the horse by
+the bridle.
+
+“Give him a good meal, sister,” said the Abbess; and went past Ralph to
+the door of the guest-house.
+
+“Come in, Mr. Torridon; there will be lights immediately.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In half an hour Ralph found himself at supper in the guest-parlour; a
+bright fire crackled on the hearth, a couple of candles burned on the
+table, and a pair of old darned green curtains hung across the low
+window.
+
+The Abbess came in when he had finished, dismissed the lay-sister who
+had waited on him, and sat down herself.
+
+“You shall see your sister to-morrow, Mr. Torridon,” she said, “it is a
+little late now. I have sent the boy up to the village for your servant;
+he can sleep in this room if you wish. I fear we have no room for more.”
+
+Ralph watched her as she talked. She was very old, with hanging cheeks,
+and solemn little short-sighted eyes, for she peered at him now and
+again across the candles. Her upper lip was covered with a slight growth
+of dark hair. She seemed strangely harmless; and Ralph had another prick
+of compunction as he thought of the news he had to give her on the
+morrow. He wondered how much she knew.
+
+“We are so glad it is you, Mr. Torridon, that have come to visit us. We
+feared it might be Dr. Layton; we have heard sad stories of him.”
+
+Ralph hardened his heart.
+
+“He has only done his duty, Reverend Mother,” he said.
+
+“Oh! but you cannot have heard,” exclaimed the old lady. “He has robbed
+several of our houses we hear--even the altar itself. And he has turned
+away some of our nuns.”
+
+Ralph was silent; he thought he would at least leave the old lady in
+peace for this last night. She seemed to want no answer; but went on
+expatiating on the horrors that were happening round them, the wicked
+accusations brought against the Religious, and the Divine vengeance that
+would surely fall on those who were responsible.
+
+Finally she turned and questioned him, with a mingling of deference and
+dignity.
+
+“What do you wish from us, Mr. Torridon? You must tell me, that I may
+see that everything is in order.”
+
+Ralph was secretly amused by her air of innocent assurance.
+
+“That is my business, Reverend Mother. I must ask for all the books of
+the house, with the account of any sales you may have effected, properly
+recorded. I must have a list of the inmates of the house, with a
+statement of any corrodies attached; and the names and ages and dates of
+profession of all the Religious.”
+
+The Abbess blinked for a moment.
+
+“Yes, Mr. Torridon. You will allow me of course to see all your papers
+to-morrow; it is necessary for me to be certified that all your part is
+in order.”
+
+Ralph smiled a little grimly.
+
+“You shall see all that,” he said. “And then there is more that I must
+ask; but that will do for a beginning. When I have shown you my papers
+you will see what it is that I want.”
+
+There was a peal at the bell outside; the Abbess turned her head and
+waited till there was a noise of bolts and unlocking.
+
+“That will be your man, sir. Will you have him in now, Mr. Torridon?”
+
+Ralph assented.
+
+“And then he must look at the horses to see that all is as you wish.”
+
+Mr. Morris came in a moment later, and bowed with great deference to the
+little old lady, who enquired his name.
+
+“When you have finished with your man, Mr. Torridon, perhaps you will
+allow him to ring for me at the door opposite. I will go with him to see
+the horses.”
+
+Mr. Morris had brought with him the mass of his master’s papers, and
+when he had set these out and prepared the bedroom that opened out of
+the guest-parlour, he asked leave to go across and fetch the Abbess.
+
+Ralph busied himself for half-an-hour or so in running over the Articles
+and Injunctions once more, and satisfying himself that he was perfect in
+his business; and he was just beginning to wonder why his servant had
+not reappeared when the door opened once more, and Mr. Morris slipped
+in.
+
+“My horse is a little lame, sir,” he said. “I have been putting on a
+poultice.”
+
+Ralph glanced up.
+
+“He will be fit to travel, I suppose?”
+
+“In a day or two, Mr. Ralph.”
+
+“Well; that will do. We shall be here till Monday at least.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph could not sleep very well that night. The thought of his business
+troubled him a little. It would have been easier if the Abbess had been
+either more submissive or more defiant; but her air of mingled courtesy
+and dignity affected him. Her innocence too had something touching in
+it, and her apparent ignorance of what his visit meant. He had supped
+excellently at her expense, waited on by a cheerful sister, and well
+served from the kitchen and cellar; and the Reverend Mother herself had
+come in and talked sensibly and bravely. He pictured to himself what
+life must be like through the nunnery wall opposite--how brisk and
+punctual it must be, and at the same time homely and caressing.
+
+And it was his hand that was to pull down the first prop. There would no
+doubt be three or four nuns below age who must be dismissed, and
+probably there would be a few treasures to be carried off, a
+processional crucifix perhaps, such as he had seen in Dr. Layton’s
+collection, and a rich chalice or two, used on great days. His own
+sister too must be one of those who must go. How would the little old
+Abbess behave herself then? What would she say? Yet he comforted
+himself, as he lay there in the clean, low-ceilinged room, staring at
+the tiny crockery stoup gleaming against the door-post, by recollecting
+the principle on which he had come. Possibly a few innocents would have
+to suffer, a few old hearts be broken; but it was for a man to take such
+things in his day’s work.
+
+And then as he remembered Dr. Layton’s tales, his heart grew hot and
+hard again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
+
+
+The enquiry was to be made in the guest-parlour on the next morning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph went to mass first at nine o’clock, which was said by a priest
+from the parish church who acted as chaplain to the convent; and had a
+chair set for him outside the nuns’ choir from which he could see the
+altar and the tall pointed window; and then, after some refreshment in
+the guest-parlour, spread out his papers, and sat enthroned behind a
+couple of tables, as at a tribunal. Mr. Morris stood deferentially by
+his chair as the examination was conducted.
+
+Ralph was a little taken aback by the bearing of the Abbess. In the
+course of the enquiry, when he was perplexed by one or two of the
+records, she rose from her chair before the table, and came round to his
+side, drawing up a seat as she did so; Ralph could hardly tell her to go
+back, but his magisterial air was a little affected by having one whom
+he almost considered as a culprit sitting judicially beside him.
+
+“It is better for me to be here,” she said. “I can explain more easily
+so.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a little orchard that the nuns had sold in the previous year;
+and Ralph asked for an explanation.
+
+“It came from the Kingsford family,” she said serenely; “it was useless
+to us.”
+
+“But--” began the inquisitor.
+
+“We needed some new vestments,” she went on. “You will understand, Mr.
+Torridon, that it was necessary for us to sell it. We are not rich
+at all.”
+
+There was nothing else that called for comment; except the manner in
+which the books were kept. Ralph suggested some other method.
+
+“Dame Agnes has her own ways,” said the old lady. “We must not disturb
+her.”
+
+And Dame Agnes assumed a profound and financial air on the other side of
+the table.
+
+Presently Ralph put a mark in the inventory against a “cope of gold
+bawdekin,” and requested that it might be brought.
+
+The sister-sacristan rose at a word from the Abbess and went out,
+returning presently with the vestment. She unfolded the coverings and
+spread it out on the table before Ralph.
+
+It was a magnificent piece of work, of shimmering gold, with orphreys
+embroidered with arms; and she stroked out its folds with obvious pride.
+
+“These are Warham’s arms,” observed the Abbess. “You know them, Mr.
+Torridon? We worked these the month before his death.”
+
+Ralph nodded briskly.
+
+“Will you kindly leave it here, Reverend Mother,” he said. “I wish to
+see it again presently.”
+
+The Abbess gave no hint of discomposure, but signed to the sacristan to
+place it over a chair at one side.
+
+There were a couple of other things that Ralph presently caused to be
+fetched and laid aside--a precious mitre with a couple of cameos in
+front, and bordered with emeralds, and a censer with silver filigree
+work.
+
+Then came a more difficult business.
+
+“I wish to see the nuns one by one, Reverend Mother,” he said. “I must
+ask you to withdraw.”
+
+The Abbess gave him a quick look, and then rose.
+
+“Very well, sir, I will send them in.” And she went out with Mr. Morris
+behind her.
+
+They came in one by one, and sat down before the table, with downcast
+eyes, and hands hidden beneath their scapulars; and all told the same
+tale, except one. They had nothing to complain of; they were happy; the
+Rule was carefully observed; there were no scandals to be revealed; they
+asked nothing but to be left in peace. But there was one who came in
+nervously and anxiously towards the end, a woman with quick black eyes,
+who glanced up and down and at the door as she sat down. Ralph put the
+usual questions.
+
+“I wish to be released, sir,” she said. “I am weary of the life, and
+the--” she stopped and glanced swiftly up again at the commissioner.
+
+“Well?” said Ralph.
+
+“The papistical ways,” she said.
+
+Ralph felt a sudden distrust of the woman; but he hardened his heart. He
+set a mark opposite her name; she had been professed ten years, he saw
+by the list.
+
+“Very well,” he said; “I will tell my Lady Abbess.” She still hesitated
+a moment.
+
+“There will be a provision for me?” she asked
+
+“There will be a provision,” said Ralph a little grimly. He was
+authorised to offer in such cases a secular dress and a sum of five
+shillings.
+
+Lastly came in Margaret herself.
+
+Ralph hardly knew her. He had been unable to distinguish her at mass,
+and even now as she faced him in her black habit and white head-dress it
+was hard to be certain of her identity. But memory and sight were
+gradually reconciled; he remembered her delicate eyebrows and thin
+straight lips; and when she spoke he knew her voice.
+
+They talked a minute or two about their home; but Ralph did not dare to
+say too much, considering what he had yet to say.
+
+“I must ask you the questions,” he said at last, smiling at her.
+
+She looked up at him nervously, and dropped her eyes once more.
+
+She nodded or shook her head in silence at each enquiry, until at last
+one bearing upon the morals of the house came up; then she looked
+swiftly up once more, and Ralph saw that her grey eyes were terrified.
+
+“You must tell me,” he said; and put the question again.
+
+“I do not know what you mean,” she answered, staring at him bewildered.
+
+Ralph went on immediately to the next.
+
+At last he reached the crisis.
+
+“Margaret,” he said, “I have something to tell you.” He stopped and
+began to play with his pen. He had seldom felt so embarrassed as now in
+the presence of this shy sister of his of whom he knew so little. He
+could not look at her.
+
+“Margaret, you know, you--you are under age. The King’s Grace has
+ordered that all under twenty years of age are to leave their convents.”
+
+There was a dead silence.
+
+Ralph was enraged with his own weakness. He had begun the morning’s work
+with such determination; but the strange sweet atmosphere of the house,
+the file of women coming in one by one with their air of innocence and
+defencelessness had affected him. In spite of himself his religious side
+had asserted itself, and he found himself almost tremulous now.
+
+He made a great effort at self-repression, and looked up with hard
+bright eyes at his sister.
+
+“There must be no crying or rebellion,” he said. “You must come with me
+to-morrow. I shall send you to Overfield.”
+
+Still Margaret said nothing. She was staring at him now, white-faced
+with parted lips.
+
+“You are the last?” he said with a touch of harshness, standing up with
+his hands on the table. “Tell the Reverend Mother I have done.”
+
+Then she rose too.
+
+“Ralph,” she cried, “my brother! For Jesu’s sake--”
+
+“Tell the Reverend Mother,” he said again, his eyes hard with decision.
+
+She turned and went out without a word.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph found the interview with the Abbess even more difficult than he
+had expected.
+
+Once her face twitched with tears; but she drove them back bravely and
+faced him again.
+
+“Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Torridon, that you intend to take your
+sister away?”
+
+Ralph bowed.
+
+“And that Dame Martha has asked to be released?”
+
+Again he bowed.
+
+“Are you not afraid, sir, to do such work?”
+
+Ralph smiled bitterly.
+
+“I am not, Reverend Mother,” he said. “I know too much.”
+
+“From whom?”
+
+“Oh! not from your nuns,” he said sharply, “they of course know nothing,
+or at least will tell me nothing. It was from Dr. Layton.”
+
+“And what did Dr. Layton tell you?”
+
+“I can hardly tell you that, Reverend Mother; it is not fit for your
+ears.”
+
+She looked at him steadily.
+
+“And you believe it?”
+
+Ralph smiled.
+
+“That makes no difference,” he said. “I am acting by his Grace’s
+orders.”
+
+There was silence for a moment.
+
+“Then may our Lord have mercy on you!” she said.
+
+She turned to where the gold cope gleamed over the chair, with the mitre
+and censer lying on its folds.
+
+“And those too?” she asked.
+
+“Those too,” said Ralph.
+
+She turned towards the door without a word.
+
+“There are the fees as well,” remarked Ralph. “We can arrange those this
+evening, Reverend Mother.”
+
+The little stiff figure turned and waited at the door. “And at what time
+will you dine, sir?”
+
+“Immediately,” said Ralph.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was served at dinner with the same courtesy as before; but the lay
+sister’s eyes were red, and her hands shook as she shifted the plates.
+Neither spoke a word till towards the end of the meal.
+
+“Where is my man?” asked Ralph, who had not seen him since he had gone
+out with the Abbess a couple of hours before.
+
+The sister shook her head.
+
+“Where is the Reverend Mother?”
+
+Again she shook her head.
+
+Ralph enquired the hour of Vespers, and when he had learnt it, took his
+cap and went out to look for Mr. Morris. He went first to the little
+dark outhouse, and peered in over the bottom half of the door, but there
+was no sign of him there. He could see a horse standing in a stall
+opposite, and tried to make out the second horse that he knew was there;
+but it was too dark, and he turned away.
+
+It was a warm October afternoon as he went out through the gatehouse,
+still and bright, with the mellow smell of dying leaves in the air; the
+fields stretched away beyond the road into the blue distance as he went
+along, and were backed by the thinning woods, still ruddy with the last
+flames of autumn. Overhead the blue sky, washed with recent rains,
+arched itself in a great transparent vault, and a stream of birds
+crossed it from east to west.
+
+He went round the corner of the convent buildings and turned up into a
+meadow beside a thick privet hedge that divided it from the garden, and
+as he moved along he heard a low humming noise sounding from the other
+side.
+
+There was a door in the hedge at the point, and at either side the
+growth was a little thin, and he could look through without being
+himself seen.
+
+The grass was trim and smooth inside; there was a mass of autumn
+flowers, grown no doubt for the altar, running in a broad bed across the
+nearer side of the garden, and beyond it rose a grey dial, round which
+sat a circle of nuns.
+
+Ralph pressed his face to the hedge and watched.
+
+There they were, each with her wheel before her, spinning in silence.
+The Abbess sat in the centre, immediately below the dial, with a book in
+her hand, and was turning the pages.
+
+He could see a nun’s face steadily bent on her wheel--that was Dame
+Agnes who had fetched the cope for him in the morning. She seemed
+perfectly quiet and unaffected, watching her thread, and putting out a
+deft hand now and again to the machinery. Beside her sat another, whose
+face he remembered well; she had stammered a little as she gave her
+answers in the morning, and even as he looked the face twitched
+suddenly, and broke into tears. He saw the Abbess turn from her book and
+lay her hand, with a kind of tender decision on the nun’s arm, and saw
+her lips move, but the hum and rattle of the spinning-wheels was too
+loud to let him hear what she said; he saw now the other nun lift her
+face again from her hands, and wink away her tears as she laid hold of
+the thread once more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph had a strange struggle with himself that afternoon as he walked on
+in the pleasant autumn weather through meadow and copse. The sight of
+the patient women had touched him profoundly. Surely it was almost too
+much to ask him to turn away his own sister from the place she loved! If
+he relented, it was certain that no other Visitor would come that way
+for the present; she might at least have another year or two of peace.
+Was it too late?
+
+He reminded himself again how such things were bound to happen; how
+every change, however beneficial, must bring sorrow with it, and that to
+turn back on such work because a few women suffered was not worthy of a
+man. It was long before he could come to any decision, and the evening
+was drawing on, and the time for Vespers come and gone before he turned
+at last into the village to enquire for his servant.
+
+The other men had seen nothing of Mr. Morris that day; he had not been
+back to the village.
+
+A group or two stared awefully at the fine gentleman with the strong
+face and steady intolerant eyes, as he strode down the tiny street in
+his rich dress, swinging his long silver-headed cane. They had learnt
+who he was now, but were so overcome by seeing the King’s Commissioner
+that they forgot to salute him. As he turned the corner again he looked
+round once more, and there they were still watching him. A few women had
+come to the doors as well, and dropped their arched hands hastily and
+disappeared as he turned.
+
+The convent seemed all as he had left it earlier in the afternoon, as he
+came in sight of it again. The high chapel roof rose clear against the
+reddening sky, with the bell framed in its turret distinct as if carved
+out of cardboard against the splendour.
+
+He was admitted instantly when he rang on the bell, but the portress
+seemed to look at him with a strange air of expectancy, and stood
+looking after him as he went across the paved court to the door of the
+guest-house.
+
+There was a murmur of voices in the parlour as he paused in the entry,
+and he wondered who was within, but as his foot rang out the sound
+ceased.
+
+He opened the door and went in; and then stopped bewildered.
+
+In the dim light that passed through the window stood his father and
+Mary Maxwell, his sister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+FATHER AND SON
+
+
+None of the three spoke for a moment.
+
+Then Mary drew her breath sharply as she saw Ralph’s face, for it had
+hardened during that moment into a kind of blind obstinacy which she had
+only seen once or twice in her life before.
+
+As he stood there he seemed to stiffen into resistance. His eyelids
+drooped, and little lines showed themselves suddenly at either side of
+his thin mouth. His father saw it too, for the hand that he had lifted
+entreatingly sank again, and his voice was tremulous as he spoke.
+
+“Ralph--Ralph, my son!” he said.
+
+Still the man said nothing; but stood frozen, his face half-turned to
+the windows.
+
+“Ralph, my son,” said the other again, “you know why we have come.”
+
+“You have come to hinder my business.”
+
+His voice was thin and metallic, as rigid as steel.
+
+“We have come to hinder a great sin against God,” said Sir James.
+
+Ralph opened his eyes wide with a sort of fury, and thrust his chin out.
+
+“She should pack a thousand times more now than before,” he said.
+
+The father’s face too deepened into strength now, and he drew himself
+up.
+
+“Do you know what you are doing?” he said.
+
+“I do, sir.”
+
+There was an extraordinary insolence in his voice, and Mary took a step
+forward.
+
+“Oh! Ralph,” she said, “at least do it like a gentleman!”
+
+Ralph turned on her sharply, and the obstinacy vanished in anger.
+
+“I will not be pushed like this,” he snarled. “What right is it of yours
+to come between me and my work?”
+
+Sir James made a quick imperious gesture, and his air of entreaty fell
+from him like a cloak.
+
+“Sit down, sir,” he said, and his voice rang strongly. “We have a right
+in Margaret’s affairs. We will say what we wish.”
+
+Mary glanced at him: she had never seen her father like this before as
+he stood in three quarter profile, rigid with decision. When she looked
+at Ralph again, his face had tightened once more into obstinacy. He
+answered Sir James with a kind of silky deference.
+
+“Of course, I will sit down, sir, and you shall say what you will.”
+
+He went across the room and drew out a couple of chairs before the cold
+hearth where the white ashes and logs of last night’s fire still rested.
+Sir James sat down with his back to the window so that Mary could not
+see his face, and Ralph stood by the other chair a moment, facing her.
+
+“Sit down, Mary,” he said. “Wait, I will have candles.”
+
+He stepped back to the door and called to the portress, and then
+returned, and seated himself deliberately, setting his cane in the
+corner beside him.
+
+None of the three spoke again until the nun had come in with a couple of
+candles that she set in the stands and lighted; then she went out
+without glancing at anyone. Mary was sitting in the window seat, so the
+curtains remained undrawn, and there was a mystical compound of twilight
+and candle-light in the room.
+
+She had a flash of metaphor, and saw in it the meeting of the old and
+new religions; the type of these two men, of whom the light of one was
+fading, and the other waxing. The candlelight fell full on Ralph’s face
+that stood out against the whitewashed wall behind.
+
+Then she listened and watched with an intent interest.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“It is this,” said Sir James, “we heard you were here--”
+
+Ralph smiled with one side of his mouth, so that his father could see
+it.
+
+“I do not wish to do anything I should not,” went on the old man, “or to
+meddle in his Grace’s matters--”
+
+“And you wish me not to meddle either, sir,” put in Ralph.
+
+“Yes,” said his father. “I am very willing to receive you and your wife
+at home; to make any suitable provision; to give you half the house if
+you wish for it; if you will only give up this accursed work.”
+
+He was speaking with a tranquil deliberation; all the emotion and
+passion seemed to have left his voice; but Mary, from behind, could see
+his right hand clenched like a vice upon the knob of his chair-arm. It
+seemed to her as if the two men had suddenly frozen into
+self-repression. Their air was one of two acquaintances talking, not of
+father and son.
+
+“And if not, sir?” asked Ralph with the same courtesy.
+
+“Wait,” said his father, and he lifted his hand a moment and dropped it
+again. He was speaking in short, sharp sentences. “I know that you have
+great things before you, and that I am asking much from you. I do not
+wish you to think that I am ignorant of that. If nothing else will do I
+am willing to give up the house altogether to you and your wife. I do
+not know about your mother.”
+
+Mary drew her breath hard. The words were like an explosion in her soul,
+and opened up unsuspected gulfs. Things must be desperate if her father
+could speak like that. He had not hinted a word of this during that
+silent strenuous ride they had had together when he had called for her
+suddenly at Great Keynes earlier in the afternoon. She saw Ralph give a
+quick stare at his father, and drop his eyes again.
+
+“You are very generous, sir,” he said almost immediately, “but I do not
+ask for a bribe.”
+
+“You--you are unlike your master in that, then,” said Sir James by an
+irresistible impulse.
+
+Ralph’s face stiffened yet more.
+
+“Then that is all, sir?” he asked.
+
+“I beg your pardon for saying that,” added his father courteously. “It
+should not have been said. It is not a bribe, however; it is an offer to
+compensate for any loss you may incur.”
+
+“Have you finished, sir?”
+
+“That is all I have to say on that point,” said Sir James, “except--”
+
+“Well, sir?”
+
+“Except that I do not know how Mistress Atherton will take this story.”
+
+Ralph’s face grew a shade paler yet. But his lips snapped together,
+though his eyes flinched.
+
+“That is a threat, sir.”
+
+“That is as you please.”
+
+A little pulse beat sharply in Ralph’s cheek. He was looking with a
+kind of steady fury at his father. But Mary thought she saw indecision
+too in his eye-lids, which were quivering almost imperceptibly.
+
+“You have offered me a bribe and a threat, sir. Two insults. Have you a
+third ready?”
+
+Mary heard a swift-drawn breath from her father, but he spoke quietly.
+
+“I have no more to say on that point,” he said.
+
+“Then I must refuse,” said Ralph instantly. “I see no reason to give up
+my work. I have very hearty sympathy with it.”
+
+The old man’s hand twitched uncontrollably on his chair-arm for a
+moment; he half lifted his hand, but he dropped it again.
+
+“Then as to Margaret,” he went on in a moment. “I understand you had
+intended to dismiss her from the convent?”
+
+Ralph bowed.
+
+“And where do you suggest that she should go?”
+
+“She must go home,” said Ralph.
+
+“To Overfield?”
+
+Ralph assented.
+
+“Then I will not receive her,” said Sir James.
+
+Mary started up.
+
+“Nor will Mary receive her,” he added, half turning towards her.
+
+Mary Maxwell sat back at once. She thought she understood what he meant
+now.
+
+Ralph stared at his father a moment before he too understood. Then he
+saw the point, and riposted deftly. He shrugged his shoulders
+ostentatiously as if to shake off responsibility.
+
+“Well, then, that is not my business; I shall give her a gown and five
+shillings to-morrow, with the other one.”
+
+The extraordinary brutality of the words struck Mary like a whip, but
+Sir James met it.
+
+“That is for you to settle then,” he said. “Only you need not send her
+to Overfield or Great Keynes, for she will be sent back here at once.”
+
+Ralph smiled with an air of tolerant incredulity. Sir James rose
+briskly.
+
+“Come, Mary,” he said, and turned his back abruptly on Ralph, “we must
+find lodgings for to-night. The good nuns will not have room.”
+
+As Mary looked at his face in the candlelight she was astonished by its
+decision; there was not the smallest hint of yielding. It was very pale
+but absolutely determined, and for the last time in her life she noticed
+how like it was to Ralph’s. The line of the lips was identical, and his
+eyelids drooped now like his son’s.
+
+Ralph too rose and then on a sudden she saw the resolute obstinacy fade
+from his eyes and mouth. It was as if the spirit of one man had passed
+into the other.
+
+“Father--” he said.
+
+She expected a rush of emotion into the old man’s face, but there was
+not a ripple. He paused a moment, but Ralph was silent.
+
+“I have no more to say to you, sir. And I beg that you will not come
+home again.”
+
+As they passed out into the entrance passage she turned again and saw
+Ralph dazed and trembling at the table. Then they were out in the road
+through the open gate and a long moan broke from her father.
+
+“Oh! God forgive me,” he said, “have I failed?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A NUN’S DEFIANCE
+
+
+It was a very strange evening that Mary and her father passed in the
+little upstairs room looking on to the street at Rusper.
+
+Sir James had hardly spoken, and after supper had sat near the window,
+with a curious alertness in his face. Mary knew that Chris was expected,
+and that Mr. Morris had ridden on to fetch him after he had called at
+Overfield, but from her short interview with Margaret she had seen that
+his presence would not be required. The young nun, though bewildered and
+stunned by the news that she must go, had not wavered for a moment as
+regards her intention to follow out her Religious vocation in some
+manner; and it was to confirm her in it, in case she hesitated, that Sir
+James had sent on the servant to fetch Chris.
+
+It was all like a dreadful dream to Mary.
+
+She had gone out from dinner at her own house into the pleasant October
+sunshine with her cheerful husband beside her, when her father had come
+out through the house with his riding-whip in his hand; and in a few
+seconds she had found herself plunged into new and passionate relations,
+first with him, for she had never seen him so stirred, and then with her
+brothers and sister. Ralph, that dignified man of affairs, suddenly
+stepped into her mind as a formidable enemy of God and man; Chris
+appeared as a spiritual power, and the quiet Margaret as the very centre
+of the sudden storm.
+
+She sat here now by the fire, shading her face with her hand and
+watching that familiar face set in hard and undreamed lines of passion
+and resolution and expectancy.
+
+Once as footsteps came up the street he had started up and sat down
+trembling.
+
+She waited till the steps went past, and then spoke.
+
+“Chris will be riding, father.”
+
+He nodded abruptly, and she saw by his manner that it was not Chris he
+was expecting. She understood then that he still had hopes of his other
+son, but they sat on into the night in the deep stillness, till the fire
+burned low and red, and the stars she had seen at the horizon wheeled up
+and out of sight above the window-frame.
+
+Then he suddenly turned to her.
+
+“You must go to bed, Mary,” he said. “I will wait for Chris.”
+
+She lay long awake in the tiny cupboard-room that the labourer and his
+wife had given up to her, hearing the horses stamp in the cold shed at
+the back of the house, and the faces moved and turned like the colours
+of a kaleidoscope. Now her father’s eyes and mouth hung like a mask
+before her, with that terrible look that had been on them as he faced
+Ralph at the end; now Ralph’s own face, defiant, icy, melting in turns;
+now Margaret’s with wide terrified eyes, as she had seen it in the
+parlour that afternoon; now her own husband’s. And the sweet autumn
+woods and meadows lay before her as she had seen them during that silent
+ride; the convent, the village, her own home with its square windows and
+yew hedge--a hundred images.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a talking when she awoke for the last time and through the
+crazy door glimmered a crack of grey dawn, and as she listened she knew
+that Chris was come.
+
+It was a strange meeting when she came out a few minutes later. There
+was the monk, unshaven and pale under the eyes, with his thinned face
+that gave no smile as she came in; her father desperately white and
+resolved; Mr. Morris, spruce and grave as usual sitting with his hat
+between his knees behind the others;--he rose deferentially as she came
+in and remained standing.
+
+Her father began abruptly as she appeared.
+
+“He can do nothing,” he said, “he can but turn her on to the road. And I
+do not think he will dare.”
+
+“Ah! Beatrice Atherton?” questioned Mary, who had a clearer view of the
+situation now.
+
+“Yes--Beatrice Atherton. He fears that we shall tell her. He cannot send
+Margaret to Overfield or Great Keynes now.”
+
+“And if he turns her out after all?”
+
+Sir James looked at her keenly.
+
+“We must leave the rest to God,” he said.
+
+The village was well awake by the time that they had finished their talk
+and had had something to eat. The drama at the convent had leaked out
+through the boy who served the altar there, and a little group was
+assembled opposite the windows of the cottage to which the monk had been
+seen to ride up an hour or two before. It seemed strange that no priest
+had been near them, but it was fairly evident that the terror was too
+great.
+
+As the four came out on to the road, a clerical cap peeped for a moment
+from the churchyard wall and disappeared again.
+
+They went down towards the convent along the grey road, in the pale
+autumn morning air. Mary still seemed to herself to walk in a dream,
+with her father and brother on either side masquerading in strange
+character; the familiar atmosphere had been swept from them, the
+background of association was gone, and they moved now in a new scene
+with new parts to play that were bringing out powers which she had never
+suspected in them. It seemed as if their essential souls had been laid
+bare by a catastrophe, and that she had never known them before.
+
+For herself, she felt helpless and dazed; her own independence seemed
+gone, and she was aware that her soul was leaning on those of the two
+who walked beside her, and who were masculine and capable beyond all her
+previous knowledge of them.
+
+Behind she heard a murmur of voices and footsteps of three or four
+villagers who followed to see what would happen.
+
+She had no idea of what her father meant to do; it was incredible that
+he should leave Margaret in the road with her gown and five shillings;
+but it was yet more incredible that all his threats should be idle. Only
+one thing emerged clearly, that he had thrown a heavier responsibility
+upon Ralph than the latter had foreseen. Perhaps the rest must indeed be
+left to God. She did not even know what he meant to do now, whether to
+make one last effort with Ralph, or to leave him to himself; and she had
+not dared to ask.
+
+They passed straight down together in silence to the convent-gate; and
+were admitted immediately by the portress whose face was convulsed and
+swollen.
+
+“They are to go,” she sobbed.
+
+Sir James made a gesture, and passed in to the tiny lodge on the left
+where the portress usually sat; Chris and Mary followed him in, and Mr.
+Morris went across to the guest-house.
+
+The bell sounded out overhead for mass as they sat there in the dim
+morning light, twenty or thirty strokes, and ceased; but there was no
+movement from the little door of the guest-house across the court. The
+portress had disappeared through the second door that led from the tiny
+room in which they sat, into the precincts of the convent itself.
+
+Mary looked distractedly round her; at the little hatch that gave on to
+the entrance gate, and the chain hanging by it that communicated with
+one of the bolts, at the little crucifix that hung beside it, the
+devotional book that lay on the shelf, the door into the convent with
+the title “_Clausura_” inscribed above it. She glanced at her father and
+brother.
+
+Sir James was sitting with his grey head in his hands, motionless and
+soundless; Chris was standing upright and rigid, staring steadily out
+through the window into the court.
+
+Then through the window she too saw Mr. Morris come out from the
+guest-house and pass along to the stable.
+
+Again there was silence.
+
+The minutes went by, and the Saunce bell sounded three strokes from the
+turret. Chris sank on to his knees, and a moment later Mary and her
+father followed his example, and so the three remained in the dark
+silent lodge, with no sound but their breathing, and once a sharp
+whispered word of prayer from the old man.
+
+As the sacring bell sounded there was a sudden noise in the court, and
+Mary lifted her head.
+
+From where she knelt she could see the two doors across the court, those
+of the guest-house and the stable beyond, and simultaneously, out of the
+one came Ralph, gloved and booted, with his cap on his head, and Mr.
+Morris leading his horse out of the other.
+
+The servant lifted his cap at the sound of the bell, and dropped on to
+his knees, still holding the bridle; his master stood as he was, and
+looked at him. Mary could only see the latter’s profile, but even that
+was scornful and hard.
+
+Again the bell sounded; the mystery was done; and the servant stood up.
+
+As her father and Chris rose, Mary rose with them; and the three
+remained in complete silence, watching the little scene in the court.
+
+Ralph made a sign; and the servant attached the bridle of the horse to a
+ring beside the stable-door, and went past his master into the
+guest-house with a deferential stoop of the shoulders. Ralph stood a
+moment longer, and then followed him in.
+
+Then again the minutes went by.
+
+There was a sound of horse-hoofs on the road presently, and of talking
+that grew louder. The hoofs ceased; there was a sharp peal on the bell;
+and the talking began again.
+
+Chris glanced across at his father; but the old man shook his head; and
+the three remained as they were, watching and listening. As the bell
+rang out again impatiently, the door behind opened, and the portress
+came swiftly through, followed by the Abbess.
+
+“Come quickly,” the old lady whispered. “Sister Susan is going to let
+them in.”
+
+She stood aside, and made a motion to them to come through, and a moment
+late the four were in the convent, and the door was shut behind them.
+
+“They are Mr. Torridon’s men,” whispered the Abbess, her eyes round with
+excitement; “they are come to pack the things.”
+
+She led them on through the narrow passage, up a stone flight of stairs
+to the corridor that ran over the little cloister, and pushed open the
+door of a cell.
+
+“Wait here,” she said. “You can do no more. I will go down to them. You
+are in the enclosure, but I cannot help it.”
+
+And she had whisked out again, with an air of extraordinary composure,
+shutting the door behind her.
+
+The three went across to the window, still speaking no word, and looked
+down.
+
+The tiny court seemed half full of people now. There were three horses
+there, besides Ralph’s own marked by its rich saddle, and still attached
+to the ring by the stable door, and a couple of men were busy loading
+one of them with bundles. From one of these, which was badly packed, a
+shimmering corner of gold cloth projected.
+
+Ralph was standing by the door of the guest-house watching, and making a
+sign now and again with his whip. They could not see his face as he
+stood so directly below them, only his rich cap and feather, and his
+strong figure beneath. Mr. Morris was waiting now by his master’s horse;
+the portress was by her door.
+
+As they looked the little black and white figure of the Abbess came out
+beneath them, and stood by the portress.
+
+The packing went on in silence. It was terrible to Mary to stand there
+and watch the dumb-show tragedy, the wrecking and robbing of this
+peaceful house; and yet there was nothing to be done. She knew that the
+issues were in stronger hands than hers; she glanced piteously at her
+father and brother on either side, but their faces were set and white,
+and they did not turn at her movement.
+
+There was the sound of an opening door, and two women came out from the
+convent at one side and stood waiting. One was in secular dress; the
+other was still in her habit, but carried a long dark mantle across her
+arm, and Mary caught her breath and bit her lip fiercely as she
+recognised the second to be her sister.
+
+She felt she must cry out, and denounce the sacrilege, and made an
+instinctive movement nearer the window, but in a moment her father’s
+hand was on her arm.
+
+“Be still, Mary: it is all well.”
+
+One of the horses was being led away by now through the open door; and
+the two others followed almost immediately; but the principal actors
+were still in their places; the Abbess and the portress together on this
+side; Ralph on that; and the two other women, a little apart from one
+another, at the further end of the court.
+
+Then Ralph beckoned abruptly with his whip, and Mary saw her sister move
+out towards the gate; she caught a glance of her face, and saw that her
+lips were white and trembling, and her eyes full of agony. The other
+woman followed briskly, and the two disappeared through to the road
+outside.
+
+Again Ralph beckoned, and Mr. Morris brought up the horse that he had
+now detached from the ring, and stood by its head, holding the
+off-stirrup for his master to mount. Ralph gathered the reins into his
+left hand, and for a moment they saw his face across the back of the
+horse fierce and white; then he was up, and settling his right foot into
+the stirrup.
+
+Mr. Morris let go, and stood back; and simultaneously Ralph struck him
+with his riding-whip across the face, a furious back-handed slash.
+
+Mary cried out uncontrollably and shrank back; and a moment later her
+father was leaning from the window, and she beside him.
+
+“You damned coward!” he shouted. “Morris, you are my servant now.”
+
+Ralph did not turn his head an inch, and a moment later disappeared on
+horse-back through the gate, and the portress had closed it behind him.
+
+The little court was silent now, and empty except for the Abbess’
+motionless figure behind, with Mr. Morris beside her, and the lay sister
+by the gate, her hand still on the key that she had turned, and her eyes
+intent and expectant fixed on her superior. Mr. Morris lifted a
+handkerchief now and again gently to his face, and Mary as she leaned
+half sobbing from above saw that there were spots of crimson on the
+white.
+
+“Oh! Morris!” she whispered.
+
+The servant looked up, with a great weal across one cheek, and bowed a
+little, but he could not speak yet. Outside they could hear the jingle
+of bridle-chains; and then a voice begin; but they could not distinguish
+the words.
+
+It was Ralph speaking; but they could only guess what it was that he was
+saying. Overhead the autumn sky was a vault of pale blue; and a bird or
+two chirped briskly from the roof opposite.
+
+The voice outside grew louder, and ceased, and the noise of horse hoofs
+broke out.
+
+Still there was no movement from any within. The Abbess was standing now
+with one hand uplifted as if for silence, and Mary heard the hoofs sound
+fainter up the road; they grew louder again as they reached higher
+ground; and then ceased altogether.
+
+The old man touched Mary on the arm, and the three went out along the
+little corridor, and down the stone stairs.
+
+As they passed through the lodge and came into the court Mary saw that
+the Abbess had moved from her place, and was standing with the portress
+close by the gate; her face was towards them, a little on one side, and
+she seemed to be listening intently, her ear against the door, her lower
+lip sucked in, and her eyes bright and vacant; she still held one hand
+up for silence.
+
+Then there came a tiny tapping on the wood-work, and she instantly
+turned and snatched at the key, and a moment later the door was wide.
+
+“Come in, my poor child,” she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ST PANCRAS PRIORY
+
+
+It was a little more than a month later that Ralph met his
+fellow-Visitor at Lewes Priory.
+
+He had left Rusper in a storm of angry obstinacy, compelled by sheer
+pride to do what he had not intended. The arrival of his father and Mary
+there had had exactly the opposite effect to that which they hoped, and
+Ralph had turned Margaret out of the convent simply because he could not
+bear that they should think that he could be frightened from his
+purpose.
+
+As he had ridden off on that October morning, leaving Margaret standing
+outside with her cloak over her arm he had had a very sharp suspicion
+that she would be received back again; but he had not felt himself
+strong enough to take any further steps; so he contented himself with
+sending in his report to Dr. Layton, knowing well that heavy punishment
+would fall on the convent if it was discovered that the Abbess had
+disobeyed the Visitors’ injunctions.
+
+Then for a month or so he had ridden about the county, carrying off
+spoils, appointing new officials, and doing the other duties assigned to
+him; he was offered bribes again and again by superiors of Religious
+Houses, but unlike his fellow-Visitors always refused them, and fell the
+more hardly on those that offered them; he turned out numbers of young
+Religious and released elder ones who desired it, and by the time that
+he reached Lewes was fairly practised in the duties of his position.
+
+But the thought of the consequences of his action with regard to his
+future seldom left him. He had alienated his family, and perhaps
+Beatrice. As he rode once through Cuckfield, and caught a glimpse of the
+woods above Overfield, glorious in their autumn livery, he wondered
+whether he would ever find himself at home there again. It was a good
+deal to give up; but he comforted himself with the thought of his own
+career, and with the pleasant prospect of possessing some such house in
+his own right when the work that he now understood had been
+accomplished, and the monastic buildings were empty of occupants.
+
+He had received one letter, to his surprise, from his mother; that was
+brought to him by a messenger in one of the houses where he stayed. It
+informed him that he had the writer’s approval, and that she was
+thankful to have one son at least who was a man, and described further
+how his father and Mary had come back, and without Margaret, and that
+she supposed that the Abbess of Rusper had taken her back.
+
+“Go on, my son,” she ended, “it will be all well. You cannot come home,
+I know, while your father is in his present mind; but it is a dull place
+and you lose nothing. When you are married it will be different. Mr.
+Carleton is very tiresome, but it does not matter.”
+
+Ralph smiled to himself as he thought of the life that must now be
+proceeding at his home.
+
+He had written once to Beatrice, in a rather tentative tone, assuring
+her that he was doing his best to be just and merciful, and professing
+to take it for granted that she knew how to discount any exaggerated
+stories of the Visitors’ doings that might come to her ears. But he had
+received no answer, and indeed had told her that he did not expect one,
+for he was continually on the move and could give no fixed address.
+
+As he came up over the downs above Lewes he was conscious of a keen
+excitement; this would be the biggest work he had undertaken, and it had
+the additional zest of being a means of annoying his brother who had
+provoked him so often. Since his quarrel with Chris in his own rooms in
+the summer he had retained an angry contempt towards him. Chris had been
+insolent and theatrical, he told himself, and had thrown off all claims
+to tenderness, and Ralph’s feelings towards him were not improved by the
+information given him by one of his men that his brother had been
+present at the scene at Rusper, no doubt summoned there by Morris, who
+had proved such a desperate traitor to his master by slipping off to
+Overfield on the morning of the Sunday.
+
+Ralph was very much puzzled at first by Morris’s behaviour; the man had
+always been respectful and obedient, but it was now evident to him that
+he had been half-hearted all along, and still retained a superstitious
+reverence for ecclesiastical things and persons; and although it was
+very inconvenient and tiresome to lose him, yet it was better to be
+inadequately than treacherously served.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lewes Priory was a magnificent sight as Ralph came up on to the top of
+the last shoulder below Mount Harry. The town lay below him in the deep,
+cup-like hollow, piled house above house along the sides. Beyond it in
+the evening light, against the rich autumn fields and the gleam of
+water, towered up the tall church with the monastic buildings nestling
+behind.
+
+The thought crossed his mind that it would do very well for himself;
+the town was conveniently placed between London and the sea, within a
+day’s ride from either; there would be shops and company there, and the
+priory itself would be a dignified and suitable house, when it had been
+properly re-arranged. The only drawback would be Beatrice’s
+scrupulousness; but he had little doubt that ultimately that could be
+overcome. It would be ridiculous for a single girl to set herself up
+against the conviction of a country, and refuse to avail herself of the
+advantages of a reform that was so sorely needed. She trusted him
+already; and it would not need much persuasion he thought to convince
+her mind as well as her heart.
+
+Of course Lewes Priory would be a great prize, and there would be many
+applicants for it, and he realized that more than ever as he came up to
+its splendid gateway and saw the high tower overhead, and the long tiled
+roofs to the right; but his own relations with Cromwell were of the
+best, and he decided that at least no harm could result from asking.
+
+It was with considerable excitement that he dismounted in the court, and
+saw the throng of Dr. Layton’s men going to and fro. As at Durford, so
+here, his superior had arrived before him, and the place was already
+astir. The riding-horses had been bestowed in the stables, and the
+baggage-beasts were being now unloaded before the door of the
+guest-house; there were servants going to and fro in Dr. Layton’s
+livery, with an anxious-faced monk or two here and there among them, and
+a buzz and clatter rose on all sides. One of Dr. Layton’s secretaries
+who had been at Durford, recognised Ralph and came up immediately,
+saluting him deferentially.
+
+“The doctor is with the Sub-Prior, sir,” he said. “He gave orders that
+you were to be brought to him as soon as you arrived, Mr. Torridon.”
+
+Ralph followed him into the guest-house, and up the stairs up which
+Chris had come at his first arrival, and was shown into the parlour.
+There was a sound of voices as they approached the door, and as Ralph
+entered he saw at once that Dr. Layton was busy at his work.
+
+“Come in, sir,” he cried cheerfully from behind the table at which he
+sat. “Here is desperate work for you and me. No less than rank treason,
+Mr. Torridon.”
+
+A monk was standing before the table, who turned nervously as Ralph came
+in; he was a middle-aged man, grey-haired and brown-faced like a
+foreigner, but his eyes were full of terror now, and his lips trembling
+piteously.
+
+Ralph greeted Dr. Layton shortly, and sat down beside him.
+
+“Now, sir,” went on the other, “your only hope is to submit yourself to
+the King’s clemency. You have confessed yourself to treason in your
+preaching, and even if you did not, it would not signify, for I have the
+accusation from the young man at Farley in my bag. You tell me you did
+not know it was treason; but are you ready, sir, to tell the King’s
+Grace that?”
+
+The monk’s eyes glanced from one to the other anxiously. Ralph could see
+that he was desperately afraid.
+
+“Tell me that, sir,” cried the doctor again, rapping the table with his
+open hand.
+
+“I--I--what shall I do, sir?” stammered the monk.
+
+“You must throw yourself on the King’s mercy, reverend father. And as a
+beginning you must throw yourself on mine and Mr. Torridon’s here. Now,
+listen to this.”
+
+Dr. Layton lifted one of the papers that lay before him and read it
+aloud, looking severely at the monk over the top of it between the
+sentences. It was in the form of a confession, and declared that on such
+a date in the Priory Church of St Pancras at Lewes the undersigned had
+preached treason, although ignorant that it was so, in the presence of
+the Prior and community; and that the Prior, although he knew what was
+to be said, and had heard the sermon in question, had neither forbidden
+it beforehand nor denounced it afterwards, and that the undersigned
+entreated the King’s clemency for the fault and submitted himself
+entirely to his Grace’s judgment.
+
+“I--I dare not accuse my superior,” stammered the monk.
+
+Dr. Layton glared at him, laying the paper down.
+
+“The question is,” he cried, “which would you sooner offend--your Prior,
+who will be prior no longer presently, or the King’s Grace, who will
+remain the King’s Grace for many years yet, by the favour of God, and
+who has moreover supreme rights of life and death. That is your choice,
+reverend father.”--He lifted the paper by the corners.--“You have only
+to say the word, sir, and I tear up this paper, and write my own report
+of the matter.”
+
+The monk again glanced helplessly at the two men. Ralph had a touch of
+contentment at the thought that this was Christopher’s superior, ranged
+like a naughty boy at the table, and looked at him coldly. Dr. Layton
+made a swift gesture as if to tear the paper, and the Sub-Prior threw
+out his hands.
+
+“I will sign it, sir,” he said, “I will sign it.”
+
+When the monk had left the room, leaving his signed confession behind
+him, Dr. Layton turned beaming to Ralph.
+
+“Thank God!” he said piously. “I do not know what we should have done if
+he had refused; but now we hold him and his prior too. How have you
+fared, Mr. Torridon?”
+
+Ralph told him a little of his experiences since his last report, of a
+nunnery where all but three had been either dismissed or released; of a
+monastery where he had actually caught a drunken cellarer unconscious by
+a barrel, and of another where he had reason to fear even worse crimes.
+
+“Write it all down, Mr. Torridon,” cried the priest, “and do not spare
+the adjectives. I have some fine tales for you myself. But we must
+despatch this place first. We shall have grand sport in the
+chapter-house to-morrow. This prior is a poor timid fellow, and we can
+do what we will with him. Concealed treason is a sharp sword to threaten
+him with.”
+
+Ralph remarked presently that he had a brother a monk here.
+
+“But you can do what you like to him,” he said. “I have no love for him.
+He is an insolent fellow.”
+
+Dr. Layton smiled pleasantly.
+
+“We will see what can be done,” he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph slept that night in the guest-house, in the same room that Chris
+had occupied on his first coming. He awoke once at the sound of the
+great bell from the tower calling the monks to the night-office, and
+smiled at the fantastic folly of it all. His work during the last month
+had erased the last remnants of superstitious fear, and to him now more
+than ever the Religious Houses were but noisy rookeries, clamant with
+bells and chanting, and foul with the refuse of idleness. The sooner
+they were silenced and purged the better.
+
+He did not trouble to go to mass in the morning, but lay awake in the
+white-washed room, hearing footsteps and voices below, and watching the
+morning light brighten on the wall. He found himself wondering once or
+twice what Chris was doing, and how he felt; he did not rise till one of
+his men looked in to tell him that Dr. Layton would be ready for him in
+half-an-hour, if he pleased.
+
+The chapter-house was a strange sight as he entered it from the
+cloister. It was a high oblong chamber some fifty feet long, with arched
+roof like a chapel, and a paved floor. On a dozen stones or so were cut
+inscriptions recording the presence of bodies entombed below, among them
+those of Earl William de Warenne and Gundrada, his wife, founders of the
+priory five centuries ago. Ralph caught sight of the names as he strode
+through the silent monks at the door and entered the chamber, talking
+loudly with his fellow-Visitor. The tall vaulted room looked bare and
+severe; the seats ran round it, raised on a step, and before the Prior’s
+chair beneath the crucifix stood a large table covered with papers.
+Beneath it, and emerging on to the floor lay a great heap of vestments
+and precious things which Dr. Layton had ordered to be piled there for
+his inspection, and on the table itself for greater dignity burned two
+tapers in massive silver candlesticks.
+
+“Sit here, Mr. Torridon,” said the priest, himself taking the Prior’s
+chair, “we represent the supreme head of the Church of England now, you
+must remember.”
+
+And he smiled at the other with a solemn joy.
+
+He glanced over his papers, settled himself judicially, and then signed
+to one of his men to call the monks in. His two secretaries seated
+themselves at either end of the table that stood before their master.
+
+Then the two lines began to file in, in reverse order, as the doctor had
+commanded; black silent figures with bowed heads buried in their hoods,
+and their hands invisible in the great sleeves of their cowls.
+
+Ralph ran his eyes over them; there were men of all ages there, old
+wrinkled faces, and smooth ones; but it was not until they were all
+standing in their places that he recognised Chris.
+
+There stood the young man, at a stall near the door, his eyes bent down,
+and his face deadly pale, his figure thin and rigid against the pale oak
+panelling that rose up some eight feet from the floor. Ralph’s heart
+quickened with triumph. Ah! it was good to be here as judge, with that
+brother of his as culprit!
+
+The Prior and Sub-prior, whose places were occupied, stood together in
+the centre of the room, as the doctor had ordered. It was their case
+that was to come first.
+
+There was an impressive silence; the two Visitors sat motionless,
+looking severely round them; the secretaries had their clean paper
+before them, and their pens, ready dipped, poised in their fingers.
+
+Then Dr. Layton began.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was an inexpressibly painful task, he said, that he had before him;
+the monks were not to think that he gloried in it, or loved to find
+fault and impose punishments; and, in fact, nothing but the knowledge
+that he was there as the representative of the supreme authority in
+Church and State could have supplied to him the fortitude necessary for
+the performance of so sad a task.
+
+Ralph marvelled at him as he listened. There was a solemn sound in the
+man’s face and voice, and dignity in his few and impressive gestures. It
+could hardly be believed that he was not in earnest; and yet Ralph
+remembered too the relish with which the man had dispersed his foul
+tales the evening before, and the cackling laughter with which their
+recital was accompanied. But it was all very wholesome for Chris, he
+thought.
+
+“And now,” said Dr. Layton, “I must lay before you this grievous matter.
+It is one of whose end I dare not think, if it should come before the
+King’s Grace; and yet so it must come. It is no less a matter than
+treason.”
+
+His voice rang out with a melancholy triumph, and Ralph, looking at the
+two monks who stood in the centre of the room, saw that they were both
+as white as paper. The lips of the Prior were moving in a kind of
+agonised entreaty, and his eyes rolled round.
+
+“You, sir,” cried the doctor, glaring at the Sub-Prior, who dropped his
+beseeching eyes at the fierce look, “you, sir, have committed the
+crime--in ignorance, you tell me--but at least the crime of preaching in
+this priory-church in the presence of his Grace’s faithful subjects a
+sermon attacking the King’s most certain prerogatives. I can make
+perhaps allowances for this--though I do not know whether his Grace will
+do so--but I can make allowances for one so foolish as yourself carried
+away by the drunkenness of words; but I can make none--none--” he
+shouted, crashing his hand upon the table, “none for your superior who
+stands beside you, and who forebore either to protest at the treason at
+the time or to rebuke it afterwards.”
+
+The Prior’s hands rose and clasped themselves convulsively, but he made
+no answer.
+
+Dr. Layton proceeded to read out the confession that he had wrung from
+the monk the night before, down to the signature; then he called upon
+him to come up.
+
+“Is this your name, sir?” he asked slowly.
+
+The Sub-Prior took the paper in his trembling hands.
+
+“It is sir,” he said.
+
+“You hear it,” cried the doctor, staring fiercely round the faces, “he
+tells you he has subscribed it himself. Go back to your place, reverend
+father, and thank our Lord that you had courage to do so.
+
+“And now, you, sir, Master Prior, what have you to say?”
+
+Dr. Layton dropped his voice as he spoke, and laid his fat hands
+together on the table. The Prior looked up with the same dreadful
+entreaty as before; his lips moved, but no sound came from them. The
+monks round were deadly still; Ralph saw a swift glance or two exchanged
+beneath the shrouding hoods, but no one moved.
+
+“I am waiting, my Lord Prior,” cried Layton in a loud terrible voice.
+
+Again the Prior writhed his lips to speak.
+
+Dr. Layton rose abruptly and made a violent gesture.
+
+“Down on your knees, Master Prior, if you need mercy.”
+
+There was a quick murmur and ripple along the two lines as the Prior
+dropped suddenly on to his knees and covered his face with his hands.
+
+Dr. Layton threw out his hand with a passionate gesture and began to
+speak--.
+
+“There, reverend fathers and brethren,” he cried, “you see how low sin
+brings a man. This fellow who calls himself prior was bold enough, I
+daresay, in the church when treason was preached; and, I doubt not, has
+been bold enough in private too when he thought none heard him but his
+friends. But you see how treachery,--heinous treachery,--plucks the
+spirit from him, and how lowly he carries himself when he knows that
+true men are sitting in judgment over him. Take example from that, you
+who have served him in the past; you need never fear him more now.”
+
+Dr. Layton dropped his hand and sat down. For one moment Ralph saw the
+kneeling man lift that white face again, but the doctor was at him
+instantly.
+
+“Do not dare to rise, sir, till I give you leave,” he roared. “You had
+best be a penitent. Now tell me, sir, what you have to say. It shall not
+be said that we condemned a man unheard. Eh! Mr. Torridon?”
+
+Ralph nodded sharply, and glanced at Chris; but his brother was staring
+at the Prior.
+
+“Now then, sir,” cried the doctor again.
+
+“I entreat you, Master Layton--”
+
+The Prior’s voice was convulsed with terror as he cried this with
+outstretched hands.
+
+“Yes, sir, I will hear you.”
+
+“I entreat you, sir, not to tell his Grace. Indeed I am innocent,”--his
+voice rose thin and high in his panic--“indeed, I did not know it was
+treason that was preached.”
+
+“Did not know?” sneered the doctor, leaning forward over the table.
+“Why, you know your Faith, man--”
+
+“Master Layton, Master Layton; there be so many changes in these days--”
+
+“Changes!” shouted the priest; “there be no changes, except of such
+knaves as you, Master-Prior; it is the old Faith now as ever. Do you
+dare to call his Grace a heretic? Must that too go down in the charges?”
+
+“No, no, Master Layton,” screamed the Prior, with his hands strained
+forward and twitching fingers. “I did not mean that--Christ is my
+witness!”
+
+“Is it not the same Faith, sir?”
+
+“Yes, Master Layton--yes--indeed, it is. But I did not know--how could I
+know?”
+
+“Then why are you Prior,” cried the doctor with a dramatic gesture, “if
+it is not to keep your subjects true and obedient? Do you mean to tell
+me--?”
+
+“I entreat you, sir, for the love of Mary, not to tell his Grace--”
+
+“Bah!” shouted Dr. Layton, “you may keep your breath till you tell his
+Grace that himself. There is enough of this.” Again he rose, and swept
+his eyes round the white-faced monks. “I am weary of this work. The
+fellow has not a word to say--”
+
+“Master Layton, Master Layton,” cried the kneeling man once more,
+lifting his hands on one of which gleamed the prelatical ring.
+
+“Silence, sir,” roared the doctor. “It is I who am speaking now. We have
+had enough of this work. It seems that there be no true men left, except
+in the world; these houses are rotten with crime. Is it not so, Master
+Torridon?--rotten with crime! But of all the knaves that I did ever
+meet, and they are many and strong ones, I do believe Master Prior, that
+you are the worst. Here is my sentence, and see that it be carried out.
+You, Master Prior, and you Master Sub-Prior, are to appear before Master
+Cromwell in his court on All-Hallows’ Eve, and tell your tales to him.
+You shall see if he be so soft as I; it may be that he will send you
+before the King’s Grace--that I know not--but at least he will know how
+to get the truth out of you, if I cannot--”
+
+Once more the Prior broke in, in an agony of terror; but the doctor
+silenced him in a moment.
+
+“Have I not given my sentence, sir? How dare you speak?”
+
+A murmur again ran round the room, and he lifted his hand furiously.
+
+“Silence,” he shouted, “not one word from a mother’s son of you. I have
+had enough of sedition already. Clear the room, officer, and let not one
+shaveling monk put his nose within again, until I send for him. I am
+weary of them all--weary and broken-hearted.”
+
+The doctor dropped back into his seat, with a face of profound disgust,
+and passed his hand over his forehead.
+
+The monks turned at the signal from the door, and Ralph watched the
+black lines once more file out.
+
+“There, Mr. Torridon,” whispered the doctor behind his hand. “Did I not
+tell you so? Master Cromwell will be able to do what he will with him.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+RALPH’S RETURN
+
+
+The Visitation of Lewes Priory occupied a couple of days, as the estates
+were so vast, and the account-books so numerous.
+
+In the afternoon following the scene in the chapter-house, Dr. Layton
+and Ralph rode out to inspect some of the farms that were at hand,
+leaving orders that the stock was to be driven up into the court the
+next day, and did not return till dusk. The excitement in the town was
+tremendous as they rode back through the ill-lighted streets, and as the
+rumour ran along who the great gentlemen were that went along so gaily
+with their servants behind them; and by the time that they reached the
+priory-gate there was a considerable mob following in their train,
+singing and shouting, in the highest spirits at the thought of the
+plunder that would probably fall into their hands.
+
+Layton turned in his saddle at the door, and made them a little speech,
+telling them how he was there with the authority of the King’s Grace,
+and would soon make a sweep of the place.
+
+“And there will be pickings,” he cried, “pickings for us all! The widow
+and the orphan have been robbed long enough; it is time to spoil the
+fathers.”
+
+There was a roar of amusement from the mob; and a shout or two was
+raised for the King’s Grace.
+
+“You must be patient,” cried Dr. Layton, “and then no more taxes. You
+can trust us, gentlemen, to do the King’s work as it should be done.”
+
+As he passed in through the lamp-lit entrance he turned to Ralph again.
+
+“You see, Mr. Torridon, we have the country behind us.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was that evening that Ralph for the first time since the quarrel met
+his brother face to face.
+
+He was passing through the cloister on his way to Dr. Layton’s room, and
+came past the refectory door just as the monks were gathering for
+supper. He glanced in as he went, and had a glimpse of the clean solemn
+hall, lighted with candles along the panelling, the long bare tables
+laid ready, the Prior’s chair and table at the further end and the great
+fresco over it. A lay brother or two in aprons were going about their
+business silently, and three or four black figures, who had already
+entered, stood motionless along the raised dais on which the tables
+stood.
+
+The monks had all stopped instantly as Ralph came among them, and had
+lowered their hoods with their accustomed courtly deference to a guest;
+and as he turned from his momentary pause at the refectory door in the
+full blaze of light that shone from it, he met Chris face to face.
+
+The young monk had come up that instant, not noticing who was there, and
+his hood was still over his head. There was a second’s pause, and then
+he lifted his hand and threw the hood back in salutation; and as Ralph
+bowed and passed on he had a moment’s sight of that thin face and the
+large grey eyes in which there was not the faintest sign of recognition.
+
+Ralph’s heart was hot with mingled emotion as he went up the cloister.
+He was more disturbed by the sudden meeting, the act of courtesy, and
+the cold steady eyes of this young fool of a brother than he cared to
+recognise.
+
+He saw no more of him, except in the distance among his fellows; and he
+left the house the next day when the business was done.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Matters in the rest of England were going forward with the same
+promptitude as in Sussex. Dr. Layton himself had visited the West
+earlier in the autumn, and the other Visitors were busy in other parts
+of the country. The report was current now that the resources of all the
+Religious Houses were to be certainly confiscated, and that those of the
+inmates who still persisted in their vocation would have to do so under
+the most rigorous conditions imaginable. The results were to be seen in
+the enormous increase of beggars, deprived now of the hospitality they
+were accustomed to receive; and the roads everywhere were thronged with
+those who had been holders of corrodies, or daily sustenance in the
+houses; as well as with the evicted Religious, some of whom, dismissed
+against their will, were on their way to the universities, where, in
+spite of the Visitation, it was thought that support was still to be
+had; and others, less reputable, who preferred freedom to monastic
+discipline. Yet others were to be met with, though not many in number,
+who were on their way to London to lay complaints of various kinds
+against their superiors.
+
+From these and like events the whole country was astir. Men gathered in
+groups outside the village inns and discussed the situation, and feeling
+ran high on the movements of the day. What chiefly encouraged the
+malcontents was the fact that the benefits to be gained by the
+dissolution of the monasteries were evident and present, while the
+ill-results lay in the future. The great Religious Houses, their farms
+and stock, the jewels of the treasury, were visible objects; men
+actually laid eyes on them as they went to and from their work or knelt
+at mass on Sundays; it was all so much wealth that did not belong to
+them, and that might do so, while the corrodies, the daily hospitality,
+the employment of labour, and such things, lay either out of sight, or
+affected only certain individuals. Characters too that were chiefly
+stirred by such arguments, were those of the noisy and self-assertive
+faction; while those who saw a little deeper into things, and understood
+the enormous charities of the Religious Houses and the manner in which
+extreme poverty was kept in check by them,--even more, those who valued
+the spiritual benefits that flowed from the fact of their existence, and
+saw how life was kindled and inspired by these vast homes of
+prayer--such, then as always, were those who would not voluntarily put
+themselves forward in debate, or be able, when they did so, to use
+arguments that would appeal to the village gatherings. Their natural
+leaders too, the country clergy, who alone might have pointed out
+effectively the considerations that lay beneath the surface had been
+skilfully and peremptorily silenced by the episcopal withdrawing of all
+preaching licenses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the course of Ralph’s travels he came across, more than once, a hot
+scene in the village inn, and was able to use his own personality and
+prestige as a King’s Visitor in the direction that he wished.
+
+He came for example one Saturday night to the little village of
+Maresfield, near Fletching, and after seeing his horses and servants
+bestowed, came into the parlour, where the magnates were assembled.
+There were half a dozen there, sitting round the fire, who rose
+respectfully as the great gentleman strode in, and eyed him with a
+sudden awe as they realised from the landlord’s winks and whispers that
+he was of a very considerable importance.
+
+From the nature of his training Ralph had learnt how to deal with all
+conditions of men; and by the time that he had finished supper, and
+drawn his chair to the fire, they were talking freely again, as indeed
+he had encouraged them to do, for they did not of course, any more than
+the landlord, guess at his identity or his business there.
+
+Ralph soon brought the talk round again to the old subject, and asked
+the opinions of the company as to the King’s policy in the visitation of
+the Religious Houses There was a general silence when he first opened
+the debate, for they were dangerous times; but the gentleman’s own
+imperturbable air, his evident importance, and his friendliness,
+conspired with the strong beer to open their mouths, and in five minutes
+they were at it.
+
+One, a little old man in the corner who sat with crossed legs, nursing
+his mug, declared that to his mind the whole thing was sacrilege; the
+houses, he said, had been endowed to God’s glory and service, and that
+to turn them to other uses must bring a curse on the country. He went on
+to remark--for Ralph deftly silenced the chorus of protest--that his own
+people had been buried in the church of the Dominican friars at Arundel
+for three generations, and that he was sorry for the man who laid hands
+on the tomb of his grandfather--known as Uncle John--for the old man had
+been a desperate churchman in his day, and would undoubtedly revenge
+himself for any indignity offered to his bones.
+
+Ralph pointed out, with a considerate self-repression, that the
+illustration was scarcely to the point, for the King’s Grace had no
+intention, he believed, of disturbing any one’s bones; the question at
+issue rather regarded flesh and blood. Then a chorus broke out, and the
+hunt was up.
+
+One, the butcher, with many blessings invoked on King Harry’s head,
+declared that the country was being sucked dry by these rapacious
+ecclesiastics; that the monks encroached every year on the common land,
+absorbed the little farms, paid inadequate wages, and--which appeared
+his principal grievance--killed their own meat.
+
+Ralph, with praiseworthy tolerance, pushed this last argument aside, but
+appeared to reflect on the others as if they were new to him, though he
+had heard them a hundred times, and used them fifty; and while he
+weighed them, another took up the tale; told a scandalous story or two,
+and asked how men who lived such lives as these which he related, could
+be examples of chastity.
+
+Once more the little old man burst into the fray, and waving his pot in
+an access of religious enthusiasm, rebuked the last speaker for his
+readiness to pick up dirt, and himself instanced five or six Religious
+known to him, whose lives were no less spotless than his own.
+
+Again Ralph interposed in his slow voice, and told them that that too
+was not the point at issue. The question was not as to whether here and
+there monks lived good lives or bad, for no one was compelled to imitate
+either, but as to whether on the whole the existence of the Religious
+Houses was profitable in such practical matters as agriculture, trade,
+and the relief of the destitute.
+
+And so it went on, and Ralph began to grow weary of the inconsequence of
+the debaters, and their entire inability to hold to the salient points;
+but he still kept his hand on the rudder of the discussion, avoided the
+fogs of the supernatural and religious on the one side towards which the
+little old man persisted in pushing, and, on the other, the blunt views
+of the butcher and the man who had told the foul stories; and contented
+himself with watching and learning the opinion of the company rather
+than contributing his own.
+
+Towards the end of the evening he observed two of his men, who had
+slipped in and were sitting at the back of the little stifling room,
+hugely enjoying the irony of the situation, and determined on ending the
+discussion with an announcement of his own identity.
+
+Presently an opportunity occurred. The little old man had shown a
+dangerous tendency to discourse on the suffering souls in purgatory, and
+on the miseries inflicted on them by the cessation of masses and
+suffrages for their welfare; and an uncomfortable awe-stricken silence
+had fallen on the others.
+
+Ralph stood up abruptly, and began to speak, his bright tired eyes
+shining down on the solemn faces, and his mouth set and precise.
+
+“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “your talk has pleased me very much. I have
+learned a great deal, and I hope shall profit by it. Some of you have
+talked a quantity of nonsense; and you, Mr. Miggers, have talked the
+most, about your uncle John’s soul and bones.”
+
+A deadly silence fell as these startling words were pronounced; for his
+manner up to now had been conciliatory and almost apologetic. But he
+went on imperturbably.
+
+“I am quite sure that Almighty God knows His business better than you or
+I, Mr. Miggers; and if He cannot take care of Uncle John without the aid
+of masses or dirges sung by fat-bellied monks--”
+
+He stopped abruptly, and a squirt of laughter burst from the butcher.
+
+“Well, this is my opinion,” went on Ralph, “if you wish to know it. I
+do not think, or suspect, as some of you do--but I _know_--as you will
+allow presently that I do, when I tell you who I am--I _know_ that these
+houses of which we have been speaking, are nothing better than
+wasps’-nests. The fellows look holy enough in their liveries, they make
+a deal of buzz, they go to and fro as if on business; but they make no
+honey that is worth your while or mine to take. There is but one thing
+that they have in their holes that is worth anything: and that is their
+jewels and their gold, and the lead on their churches and the bells in
+their towers. And all that, by the Grace of God we will soon have out of
+them.”
+
+There was a faint murmur of mingled applause and dissent. Mr. Miggers
+stared vacant-faced at this preposterous stranger, and set his mug
+resolutely down as a preparation for addressing him, but he had no
+opportunity. Ralph was warmed now by his own eloquence, and swept on.
+
+“You think I do not know of what I am speaking? Well, I have a brother a
+monk at Lewes, and a sister a nun at Rusper; and I have been brought up
+in this religion until I am weary of it. My sister--well, she is like
+other maidens of her kind--not a word to speak of any matter but our
+Lady and the Saints and how many candles Saint Christopher likes. And my
+brother!--Well, we can leave that.
+
+“I know these houses as none of you know them; I know how much wine they
+drink, how much they charge for their masses, how much treasonable
+chatter they carry on in private--I know their lives as I know my own;
+and I know that they are rotten and useless altogether. They may give a
+plateful or two in charity and a mug of beer; they gorge ten dishes
+themselves, and swill a hogshead. They give a penny to the poor man, and
+keep twenty nobles for themselves. They take field after field, house
+after house; turn the farmer into the beggar, and the beggar into their
+bedesman. And, by God! I say that the sooner King Henry gets rid of the
+crew, the better for you and me!”
+
+Ralph snapped out the last words, and stared insolently down on the
+gaping faces. Then he finished, standing by the door as he did so, with
+his hand on the latch.
+
+“If you would know how I know all this, I will tell you. My name is
+Torridon, of Overfield; and I am one of the King’s Visitors. Good-night,
+gentlemen.”
+
+There was the silence of the grave within, as Ralph went upstairs
+smiling to himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph had intended returning home a week or two after the Lewes
+visitation, but there was a good deal to be done, and Layton had pointed
+out to him that even if some houses were visited twice over it would do
+no harm to the rich monks to pay double fees; so it was not till
+Christmas was a week away that he rode at last up to his house-door at
+Westminster.
+
+His train had swelled to near a dozen men and horses by now, for he had
+accumulated a good deal of treasure beside that which he had left in
+Layton’s hands, and it would not have been safe to travel with a smaller
+escort; so it was a gay and imposing cavalcade that clattered through
+the narrow streets. Ralph himself rode in front, in solitary dignity,
+his weapon jingling at his stirrup, his feather spruce and bright above
+his spare keen face; a couple of servants rode behind, fully armed and
+formidable looking, and then the train came behind--beasts piled with
+bundles that rustled and clinked suggestively, and the men who guarded
+them gay with scraps of embroidery and a cheap jewel or two here and
+there in their dress.
+
+But Ralph did not feel so gallant as he looked. During these long
+country rides he had had too much time to think, and the thought of
+Beatrice and of what she would say seldom left him. The very harshness
+of his experiences, the rough faces round him, the dialect of the stable
+and the inn, the coarse conversation--all served to make her image the
+more gracious and alluring. It was a kind of worship, shot with passion,
+that he felt for her. Her grave silences coincided with his own, her
+tenderness yielded deliciously to his strength.
+
+As he sat over his fire with his men whispering behind him, planning as
+they thought new assaults on the rich nests that they all hated and
+coveted together, again and again it was Beatrice’s face, and not that
+of a shrewd or anxious monk, that burned in the red heart of the hearth.
+He had seen it with downcast eyes, with the long lashes lying on the
+cheek, and the curved red lips discreetly shut beneath; the masses of
+black hair shadowed the forehead and darkened the secret that he wished
+to read. Or he had watched her, like a jewel in a pig-sty, looking
+across the foul-littered farm where he had had to sleep more than once
+with his men about him; her black eyes looking into his own with tender
+gravity, and her mouth trembling with speech. Or best of all, as he rode
+along the bitter cold lanes at the fall of the day, the crowding yews
+above him had parted and let her stand there, with her long skirts
+rustling in the dry leaves, her slender figure blending with the
+darkness, and her sweet face trusting and loving him out of the gloom.
+
+And then again, like the prick of a wound, the question had touched him,
+how would she receive him when he came back with the monastic spoils on
+his beasts’ shoulders, and the wail of the nuns shrilling like the wind
+behind?
+
+But by the time that he came back to London he had thought out his
+method of meeting her. Probably she had had news of the doings of the
+Visitors, perhaps of his own in particular; it was hardly possible that
+his father had not written; she would ask for an explanation, and she
+should have instead an appeal to her confidence. He would tell her that
+sad things had indeed happened, that he had been forced to be present at
+and even to carry out incidents which he deplored; but that he had done
+his utmost to be merciful. It was rough work, he would say; but it was
+work that had to be done; and since that was so--and this was Cromwell’s
+teaching--it was better that honourable gentlemen should do it. He had
+not been able always to restrain the violence of his men--and for that
+he needed forgiveness from her dear lips; and it would be easy enough to
+tell stories against him that it would be hard to disprove; but if she
+loved and trusted him, and he knew that she did, let her take his word
+for it that no injustice had been deliberately done, that on the other
+hand he had been the means under God of restraining many such acts, and
+that his conscience was clear.
+
+It was a moving appeal, Ralph thought, and it almost convinced himself.
+He was not conscious of any gross insincerity in the defence; of course
+it was shaded artistically, and the more brutal details kept out of
+sight, but in the main it was surely true. And, as he rehearsed its
+points to himself once more in the streets of Westminster, he felt that
+though there might be a painful moment or two, yet it would do his work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He had sent a message home that he was coming, and the door of his home
+was wide as he dismounted, and the pleasant light of candles shone out,
+for the evening was smouldering to dark in the west.
+
+A crowd had collected as he went along; from every window faces were
+leaning; and as he stood on the steps directing the removal of the
+treasure into the house, he saw that the mob filled the tiny street, and
+the cobbled space, from side to side. They were chiefly of the idling
+class, folks who had little to do but to follow up excitements and
+shout; and there were a good many cries raised for the King’s Grace and
+his Visitors, for such people as these were greedy for any movement that
+might bring them gain, and the Religious Houses were beginning to be
+more unpopular in town than ever.
+
+One of the bundles slipped as it was shifted, the cord came off, and in
+a moment the little space beyond the mule before the door was covered
+with gleaming stuff and jewels.
+
+There was a fierce scuffle and a cry, and Ralph was in a moment beyond
+the mule with his sword out. He said nothing but stood there fierce and
+alert as the crowd sucked back, and the servant gathered up the things.
+There was no more trouble, for it had only been a spasmodic snatch at
+the wealth, and a cheer or two was raised again among the grimy faces
+that stared at the fine gentleman and the shining treasure.
+
+Ralph thought it better, however, to say a conciliatory word when the
+things had been bestowed in the house, and the mules led away; and he
+stood on the steps a moment alone before entering himself.
+
+The crowd listened complacently enough to the statements which they had
+begun to believe from the fact of the incessant dinning of them into
+their ears by the selected preachers at Paul’s Cross and elsewhere; and
+there was loud groan at the Pope’s name.
+
+Ralph was ending with an incise peroration that he had delivered more
+than once before.
+
+“You know all this, good people; and you shall know it better when the
+work is done. Instead of the rich friars and monks we will have godly
+citizens, each with his house and land. The King’s Grace has promised
+it, and you know that he keeps his word. We have had enough of the
+jackdaws and their stolen goods; we will have honest birds instead. Only
+be patient a little longer--”
+
+The listening silence was broken by a loud cry--
+
+“You damned plundering hound--”
+
+A stone suddenly out of the gloom whizzed past Ralph and crashed through
+the window behind. A great roaring rose in a moment, and the crowd
+swayed and turned.
+
+Ralph felt his heart suddenly quicken, and his hand flew to his hilt
+again, but there was no need for him to act. There were terrible screams
+already rising from the seething twilight in front, as the stone-thrower
+was seized and trampled. He stayed a moment longer, dropped his hilt and
+went into the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+RALPH’S WELCOME
+
+
+“You will show Mistress Atherton into the room below,” said Ralph to his
+man, “as soon as she comes.”
+
+He was sitting on the morning following his arrival in his own chamber
+upstairs. His table was a mass of papers, account-books, reckonings,
+reports bearing on his Visitation journey, and he had been working at
+them ever since he was dressed; for he had to present himself before
+Cromwell in the course of a day or two, and the labour would be
+enormous.
+
+The room below, opposite that in which he intended to see Beatrice and
+where she had waited herself a few months before while he talked with
+Cromwell and the Archbishop, was now occupied by his collection of plate
+and vestments, and the key was in his own pocket.
+
+He had heard from his housekeeper on the previous evening that Beatrice
+had called at the house during the afternoon, and had seemed surprised
+to hear that he was to return that night; but she had said very little,
+it appeared, and had only begged the woman to inform her master that she
+would present herself at his house the next morning.
+
+And now Ralph was waiting for her.
+
+He was more ill-at-ease than he had expected to be. The events of the
+evening before had given him a curious shock; and he cursed the whole
+business--the snapping of the cord round the bundle, his own action and
+words, the outrage that followed, and the death of the fellow that had
+thrown the stone--for the body had been rescued by the watch a few
+minutes later, a tattered crushed thing, beaten out of all likeness to a
+man. One of the watch had stepped in to see Ralph as he sat at supper,
+and had gone again saying the dog deserved it for daring to lift his
+voice against the King and his will.
+
+But above all Ralph repented of his own words. There was no harm in
+saying such things in the country; but it was foolish and rash to do so
+in town. Cromwell’s men should be silent and discreet, he knew, not
+street-orators; and if he had had time to think he would not have
+spoken. However the crowd was with him; there was plainly no one of any
+importance there; it was unlikely that Cromwell himself would hear of
+the incident; and perhaps after all no harm was done.
+
+Meanwhile there was Beatrice to reckon with, and Ralph laid down his pen
+a dozen times that morning and rehearsed once more what he would have to
+say to her.
+
+He was shrewd enough to know that it was his personality and not his
+virtues or his views that had laid hold of this girl’s soul. As it was
+with him, so it was with her; each was far enough apart from the other
+in all external matters; such things had been left behind a year ago; it
+was not an affair of consonant tastes, but of passion. From each there
+had looked deep inner eyes; there had been on either side a steady and
+fearless scrutiny, and then the two souls had leapt together in a bright
+flame of desire, knowing that each was made for the other. There had
+been so little love-making, so few speeches after the first meeting or
+two, so few letters exchanged, and fewer embraces. The last veils had
+fallen at the fury of Chris’s intervention, and they had known then what
+had been inevitable all along.
+
+Ralph smiled to himself as he remembered how little he had said or she
+had answered; there had been no need to say anything. And then his eyes
+grew wide and passionate, and his hands gripped one another fiercely, as
+the memory died, and the burning flame of desire flared within him again
+from the deep well he bore in his heart. The world of affairs and
+explanations and evasions faded into twilight, and there was but one
+thing left, his love and hers. It was to that that he would appeal.
+
+He sat so a moment longer, and then took up his pen again, though it
+shook in his hand, and went on with his reckonings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was perfectly composed half an hour later as he went downstairs to
+meet her. He had finished his line of figures sedately when the man
+looked in to say that she was below; and had sat yet a moment longer,
+trying to remember mechanically what it was he had determined to tell
+her. Bah! it was trifling and unimportant; words did not affect the
+question; all the wrecked convents in the world could not touch the one
+fact that lay in fire at his heart. He would say nothing; she would
+understand.
+
+In the tiny entrance hall there was a whiff of fragrance where she had
+passed through; and his heart stirred in answer. Then he opened the
+door, stepped through and closed it behind him.
+
+She was standing upright by the hearth, and faced him as he entered. He
+was aware of her blue mantle, her white, jewelled head-dress, one hand
+gripping the mantel-shelf, her pale steady face and bright eyes. Behind
+there was the warm rich panelling, and the leaping glow of the wood
+fire.
+
+She made no movement.
+
+Outside the lane was filled with street noises, the cries of children,
+the voices of men who went by talking, the rumble of a waggon coming
+with the crack of whips and jingle of bells from the river. The wheels
+came up and went past into silence again before either spoke or moved.
+
+Then Ralph lifted his hands a little and let them drop, as he stared at
+her face. From her eyes looked out her will, tense as steel; and his own
+shook to meet it.
+
+“Well?” she said at last; and her voice was perfectly steady.
+
+“Beatrice,” cried Ralph; and the agony of it tore his heart.
+
+She dropped her hand to her side and still looked at him without
+flinching.
+
+“Beatrice,” cried Ralph once more.
+
+“Then you have no more to say--after last night?”
+
+A torrent of thoughts broke loose in his brain, and he tried to snatch
+one as they fled past--to say one word. His excuses went by him like
+phantoms; they bewildered and dazed him. Why, there were a thousand
+things to say, and each was convincing if he could but say it. The cloud
+passed and there were her eyes watching him still.
+
+“Then that is all?” she said.
+
+Again the cloud fell on him; little scenes piteously clear rose before
+him, of the road by Rusper convent, Layton’s leering face, a stripped
+altar; and for each there was a tale if he could but tell it. And still
+the bright eyes never flinched.
+
+It seemed to him as if she was watching him curiously; her lips were
+parted, and her head was a little on one side; her face interested and
+impersonal.
+
+“Why, Beatrice--” he cried again.
+
+Then her love shook her like a storm; he had never dreamed she could
+look like that; her mouth shook; he could see her white teeth clenched;
+and a shiver went over her. He took one step forward, but stopped again,
+for the black eyes shone through the passion that swayed her, as keen
+and remorseless as ever.
+
+He dropped on to his knees at the table and buried his face in his
+hands. He knew nothing now but that he had lost her.
+
+That was her voice speaking now, as steady as her eyes; but he did not
+hear a word she said. Words were nothing; they were not so much as those
+cries from the street, that shrill boy’s voice over the way; not so much
+as the sighing crackle from the hearth where he had caused a fire to be
+lighted lest she should feel cold.
+
+She was still speaking, but her voice had moved; she was no longer by
+the fire. He could feel the warmth of the fire now on his hands. But he
+dared not move nor look up; there was but one thing left for him--that
+he had lost her!
+
+That was her hand on the latch; a breath of cold air stirred his hair;
+and still she was speaking. He understood a little more now; she knew it
+all--his doings--what he had said last night--and there was not one word
+to say in answer. Her short lashing sentences fell on his defenceless
+soul, but all sense was dead, and he watched with a dazed impersonalness
+how each stroke went home, and yet he felt no pain or shame.
+
+She was going now; a picture stirred on the wall by the fire as the wind
+rushed in through the open street door.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then the door closed.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+THE FALL OF LEWES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTERNAL DISSENSION
+
+
+The peace was gone from Lewes Priory. A wave had broken in through the
+high wall from the world outside with the coming of the Visitors, and
+had left wreckage behind, and swept out security as it went. The monks
+knew now that their old privileges were gone with the treasures that
+Layton had taken with him, and that although the wave had recoiled, it
+would return again and sweep them all away.
+
+Upon none of them had the blow fallen more fiercely than on Chris; he
+had tried to find peace, and instead was in the midst of storm. The high
+barriers had gone, and with them the security of his own soul, and the
+world that he thought he had left was grinning at the breach.
+
+It was piteous to him to see the Prior--that delicate, quiet prelate who
+had held himself aloof in his dignities--now humbled by the shame of his
+exposure in the chapter-house. The courage that Bishop Fisher had
+restored to him in some measure was gone again; and it was miserable to
+look at that white downcast face in the church and refectory, and to
+recognise that all self-respect was gone. After his return from his
+appearance before Cromwell he was more wretched than ever; it was known
+that he had been sent back in contemptuous disgrace; but it was not
+known how much he had promised in his terror for life.
+
+The house had lost too some half-dozen of its inmates. Two had
+petitioned for release; three professed monks had been dismissed, and a
+recent novice had been sent back to his home. Their places in the
+stately choir were empty, and eloquent with warning; and in their stead
+was a fantastic secular priest, appointed by the Visitors’ authority,
+who seldom said mass, and never attended choir; but was regular in the
+refectory, and the chapter-house where he thundered St. Paul’s epistles
+at the monks, and commentaries of his own, in the hopes of turning them
+from papistry to a purer faith.
+
+The news from outside echoed their own misery. Week after week the tales
+poured in, of young and old dismissed back to the world whose ways they
+had forgotten, of the rape of treasures priceless not only for their
+intrinsic worth but for the love that had given and consecrated them
+through years of devout service. There was not a house that had not lost
+something; the King himself had sanctioned the work by taking precious
+horns and a jewelled cross from Winchester. And worse than all that had
+gone was the terror of what was yet to come. The world, which had been
+creeping nearer, pausing and creeping on again, had at last passed the
+boundaries and leapt to sacrilege.
+
+It was this terror that poisoned life. The sacristan who polished the
+jewels that were left, handled them doubtfully now; the monk who
+superintended the farm sickened as he made his plans for another year;
+the scribe who sat in the carrel lost enthusiasm for his work; for the
+jewels in a few months might be on royal fingers, the beasts in
+strangers’ sheds, and the illuminated leaves blowing over the cobbled
+court, or wrapped round grocers’ stores.
+
+Dom Anthony preached a sermon on patience one day in Christmastide,
+telling his fellows that a man’s life, and still less a monk’s,
+consisted not in the abundance of things that he possessed; and that
+corporate, as well as individual, poverty, had been the ideal of the
+monastic houses in earlier days. He was no great preacher, but the
+people loved to hear his homely remarks, and there was a murmur of
+sympathy as he pointed with a clumsy gesture to the lighted Crib that
+had been erected at the foot of one of the great pillars in the nave.
+
+“Our Lady wore no cloth of gold,” he said, “nor Saint Joseph a precious
+mitre; and the blessed Redeemer Himself who made all things had but
+straw to His bed. And if our new cope is gone, we can make our
+processions in the old one, and please God no less. Nay, we may please
+Him more perhaps, for He knows that it is by no will of ours that we do
+so.”
+
+But there had been a dismal scene at the chapter next morning. The Prior
+had made them a speech, with a passionate white face and hands that
+shook, and declared that the sermon would be their ruin yet if the
+King’s Grace heard of it.
+
+“There was a fellow that went out half-way through,” he cried in panic,
+“how do we know whether he is not talking with his Grace even now? I
+will not have such sermons; and you shall be my witnesses that I said
+so.”
+
+The monks eyed one another miserably. How could they prosper under such
+a prior as this?
+
+But worse was to follow, though it did not directly affect this house.
+The bill, so long threatened, dissolving the smaller houses, was passed
+in February by a Parliament carefully packed to carry out the King’s
+wishes, and from which the spiritual peers were excluded by his
+“permission to them to absent themselves.” Lewes Priory, of course,
+exceeded the limit of revenue under which other houses were suppressed,
+and even received one monk who had obtained permission to go there when
+his community fell; but in spite of the apparent encouragement from the
+preamble of the bill which stated that “in the great solemn monasteries
+... religion was right well kept,” it was felt that this act was but the
+herald of another which should make an end of Religious Houses
+altogether.
+
+But there was a breath of better news later on, when tidings came in the
+early summer that Anne was in disgrace. It was well known that it was
+her influence that egged the King on, and that there was none so fierce
+against the old ways. Was it not possible that Henry might even yet
+repent himself, if she were out of the way?
+
+Then the tidings were confirmed, and for a while there was hope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir Nicholas Maxwell rode over to see Chris, and was admitted into one
+of the parlours to talk with him.
+
+He seemed furiously excited, and hardly saluted his brother-in-law.
+
+“Chris,” he said, “I have come straight from London with great news. The
+King’s harlot is fallen.”
+
+Chris stared.
+
+“Dead?” he said.
+
+“Dead in a day or two, thank God!”
+
+He spat furiously.
+
+“God strike her!” he cried. “She has wrought all the mischief, I
+believe. They told me so a year back, but I did not believe it.”
+
+“And where is she?”
+
+Then Nicholas told his story, his ruddy comely face bright with
+exultation, for he had no room for pity left. The rumours that had come
+to Lewes were true. Anne had been arrested suddenly at Greenwich during
+the sports, and had been sent straight to the Tower. The King was weary
+of her, though she had borne him a child; and did not scruple to bring
+the most odious charges against her. She had denied, and denied; but it
+was useless. She had wept and laughed in prison, and called on God to
+vindicate her; but the process went on none the less. The marriage had
+been declared null and void by Dr. Cranmer who had blessed it; and now
+she was condemned for sinning against it.
+
+“But she is either his wife,” said Chris amazed, “or else she is not
+guilty of adultery.”
+
+Nicholas chuckled.
+
+“God save us, Chris; do you think Henry can’t manage it?”
+
+Then he grew white with passion, and beat the table and damned the King
+and Anne and Cranmer to hell together.
+
+Chris glanced up, drumming his fingers softly on the table.
+
+“Nick,” he said, “there is no use in that. When is she to die?”
+
+The knight’s face flushed again with pleasure, and he showed his teeth
+set together.
+
+“Two days,” he said, “please God, or three at the most. And she will not
+meet those she has sent before her, or John Fisher whose head she had
+brought to her--the bloody Herodias!”
+
+“Pray God that she will!” said Chris softly. “They will pray for her at
+least.”
+
+“Pah!” shouted Nicholas, “an eye for an eye for me!”
+
+Chris said nothing. He was thinking of all that this might mean. Who
+could know what might not happen? Nicholas broke in again presently.
+
+“I heard a fine tale,” he said, “do you know that the woman is in the
+very room where she slept the night before the crowning? Last time it
+was for the crown to be put on; now it is for the head to be taken off.
+And it is true that she weeps and laughs. They can hear her laugh two
+storeys away, I hear.”
+
+“Nick,” said Chris suddenly, “I am weary of that. Let her alone. Pray
+God she may turn!”
+
+Nicholas stared astonished, and a little awed too. Chris used not to be
+like this; he seemed quieter and stronger; he had never dared to speak
+so before.
+
+“Yes; I am weary of this,” said Chris again. “I stormed once at Ralph,
+and gained nothing. We do not win by those weapons. Where is Ralph?”
+
+Nicholas knit his lips to keep in the fury that urged him.
+
+“He is with Cromwell still,” he said venomously, “and very busy, I hear.
+They will be making him a lord soon--but there will be no lady.”
+
+Chris had heard of Beatrice’s rejection of Ralph.
+
+“He is still busy?”
+
+“Why, yes; he worked long at this bill, I hear.”
+
+Chris asked a few more questions, and learned that Ralph seemed fiercer
+than ever since the Visitation. He was well-known at Court; had been
+seen riding with the King; and it was supposed that he was rising
+rapidly in favour every day.
+
+“God help him!” sighed Chris.
+
+The change that had come over Chris was very much marked. Neither a life
+in the world would have done it, nor one in the peace of the cloister;
+but an alternation of the two. He had been melted by the fire of the
+inner life, and braced by the external bitterness of adversity. Ralph’s
+visit to the priory, culminating in the passionless salutation of him in
+the cloister as being a guest and therefore a representative of Christ,
+had ended that stage in the development of the monk’s character. Chris
+was disappointed in his brother, fearful for him and stern in his
+attitude towards him; but he was not resentful. He was sincere when he
+prayed God to help him.
+
+When Nicholas had eaten and gone, carrying messages to Mary, Chris told
+the others, and there was a revival of hope in the house.
+
+Then a few days later came the news of Anne’s death and of the marriage
+of the King with Jane Seymour on the following day. At least Jane was a
+lawful wife and queen in the Catholics’ eyes, for Katharine too was
+dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris had now passed through the minor orders, the sub-diaconate and the
+diaconate, and was looking forward to priesthood. It had been thought
+advisable by his superiors, in view of the troubled state of the times,
+to apply for the necessary dispensations, and they had been granted
+without difficulty. So many monks who were not priests had been turned
+into the world resourceless, since they could not be appointed to
+benefices, that it was thought only fair to one who was already bound by
+vows of religion and sacred orders not to hold him back from an
+opportunity to make his living, should affairs be pushed further in the
+direction of dissolution.
+
+He was looking forward with an extraordinary zeal to the crown of
+priesthood. It seemed to him a possession that would compensate for all
+other losses. If he could but make the Body of the Lord, lift It before
+the Throne, and hold It in his hands, all else was trifling.
+
+There were waves of ecstatic peace again breaking over his soul as he
+thought of it; as he moved behind the celebrant at high mass, lifted the
+pall of the chalice, and sang the exultant _Ite missa est_ when all was
+done. What a power would be his on that day! He would have his finger
+then on the huge engine of grace, and could turn it whither he would,
+spraying infinite force on this and that soul, on Ralph stubbornly
+fighting against God in London, on his mother silent and bitter at home,
+on his father anxious and courageous, waiting for disaster, on Margaret
+trembling in Rusper nunnery as she contemplated the defiance she had
+flung in the King’s face.
+
+The Prior had given him but little encouragement; he had sent for him
+one day, and told him that he might prepare himself for priesthood by
+Michaelmas, for a foreign bishop was coming to them, and leave would be
+obtained for him to administer the rite. But he had not said a word of
+counsel or congratulation; but had nodded to the young monk, and turned
+his sickly face to the papers again on his table.
+
+Dom Anthony, the pleasant stout guest-master, who had preached the
+sermon in Christmastide, said a word of comfort, as they walked in the
+cloister together.
+
+“You must not take it amiss, brother,” he said, “my Lord Prior is beside
+himself with terror. He does not know how to act.”
+
+Chris asked whether there were any new reason for alarm.
+
+“Oh, no!” said the monk, “but the people are getting cold towards us
+here. You have seen how few come to mass here now, or to confession.
+They are going to the secular priests instead.”
+
+Chris remembered one or two other instances of this growing coldness.
+The poor folks who came for food complained of its quality two or three
+times; and one fellow, an old pensioner of the house, who had lost a
+leg, threw his portion down on the doorstep.
+
+“I will have better than that some day,” he had said, as he limped off.
+Chris had gathered up the cold lentils patiently and carried them back
+to the kitchen.
+
+On another day a farmer had flatly refused a favour to the monk who
+superintended the priory-farm.
+
+“I will not have your beasts in my orchard,” he had said roughly. “You
+are not my masters.”
+
+The congregations too were visibly declining, as the guest-master had
+said. The great nave beyond the screen looked desolate in the
+summer-mornings, as the sunlight lay in coloured patches on the wide
+empty pavement between the few faithful gathered in front, and the half
+dozen loungers who leaned in the shadow of the west wall--men who
+fulfilled their obligation of hearing mass, with a determination to do
+so with the least inconvenience to themselves, and who scuffled out
+before the blessing.
+
+It was evident that the tide of faith and reverence was beginning to ebb
+even in the quiet country towns.
+
+As the summer drew on the wider world too had its storms. A fierce
+sermon was preached at the opening of Convocation, by Dr. Latimer, now
+Bishop of Worcester, at the express desire of the Archbishop, that
+scourged not only the regular but the secular clergy as well. The sermon
+too was more furiously Protestant than any previously preached on such
+an occasion; pilgrimages, the stipends for masses, image-worship, and
+the use of an unknown tongue in divine service, were alike denounced as
+contrary to the “pure gospel.” The phrases of Luther were abundantly
+used in the discourse; and it was evident, from the fact that no public
+censure fell upon the preacher, that Henry’s own religious views had
+developed since the day that he had published his attack on the foreign
+reformers.
+
+The proceedings of Convocation confirmed the suspicion that the sermon
+aroused. With an astonishing compliance the clergy first ratified the
+decree of nullity in the matter of Anne’s marriage with the King,
+disclaimed obedience to Rome, and presented a list of matters for which
+they requested reform. In answer to this last point the King, assisted
+by a couple of bishops, sent down to the houses, a month later, a paper
+of articles to which the clergy instantly agreed. These articles
+proceeded in the direction of Protestantism through omission rather than
+affirmation. Baptism, Penance and the Sacrament of the Altar were spoken
+of in Catholic terms; the other four sacraments were omitted altogether;
+on the other hand, again, devotion to saints, image-worship, and prayers
+for the departed were enjoined with important qualifications.
+
+Finally it was agreed to support the King in his refusal to be
+represented at the proposed General Council at Mantua.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tidings of all this, filtering in to the house at Lewes by priests
+and Religious who stayed there from time to time, did not tend to
+reassure those who looked for peace. The assault was not going to stop
+at matters of discipline; it was dogma that was aimed at, and, worse
+even than that, the foundation on which dogma rested. It was not an
+affair of Religious Houses, or even of morality; there was concerned the
+very Rock itself on which Christendom based all faith and morals. If it
+was once admitted that a National Church, apart from the See of Rome,
+could in the smallest degree adjudicate on a point of doctrine, the
+unity of the Catholic Church as understood by every monk in the house,
+was immediately ruptured.
+
+Again and again in chapter there were terrible scenes. The Prior raved
+weakly, crying that it was not the part of a good Catholic to resist his
+prince, that the Apostle himself enjoined obedience to those in
+authority; that the new light of learning had illuminated perplexing
+problems; and that in the uncertainty it was safer to follow the certain
+duty of civil obedience. Dom Anthony answered that a greater than St.
+Paul had bidden His followers to render to God the things that were
+God’s; that St. Peter was crucified sooner than obey Nero--and the Prior
+cried out for silence; and that he could not hear his Christian King
+likened to the heathen emperor. Monk after monk would rise; one
+following his Prior, and disclaiming personal learning and
+responsibility; another with ironic deference saying that a man’s soul
+was his own, and that not even a Religious Superior could release from
+the biddings of conscience; another would balance himself between the
+parties, declaring that the distinction of duties was insoluble; that in
+such a case as this it was impossible to know what was due to God and
+what to man. Yet another voice would rise from time to time declaring
+that the tales that they heard were incredible; that it was impossible
+that the King should intend such evil against the Church; he still heard
+his three masses a day as he had always done; there was no more ardent
+defender of the Sacrament of the Altar.
+
+Chris used to steady himself in this storm of words as well as he could,
+by reflecting that he probably would not have to make a decision, for it
+would be done for him, at least as regarded his life in the convent or
+out, by his superiors. Or again he would fix his mind resolutely on his
+approaching priesthood; while the Prior sat gnawing his lips, playing
+with his cross and rapping his foot, before bursting out again and
+bidding them all be silent, for they knew not what they were meddling
+with.
+
+The misery rose to its climax when the Injunctions arrived; and the
+chapter sat far into the morning, meeting again after dinner to consider
+them.
+
+These were directions, issued to the clergy throughout the country, by
+the authority of the King alone; and this very fact was significant of
+what the Royal Supremacy meant. Some of them did not touch the
+Religious, and were intended only for parish-priests; but others were
+bitterly hard to receive.
+
+The community was informed that in future, once in every quarter, a
+sermon was to be preached against the Bishop of Rome’s usurped power;
+the Ten Articles, previously issued, were to be brought before the
+notice of the congregation; and careful instructions were to be given as
+regards superstition in the matter of praying to the saints. It was the
+first of these that caused the most strife.
+
+Dom Anthony, who was becoming more and more the leader of the
+conservative party, pointed out that the See of Peter was to every
+Catholic the root of authority and unity, and that Christianity itself
+was imperilled if this rock were touched.
+
+The Prior angrily retorted that it was not the Holy See that was to be
+assaulted, but the erection falsely raised upon it; it was the abuse of
+power, not the use of it that had to be denounced.
+
+Dom Anthony requested the Prior to inform him where the line of
+distinction lay; and the Prior in answer burst into angry explanations,
+instancing the pecuniary demands of the Pope, the appointment of
+foreigners to English benefices, and all the rest of the accusations
+that were playing such a part now in the religious controversy of the
+country.
+
+Dom Anthony replied that those were not the matters principally aimed at
+by the Injunction; it concerned rather the whole constitution of
+Christ’s Church, and was a question of the Pope’s or the King’s
+supremacy over that part of it that lay in England.
+
+Finally the debate was ended by the Prior’s declaration that he could
+trust no one to preach the enjoined sermon but himself, and that he
+would see to it on his own responsibility.
+
+It was scarcely an inspiring atmosphere for one who was preparing to
+take on him the burden of priesthood in the Catholic Church.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SACERDOS IN AETERNUM
+
+
+It was a day of wonderful autumn peace when Chris first sang mass in the
+presence of the Community.
+
+The previous day he had received priesthood from the hands of the little
+old French bishop in the priory church; one by one strange mystical
+ceremonies had been performed; the stole had been shifted and crossed on
+the breast, the token of Christ’s yoke; the chasuble had been placed
+over his head, looped behind; then the rolling cry to the Spirit of God
+who alone seals to salvation and office had pealed round the high roof
+and down the long nave that stretched away westwards in sunlit gloom;
+while across the outstretched hands of the monk had been streaked the
+sacred oil, giving him the power to bless the things of God. The hands
+were bound up, as if to heal the indelible wound of love that had been
+inflicted on them; and, before they were unbound, into the hampered
+fingers were slid the sacred vessels of the altar, occupied now by the
+elements of bread and wine; while the awful power to offer sacrifice for
+the quick and the dead was committed to him in one tremendous phrase.
+
+Then the mass went on; and the new priest, kneeling with Dom Anthony at
+a little bench set at the foot of the altar steps, repeated aloud with
+the bishop the words of the liturgy from the great painted missal lying
+before him.
+
+How strange it had been too when all was over! He stood by a pillar in
+the nave, beneath St. Pancras’s image, while all came to receive his
+blessing. First, the Prior, pale and sullen, as always now; then the
+Community, some smiling and looking into his eyes before they knelt,
+some perfunctory, some solemn and sedate with downcast faces; each
+kissed the fragrant hands, and stood aside, while the laity came up; and
+first among them his father and Mary.
+
+His place too in the refectory had a flower or two laid beside it; and
+the day had gone by in a bewildering dream. He had walked with his
+father and sister a little, and had found himself smiling and silent in
+their company.
+
+In the evening he had once more gone through the ceremonies of mass, Dom
+Anthony stood by, and watched and reminded and criticised. And now the
+morning was come, and he stood at the altar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The little wind had dropped last night, and the hills round Lewes stood
+in mellow sunlight; the atmosphere was full of light and warmth, that
+tender glow that falls on autumn days; the trees in the court outside
+stood, poised on the brink of sleep, with a yellow pallor tinging their
+leaves; the thousand pigeons exulted and wheeled in the intoxicating
+air.
+
+The shadowy church was alight with sunshine that streamed through the
+clerestory windows on to the heavy pillars, the unevenly paved floor,
+and crept down the recumbent figures of noble and bishop from head to
+foot. There were a few people present beyond the screen, Sir James and
+his daughter in front, watching with a tender reverence the harvesting
+of the new priest, as he prepared to gather under his hands the mystical
+wheat and grapes of God.
+
+Chris was perfectly practised in his ceremonies; and there was no
+anxiety to dissipate the overpowering awe that lay on his soul. He felt
+at once natural and unreal; it was supremely natural that he should be
+here; he could not conceive being other than a priest; there was in him
+a sense of a relaxed rather than an intensified strain; and yet the
+whole matter was strange and intangible, as he felt the supernatural
+forces gathering round, and surging through his soul.
+
+He was aware of a dusky sunlit space about him, of the glimmer of the
+high candles; and nearer of the white cloth, the shining vessels, the
+gorgeous missal, and the rustle of the ministers’ vestments. But the
+whole was shot with an inner life, each detail was significant and
+sacramental; and he wondered sometimes at the inaudible vibration that
+stirred the silent air round him, as he spoke the familiar words to
+which he had listened so often.
+
+He kept his eyes resolutely down as he turned from time to time,
+spreading his hands to the people, and was only partly conscious of the
+faces watching him from the dark stalls in front and the sunlit nave
+beyond. Even the sacred ministers, Dom Anthony and another, seemed to be
+little more than crimson impersonal figures that moved and went about
+their stately business with deft and gracious hands.
+
+As he began to penetrate more nearly to the heart of the mystery, and
+the angels’ song before the throne rolled up from the choir, there was
+an experience of a yet further retirement from the things of sense. Even
+the glittering halpas, and the gleams of light above it where the five
+chapels branched behind--even these things became shrouded; there was
+just a sheet of white beneath him, the glow of a chalice, and the pale
+disc of the sacrificial bread.
+
+Then, as he paused, with hands together--“_famulorum famularumque
+tuarum_”--there opened out the world where his spirit was bending its
+intention. Figure after figure came up and passed before his closed
+eyes, and on each he turned the beam of God’s grace. First Ralph,
+sneering and aloof in his rich dress, intent on some Satanic
+business;--Chris seized as it were the power of God, and enveloped and
+penetrated him with it. Then Margaret, waiting terrified on the divine
+will; his mother in her complacent bitterness; Mary; his father--and as
+he thought of him it seemed as if all God’s blessings were not too
+great; Nicholas; his own brethren in religion, his Prior, contracted and
+paralysed with terror; Dom Anthony, with his pathetic geniality....
+
+Ah! how short was the time; and yet so long that the Prior looked up
+sharply, and the deacon shifted in his rustling silk.
+
+Then again the hands opened, and the stately flood of petition poured
+on, as through open gates to the boundless sea that awaited it, where
+the very heart of God was to absorb it into Itself.
+
+The great names began to flit past, like palaces on a river-brink, their
+bases washed by the pouring liturgy--Peter and Paul, Simon and Thaddeus,
+Cosmas and Damian--vast pleasure houses alight with God, while near at
+hand now gleamed the line of the infinite ocean.
+
+The hands came together, arched in blessing; and it marked the first
+sting of the healing water, as the Divine Essence pushed forward to meet
+man’s need.
+
+“_Hanc igitur oblationem ..._”
+
+Then followed the swift silent signs, as if the pilot were ordering
+sails out to meet the breeze.
+
+The muttering voice sank to a deliberate whisper, the ripples ceased to
+leap as the river widened, and Chris was delicately fingering the white
+linen before taking the Host into his hands.
+
+There was a swift glance up, as to the great Sun that burned overhead,
+one more noiseless sign, and he sank forward in unutterable awe, with
+his arms on the altar, and the white disc, hovering on the brink of
+non-existence, beneath his eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The faintest whisper rose from behind as the people shifted their
+constrained attitudes. Sir James glanced up, his eyes full of tears, at
+the distant crimson figure beneath the steady row of lights, motionless
+with outspread hands, poised over the bosom of God’s Love.
+
+The first murmured words broke the silence; as if next to the Infinite
+Pity rose up the infinite need of man--_Nobis quoque peccatoribus_--and
+sank to silence again.
+
+Then loud and clear rang out _Per omnia saecula saeculorum;_ and the
+choir of monks sang _Amen_.
+
+So the great mystery moved on, but upborne now by the very Presence
+itself that sustained all things. From the limitless sea of mercy, the
+children cried through the priest’s lips to their Father who was in
+heaven, and entreated the Lamb of God who takes away sin to have mercy
+on them and give them peace.
+
+Then from far beyond the screen Mary could see how the priest leaning a
+little forward towards That which he bore in his hands, looked on what
+he bore in them; and she whispered softly with him the words that he was
+speaking. _Ave in aeternum sanctissima caro Christi_ ...
+
+Again she hid her face; and when she raised it once, all was over, and
+the Lord had entered and sanctified the body and soul of the man at
+whose words He had entered the creature of bread.
+
+The father and daughter stood together silently in the sunshine outside
+the west end of the church, waiting for Chris. He had promised to come
+to them there for a moment when his thanksgiving was done.
+
+Beyond the wall, and the guest-house where the Visitors had lived those
+two disastrous days, rose up the far sunlit downs, shadowed here and
+there with cup-like hollows, standing like the walls about Jerusalem.
+
+As they turned, on the right above the red roofs of the town, rose the
+downs again, vast slopes and shoulders, over which Chris had ridden so
+short a while ago bearded and brown with hunting. It was over there that
+Ralph had come, through that dip, which seemed against the skyline a
+breach in a high wall.
+
+Ah! surely God would spare this place; so stately and quiet, so
+graciously sheltered by the defences that He Himself had raised! If all
+England tottered and fell, this at least might stand, this vast home of
+prayer that stirred day and night with the praises of the Eternal and
+the petitions of the mortal--this glorious house where a priest so dear
+to them had brought forth from his mystical paternity the very Son of
+God!
+
+The door opened behind them, and Chris came out pale and smiling with a
+little anxious-eyed monk beside him. His eyes lightened as he saw them
+standing there; but he turned again for a moment.
+
+“Yes--father,” he said. “What was it?”
+
+“You stayed too long,” said the other, “at the _famularumque tuarum_;
+the rubric says _nullus nimis immoretur_, you know;--_nimis immoretur_.”
+
+“Yes,” said Chris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE NORTHERN RISING
+
+
+A few of the smaller Religious houses had surrendered themselves to the
+King before the passing of the bill in the early spring; and the rest of
+them were gradually yielded up after its enactment during the summer of
+the same year; and among them was Rusper. Chris heard that his sister
+Margaret had returned to Overfield, and would stay there for the
+present.
+
+Throughout the whole of England there were the same scenes to be
+witnessed. A troop of men, headed by a Commissioner, would ride up one
+evening to some village where a little convent stood, demand entrance at
+the gate, pass through, and disappear from the eyes of the watching
+crowd. Then the next day the work would begin; the lead would be
+stripped from the church and buildings; the treasures corded in bundles;
+the woodwork of the interior put up to auction on the village green; and
+a few days later the troop would disappear again, heavily laden, leaving
+behind roofless walls, and bewildered Religious in their new secular
+dress with a few shillings in their pockets, staring after the rich
+cavalcade and wondering what was best to do.
+
+It had been hoped that the King would stay his hand at the death of
+Anne, and even yet return to the obedience of the Holy See. The Pope was
+encouraged to think so by the authorities on the continent, and in
+England itself there prevailed even confidence that a return to the old
+ways would be effected. But Henry had gone too far; he had drunk too
+deeply of the wealth that lay waiting for him in the treasuries of the
+Religious houses, and after a pause of expectation he set his hand to
+the cup again. It was but natural too, and for more noble motives, to
+such a character as his. As he had aimed in his youth at nothing less
+than supremacy in tennis, hunting and tourney, and later in
+architecture, music and theological reputation; as, for the same reason
+Wolsey had fallen, when the King looked away from girls and sports to
+the fiercer game of politics; so now it was intolerable to Henry that
+there should be even the shadow of a spiritual independence within his
+domain.
+
+A glow of resentful disappointment swept through the North of England at
+the news. It burst out into flame in Lincolnshire, and was not finally
+quenched until the early summer of the following year.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The news that reached Lewes from time to time during the winter and
+spring sent the hearts of all that heard it through the whole gamut of
+emotions. At one time fierce hope, then despair, then rising confidence,
+then again blank hopelessness--each in turn tore the souls of the monks;
+and misery reached its climax in the summer at the news of the execution
+at Tyburn of the Abbots of Jervaulx and Fountains, with other monks and
+gentlemen.
+
+The final recital of the whole tragedy was delivered to them at the
+mouth of a Religious from the Benedictine cell at Middlesborough who had
+been released by the Visitors at his own request, but who had afterwards
+repented and joined the rising soon after the outset; he had been
+through most of the incidents, and then when failure was assured had
+fled south in terror for his life, and was now on his way to the
+Continent to take up his monastic vocation once more.
+
+The Prior was away on one of the journeys that he so frequently
+undertook at this time, no man knew whither, or the ex-monk and rebel
+would have been refused admittance; but the sub-Prior was persuaded to
+take him in for a night, and he sat long in one of the parlours that
+evening telling his story.
+
+Chris leaned against the wall and watched him as he talked with the
+candle-light on his face. He was a stout middle-aged man in layman’s
+dress, for he was not yet out of peril; he sat forward in his chair,
+making preacher’s gestures as he spoke, and using well-chosen vivid
+words.
+
+“They were gathered already when I joined them on their way to York;
+there were nearly ten thousand of them on the road, with Aske at their
+head. I have never set eyes on such a company! There was a troop of
+gentlemen and their sons riding with Aske in front, all in armour; and
+then the rabble behind with gentlemen again to their officers. The
+common folk had pikes and hooks only; and some were in leather harness,
+and some without; but they marched well and kept good order. They were
+of all sorts: hairy men and boys; and miners from the North. There were
+monks, too, and friars, I know not how many, that went with the army to
+encourage them; and everywhere we went the women ran out of their homes
+with food and drink, and prayed God to bless us; and the bells were rung
+in the village churches. We slept as we could, some in houses, some in
+churchyards and by the wayside, and as many of us as could get into the
+churches heard mass each day. As many too as could make them, wore the
+Five Wounds on a piece of stuff sewn on the arm. You would have said
+that none could stand against us, so eager we were and full of faith.”
+
+“There was a song, was there not?” began one of the monks.
+
+“Yes, father. We sang it as we went.
+
+   “Christ crucified!
+    For thy wounds wide
+    Us commons guide
+      Which pilgrims be!
+    Through God his grace
+    For to purchase
+    Old wealth and peace
+      Of the spiritualty!
+
+“You could hear it up and down the lines, sung with weeping and
+shouting.”
+
+He described how they came to York, and how the Mayor was forced to
+admit them. They stayed there a couple of days; and Aske published his
+directions for all the ejected Religious to return to their houses.
+
+“I went to a little cell near by--I forget its name--to help some canons
+to settle in again, whose friendship I had made. I had told them then
+that my mind was to enter Religion once more, and they took me very
+willingly. We got there at night. The roof was gone from the dormitory,
+but we slept there for all that--such of us as could sleep--for I heard
+one of them sobbing for joy as he lay there in his old corner under the
+stars; and we sang mass in the morning, as well as we could. The priest
+had an old tattered vestment that hardly hung on his shoulders; and
+there was no cross but one that came from a pair of beads, and that we
+hung over the altar. When I left them again, they were at their office
+as before, and busy roofing the house with old timbers; for my lord
+Cromwell had all the lead. And all their garden was trampled; but they
+said they would do very well. The village-folk were their good friends,
+and would bring them what they needed.”
+
+He described his journey to Doncaster; the furious excitement of the
+villages he passed through, and the news that reached him hour after
+hour as to the growing vastness of Aske’s forces.
+
+“There were thirty thousand, I heard, on the banks of the Don on one
+side; for my lords Nevill and Lumley and others had ridden in with St.
+Cuthbert his banner and arms, and five thousand men, besides those that
+came in from all the country. And on the further side was my Lord
+Shrewsbury for the King, with the Duke and his men. Master Aske had all
+he could do to keep his men back from being at them. Some of the young
+sparks were as terriers at a rat-hole. There was a parley held on the
+bridge, for Norfolk knew well that he must gain time; and Aske sent his
+demands to his Grace, and that was the mistake--”
+
+The man beat one hand into the other and looked round with a kindling
+force--
+
+“That was the mistake! He was too loyal for such work, and did not guess
+at their craft. Well, while we waited there, our men began to make off;
+their farms were wanting them, and their wives and the rest, and we
+melted. Master Aske had to be everywhere at once, it was no fault of
+his. My Lord Derby was marching up upon the houses again, and seeking to
+drive the monks out once more. But there was not an act of violence done
+by our men; not a penny-piece taken or a house burned. They were
+peaceable folk, and asked no more than that their old religion should be
+given back to them, and that they might worship God as they had always
+done.”
+
+He went on to explain how the time had been wasted in those fruitless
+negotiations, and how the force dwindled day by day. Various answers
+were attempted by the King, containing both threats and promises, and in
+these, as in all else the hand of Cromwell was evident. Finally, towards
+the end of November, the insurgents gathered again for another meeting
+with the King’s representatives at Doncaster, summoned by beacons on the
+top of the high Yorkshire moors, and by the reversed pealing of the
+church bells.
+
+“We had a parley among ourselves at Pomfret first, and had a great
+to-do, though I saw little of it; and drew up our demands; and then set
+out for Doncaster again. The duke was there, with the King’s pardon in
+his hand, in the Whitefriars; and a promise that all should be as we
+asked. So we went back to Pomfret, well-pleased, and the next day on St.
+Thomas’ hill the herald read the pardon to us all; and we, poor fools,
+thought that his Grace meant to keep his word--”
+
+The monk looked bitterly round, sneering with his white strong teeth set
+together like a savage dog’s; and there was silence for a moment. The
+Sub-Prior looked nervously round the faces of his subjects, for this was
+treasonable talk to hear.
+
+Then the man went on. He himself it seemed had retired again to the
+little cell where he had seen the canons settled in a few weeks
+previously; and heard nothing of what was going forward; except that the
+heralds were going about the country, publishing the King’s pardon to
+all who had taken part in the Rebellion, and affixing it to the
+market-cross in each town and village, with touching messages from the
+King relating to the grief which he had felt on hearing that his dear
+children believed such tales about him.
+
+Little by little, however, the discontent began to smoulder once more,
+for the King’s pledges of restoration were not fulfilled; and Cromwell,
+who was now recognised to be the inspirer of all the evil done against
+Religion, remained as high as ever in the royal favour. Aske, who had
+been to the King in person, and given him an account of all that had
+taken place, now wrote to him that there was a danger of a further
+rising if the delay continued, for there were no signs yet of the
+promised free parliament being called at York.
+
+Then again disturbances had broken out.
+
+“I was at Hull,” said the monk, “with Sir Francis Bygod in January; but
+we did nothing, and only lost our leader, and all the while Norfolk was
+creeping up with his army. It was piteous to think what might not have
+been done if we had not trusted his Grace; but ’twas no good, and I was
+back again in the dales here and there, hiding for my life by April.
+Everywhere ’twas the same; the monks were haled out again from their
+houses, and men were hanged by the score. I cut down four myself near
+Meux, and gave them Christian burial at night. One was a monk, and
+hanged in his habit. But the worst of all was at York.”
+
+The man’s face twitched with emotion, and he passed his hand over his
+mouth once or twice before continuing.
+
+“I did not dare to go into the court for fear I should be known; but I
+stood outside in the crowd and watched them go in. There was a fellow
+riding with Norfolk--a false knave of a man whom we had all learnt to
+hate at Doncaster--for he was always jeering at us secretly and making
+mischief when he could. I saw him with the duke before, when we went
+into the Whitefriars for the pardon; and he stood there behind with the
+look of a devil on his face; and now here he was again--”
+
+“His name, sir?” put in Dom Adrian.
+
+“Torridon, father, Torridon! He was a--”
+
+There was a sharp movement in the room, so that the monk stopped and
+looked round him amazed. Chris felt the blood ebb from his heart and din
+in his ears, and he swayed a little as he leaned against the wall. He
+saw Dom Anthony lean forward and whisper to the stranger; and through
+the haze that was before his eyes saw the other look at him sharply,
+with a fallen jaw.
+
+Then the monk rose and made a little stiff inclination to Chris,
+deferential and courteous, but with a kind of determined dignity in it
+too.
+
+When Chris had recovered himself, the monk was deep in his story, but
+Ralph had fallen out of it.
+
+“You would not believe it,” he was saying, “but on the very jury that
+was to try Master Aske and Constable, there were empanelled their own
+blood-relations; and that by the express intention of Norfolk. John Aske
+was one of them, and some others who had to wives the sons of my Lord
+Darcy and Sir Robert Constable. You see how it would be. If the
+prisoners were found guilty, men would say that it must be so, for that
+their own kin had condemned them; and if they were to be acquitted, then
+these men themselves would be cast.”
+
+There again broke out a murmur from the listening faces, as the man
+paused.
+
+“Well, they were cast, as you know, for not taking the King to be the
+supreme head of the Church, and for endeavouring to force the King to
+hold a parliament that he willed not. And I was at York again when
+Master Aske was brought back from London to be hanged, and I saw it!”
+
+Again an uncontrollable emotion shook him; and he propped his face on
+his hand as he ended his tale.
+
+“There were many of his friends there in the crowd, and scarcely one
+dared to cry out, God save you, sir.... I dared not....”
+
+He gave one rending sob, and Chris felt his eyes prick with tears at the
+sight of so much sorrow. It was piteous to see a brave man thinking
+himself a coward.
+
+Dom Anthony leaned forward.
+
+“Thank you, father,” he said, though his voice was a little husky, “and
+thank God that he died well. You have touched all our hearts.”
+
+“I was a hound,” sobbed the man, “a hound, that I did not cry out to him
+and tell him that I loved him.”
+
+“No, no, father,” said the other tenderly, “you must not think so. You
+must serve God well now, and pray for his soul.”
+
+The bell sounded out for Compline as he spoke, and the monks rose.
+
+“You will come into choir, father,” said the Sub-Prior.
+
+The man nodded, stood up, and followed him out.
+
+Chris was in a strange ferment as he stood in his stall that night. It
+had been sad enough to hear of that gallant attempt to win back the old
+liberties and the old Faith--that attempt that had been a success except
+for the insurgents’ trust in their King--and of the death of the
+leaders.
+
+But across the misery had pierced a more poignant grief, as he had
+learnt how Ralph’s hand was in this too and had taken once more the
+wrong side in God’s quarrel. But still he had no resentment; the
+conflict had passed out of the personal plane into an higher, and he
+thought of his brother as God’s enemy rather than his own. Would his
+prayers then never prevail--the prayers that he speeded up in the smoke
+of the great Sacrifice morning by morning for that zealous mistaken
+soul? Or was it perhaps that that brother of his must go deeper yet,
+before coming out to knowledge and pardon?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SEAL
+
+
+The autumn drew in swiftly. The wet south-west wind blew over the downs
+that lay between Lewes and the sea, and beat down the loose browning
+leaves of the trees about the Priory. The grass in the cloister-garth
+grew rank and dark with the constant rain that drove and dropped over
+the high roofs.
+
+And meanwhile the tidings grew heavier still.
+
+After Michaelmas the King set to work in earnest. He had been checked by
+the northern risings, and still paused to see whether the embers had
+been wholly quenched; and then when it was evident that the North was as
+submissive as the South, began again his business of gathering in the
+wealth that was waiting.
+
+He started first in the North, under show of inflicting punishment for
+the encouragement that the Religious had given to the late rebellions;
+and one by one the great abbeys were tottering. Furness and Sawley had
+already fallen, with Jervaulx and the other houses, and Holme Cultram
+was placed under the care of a superior who could be trusted to hand
+over his charge when called upon.
+
+But up to the present not many great houses had actually fallen, except
+those which were supposed to have taken a share in the revolt; and owing
+to the pains taken by the Visitors to contradict the report that the
+King intended to lay his hands on the whole monastic property of
+England, it was even hoped by a few sanguine souls that the large
+houses might yet survive.
+
+There were hot discussions in the chapter at Lewes from time to time
+during the year. The “Bishops’ Book,” issued by a committee of divines
+and approved by the King, and containing a digest of the new Faith that
+was being promulgated, arrived during the summer and was fiercely
+debated; but so high ran the feeling that the Prior dropped the matter,
+and the book was put away with other papers of the kind on an honourable
+but little-used shelf.
+
+The acrimony in domestic affairs began to reach its climax in October,
+when the prospects of the Priory’s own policy came up for discussion.
+
+Some maintained that they were safe, and that quietness and confidence
+were their best security, and these had the support of the Prior; others
+declared that the best hope lay in selling the possessions of the house
+at a low price to some trustworthy man who would undertake to sell them
+back again at only a small profit to himself when the storm was passed.
+
+The Prior rose in wrath when this suggestion was made.
+
+“Would you have me betray my King?” he cried. “I tell you I will have
+none of it. It is not worthy of a monk to have such thoughts.”
+
+And he sat down and would hear no more, nor speak.
+
+There were whispered conferences after that among the others, as to what
+his words meant. Surely there was nothing dishonourable in the device;
+they only sought to save what was their own! And how would the King be
+“betrayed” by such an action?
+
+They had an answer a fortnight later; and it took them wholly by
+surprise.
+
+During the second week in November the Prior had held himself more
+aloof than ever; only three or four of the monks, with the Sub-Prior
+among them, were admitted to his cell, and they were there at all hours.
+Two or three strangers too arrived on horseback, and were entertained by
+the Prior in a private parlour. And then on the morning of the
+fourteenth the explanation came.
+
+When the usual business of the chapter was done, the faults confessed
+and penances given, and one or two small matters settled, the Prior,
+instead of rising to give the signal to go, remained in his chair, his
+head bent on to his hand.
+
+It was a dark morning, heavy and lowering; and from where Chris sat at
+the lower end of the great chamber he could scarcely make out the
+features of those who sat under the high window at the east; but as soon
+as the Prior lifted his face and spoke, he knew by that tense strain of
+the voice that something impended.
+
+“There is another matter,” said the Prior; and paused again.
+
+For a moment there was complete silence. The Sub-Prior leant a little
+forward and was on the point of speaking, when his superior lifted his
+head again and straightened himself in his chair.
+
+“It is this,” he said, and his voice rang hard and defiant, “it is this.
+It is useless to think we can save ourselves. We are under suspicion,
+and worse than suspicion. I have hoped, and prayed, and striven to know
+God’s will; and I have talked with my Lord Cromwell not once or twice,
+but often. And it is useless to resist any further.”
+
+His voice cracked with misery; but Chris saw him grip the bosses of his
+chair-arms in an effort for self-control. His own heart began to sicken;
+this was not frightened raving such as he had listened to before; it was
+the speech of one who had been driven into decision, as a rat into a
+corner.
+
+“I have talked with the Sub-Prior, and others; and they think with me in
+this. I have kept it back from the rest, that they might serve God in
+peace so long as was possible. But now I must tell you all, my sons,
+that we must leave this place.”
+
+There was a hush of terrible tension. The monks had known that they were
+threatened; they could not think otherwise with the news that came from
+all parts, but they had not known that catastrophe was so imminent. An
+old monk opposite Chris began to moan and mutter; but the Prior went on
+immediately.
+
+“At least I think that we must leave. It may be otherwise, if God has
+pity on us; I do not know; but we must be ready to leave, if it be His
+will, and,--and to say so.”
+
+He was speaking in abrupt sentences, with pauses between, in which he
+appeared to summon his resolution to speak again, and force out his
+tale. There was plainly more behind too; and his ill-ease seemed to
+deepen on him.
+
+“I wish no one to speak now,” he said. “Instead of the Lady-mass
+to-morrow we shall sing mass of the Holy Ghost, and afterwards I shall
+have more to say to you again. I do not desire any to hold speech with
+any other, but to look into their own hearts and seek counsel of God
+there.”
+
+He still sat a moment silent, then rose and gave the signal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a strange day for Chris. He did not know what to think, but he
+was certain that they had not yet been told all. The Prior’s silences
+had been as pregnant as his words. There was something very close now
+that would be revealed immediately, and meanwhile he must think out how
+to meet it.
+
+The atmosphere seemed charged all day; the very buildings wore a strange
+air, unfamiliar and menacing. The intimate bond between his soul and
+them, knit by associations of prayer and effort, appeared unreal and
+flimsy. He was tormented by doubtfulness; he could not understand on the
+one side how it was possible to yield to the King, on the other how it
+was possible to resist. No final decision could be made by him until he
+had heard the minds of his fellows; and fortunately they would all speak
+before him. He busied himself then with disentangling the strands of
+motive, desire, fear and hope, and waited for the shaking loose of the
+knot until he knew more.
+
+Mass of the Holy Ghost was sung next morning by the Prior himself in red
+vestments; and Chris waited with expectant awe, remembering how the
+Carthusians under like circumstances had been visited by God; but the
+Host was uplifted and the bell rang; and there was nothing but the
+candle-lit gloom of the choir about the altar, and the sigh of the wind
+in the chapels behind.
+
+Then in the chapter-meeting the Prior told them all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He reminded them how they had prayed that morning for guidance, and that
+they must be fearless now in following it out. It was easy to be
+reckless and call it faith, but prudence and reasonable common-sense
+were attributes of the Christian no less than trust in God. They had not
+to consider now what they would wish for themselves, but what God
+intended for them so far as they could read it in the signs of the
+times.
+
+“For myself,” he cried,--and Chris almost thought him sincere as he
+spoke, so kindled was his face--“for myself I should ask no more than
+to live and die in this place, as I had hoped. Every stone here is as
+dear to me as to you, and I think more dear, for I have been in a
+special sense the lord of it all; but I dare not think of that. We must
+be ready to leave all willingly if God wills. We thought that we had
+yielded all to follow Christ when we first set our necks here under His
+sweet yoke; but I think He asks of us even more now; and that we should
+go out from here even as we went out from our homes ten or twenty years
+ago. We shall be no further from our God outside this place; and we may
+be even nearer if we go out according to His will.”
+
+He seemed on fire with zeal and truth. His timid peevish air was gone,
+and his delicate scholarly face was flushed as he spoke. Chris was
+astonished, and more perplexed than ever. Was it then possible that
+God’s will might lie in the direction he feared?
+
+“Now this is the matter which we have to consider,” went on the Prior
+more quietly. “His Grace has sent to ask, through a private messenger
+from my Lord Cromwell, whether we will yield up the priory. There is no
+compulsion in the matter--” he paused significantly--“and his Grace
+desires each to act according to his judgment and conscience, of--of his
+own free will.”
+
+There was a dead silence.
+
+The news was almost expected by now. Through the months of anxiety each
+monk had faced the probability of such tidings coming to him sooner or
+later; and the last few days had brought expectation to its climax. Yet
+it was hard to see the enemy face to face, and to know that there was no
+possibility of resisting him finally.
+
+The Sub-Prior rose to his feet and began to speak, glancing as if for
+corroboration to his superior from time to time. His mouth worked a
+little at the close of each sentence.
+
+“My Lord Prior has shown us his own mind, and I am with him in the
+matter. His Grace treats us like his own children; he wishes us to be
+loving and obedient. But, as a father too, he has authority behind to
+compel us to his will if we will not submit. And, as my Lord Prior said
+yesterday, we do not know whether or no his Grace will not permit us to
+remain here after all, if we are docile; or perhaps refound the priory
+out of his own bounty. There is talk of the Chertsey monks going to the
+London Charterhouse from Bisham where the King set them last year. But
+we may be sure he will not do so with us if we resist his will now. I on
+my part then am in favour of yielding up the house willingly, and
+trusting ourselves to his Grace’s clemency.”
+
+There was again silence as he sat down; and a pause of a minute or two
+before Dom Anthony rose. His ruddy face was troubled and perplexed; but
+he spoke resolutely enough.
+
+He said that he could not understand why the matter had not been laid
+before them earlier, that they might have had time to consider it. The
+question was an extremely difficult one to the consciences of some of
+them. On the one hand there was the peril of acquiescing in
+sacrilege--the Prior twisted in his seat as he heard this--and on the
+other of wilfully and petulantly throwing away their only opportunity of
+saving their priory. He asked for time.
+
+Several more made speeches, some in favour of the proposal, and some
+asking, as Dom Anthony had done, for further time for consideration.
+They had no precedents, they said, on which to decide such a question,
+for they understood that it was not on account of treason that they
+were required to surrender the house and property.
+
+The Prior rose with a white face.
+
+“No, no,” he cried. “God forbid! That is over and done with. I--we have
+made our peace with my Lord Cromwell in that affair.”
+
+“Then why,” asked Dom Anthony, “are we required to yield it?”
+
+The Prior glanced helplessly at him.
+
+“I--it is as a sign that the King is temporal lord of the land.”
+
+“We do not deny that,” said the other.
+
+“Some do,” said the Prior feebly.
+
+There was a little more discussion. Dom Anthony remarked that it was not
+a matter of temporal but spiritual headship that was in question. To
+meddle with the Religious Orders was to meddle with the Vicar of Christ
+under whose special protection they were; and it seemed to him at least
+a probable opinion, so far as he had had time to consider it, that to
+yield, even in the hopes of saving their property ultimately, was to
+acquiesce in the repudiation of the authority of Rome.
+
+And so it went on for an hour; and then as it grew late, the Prior rose
+once more, and asked if any one had a word to say who had not yet
+spoken.
+
+Chris had intended to speak, but all that he wished to ask had already
+been stated by others; and he sat now silent, staring up at the Prior,
+and down at the smooth boarded floor at his feet. He had not an idea
+what to do. He was no theologian.
+
+Then the Prior unmasked his last gun.
+
+“As regards the matter of time for consideration, that is now passed. In
+spite of what some have said we have had sufficient warning. All here
+must have known that the choice would be laid before them, for months
+past; it is now an answer that is required of us.”
+
+He paused a moment longer. His lips began to tremble, but he made a
+strong effort and finished.
+
+“Master Petre will be here to-night, as my lord Cromwell’s
+representative, and will sit in the chapter-house to-morrow to receive
+the surrender.”
+
+Dom Anthony started to his feet. The Prior made a violent gesture for
+silence, and then gave the signal to break up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Again the bewildering day went past. The very discipline of the house
+was a weakness in the defence of the surprised party. It was impossible
+for them to meet and discuss the situation as they wished; and even the
+small times of leisure seemed unusually occupied. Dom Anthony was busy
+at the guest-house; one of the others who had spoken against the
+proposal was sent off on a message by the Prior, and another was ordered
+to assist the sacristan to clean the treasures in view of the Visitor’s
+coming.
+
+Chris was not able to ask a word of advice from any of those whom he
+thought to be in sympathy with him.
+
+He sat all day over his antiphonary, in the little carrel off the
+cloister, and as he worked his mind toiled like a mill.
+
+He had progressed a long way with the work now, and was engaged on the
+pages that contained the antiphons for Lent. The design was soberer
+here; the angels that had rested among the green branches and early
+roses of Septuagesima, thrusting here a trumpet and there a harp among
+the leaves, had taken flight, and grave menacing creatures were in their
+place. A jackal looked from behind the leafless trunk, a lion lifted
+his toothed mouth to roar from a thicket of thorns, as they had lurked
+and bellowed in the bleak wilderness above the Jordan fifteen hundred
+years ago. They were gravely significant now, he thought; and scarcely
+knowing what he did he set narrow human eyes in the lion’s face (for he
+knew no better) and broadened the hanging jaws with a delicate line or
+two.
+
+Then with a fierce impulse he crowned him, and surmounted the crown with
+a cross.
+
+And all the while his mind toiled at the problem. There were three
+things open to him on the morrow. Either he might refuse to sign the
+surrender, and take whatever consequences might follow; or he might sign
+it; and there were two processes of thought by which he might take that
+action. By the first he would simply make an act of faith in his
+superiors, and do what they did because they did it; by the second he
+would sign it of his own responsibility because he decided to think that
+by doing so he would be taking the best action for securing his own
+monastic life.
+
+He considered these three. To refuse to sign almost inevitably involved
+his ruin, and that not only, and not necessarily, in the worldly
+sense; about that he sincerely believed he did not care; but it would
+mean his exclusion from any concession that the King might afterwards
+make. He certainly would not be allowed, under any circumstances,
+to remain in the home of his profession; and if the community was
+shifted he would not be allowed to go with them. As regards the second
+alternative he wondered whether it was possible to shift responsibility
+in that manner; as regards the third, he knew that he had very little
+capability in any case of foreseeing the course that events would take.
+
+Then he turned it all over again, and considered the arguments for
+each course. His superiors were set over him by God; it was rash to
+set himself against them except in matters of the plainest conscience.
+Again it was cowardly to shelter himself behind this plea and so avoid
+responsibility. Lastly, he was bound to judge for himself.
+
+The arguments twisted and turned as bewilderingly as the twining
+branches of his design; and behind each by which he might climb to
+decision lurked a beast. He felt helpless and dazed by the storm of
+conflicting motives.
+
+As he bent over his work he prayed for light, but the question seemed
+more tangled than before; the hours were creeping in; by to-morrow he
+must decide.
+
+Then the memory of the Prior’s advice to him once before came back to
+his mind; this was the kind of thing, he told himself, that he must
+leave to God, his own judgment was too coarse an instrument; he must
+wait for a clear supernatural impulse; and as he thought of it he laid
+his pencil down, dropped on to his knees, and commended it all to God,
+to the Mother of God, St. Pancras, St. Peter and St. Paul. Even as he
+did it, the burden lifted and he knew that he would know, when the time
+came.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Petre came that night, but Chris saw no more of him than his back as
+he went up the cloister with Dom Anthony to the Prior’s chamber. The
+Prior was not at supper, and his seat was empty in the dim refectory.
+
+Neither was he at Compline; and it was with the knowledge that
+Cromwell’s man and their own Superior were together in conference, that
+the monks went up the dormitory stairs that night.
+
+But he was in his place at the chapter-mass next morning, though he
+spoke to no one, and disappeared immediately afterwards.
+
+Then at the appointed time the monks assembled in the chapter-house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Chris came in he lifted his eyes, and saw that the room was arrayed
+much as it had been at the visit of Dr. Layton and Ralph. A great table,
+heaped with books and papers, stood at the upper end immediately below
+the dais, and a couple of secretaries were there, sharp-looking men,
+seated at either end and busy with documents.
+
+The Prior was in his place in the shadow and was leaning over and
+talking to a man who sat beside him. Chris could make out little of the
+latter except that he seemed to be a sort of lawyer or clerk, and was
+dressed in a dark gown and cap. He was turning over the leaves of a book
+as the Prior talked, and nodded his head assentingly from time to time.
+
+When all the monks were seated, there was still a pause. It was
+strangely unlike the scene of a tragedy, there in that dark grave room
+with the quiet faces downcast round the walls, and the hands hidden in
+the cowl-sleeves. And even on the deeper plane it all seemed very
+correct and legal. There was the representative of the King, a capable
+learned man, with all the indications of law and order round him, and
+his two secretaries to endorse or check his actions. There too was the
+Community, gathered to do business in the manner prescribed by the Rule,
+with the deeds of foundation before their eyes, and the great brass
+convent seal on the table. There was not a hint of bullying or
+compulsion; these monks were asked merely to sign a paper if they so
+desired it. Each was to act for himself; there was to be no over-riding
+of individual privileges, or signing away another’s conscience.
+
+Nothing could have been arranged more peaceably.
+
+And yet to every man’s mind that was present the sedate room was black
+with horror. The majesty and terror of the King’s will brooded in the
+air; nameless dangers looked in at the high windows and into every man’s
+face; the quiet lawyer-like men were ministers of fearful vengeance; the
+very pens, ink and paper that lay there so innocently were sacraments of
+death or life.
+
+The Prior ceased his whispering presently, glanced round to see if all
+were in their places, and then stood up.
+
+His voice was perfectly natural as he told them that this was Dr. Petre,
+come down from Lord Cromwell to offer them an opportunity of showing
+their trust and love towards their King by surrendering to his
+discretion the buildings and property that they held. No man was to be
+compelled to sign; it must be perfectly voluntary on their part; his
+Grace wished to force no conscience to do that which it repudiated. For
+his own part, he said, he was going to sign with a glad heart. The King
+had shown his clemency in a hundred ways, and to that clemency he
+trusted.
+
+Then he sat down; and Chris marvelled at his self-control.
+
+Dr. Petre stood up, and looked round for a moment before opening his
+mouth; then he put his two hands on the table before him, dropped his
+eyes and began his speech.
+
+He endorsed first what the Prior had said, and congratulated all there
+on possessing such a superior. It was a great happiness, he said, to
+deal with men who showed themselves so reasonable and so loyal. Some he
+had had to do with had not been so--and--and of course their
+stubbornness had brought its own penalty. But of that he did not wish
+to speak. On the other hand those who had shown themselves true
+subjects of his Grace had already found their reward. He had great
+pleasure in announcing to them that what the Prior had said to them a
+day or two before was true; and that their brethren in religion of
+Chertsey Abbey, who had been moved to Bisham last year, were to go to
+the London Charterhouse in less than a month. The papers were made out;
+he had assisted in their drawing up.
+
+He spoke in a quiet restrained voice, and with an appearance of great
+deference; there was not the shadow of a bluster even when he referred
+to the penalties of stubbornness; it was very unlike the hot bullying
+arrogance of Dr. Layton. Then he ended--
+
+“And so, reverend fathers, the choice is in your hands. His Grace will
+use no compulsion. You will hear presently that the terms of surrender
+are explicit in that point. He will not force one man to sign who is not
+convinced that he can best serve his King and himself by doing so. It
+would go sorely against his heart if he thought that he had been the
+means of making the lowest of his subjects to act contrary to the
+conscience that God has given him. My Lord Prior, I will beg of you to
+read the terms of surrender.”
+
+The paper was read, and it was as it had been described. Again and again
+it was repeated in various phrases that the property was yielded of
+free-will. It was impossible to find in it even the hint of a threat.
+The properties in question were enumerated in the minutest manner, and
+the list included all the rights of the priory over the Cluniac cell of
+Castleacre.
+
+The Prior laid the paper down, and looked at Dr. Petre.
+
+The Commissioner rose from his seat, taking the paper as he did so, and
+so stood a moment.
+
+“You see, reverend fathers, that it is as I told you. I understand that
+you have already considered the matter, so that there is no more to be
+said.”
+
+He stepped down from the dais and passed round to the further side of
+the table. One of the secretaries pushed an ink-horn and a couple of
+quills across to him.
+
+“My Lord Prior,” said Dr. Petre, with a slight bow. “If you are willing
+to sign this, I will beg of you to do so; and after that to call up your
+subjects.”
+
+He laid the paper down. The Prior stepped briskly out of his seat, and
+passed round the table.
+
+Chris watched his back, the thin lawyer beside him indicating the place
+for the name; and listened as in a dream to the scratching of the pen.
+He himself still did not know what he would do. If all signed--?
+
+The Prior stepped back, and Chris caught a glimpse of a white face that
+smiled terribly.
+
+The Sub-Prior stepped down at a sign from his Superior; and then one by
+one the monks came out.
+
+Chris’s heart sickened as he watched; and then stood still on a sudden
+in desperate hope, for opposite to him Dom Anthony sat steady, his head
+on his hand, and made no movement when it was his turn to come out.
+Chris saw the Prior look at the monk, and a spasm of emotion went over
+his face.
+
+“Dom Anthony,” he said.
+
+The monk lifted his face, and it was smiling too.
+
+“I cannot sign, My Lord Prior.”
+
+Then the veils fell, and decision flashed on Chris’ soul.
+
+He heard the pulse drumming in his ears, and his wet hands slipped one
+in the other as he gripped them together, but he made no sign till all
+the others had gone up. Then he looked up at the Prior.
+
+It seemed an eternity before the Prior looked at him and nodded; and he
+could make no answering sign.
+
+Then he heard his name called, and with a great effort he answered; his
+voice seemed not his own in his ears. He repeated Dom Anthony’s words.
+
+“I cannot sign, My Lord Prior.”
+
+Then he sat back with closed eyes and waited.
+
+He heard movements about him, steps, the crackle of parchment, and at
+last Dr. Petre’s voice; but he scarcely understood what was said. There
+was but one thought dinning in his brain, and that was that he had
+refused, and thrown his defiance down before the King--that terrible man
+whom he had seen in his barge on the river, with the narrow eyes, the
+pursed mouth and the great jowl, as he sat by the woman he called his
+wife--that woman who now--
+
+Chris shivered, opened his eyes, and sense came back.
+
+Dr. Petre was just ending his speech. He was congratulating the
+Community on their reasonableness and loyalty. By an overwhelming
+majority they had decided to trust the King, and they would not find his
+grace unmindful of that. As for those who had not signed he could say
+nothing but that they had used the liberty that his Grace had given
+them. Whether they had used it rightly was no business of his.
+
+Then he turned to the Prior.
+
+“The seal then, My Lord Prior. I think that is the next matter.”
+
+The Prior rose and lifted it from the table. Chris caught the gleam of
+the brass and silver of the ponderous precious thing in his hand--the
+symbol of their corporate existence--engraved, as he knew, with the four
+patrons of the house, the cliff, the running water of the Ouse, and the
+rhyming prayer to St. Pancras.
+
+The Prior handed it to the Commissioner, who took it, and stood there a
+moment weighing it in his hand.
+
+“A hammer,” he said.
+
+One of the secretaries rose, and drew from beneath the table a sheet of
+metal and a sharp hammer; he handed both to Dr. Petre.
+
+Chris watched, fascinated with something very like terror, his throat
+contracted in a sudden spasm, as he saw the Commissioner place the metal
+in the solid table before him, and then, holding the seal sideways, lift
+the hammer in his right hand.
+
+Then blow after blow began to echo in the rafters overhead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE SINKING SHIP
+
+
+Dr. Petre had come and gone, and to all appearance the priory was as
+before. He had not taken a jewel or a fragment of stuff; he had
+congratulated the sacristan on the beauty and order of his treasures,
+and had bidden him guard them carefully, for that there were knaves
+abroad who professed themselves as authorised by the King to seize
+monastic possessions, which they sold for their own profit. The offices
+continued to be sung day and night, and the masses every morning; and
+the poor were fed regularly at the gate.
+
+But across the corporate life had passed a subtle change, analogous to
+that which comes to the body of a man. Legal death had taken place
+already; the unity of life and consciousness existed no more; the seal
+was defaced; they could no longer sign a document except as individuals.
+Now the _rigor mortis_ would set in little by little until somatic death
+too had been consummated, and the units which had made up the organism
+had ceased to bear any relation one to the other.
+
+But until after Christmas there was no further development; and the
+Feast was observed as usual, and with the full complement of monks. At
+the midnight mass there was a larger congregation than for many months,
+and the confessions and communions also slightly increased. It was a
+symptom, as Chris very plainly perceived, of the manner in which the
+shadow of the King reached even to the remotest details of the life of
+the country. The priory was now, as it were, enveloped in the royal
+protection, and the people responded accordingly.
+
+There had come no hint from headquarters as to the ultimate fate of the
+house; and some even began to hope that the half-promise of a
+re-foundation would be fulfilled. Neither had any mark of disapproval
+arrived as to the refusal to sign on the part of the two monks; but
+although nothing further was said in conversation or at chapter, there
+was a consciousness in the minds of both Dom Anthony and Chris that a
+wall had arisen between them and the rest. Talk in the cloister was apt
+to flag when either approached; and the Prior never spoke a word to them
+beyond what was absolutely necessary.
+
+Then, about the middle of January the last process began to be enacted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One morning the Prior’s place in church was empty.
+
+He was accustomed to disappear silently, and no astonishment was caused
+on this occasion; but at Compline the same night the Sub-Prior too was
+gone.
+
+This was an unheard-of state of things, but all except the guest-master
+and Chris seemed to take it as a matter of course; and no word was
+spoken.
+
+After the chapter on the next morning Dom Anthony made a sign to Chris
+as he passed him in the cloister, and the two went out together into the
+clear morning-sunshine of the outer court.
+
+Dom Anthony glanced behind him to see that no one was following, and
+then turned to the other.
+
+“They are both gone,” he said, “and others are going. Dom Bernard is
+getting his things together. I saw them under his bed last night.”
+
+Chris stared at him, mute and terrified.
+
+“What are we to do, Dom Anthony?”
+
+“We can do nothing. We must stay. Remember that we are the only two who
+have any rights here now, before God.”
+
+There was silence a moment. Chris glanced at the other, and was
+reassured by the steady look on his ruddy face.
+
+“I will stay, Dom Anthony,” he said softly.
+
+The other looked at him tenderly.
+
+“God bless you, brother!” he said.
+
+That night Dom Bernard and another were gone. And still the others made
+no sign or comment; and it was not until yet another pair had gone that
+Dom Anthony spoke plainly.
+
+He was now the senior monk in the house; and it was his place to direct
+the business of the chapter. When the formal proceedings were over he
+stood up fearlessly.
+
+“You cannot hide it longer,” he said. “I have known for some while what
+was impending.” He glanced round at the empty stalls, and his face
+flushed with sudden anger: “For God’s sake, get you gone, you who mean
+to go; and let us who are steadfast serve our Lord in peace.”
+
+Chris looked along the few faces that were left; but they were downcast
+and sedate, and showed no sign of emotion.
+
+Dom Anthony waited a moment longer, and then gave the signal to depart.
+By a week later the two were left alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was very strange to be there, in the vast house and church, and to
+live the old life now stripped of three-fourths of its meaning; but they
+did not allow one detail to suffer that it was possible to preserve. The
+_opus Dei_ was punctually done, and God was served in psalmody. At the
+proper hours the two priests met in the cloister, cowled and in their
+choir-shoes, and walked through to the empty stalls; and there, one on
+either side, each answered the other, bowed together at the _Gloria_,
+confessed and absolved alternately. Two masses were said each day in the
+huge lonely church, one at the high altar and the other at our Lady’s,
+and each monk served the other. In the refectory one read from the
+pulpit as the other sat at the table; and the usual forms were observed
+with the minutest care. In the chapter each morning they met for mutual
+confession and accusation; and in the times between the exercises and
+meals each worked feverishly at the details that alone made the life
+possible.
+
+They were assisted in this by two paid servants, who were sent to them
+by Chris’s father, for both the lay-brothers and the servants had gone
+with the rest; and the treasurer had disappeared with the money.
+
+Chris had written to Sir James the day that the last monk had gone,
+telling him the state of affairs, and how the larder was almost empty;
+and by the next evening the servants had arrived with money and
+provisions; and a letter from Sir James written from a sick-bed, saying
+that he was unable to come for the present, for he had taken the fever,
+and that Morris would not leave him, but expressing a hope that he would
+come soon in person, and that Morris should be sent in a few days. The
+latter ended with passionate approval of his son’s action.
+
+“God bless and reward you, dear lad!” he had written. “I cannot tell you
+the joy that it is to my heart to know that you are faithful. It cannot
+be for long; but whether it is for long and short, you shall have my
+prayers and blessings; and please God, my poor presence too after a few
+days. May our Lady and your holy patron intercede for you both who are
+so worthy of their protection!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the end of the second week in March Mr. Morris arrived.
+
+Chris was taking the air in the court shortly before sunset, after a
+hard day’s work in church. The land was beginning to stir with the
+resurrection-life of spring; and the hills set round the town had that
+faint flush of indescribable colour that tinges slopes of grass as the
+sleeping sap begins to stir. The elm-trees in the court were hazy with
+growth as the buds fattened at the end of every twig, and a group of
+daffodils here and there were beginning to burst their sheaths of gold.
+There on the little lawn before the guest-house were half a dozen white
+and lavender patches of colour that showed where the crocuses would star
+the grass presently; and from the high west front of the immense church,
+and from beneath the eaves of the offices to the right the birds were
+practising the snatches of song that would break out with full melody a
+month or two later.
+
+In spite of all that threatened, Chris was in an ecstasy of happiness.
+It rushed down on him, overwhelmed and enveloped him; for he knew now
+that he had been faithful. The flood of praise in the church had
+dwindled to a thread; but it was still the _opus Dei_, though it flowed
+but from two hearts; and the pulse of the heavenly sacrifice still
+throbbed morning by morning, and the Divine Presence still burned as
+unceasingly as the lamp that beaconed it, in the church that was now all
+but empty of its ministers. There were times when the joy that was in
+his heart trembled into tears, as when last night he and his friend had
+sung the song to Mary; and the contrast between the two poor voices,
+and the roar of petition that had filled the great vaulting a year
+before, had suddenly torn his heart in two.
+
+But now the poignant sorrow had gone again; and as he walked here alone
+on this March evening, with the steady hills about him and the flushing
+sky overhead, and the sweet life quickening in the grass at his feet, an
+extraordinary peace flooded his soul.
+
+There came a knocking at the gate, and the jangle of a bell; and he went
+across quickly and unbarred the door.
+
+Mr. Morris was there on horseback, a couple of saddlebags strapped to
+his beast; and a little group of loungers stood behind.
+
+Chris smiled with delight, and threw the door wide.
+
+The servant saluted him and then turned to the group behind.
+
+“You have no authority,” he said, “as to my going in.”
+
+Then he rode through; and Chris barred the gate behind him, glancing as
+he did so at the curious faces that stared silently.
+
+Mr. Morris said nothing till he had led his horse into the stable. Then
+he explained.
+
+“One of the fellows told me, sir, that this was the King’s house now;
+and that I had no business here.”
+
+Chris smiled again.
+
+“I know we are watched,” he said, “the servants are questioned each time
+they set foot outside.”
+
+Mr. Morris pursed his lips.
+
+“How long shall you be here, sir?” he asked.
+
+“Until we are turned out,” said Chris.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was true, as he had said, that the house was watched. Ever since the
+last monk had left there had been a man or two at the gate, another
+outside the church-door that opened towards the town; and another yet
+again beyond the stream to the south of the priory-buildings. Dom
+Anthony had told him what it meant. It was that the authorities had no
+objection to the two monks keeping the place until it could be dealt
+with, but were determined that nothing should pass out. It had not been
+worthwhile to send in a caretaker, for all the valuables had been
+removed either by the Visitors or by the Prior when he went at night.
+There were only two sets of second-best altar vessels left, and a few
+other comparatively worthless utensils for the use of the church and
+kitchen. The great relics and the jewelled treasures had gone long
+before. Chris had wondered a little at the house being disregarded for
+so long; but the other monk had reminded him that such things as lead
+and brass and bells were beyond the power of two men to move, and could
+keep very well until other more pressing business had been despatched
+elsewhere.
+
+Mr. Morris gave him news of his father. It had not been the true fever
+after all, and he would soon be here; in at any rate a week or two. As
+regarded other news, there was no tidings of Mr. Ralph except that he
+was very busy. Mistress Margaret was at home; no notice seemed to have
+been taken of her when she had been turned out with the rest at the
+dissolution of her convent.
+
+It was very pleasant to see that familiar face about the cloister and
+refectory; or now and again, when work was done, looking up from beyond
+the screen as the monks came in by the sacristy door. Once or twice on
+dark evenings when terror began to push through the rampart of the will
+that Chris had raised up, it was reassuring too to know that Morris was
+there, for he bore with him, as old servants do, an atmosphere of home
+and security, and he carried himself as well with a wonderful
+naturalness, as if the relief of beleaguered monks were as ordinary a
+duty as the cleaning of plate.
+
+March was half over now; and still no sign had come from the world
+outside. There were no guests either to bring tidings, for the priory
+was a marked place and it was well not to show or receive kindliness in
+its regard.
+
+Within, the tension of nerves grew acute. Chris was conscious of a
+deepening exaltation, but it was backed by horror. He found himself now
+smiling with an irrepressible internal joy, now twitching with
+apprehension, starting at sudden noises, and terrified at loneliness.
+Dom Anthony too grew graver still; and would take his arm sometimes and
+walk with him, and tell him tales, and watch him with tender eyes. But
+in him, as in the younger monk, the strain tightened every day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were singing Compline together one evening with tired, overstrained
+voices, for they had determined not to relax any of the chant until it
+was necessary. Mr. Morris was behind them at a chair set beyond the
+screen; and there were no others present in church.
+
+The choir was perfectly dark (for they knew the office by heart) except
+for a glimmer from the sacristy door where a lamp burned within to light
+them to bed. Chris’s thoughts had fled back to that summer evening long
+ago when he had knelt far down in the nave and watched the serried line
+of the black-hooded soldiers of God, and listened to the tramp of the
+psalmody, and longed to be of their company. Now the gallant regiment
+had dwindled to two, of which he was one, and the guest-master that had
+received him and encouraged him, the other.
+
+Dom Anthony was the officiant this evening, and had just sung lustily
+out in the dark that God was about them with His shield, that they need
+fear no nightly terror.
+
+The movement flagged for a moment, for Chris was not attending; Mr.
+Morris’s voice began alone, _A sagitta volante_--and then stopped
+abruptly as he realised that he was singing by himself; and
+simultaneously came a sharp little crash from the dark altar that rose
+up in the gloom in front.
+
+A sort of sobbing breath broke from Chris at the sudden noise, and he
+gripped his hands together.
+
+In a moment Dom Anthony had taken up the verse.
+
+_A sagitta volante_--“From the arrow that flieth by day, from the thing
+that walketh in darkness--” Chris recovered himself; and the office
+passed on.
+
+As the two passed out together towards the door, Dom Anthony went
+forward up the steps; and Chris waited, and watched him stoop and pass
+his hands over the floor. Then he straightened himself, came down the
+steps and went before Chris into the sacristy.
+
+Under the lamp he stopped, and lifted what he carried to the light. It
+was the little ivory crucifix that he had hung there a few weeks ago
+when the last cross of precious metal had disappeared with the
+Sub-Prior. It was cracked across the body of the figure now, and one of
+the arms was detached at the shoulder and swung free on the nail through
+the hand.
+
+Dom Anthony looked at it, turned and looked at Chris; and without a word
+the two passed out into the cloister and turned up the dormitory stairs.
+To both of them it was a sign that the end was at hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the following afternoon Mr. Morris ran in to Chris’s carrel, and
+found him putting the antiphonary and his implements up into a parcel.
+
+“Master Christopher,” he said, “Sir James and Sir Nicholas are come.”
+
+As he hurried out of the cloister he saw the horses standing there,
+spent with fast travelling, and the two riders at their heads, with the
+dust on their boots, and their clothes disordered. They remained
+motionless as the monk came towards them; but he saw that his father’s
+face was working and that his eyes were wide and anxious.
+
+“Thank God,” said the old man softly. “I am in time. They are coming
+to-night, Chris.” But there was a questioning look on his face.
+
+Chris looked at him.
+
+“Will you take the horses?” said his father again. “Nick and I are
+safe.”
+
+Chris still stared bewildered. Then he understood; and with
+understanding came decision.
+
+“No, father,” he said.
+
+The old man’s face broke up into lines of emotion.
+
+“Are you sure, my son?”
+
+Chris nodded steadily.
+
+“Then we will all be together,” said Sir James; and he turned to lead
+his horse to the stable.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a little council held in the guest-house a few minutes later.
+Dom Anthony hurried to it, his habit splashed with whitewash, for he had
+been cleaning the dormitory, and the four sat down together.
+
+It seemed that Nicholas had ridden over from Great Keynes to Overfield
+earlier in the afternoon, and had brought the news that a company of men
+had passed through the village an hour before, and that one of them had
+asked which turn to take to Lewes. Sir Nicholas had ridden after them
+and enquired their business, and had gathered that they were bound for
+the priory, and he then turned his horse and made off to Overfield. His
+horse was spent when he arrived there; but he had changed horses and
+came on immediately with Sir James, to warn the monks of the approach of
+the men, and to give them an opportunity of making their escape if they
+thought it necessary.
+
+“Who were the leaders?” asked the elder monk.
+
+Nicholas shook his head.
+
+“They were in front; I dared not ride up.”
+
+But his sturdy face looked troubled as he answered, and Chris saw his
+father’s lips tighten. Dom Anthony drummed softly on the table.
+
+“There is nothing to be done,” he said. “We wait till we are cast out.”
+
+“You cannot refuse admittance?” questioned Sir James.
+
+“But we shall do so,” said the other tranquilly; “at least we shall not
+open.”
+
+“But they will batter the door down.”
+
+“Certainly,” said the monk.
+
+“And then?”
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I suppose they will put us out.”
+
+There was absolutely nothing to be done. It was absurd to dream of more
+than formal resistance. Up in the North in more than one abbey the
+inmates had armed themselves, and faced the spoilers grimly on the
+village green; but that was where the whole country side was with them,
+and here it was otherwise.
+
+They talked a few minutes longer, and decided that they would neither
+open nor resist. The two monks were determined to remain there until
+they were actually cast out; and then the responsibility would rest on
+other shoulders than theirs.
+
+It was certain of course that by this time to-morrow at the latest they
+would have been expelled; and it was arranged that the two monks should
+ride back to Overfield, if they were personally unmolested, and remain
+there until further plans were decided upon.
+
+The four knew of course that there was a grave risk in provoking the
+authorities any further, but it was a risk that the two Religious were
+determined to run.
+
+They broke up presently; Mr. Morris came upstairs to tell them that food
+was ready in one of the parlours off the cloister; and the two laymen
+went off with him, while the monks went to sing vespers for the last
+time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour or two later the two were in the refectory at supper. The
+evening was drawing in, and the light in the tall windows was fading.
+Opposite where Chris sat (for Dom Anthony was reading aloud from the
+pulpit), a row of coats burned in the glass, and he ran his eyes over
+them. They had been set there, he remembered, soon after his own coming
+to the place; the records had been searched, and the arms of every prior
+copied and emblazoned in the panes. There they all were; from Lanzo of
+five centuries ago, whose arms were conjectural, down to Robert Crowham,
+who had forsaken his trust; telling the long tale of prelates and
+monastic life, from the beginning to the close. He looked round beyond
+the circle of light cast by his own candle, and the place seemed full of
+ghosts and presences to his fancy. The pale oak panelling glimmered
+along the walls above the empty seats, from the Prior’s to the left,
+over which the dusky fresco of the Majesty of Christ grew darker still
+as the light faded, down to the pulpit opposite where Dom Anthony’s
+grave ruddy face with downcast eyes stood out vivid in the candlelight.
+Ah! surely there was a cloud of witnesses now, a host of faces looking
+down from the black rafters overhead, and through the glimmering
+panes,--the faces of those who had eaten here with the same sacramental
+dignity and graciousness that these two survivors used. It was
+impossible to feel lonely in this stately house, saturated with holy
+life; and with a thrill at his heart he remembered how Dom Anthony had
+once whispered to him at the beginning of the troubles, that if others
+held their peace the very stones should cry out; and that God was able
+of those stones to raise up children to His praise....
+
+There was a sound of brisk, hurrying footsteps in the cloister outside,
+Dom Anthony ceased his reading with his finger on the place, and the
+eyes of the two monks met.
+
+The door was opened abruptly, and Morris stood there.
+
+“My master has sent me, sir,” he said. “They are coming.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE LAST STAND
+
+
+The court outside had deepened into shadows as they came out; but
+overhead the sky still glowed faintly luminous in a tender translucent
+green. The evening star shone out clear and tranquil opposite them in
+the west.
+
+There were three figures standing at the foot of the steps that led down
+from the cloister; one of the servants with the two gentlemen; and as
+Chris pushed forward quickly his father turned and lifted his finger for
+silence.
+
+The town lay away to the right; and over the wall that joined the west
+end of the church to the gatehouse, there were a few lights
+visible--windows here and there just illuminated.
+
+For the first moment Chris thought there had been a mistake; he had
+expected a clamour at the gate, a jangling of the bell. Then as he
+listened he knew that it was no false alarm.
+
+Across the wall, from the direction of the hills that showed dimly
+against the evening sky, there came a murmur, growing as he listened.
+The roads were hard from lack of rain, and he could distinguish the
+sound of horses, a great company; but rising above this was a dull roar
+of voices. Every moment it waxed, died once or twice, then sounded out
+nearer and louder. There was a barking of dogs, the cries of children,
+and now and again the snatch of a song or a shouted word or two.
+
+Of the group on the steps within not one stirred, except when Sir James
+slowly lowered his upraised hand; and so they waited.
+
+The company was drawing nearer now; and Chris calculated that they must
+be coming down the steep road that led from the town; and even as he
+thought it he heard the sound of hoofs on the bridge that crossed the
+Winterbourne.
+
+Dom Anthony pushed by him.
+
+“To the gate,” he said, and went down the step and across the court
+followed by the others. As they went the clamour grew loud and near in
+the road outside; and a ruddy light shone on the projecting turret of
+the gateway.
+
+Chris was conscious of extraordinary coolness now that the peril was on
+him; and he stared up at the studded oak doors, at the wicket cut in one
+of the leaves, and the sliding panel that covered the grill, with little
+thought but that of conjecture as to how long the destruction of the
+gate would take. The others, too, though he was scarcely aware of their
+presence, were silent and rigid at his side, as Dom Anthony stepped up
+to the closed grill and waited there for the summons.
+
+It came almost immediately.
+
+There was a great crescendo of sound as the party turned the corner, and
+a flare of light shone under the gate; then the sound of loud talking, a
+silence of the hoofs; and a sudden jangle on the bell overhead.
+
+The monk turned from the grill and lifted his hand.
+
+Then again the talking grew loud, as the mob swept round the corner
+after the horses.
+
+Still all was silent within. Chris felt his father’s hand seek his own a
+moment, and grip it; and then above the gabbling clamour a voice spoke
+distinctly outside.
+
+“Have the rats run, then?”
+
+The bell danced again over their heads; and there was a clatter of raps
+on the huge door.
+
+Dom Anthony slid back the shutter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a moment it was not noticed outside, for the entry was dark. Chris
+could catch a glimpse on either side of the monk’s head of a flare of
+light, but no more.
+
+Then the same voice spoke again, and with something of a foreign accent.
+
+“You are there, then; make haste and open.”
+
+Another voice shouted authoritatively for silence; and the clamour of
+tongues died.
+
+Dom Anthony waited until all was quiet, and then answered steadily.
+
+“Who are you?”
+
+There was an oath; the tumult began again, but hushed immediately, as
+the same voice that had called for admittance shouted aloud--
+
+“Open, I tell you, you bloody monk! We come from the King.”
+
+“Why do you come?”
+
+A gabble of fierce tongues broke out; Chris pressed up to Dom Anthony’s
+back, and looked out. The space was very narrow, and he could not see
+much more than a man’s leg across a saddle, the brown shoulder of a
+horse in front, and a smoky haze beyond and over the horse’s back. The
+leg shifted a little as he watched, as if the rider turned; and then
+again the voice pealed out above the tumult.
+
+“Will you open, sir, for the last time?”
+
+“I will not,” shouted the monk through the grill. “You are nothing
+but--” then he dashed the shutter into its place as a stick struck
+fiercely at the bars.
+
+“Back to the cloister,” he said.
+
+The roar outside was tremendous as the six went back across the empty
+court; but it fell to a sinister silence as an order or two was shouted
+outside; and then again swelled with an excited note in it, as the first
+crash sounded on the panels.
+
+Chris looked at his father as they stood again on the steps fifty yards
+away. The old man was standing rigid, his hands at his sides, staring
+out towards the arch of the gateway that now thundered like a drum; and
+his lips were moving. Once he caught his breath as a voice shouted above
+the din outside, and half turned to his son, his hand uplifted as if for
+silence. Then again the voice pealed, and Sir James faced round and
+stared into Chris’s eyes. But neither spoke a word.
+
+Dom Anthony, who was standing a yard or two in front, turned presently
+as the sound of splintering began to be mingled with the reverberations,
+and came towards them. His square, full face was steady and alert, and
+he spoke with a sharp decision.
+
+“You and Sir Nicholas, sir, had best be within. My place will be here;
+they will be in immediately.”
+
+His words were perfectly distinct here in the open air in spite of the
+uproar from the gate.
+
+There was an indignant burst from the young squire.
+
+“No, no, father; I shall not stir from here.”
+
+The monk looked at him; but said no more and turned round.
+
+A sedate voice spoke from the dark doorway behind.
+
+“John and I have fetched out a table or two, father; we can brace this
+door--”
+
+Dom Anthony turned again.
+
+“We shall not resist further,” he said.
+
+Then they were silent, for they were helpless. There was nothing to be
+done but to stand there and listen to the din, to the crash that
+splintered more every moment in the cracked woodwork, and to watch the
+high wall and turret solemn and strong against the stars, and bright
+here and there at the edges with the light from the torches beneath. The
+guest-house opposite them was dark, except for one window in the upper
+floor that glowed and faded with the light of the fire that had been
+kindled within an hour or two before.
+
+Sir James took his son suddenly by the arm.
+
+“And you, Chris--” he said.
+
+“I shall stay here, father.”
+
+There was a rending thunder from the gate; the wicket reeled in and
+fell, and in a moment through the flimsy opening had sprung the figure
+of a man. They could see him plainly as he stood there in the light of
+the torches, a tall upright figure, a feathered hat on his head, and a
+riding cane in his hand.
+
+The noise was indescribable outside as men fought to get through; there
+was one scream of pain, the plunging of a horse, and then a loud steady
+roar drowning all else.
+
+The oblong patch of light was darkened immediately, as another man
+sprang through, and then another and another; then a pause--then the
+bright flare of a torch shone in the opening; and a moment later a
+fellow carrying a flambeau had made his way through.
+
+The whole space under the arch was now illuminated. Overhead the plain
+mouldings shone out and faded as the torch swayed; every brick of the
+walls was visible, and the studs and bars of the huge doors.
+
+Chris had sprung forward by an uncontrollable impulse as the wicket fell
+in; and the two monks were now standing motionless on the floor of the
+court, side by side, in their black habits and scapulars, hooded and
+girded, with the two gentlemen and the servants on the steps behind.
+
+Chris saw the leaders come together under the arch, as the whole gate
+began to groan and bulge under the pressure of the crowd; and a moment
+later he caught the flash of steel as the long rapiers whisked out.
+
+Then above the baying he heard a fierce authoritative voice scream out
+an order, and saw that one of the gentlemen in front was at the door,
+his rapier protruded before him; and understood the manœuvre. It was
+necessary that the mad crowd should be kept back.
+
+The tumult died and became a murmur; and then one by one a file of
+figures came through. In the hand of each was an instrument of some
+kind, a pick or a bludgeon; and it was evident that it was these who had
+broken in the gate.
+
+Chris counted them mechanically as they streamed through. There seemed
+to be a dozen or so.
+
+Then again the man who had guarded the door as they came through slipped
+back through the opening; and they heard his voice beginning to harangue
+the mob.
+
+But a moment later they had ceased to regard him; for from the archway,
+with the torch-bearer beside him, advanced the tall man with the
+riding-cane who had been the first to enter; and as he emerged into the
+court Chris recognised his brother.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was in a plain rich riding-suit with great boots and plumed hat. He
+walked with an easy air as if certain of himself, and neither quickened
+nor decreased his pace as he saw the monks and the gentlemen standing
+there.
+
+He halted a couple of yards from them, and Chris saw that his face was
+as assured as his gait. His thin lips were tight and firm, and his eyes
+with a kind of insolent irony looked up and down the figures of the
+monks. There was not the faintest sign of recognition in them.
+
+“You have given us a great deal of labour,” he said, “and to no purpose.
+We shall have to report it all to my Lord Cromwell. I understand that
+you were the two who refused to sign the surrender. It was the act of
+fools, like this last. I have no authority to take you, so you had best
+be gone.”
+
+Dom Anthony answered him in an equally steady voice.
+
+“We are ready to go now,” he said. “You understand we have yielded to
+nothing but force.”
+
+Ralph’s lips writhed in a smile.
+
+“Oh! if that pleases you,” he said. “Well, then--”
+
+He took a little step aside, and made a movement towards the gate where
+there sounded out still an angry hum beneath the shouting voice that was
+addressing them.
+
+Chris turned to his father behind, and the voice died in his throat, so
+dreadful was that face that was looking at Ralph. He was standing as
+before, rigid it seemed with grief or anger; and his grey eyes were
+bright with a tense emotion; his lips too were as firm as his son’s. But
+he spoke no word. Sir Nicholas was at his side, with one foot advanced,
+and in attitude as if to spring; and Morris’s face looked like a mask
+over his shoulder.
+
+“Well, then--” said Ralph once more.
+
+“Ah! you damned hound!” roared the young squire’s voice; and his hand
+went up with the whip in it.
+
+Ralph did not move a muscle. He seemed cut in steel.
+
+“Let us go,” said Dom Anthony again, to Chris, almost tenderly; “it is
+enough that we are turned out by force.”
+
+“You can go by the church, if you will,” said Ralph composedly. “In
+fact--” He stopped as the murmur howled up again from the gate--“In
+fact you had better go that way. They do not seem to be your friends out
+there.”
+
+“We will go whichever way you wish,” remarked the elder monk.
+
+“Then the church,” said Ralph, “or some other private door. I suppose
+you have one. Most of your houses have one, I believe.”
+
+The sneer snapped the tension.
+
+Dom Anthony turned his back on him instantly.
+
+“Come, brother,” he said.
+
+Chris took his father by the arm as he went up the steps.
+
+“Come, sir,” he said, “we are to go this way.”
+
+There was a moment’s pause. The old man still stared down at his elder
+son, who was standing below in the same position. Chris heard a deep
+breath, and thought he was on the point of speaking; but there was
+silence. Then the two turned and followed the others into the cloister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+AXES AND HAMMERS
+
+
+Chris sat next morning at a high window of a house near Saint Michael’s
+looking down towards the south of the town.
+
+They had escaped without difficulty the night before through the
+church-entrance, with a man whom Ralph sent after them to see that they
+carried nothing away, leaving the crowd roaring round the corner of the
+gate, and though people looked curiously at the monks, the five laymen
+with them protected them from assault. Mr. Morris had found a lodging a
+couple of days before, unknown to Chris, in the house of a woman who was
+favourable to the Religious, and had guided the party straight there on
+the previous evening.
+
+The two monks had said mass in Saint Michael’s that morning before the
+town was awake; and were now keeping within doors at Sir James’s earnest
+request, while the two gentlemen with one of the servants had gone to
+see what was being done at the priory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From where Chris sat in his black habit at the leaded window he could
+see straight down the opening of the steep street, across the lower
+roofs below, to where the great pile of the Priory church less than
+half-a-mile away soared up in the sunlight against the water-meadows
+where the Ouse ran to the south of the town.
+
+The street was very empty below him, for every human being that could
+do so had gone down to the sacking of the priory. There might be
+pickings, scraps gathered from the hoards that the monks were supposed
+to have gathered; there would probably be an auction; and there would
+certainly be plenty of excitement and pleasure.
+
+Chris was himself almost numb to sensation. The coolness that had
+condensed round his soul last night had hardened into ice; he scarcely
+realised what was going on, or how great was the catastrophe into which
+his life was plunged. There lay the roofs before him--he ran his eye
+from the west tower past the high lantern to the delicate tracery of the
+eastern apse and chapels--in the hands of the spoilers; and here he sat
+dry-eyed and steady-mouthed looking down on it, as a man looks at a
+wound not yet begun to smart.
+
+It was piteously clear and still. Smoke was rising from a fire somewhere
+behind the church, a noise as of metal on stone chinked steadily, and
+the voices of men calling one to another sounded continually from the
+enclosure. Now and again the tiny figure of a workman showed clear on
+the roof, pick in hand; or leaning to call directions down to his
+fellows beneath.
+
+Dom Anthony looked in presently, breviary in hand, and knelt by Chris on
+the window-step, watching too; but he spoke no word, glanced at the
+white face and sunken eyes of the other, sighed once or twice, and went
+out again.
+
+The morning passed on and still Chris watched. By eleven o’clock the men
+were gone from the roof; half an hour had passed, and no further figure
+had appeared.
+
+There were footsteps on the stairs; and Sir James came in.
+
+He came straight across to his son and sat down by him. Chris looked at
+him. The old man nodded.
+
+“Yes, my son,” he said, “they are at it. Nothing is to be left, but the
+cloister and guest-house. The church is to be down in a week they say.”
+
+Chris looked at him dully.
+
+“All?” he said.
+
+“All the church, my son.”
+
+Sir James gave an account of what he had seen. He had made his way in
+with Nicholas and a few other persons, into the court; but had not been
+allowed to enter the cloister. There was a furnace being made ready in
+the calefactorium for the melting of the lead, he had been told by one
+of the men; and the church, as he had seen for himself, was full of
+workmen.
+
+“And the Blessed Sacrament?” asked Chris.
+
+“A priest was sent for this morning to carry It away to a church; I know
+not which.”
+
+Sir James described the method of destruction.
+
+They were beginning with the apse and the chapels behind the high altar.
+The ornaments had been removed, the images piled in a great heap in the
+outer court, and the brasses had been torn up. There were half a dozen
+masons busy at undercutting the pillars and walls; and as they excavated
+the carpenters made wooden insertions to prop up the weight. The men had
+been brought down from London, as the commissioners were not certain of
+the temper of the Lewes people. Two of the four great pillars behind the
+high altar were already cut half through.
+
+“And Ralph?”
+
+The old man’s face grew tense and bitter.
+
+“I saw him in the roof,” he said; “he made as if he did not see me.”
+
+They were half-through dinner before Nicholas joined them. He was
+flushed and dusty and furious.
+
+“Ah! the hounds!” he said, as he stood at the door, trembling. “They
+say they will have the chapels down before night. They have stripped the
+lead.”
+
+Sir James looked up and motioned him to sit down.
+
+“We will go down again presently,” he said.
+
+“But we have saved our luggage,” went on Nicholas, taking his seat; “and
+there was a parcel of yours, Chris, that I put with it. It is all to be
+sent up with the horses to-night.”
+
+“Did you speak with Mr. Ralph?” asked Dom Anthony.
+
+“Ah! I did; the dog! and I told him what I thought. But he dared not
+refuse me the luggage. John is to go for it all to-night.”
+
+He told them during dinner another fact that he had learned.
+
+“You know who is to have it all?” he said fiercely, his fingers
+twitching with emotion.
+
+“It is Master Gregory Cromwell, and his wife, and his baby. A fine
+nursery!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the evening drew on, Chris was again at the window alone. He had said
+his office earlier in the afternoon, and sat here again now, with his
+hands before him, staring down at the church.
+
+One of the servants had come up with a message from Sir James an hour
+before telling him not to expect them before dusk; and that they would
+send up news of any further developments. The whole town was there, said
+the man: it had been found impossible to keep them out. Dom Anthony
+presently came again and sat with Chris; and Mr. Morris, who had been
+left as a safeguard to the monks, slipped in soon after and stood behind
+the two; and so the three waited.
+
+The sky was beginning to glow again as it had done last night with the
+clear radiance of a cloudless sunset; and the tall west tower stood up
+bright in the glory. How infinitely far away last night seemed now,
+little and yet distinct as a landscape seen through a reversed
+telescope! How far away that silent waiting at the cloister door, the
+clamour at the gate, the forced entrance, the slipping away through the
+church!
+
+The smoke was rising faster than ever now from the great chimney, and
+hung in a cloud above the buildings. Perhaps even now the lead was being
+cast.
+
+There was a clatter at the corner of the cobbled street below, and Dom
+Anthony leaned from the window. He drew back.
+
+“It is the horses,” he said.
+
+The servant presently came up to announce that the two gentlemen were
+following immediately, and that he had had orders to procure horses and
+saddle them at once. He had understood Sir James to say that they must
+leave that night.
+
+Mr. Morris hurried out to see to the packing.
+
+In five minutes the gentlemen themselves appeared.
+
+Sir James came quickly across to the two monks.
+
+“We must go to-night, Chris,” he said. “We had words with Portinari. You
+must not remain longer in the town.”
+
+Chris looked at him.
+
+“Yes?” he said.
+
+“And the chapels will be down immediately. Oh! dear God!”
+
+Dom Anthony made room for the old man to sit down in the window-seat;
+and himself stood behind the two with Nicholas; and so again they
+watched.
+
+The light was fading fast now, and in the windows below lights were
+beginning to shine. The square western tower that dominated the whole
+priory had lost its splendour, and stood up strong and pale against the
+meadows. There was a red flare of light somewhere over the wall of the
+court, and the inner side of the gate-turret was illuminated by it.
+
+A tense excitement lay on the watchers; and no sound came from them but
+that of quick breathing as they waited for what they knew was imminent.
+
+Outside the evening was wonderfully still; they could hear two men
+talking somewhere in the street below; but from the priory came no
+sound. The chink of the picks was still, and the cries of the workmen.
+Far away beyond the castle on their left came an insistent barking of a
+dog; and once, when a horseman rode by below Chris bit his lip with
+vexation, for it seemed to him like the disturbing of a death bed. A
+star or two looked out, vanished, and peeped again from the luminous
+sky, to the south, and the downs beneath were grey and hazy.
+
+All the watchers now had their eyes on the eastern end of the church
+that lay in dim shadow; they could see the roof of the vault behind
+where the high altar lay beneath; the flying buttress of a chapel below;
+and, nearer, the low roof of the Lady-chapel.
+
+Chris kept his eyes strained on the upper vault, for there, he knew the
+first movement would show itself.
+
+The time seemed interminable. He moistened his dry lips from time to
+time, shifted his position a little, and moved his elbow from the sharp
+moulding of the window-frame.
+
+Then he caught his breath.
+
+From where he sat, in the direct line of his eyes, the top of a patch of
+evergreen copse was visible just beyond the roof of the vault; and as
+he looked he saw that a patch of paler green had appeared below it. All
+in a moment he saw too the flying buttress crook itself like an elbow
+and disappear. Then the vault was gone and the roof beyond; the walls
+sank with incredible slowness and vanished.
+
+A cloud of white dust puffed up like smoke.
+
+Then through the open window came the roar of the tumbling masonry; and
+shrill above it the clamour of a great crowd.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+THE KING’S GRATITUDE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A SCHEME
+
+
+The period that followed the destruction of Lewes Priory held very
+strange months for Chris. He had slipped out of the stream into a
+back-water, from which he could watch the swift movements of the time,
+while himself undisturbed by them; for no further notice was taken of
+his refusal to sign the surrender or of his resistance to the
+Commissioners. The hands of the authorities were so full of business
+that apparently it was not worth their while to trouble about an
+inoffensive monk of no particular notoriety, who after all had done
+little except in a negative way, and who appeared now to acquiesce in
+silence and seclusion.
+
+The household at Overfield was of a very mixed nature. Dom Anthony after
+a month or two had left for the Continent to take up his vocation in a
+Benedictine house; and Sir James and his wife, Chris, Margaret, and Mr.
+Carleton remained together. For the present Chris and Margaret were
+determined to wait, for a hundred things might intervene--Henry’s death,
+a changing of his mind, a foreign invasion on the part of the Catholic
+powers, an internal revolt in England, and such things--and set the
+clock back again, and, unlike Dom Anthony, they had a home where they
+could follow their Rules in tolerable comfort.
+
+The country was indeed very deeply stirred by the events that were
+taking place; but for the present, partly from terror and partly from
+the great forces that were brought to bear upon English convictions, it
+gave no expression to its emotion. The methods that Cromwell had
+employed with such skill in the past were still active. On the worldly
+side there was held out to the people the hope of relieved taxation, of
+the distribution of monastic wealth and lands; on the spiritual side the
+bishops under Cranmer were zealous in controverting the old principles
+and throwing doubt upon the authority of the Pope. It was impossible for
+the unlearned to know what to believe; new manifestoes were issued
+continually by the King and clergy, full of learned arguments and
+persuasive appeals; and the professors of the old religion were
+continually discredited by accusations of fraud, avarice, immorality,
+hypocrisy and the like. They were silenced, too; while active and
+eloquent preachers like Latimer raged from pulpit to pulpit, denouncing,
+expounding, convincing.
+
+Meanwhile the work went on rapidly. The summer and autumn of ’38 saw
+again destruction after destruction of Religious Houses and objects of
+veneration; and the intimidation of the most influential personages on
+the Catholic side.
+
+In February, for example, the rood of Boxley was brought up to London
+with every indignity, and after being exhibited with shouts of laughter
+at Whitehall, and preached against at Paul’s Cross, it was tossed down
+among the zealous citizens and smashed to pieces. In the summer, among
+others, the shrine of St. Swithun at Winchester was defaced and robbed;
+and in the autumn that followed the friaries which had stood out so long
+began to fall right and left. In October the Holy Blood of Hayles, a
+relic brought from the East in the thirteenth century and preserved
+with great love and honour ever since, was taken from its resting place
+and exposed to ridicule in London. Finally in the same month, after St.
+Thomas of Canterbury had been solemnly declared a traitor to his prince,
+his name, images and pictures ordered to be erased and destroyed out of
+every book, window and wall, and he himself summoned with grotesque
+solemnity to answer the charges brought against him, his relics were
+seized and burned, and--which was more to the point in the King’s view,
+his shrine was stripped of its gold and jewels and vestments, which were
+conveyed in a string of twenty-six carts to the King’s treasury. The
+following year events were yet more terrible. The few great houses that
+survived were one by one brought within reach of the King’s hand; and
+those that did not voluntarily surrender fell under the heavier
+penalties of attainder. Abbot Whiting of Glastonbury was sent up to
+London in September, and two months later suffered on Tor hill within
+sight of the monastery he had ruled so long and so justly; and on the
+same day the Abbot of Reading suffered too outside his own gateway. Six
+weeks afterwards Abbot Marshall, of Colchester, was also put to death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a piteous life that devout persons led at this time; and few were
+more unhappy than the household at Overfield. It was the more miserable
+because Lady Torridon herself was so entirely out of sympathy with the
+others. While she was not often the actual bearer of ill news--for she
+had neither sufficient strenuousness nor opportunity for it--it was
+impossible to doubt that she enjoyed its arrival.
+
+They were all together at supper one warm summer evening when a servant
+came in to announce that a monk of St. Swithun’s was asking hospitality.
+Sir James glanced at his wife who sat with passive downcast face; and
+then ordered the priest to be brought in.
+
+He was a timid, tactless man who failed to grasp the situation, and when
+the wine and food had warmed his heart he began to talk a great deal too
+freely, taking it for granted that all there were in sympathy with him.
+He addressed himself chiefly to Chris, who answered courteously; and
+described the sacking of the shrine at some length.
+
+“He had already set aside our cross called Hierusalem,” cried the monk,
+his weak face looking infinitely pathetic with its mingled sorrow and
+anger, “and two of our gold chalices, to take them with him when he
+went; and then with his knives and hammers, as the psalmist tells us, he
+hacked off the silver plates from the shrine. There was a fellow I knew
+very well--he had been to me to confession two days before--who held a
+candle and laughed. And then when all was done; and that was not till
+three o’clock in the morning, one of the smiths tested the metal and
+cried out that there was not one piece of true gold in it all. And Mr.
+Pollard raged at us for it, and told us that our gold was as counterfeit
+as the rotten bones that we worshipped. But indeed there was plenty of
+gold; and the man lied; for it was a very rich shrine. God’s vengeance
+will fall on them for their lies and their robbery. Is it not so,
+mistress?”
+
+Lady Torridon lifted her eyes and looked at him. Her husband hastened to
+interpose.
+
+“Have you finished your wine, father?”
+
+The monk seemed not to hear him; and his talk flowed on about the
+destruction of the high altar and the spoiling of the reredos, which had
+taken place on the following days; and as he talked he filled his
+Venetian glass more than once and drank it off; and his lantern face
+grew flushed and his eyes animated. Chris saw that his mother was
+watching the monk shrewdly and narrowly, and feared what might come. But
+it was unavoidable.
+
+“We poor monks,” the priest cried presently, “shall soon be cast out to
+beg our bread. The King’s Grace--”
+
+“Is not poverty one of the monastic vows?” put in Lady Torridon
+suddenly, still looking steadily at his half-drunk glass.
+
+“Why, yes, mistress; and the King’s Grace is determined to make us keep
+it, it seems.”
+
+He lifted his glass and finished it; and put out his hand again to the
+bottle.
+
+“But that is a good work, surely,” smiled the other. “It will be surely
+a safeguard against surfeiting and drunkenness.”
+
+Sir James rose instantly.
+
+“Come, father,” he said to the staring monk, “you will be tired out, and
+will want your bed.”
+
+A slow smile shone and faded on his wife’s face as she rose and rustled
+down the long hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such incidents as this made life at Overfield very difficult for them
+all; it was hard for these sore hearts to be continually on the watch
+for dangerous subjects, and only to be able to comfort one another when
+the mistress of the house was absent; but above all it was difficult for
+Margaret. She was nearly as silent as her mother, but infinitely more
+tender; and since the two were naturally together for the most part,
+except when the nun was at her long prayers, there were often very
+difficult and painful incidents.
+
+For the first eighteen months after her return her mother let her
+alone; but as time went on and the girl’s resolution persevered, she
+began to be subjected to a distressing form of slight persecution.
+
+For example: Chris and his father came in one day in the autumn from a
+walk through the priory garden that lay beyond the western moat. As they
+passed in the level sunshine along the prim box-lined paths, and had
+reached the centre where the dial stood, they heard voices in the
+summer-house that stood on the right behind a yew hedge.
+
+Sir James hesitated a moment; and as he waited heard Margaret’s voice
+with a thrill of passion in it.
+
+“I cannot listen to that, mother. It is wicked to say such things.”
+
+The two turned instantly, passed along the path and came round the
+corner.
+
+Margaret was standing with one hand on the little table, half-turned to
+go. Her eyes were alight with indignation, and her lips trembled. Her
+mother sat on the other side, her silver-handled stick beside her, and
+her hands folded serenely together.
+
+Sir James looked from one to the other; and there fell a silence.
+
+“Are you coming with us, Margaret?” he said.
+
+The girl still hesitated a moment, glancing at her mother, and then
+stepped out of the summer-house. Chris saw that bitter smile writhe and
+die on the elder woman’s face, but she said nothing.
+
+Margaret burst out presently when they had crossed the moat and were
+coming up to the long grey-towered house.
+
+“I cannot bear such talk, father,” she said, with her eyes bright with
+angry tears, “she was saying such things about Rusper, and how idle we
+all were there, and how foolish.”
+
+“You must not mind it, my darling. Your mother does not--does not
+understand.”
+
+“There was never any one like Mother Abbess,” went on the girl. “I never
+saw her idle or out of humour; and--and we were all so busy and happy.”
+
+Her eyes overflowed a moment; her father put his arm tenderly round her
+shoulders, and they went in together.
+
+It was a terrible thing for Margaret to be thrown like this out of the
+one life that was a reality to her. As she looked back now it seemed as
+if the convent shone glorified and beautiful in a haze of grace. The
+discipline of the house had ordered and inspired the associations on
+which memories afterwards depend, and had excluded the discordant notes
+that spoil the harmonies of secular life. The chapel, with its delicate
+windows, its oak rails, its scent of flowers and incense, its tiled
+floor, its single row of carved woodwork and the crosier by the Abbess’s
+seat, was a place of silence instinct with a Divine Presence that
+radiated from the hanging pyx; it was these particular things, and not
+others like them, that had been the scene of her romance with God, her
+aspirations, tendernesses, tears and joys. She had walked in the tiny
+cloister with her Lover in her heart, and the glazed laurel-leaves that
+rattled in the garth had been musical with His voice; it was in her
+little white cell that she had learned to sleep in His arms and to wake
+to the brightness of His Face. And now all this was dissipated. There
+were other associations with her home, of childish sorrows and passions
+before she had known God, of hunting-parties and genial ruddy men who
+smelt of fur and blood, of her mother’s chilly steady presence--
+associations that jarred with the inner life; whereas in the convent
+there had been nothing that was not redolent with efforts and rewards of
+the soul. Even without her mother life would have been hard enough now
+at Overfield; with her it was nearly intolerable.
+
+Chris, however, was able to do a good deal for the girl; for he had
+suffered in the same way; and had the advantage of a man’s strength. She
+could talk to him as to no one else of the knowledge of the interior
+vocation in both of them that persevered in spite of their ejection from
+the cloister; and he was able to remind her that the essence of the
+enclosure, under these circumstances, lay in the spirit and not in
+material stones.
+
+It was an advantage for Chris too to have her under his protection. The
+fact that he had to teach her and remind her of facts that they both
+knew, made them more real to himself; and to him as to her there came
+gradually a kind of sorrow-shot contentment that deepened month by month
+in spite of their strange and distracting surroundings.
+
+But he was not wholly happy about her; she was silent and lonely
+sometimes; he began to see what an immense advantage it would be to her
+in the peculiarly difficult circumstances of the time, to have some one
+of her own sex and sympathies at hand. But he did not see how it could
+be arranged. For the present it was impossible for her to enter the
+Religious Life, except by going abroad; and so long as there was the
+faintest hope of the convents being restored in England, both she and
+her father and brother shrank from the step. And the hope was increased
+by the issue of the Six Articles in the following May, by which
+Transubstantiation was declared to be a revealed dogma, to be held on
+penalty of death by burning; and communion in one kind, the celibacy of
+the clergy, the perpetuity of the vow of chastity, private masses, and
+auricular confession were alike ratified as parts of the Faith held by
+the Church of which Henry had made himself head.
+
+Yet as time went on, and there were no signs of the restoration of the
+Religious Houses, Chris began to wonder again as to what was best for
+Margaret. Perhaps until matters developed it would be well for her to
+have some friend in whom she could confide, even if only to relax the
+strain for a few weeks. He went to his father one day in the autumn and
+laid his views before him.
+
+Sir James nodded and seemed to understand.
+
+“Do you think Mary would be of any service?”
+
+Chris hesitated.
+
+“Yes, sir, I think so--but--”
+
+His father looked at him.
+
+“It is a stranger I think that would help her more. Perhaps another
+nun--?”
+
+“My dear lad, I dare not ask another nun. Your mother--”
+
+“I know,” said Chris.
+
+“Well, I will think of it,” said the other.
+
+A couple of days later Sir James took him aside after supper into his
+own private room.
+
+“Chris,” he said, “I have been thinking of what you said. And Mary shall
+certainly come here for Christmas, with Nick; but--but there is someone
+else too I would like to ask.”
+
+He looked at his son with an odd expression.
+
+Chris could not imagine what this meant.
+
+“It is Mistress Atherton,” went on the other. “You see you know her a
+little--at least you have seen her; and there is Ralph. And from all
+that I have heard of her--her friendship with Master More and the rest,
+I think she might be the very friend for poor Meg. Do you think she
+would come, Chris?”
+
+Chris was silent. He could not yet fully dissociate the thought of
+Beatrice from the memory of the time when she had taken Ralph’s part.
+Besides, was it possible to ask her under the circumstances?
+
+“Then there was one more thing that I never told you;” went on his
+father, “there was no use in it. But I went to see Mistress Atherton
+when she was betrothed to Ralph. I saw her in London; and I think I may
+say we made friends. And she has very few now; she keeps herself aloof.
+Folks are afraid of her too. I think it would be a kindness to her. I
+could not understand how she could marry Ralph; and now that is
+explained.”
+
+Chris was startled by this news. His father had not breathed a word of
+it before.
+
+“She made me promise,” went on Sir James, “to tell her if Ralph did
+anything unworthy. It was after the first news had reached her of what
+the Visitors were doing. And I told her, of course, about Rusper. I
+think we owe her something. And I think too from what I saw of her that
+she might make her way with your mother.”
+
+“It might succeed,” said Chris doubtfully, “but it is surely difficult
+for her to come--”
+
+“I know--yes--with Ralph and her betrothal. But if we can ask her,
+surely she can come. I can tell her how much we need her. I would send
+Meg to Great Keynes, if I dared, but I dare not. It is not so safe there
+as here; she had best keep quiet.”
+
+They talked about it a few minutes more, and Chris became more inclined
+to it. From what he remembered of Beatrice and the impression that she
+had made on him in those few fierce minutes in Ralph’s house he began to
+see that she would probably be able to hold her own; and if only
+Margaret would take to her, the elder girl might be of great service in
+establishing the younger. It was an odd and rather piquant idea, and
+gradually took hold of his imagination. It was a very extreme step to
+take, considering that she had broken off her betrothal to the eldest
+son of the house; but against that was set the fact that she would not
+meet him there; and that her presence would be really valued by at least
+four-fifths of the household.
+
+It was decided that Lady Torridon should be told immediately; and a day
+or two later Sir James came to Chris in the garden to tell him that she
+had consented.
+
+“I do not understand it at all,” said the old man, “but your mother
+seemed very willing. I wonder--”
+
+And then he stopped abruptly.
+
+The letter was sent. Chris saw it and the strong appeal it contained
+that Beatrice should come to the aid of a nun who was pining for want of
+companionship. A day or two later brought down the answer that Mistress
+Atherton would have great pleasure in coming a week before Christmas.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Margaret had a fit of shyness when the day came for her arrival. It was
+a clear frosty afternoon, with a keen turquoise sky overhead, and she
+wandered out in her habit down the slope to the moat, crossed the
+bridge, glancing at the thin ice and the sedge that pierced it, and came
+up into the private garden. She knew she could hear the sounds of wheels
+from there, and had an instinctive shrinking from being at the house
+when the stranger arrived.
+
+The grass walks were crisp to the foot; the plants in the deep beds
+rested in a rigid stillness with a black blossom or two drooping here
+and there; and the hollies beyond the yew hedge lifted masses of green
+lit by scarlet against the pale sky. Her breath went up like smoke as
+she walked softly up and down.
+
+There was no sound to disturb her. Once she heard the clink of the
+blacksmith’s forge half a mile away in the village; once a blackbird
+dashed chattering from a hedge, scudded in a long dip, and rose again
+over it; a robin followed her in brisk hops, with a kind of pathetic
+impertinence in his round eye, as he wondered whether this human
+creature’s footsteps would not break the iron armour of the ground and
+give him a chance to live.
+
+She wondered a thousand things as she went; what kind of a woman this
+was that was coming, how she would look, why she had not married Ralph,
+and above all, whether she understood--whether she understood!
+
+A kind of frost had fallen on her own soul; she could find no sustenance
+there; it was all there, she knew, all the mysterious life that had
+rioted within her like spring, in the convent, breathing its fragrances,
+bewildering in its wealth of shape and colour. But an icy breath had
+petrified it all; it had sunk down out of sight; it needed a soul like
+her own, feminine and sympathetic, a soul that had experienced the same
+things as her own, that knew the tenderness and love of the Saviour, to
+melt that frigid covering and draw out the essences and sweetness again,
+that lay there paralysed by this icy environment....
+
+There were wheels at last.
+
+She gathered up her black skirt, and ran to the edge of the low yews
+that bounded the garden on the north; and as she caught a glimpse of the
+nodding heads of the postilions, the plumes of their mounts, and the
+great carriage-roof swaying in the iron ruts, she shrank back again, in
+an agony of shyness, terrified of being seen.
+
+The sky had deepened to flaming orange in the west, barred by the tall
+pines, before she unlatched the garden-gate to go back to the house.
+
+The windows shone out bright and inviting from the parlour on the
+ground-floor and from beneath the high gable of the hall as she came up
+the slope. Mistress Atherton, she knew, would be in one of these rooms
+if she had not already gone up stairs; and with an instinct of shyness
+still strong within her the girl slipped round to the back, and passed
+in through the chapel.
+
+The court was lighted by a link that flared beside one of the doorways
+on the left, and a couple of great trunks lay below it. A servant came
+out as she stood there hesitating, and she called to him softly to know
+where was Mistress Atherton.
+
+“She is in the parlour, Mistress Margaret,” said the man.
+
+The girl went slowly across to the corner doorway, glancing at the
+parlour windows as she passed; but the curtains were drawn on this side,
+and she could catch no glimpse of the party within.
+
+The little entrance passage was dark; but she could hear a murmur of
+voices as she stood there, still hesitating. Then she opened the door
+suddenly, and went into the room.
+
+Her mother was speaking; and the girl heard those icy detached tones as
+she looked round the group.
+
+“It must be very difficult for you, Mistress Atherton, in these days.”
+
+Margaret saw her father standing at the window-seat, and Chris beside
+him; and in a moment saw that the faces of both were troubled and
+uneasy.
+
+A tall girl was in the chair opposite, her hands lying easily on the
+arms and her head thrown back almost negligently. She was well dressed,
+with furs about her throat; her buckled feet were crossed before the
+blaze, and her fingers shone with jewels. Her face was pale; her
+scarlet lips were smiling, and there was a certain keen and genial
+amusement in her black eyes.
+
+She looked magnificent, thought Margaret, still standing with her hand
+on the door--too magnificent.
+
+Her father made a movement, it seemed of relief, as his daughter came
+in; but Lady Torridon, very upright in her chair on this side, went on
+immediately.
+
+--“With your opinions, Mistress Atherton, I mean. I suppose all that you
+consider sacred is being insulted, in your eyes.”
+
+The tall girl glanced at Margaret with the amusement still in her face,
+and then answered with a deliberate incisiveness that equalled Lady
+Torridon’s own.
+
+“Not so difficult,” she said, “as for those who have no opinions.”
+
+There was a momentary pause; and then she added, as she stood up and Sir
+James came forward.
+
+“I am very sorry for them, Mistress Torridon.”
+
+Before Lady Torridon could answer, Sir James had broken in.
+
+“This is my daughter Margaret, Mistress Atherton.”
+
+The two ladies saluted one another.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A DUEL
+
+
+Margaret watched Beatrice with growing excitement that evening, in which
+was mingled something of awe and something of attraction. She had never
+seen anyone so serenely self-possessed.
+
+It became evident during supper, beyond the possibility of mistake, that
+Lady Torridon had planned war against the guest, who was a
+representative in her eyes of all that was narrow-minded and
+contemptible. Here was a girl, she seemed to tell herself, who had had
+every opportunity of emancipation, who had been singularly favoured in
+being noticed by Ralph, and who had audaciously thrown him over for the
+sake of some ridiculous scruples worthy only of idiots and nuns. Indeed
+to Chris it was fairly plain that his mother had consented so willingly
+to Beatrice’s visit with the express purpose of punishing her.
+
+But Beatrice held her own triumphantly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They had not sat down three minutes before Lady Torridon opened the
+assault, with grave downcast face and in her silkiest manner. She went
+abruptly back to the point where the conversation had been interrupted
+in the parlour by Margaret’s entrance.
+
+“Mistress Atherton,” she observed, playing delicately with her spoon, “I
+think you said that to your mind the times were difficult for those who
+had no opinions.”
+
+Beatrice looked at her pleasantly.
+
+“Yes, Mistress Torridon; at least more difficult for those, than for the
+others who know their own mind.”
+
+The other waited a moment, expecting the girl to justify herself, but
+she was forced to go on.
+
+“Abbot Marshall knew his mind, but it was not easy for him.”
+
+(The news had just arrived of the Abbot’s execution).
+
+“Do you think not, mistress? I fear I still hold my opinion.”
+
+“And what do you mean by that?”
+
+“I mean that unless we have something to hold to, in these troublesome
+times, we shall drift. That is all.”
+
+“Ah! and drift whither?”
+
+Beatrice smiled so genially as she answered, that the other had no
+excuse for taking offence.
+
+“Well, it might be better not to answer that.”
+
+Lady Torridon looked at her with an impassive face.
+
+“To hell, then?” she said.
+
+“Well, yes: to hell,” said Beatrice.
+
+There was a profound silence; broken by the stifled merriment of a
+servant behind the chairs, who transformed it hastily into a cough. Sir
+James glanced across in great distress at his son; but Chris’ eyes
+twinkled at him.
+
+Lady Torridon was silent a moment, completely taken aback by the
+suddenness with which the battle had broken, and amazed by the girl’s
+audacity. She herself was accustomed to use brutality, but not to meet
+it. She laid her spoon carefully down.
+
+“Ah!” she said, “and you believe that? And for those who hold wrong
+opinions, I suppose you would believe the same?”
+
+“If they were wrong enough,” said Beatrice, “and through their fault.
+Surely we are taught to believe that, Mistress Torridon?”
+
+The elder woman said nothing at all, and went on with her soup. Her
+silence was almost more formidable than her speech, and she knew that,
+and contrived to make it offensive. Beatrice paid no sort of attention
+to it, however; and without looking at her again began to talk
+cheerfully to Sir James about her journey from town. Margaret watched
+her, fascinated; her sedate beautiful face, her lace and jewels, her
+white fingers, long and straight, that seemed to endorse the impression
+of strength that her carriage and manner of speaking suggested; as one
+might watch a swordsman between the rounds of a duel and calculate his
+chances. She knew very well that her mother would not take her first
+repulse easily; and waited in anxiety for the next clash of swords.
+
+Beatrice seemed perfectly fearless, and was talking about the King with
+complete freedom, and yet with a certain discretion too.
+
+“He will have his way,” she said. “Who can doubt that?”
+
+Lady Torridon saw an opening for a wound, and leapt at it.
+
+“As he had with Master More,” she put in.
+
+Beatrice turned her head a little, but made no answer; and there was not
+the shadow of wincing on her steady face.
+
+“As he had with Master More,” said Lady Torridon a little louder.
+
+“We must remember that he has my Lord Cromwell to help him,” observed
+Beatrice tranquilly.
+
+Lady Torridon looked at her again. Even now she could scarcely believe
+that this stranger could treat her with such a supreme indifference. And
+there was a further sting, too, in the girl’s answer, for all there
+understood the reference to Ralph; and yet again it was impossible to
+take offence.
+
+Margaret looked at her father, half-frightened, and saw again a look of
+anxiety in his eyes; he was crumbling his bread nervously as he answered
+Beatrice.
+
+“My Lord Cromwell--” he began.
+
+“My Lord Cromwell has my son Ralph under him,” interrupted his wife.
+“Perhaps you did not know that, Mistress Atherton.”
+
+Margaret again looked quickly up; but there was still no sign of wincing
+on those scarlet lips, or beneath the black eyebrows.
+
+“Why, of course, I knew it,” said Beatrice, looking straight at her with
+large, innocent eyes, “that was why--”
+
+She stopped; and Lady Torridon really roused now, made a false step.
+
+“Yes?” she said. “You did not end your sentence?”
+
+Beatrice cast an ironically despairing look behind her at the servants.
+
+“Well,” she said, “if you will have it: that was why I would not marry
+him. Did you not know that, Mistress?”
+
+It was so daring that Margaret caught her breath suddenly; and looked
+hopelessly round. Her father and brother had their eyes steadily bent on
+the table; and the priest was looking oddly at the quiet angry woman
+opposite him.
+
+Then Sir James slid deftly in, after a sufficient pause to let the
+lesson sink home; and began to talk of indifferent things; and Beatrice
+answered him with the same ease.
+
+Lady Torridon made one more attempt just before the end of supper, when
+the servants had left the room.
+
+“You are living on--” she corrected herself ostentatiously--“you are
+living with any other family now, Mistress Atherton? I remember my son
+Ralph telling me you were almost one of Master More’s household.”
+
+Beatrice met her eyes with a delightful smile.
+
+“I am living on--with your family at this time, Mistress Torridon.”
+
+There was no more to be said just then. The girl had not only turned her
+hostess’ point, but had pricked her shrewdly in riposte, three times;
+and the last was the sharpest of all.
+
+Lady Torridon led the way to the oak parlour in silence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She made no more assaults that night; but sat in dignified aloofness,
+her hands on her lap, with an air of being unconscious of the presence
+of the others. Beatrice sat with Margaret on the long oak settle; and
+talked genially to the company at large.
+
+When compline had been said, Sir James drew Chris aside into the
+star-lit court as the others went on in front.
+
+“Dear lad,” he said, “what are we to do? This cannot go on. Your
+mother--”
+
+Chris smiled at him, and took his arm a moment.
+
+“Why, father,” he said, “what more do we want? Mistress Atherton can
+hold her own.”
+
+“But your mother will insult her.”
+
+“She will not be able,” said Chris. “Mistress Atherton will not have it.
+Did you not see how she enjoyed it?”
+
+“Enjoyed it?”
+
+“Why, yes; her eyes shone.”
+
+“Well, I must speak to her,” said Sir James, still perplexed. “Come with
+me, Chris.”
+
+Mr. Carleton was just leaving the parlour as they came up to its
+outside door. Sir James drew him into the yard. There were no secrets
+between these two.
+
+“Father,” he said, “did you notice? Do you think Mistress Atherton will
+be able to stay here?”
+
+He saw to his astonishment that the priest’s melancholy face, as the
+starlight fell on it, was smiling.
+
+“Why, yes, Sir James. She is happy enough.”
+
+“But my wife--”
+
+“Sir James, I think Mistress Atherton may do her good. She--” he
+hesitated.
+
+“Well?” said the old man.
+
+“She--Lady Torridon has met her match,” said the chaplain, still
+smiling.
+
+Sir James made a little gesture of bewilderment.
+
+“Well, come in, Chris. I do not understand; but if you both think so--”
+
+He broke off and opened the door.
+
+Lady Torridon was gone to her room; and the two girls were alone.
+Beatrice was standing before the hearth with her hands behind her
+back--a gallant upright figure; as they came in, she turned a cheerful
+face to them.
+
+“Your daughter has been apologising, Sir James,” she said; and there was
+a ripple of amusement in her voice. “She thinks I have been hardly
+treated.”
+
+She glanced at the bewildered Margaret, who was staring at her under her
+delicate eyebrows with wide eyes of amazement and admiration.
+
+Sir James looked confused.
+
+“The truth is, Mistress Atherton, that I too--and my son--”
+
+“Well, not your son,” said Chris smiling.
+
+“You too!” cried Beatrice. “And how have I been hardly treated?”
+
+“Well, I thought perhaps, that what was said at supper--” began the old
+man, beginning to smile too.
+
+“Lady Torridon, and every one, has been all that is hospitable,” said
+Beatrice. “It is like old days at Chelsea. I love word-fencing; and
+there are so few who practise it.”
+
+Sir James was still a little perplexed.
+
+“You assure me, Mistress, that you are not distressed by--by anything
+that has passed?”
+
+“Distressed!” she cried. “Why, it is a real happiness!”
+
+But he was not yet satisfied.
+
+“You will engage to tell me then, if you think you are improperly
+treated by--by anyone--?”
+
+“Why, yes,” said the girl, smiling into his eyes. “But there is no need
+to promise that. I am really happy; and I am sure your daughter and I
+will be good friends.”
+
+She turned a little towards Margaret; and Chris saw a curious emotion of
+awe and astonishment and affection in his sister’s eyes.
+
+“Come, my dear,” said Beatrice. “You said you would take me to my room.”
+
+Sir James hastened to push open the further door that led to the stairs;
+and the two girls passed out together.
+
+Then he shut the door, and turned to his son. Chris had begun to laugh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A PEACE-MAKER
+
+
+It was a very strange household that Christmas at Overfield. Mary and
+her husband came over with their child, and the entire party, with the
+exception of the duellists themselves, settled down to watch the
+conflict between Lady Torridon and Beatrice Atherton. Its prolongation
+was possible because for days together the hostess retired into a
+fortress of silence, whence she looked out cynically, shrugged her
+shoulders, smiled almost imperceptibly, and only sallied when she found
+she could not provoke an attack. Beatrice never made an assault; was
+always ready for the least hint of peace; but guarded deftly and struck
+hard when she was directly threatened. Neither would she ever take an
+insult; the bitterest dart fell innocuous on her bright shield before
+she struck back smiling; but there were some sharp moments of anxiety
+now and again as she hesitated how to guard.
+
+A silence would fall suddenly in the midst of the talk and clatter at
+table; there would be a momentary kindling of glances, as from the tall
+chair opposite the chaplain a psychological atmosphere of peril made
+itself felt; then the blow would be delivered; the weapons clashed; and
+once more the talk rose high and genial over the battlefield.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The moment when Beatrice’s position in the house came nearest to being
+untenable, was one morning in January, when the whole party were
+assembled on the steps to see the sportsmen off for the day.
+
+Sir James was down with the foresters and hounds at the further end of
+the terrace, arranging the details of the day; Margaret had not yet come
+out of chapel, and Lady Torridon, who had had a long fit of silence, was
+standing with Mary and Nicholas at the head of the central stairs that
+led down from the terrace to the gravel.
+
+Christopher and Beatrice came out of the house behind, talking
+cheerfully; for the two had become great friends since they had learnt
+to understand one another, and Beatrice had confessed to him frankly
+that she had been wrong and he right in the matter of Ralph. She had
+told him this a couple of days after her arrival; but there had been a
+certain constraint in her manner that forbade his saying much in answer.
+Here they came then, now, in the frosty sunshine; he in his habit and
+she in her morning house-dress of silk and lace, talking briskly.
+
+“I was sure you would understand, father,” she said, as they came up
+behind the group.
+
+Then Lady Torridon turned and delivered her point, suddenly and
+brutally.
+
+“Of course he will,” she said. “I suppose then you are not going out,
+Mistress Atherton.” And she glanced with an offensive contempt at the
+girl and the monk. Beatrice’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, and
+opened again.
+
+“Why, no, Lady Torridon.”
+
+“I thought not,” said the other; and again she glanced at the two--“for
+I see the priest is not.”
+
+There was a moment’s silence. Nick was looking at his wife with a face
+of dismay. Then Beatrice answered smiling.
+
+“Neither are you, dear Lady Torridon. Is not that enough to keep me?”
+
+A short yelp of laughter broke from Nicholas; and he stooped to examine
+his boot.
+
+Lady Torridon opened her lips, closed them again, and turned her back on
+the girl.
+
+“But you are cruel,” said Beatrice’s voice from behind, “and--”
+
+The woman turned once more venomously.
+
+“You do not want me,” she said. “You have taken one son of mine, and now
+you would take the other. Is not my daughter enough?”
+
+Beatrice instantly stepped up, and put her hand on the other’s arm.
+
+“Dear Mistress,” she said; and her voice broke into tenderness; “she is
+not enough--”
+
+Lady Torridon jerked her arm away.
+
+“Come, Mary,” she said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Matters were a little better after that. Sir James was not told of the
+incident; because his son knew very well that he would not allow
+Beatrice to stay another day after the insult; but Chris felt himself
+bound to consult those who had heard what had passed as to whether
+indeed it was possible for her to remain. Nicholas grew crimson with
+indignation and vowed it was impossible. Mary hesitated; and Chris
+himself was doubtful. He went at last to Beatrice that same evening; and
+found her alone in the oak parlour, before supper. The sportsmen had not
+yet come back; and the other ladies were upstairs.
+
+Beatrice affected to treat it as nothing; and it was not till Chris
+threatened to tell his father, that she told him all she thought.
+
+“I must seem a vain fool to say so;” she said, leaning back in her
+chair, and looking up at him, “and perhaps insolent too; yet I must say
+it. It is this: I believe that Lady Torridon--Ah! how can I say it?”
+
+“Tell me,” said Chris steadily, looking away from her.
+
+Beatrice shifted a little in her seat; and then stood up.
+
+“Well, it is this. I do not believe your mother is so--so--is what she
+sometimes seems. I think she is very sore and angry; there are a hundred
+reasons. I think no one has--has faced her before. She has been obeyed
+too much. And--and I think that if I stay I may be able--I may be some
+good,” she ended lamely.
+
+Chris nodded.
+
+“I understand,” he said softly.
+
+“Give me another week or two,” said Beatrice, “I will do my best.”
+
+“You have worked a miracle with Meg,” said Chris. “I believe you can
+work another. I will not tell my father; and the others shall not
+either.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A wonderful change had indeed come to Margaret during the last month.
+Her whole soul, so cramped now by circumstances, had gone out in
+adoration towards this stranger. Chris found it almost piteous to watch
+her--her shy looks, the shiver that went over her, when the brilliant
+figure rustled into the room, or the brisk sentences were delivered from
+those smiling lips. He would see too how their hands met as they sat
+together; how Margaret would sit distracted and hungering for attention,
+eyeing the ceiling, the carpet, her embroidery; and how her eyes would
+leap to meet a glance, and her face flush up, as Beatrice throw her a
+soft word or look.
+
+And it was the right love, too, to the monk’s eyes; not a rival flame,
+but fuel for divine ardour. Margaret spent longer, not shorter, time at
+her prayers; was more, not less, devout at mass and communion; and her
+whole sore soul became sensitive and alive again. The winter had passed
+for her; the time of the singing-birds was come.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was fascinated by the other’s gallant brilliance. Religion for the
+nun had up to the present appeared a delicate thing that grew in the
+shadow or in the warm shelter of the cloister; now it blossomed out in
+Beatrice as a hardy bright plant that tossed its leaves in the wind and
+exulted in sun and cold. Yet it had its evening tendernesses too, its
+subtle fragrance when the breeze fell, its sweet colours and
+outlines--Beatrice too could pray; and Margaret’s spiritual instinct, as
+she knelt by her at the altar-rail or glanced at the other’s face as she
+came down fresh with absolution from the chair in the sanctuary where
+the chaplain sat, detected a glow of faith at least as warm as her own.
+
+She was astonished too at her friend’s gaiety; for she had expected, so
+far as her knowledge of human souls led to expect anything, a quiet
+convalescent spirit, recovering but slowly from the tragedy through
+which Margaret knew she had passed. It seemed to her at first as if
+Beatrice must be almost heartless, so little did she flinch when Lady
+Torridon darted Ralph’s name at her, or Master More’s, or flicked her
+suddenly where the wound ought to be; and it was not until the guest had
+been a month in the house that the nun understood.
+
+They were together one evening in Margaret’s own white little room above
+the oak parlour. Beatrice was sitting before the fire with her arms
+clasped behind her head, waiting till the other had finished her office,
+and looking round pleased in her heart, at the walls that told their
+tale so plainly. It was almost exactly like a cell. A low oak bed,
+red-blanketted, stood under the sloping roof, a prie-dieu beside it, and
+a cheap little French image of St. Scholastica over it. There was a
+table, with a sheet of white paper, a little ink-horn and two quills
+primly side by side upon it; and at the back stood a couple of small
+bound volumes in which the nun was accumulating little by little private
+devotions that appealed to her. A pair of beads hung on a nail by the
+window over which was drawn an old red curtain; two brass candlesticks
+with a cross between them stood over the hearth, giving it a faint
+resemblance to an altar. The boards were bare except for a strip of
+matting by the bed; and the whole room, walls, floor, ceiling and
+furniture were speckless and precise.
+
+Margaret made the sign of the cross, closed her book, and smiled at
+Beatrice.
+
+“You dear child!” she answered.
+
+Margaret’s face shone with pleasure; and she put out her hand softly to
+the other’s knee, and laid it there.
+
+“Talk to me,” said the nun.
+
+“Well?” said Beatrice.
+
+“Tell me about your life in London. You never have yet, you know.”
+
+An odd look passed over the other’s face, and she dropped her eyes and
+laid her hands together in her lap.
+
+“Oh, Meg,” she said, “I should love to tell you if I could. What would
+you like to hear?”
+
+The nun looked at her wondering.
+
+“Why--everything,” she said.
+
+“Shall I tell you of Chelsea and Master More?”
+
+Margaret nodded, still looking at her; and Beatrice began.
+
+It was an extraordinary experience for the nun to sit there and hear
+that wonderful tale poured out. Beatrice for the first time threw open
+her defences--those protections of the sensitive inner life that she had
+raised by sheer will--and showed her heart. She told her first of her
+life in the country before she had known anything of the world; of her
+father’s friendship with More when she was still a child, and of his
+death when she was about sixteen. She had had money of her own, and had
+come up to live with Mrs. More’s sisters; and so had gradually slipped
+into intimacy at Chelsea. Then she described the life there--the ordered
+beauty of it all--and the marvellous soul that was its centre and sun.
+She told her of More’s humour, his unfailing gaiety, his sweet cynicism
+that shot through his talk, his tender affections, and above all--for
+she knew this would most interest the nun--his deep and resolute
+devotion to God. She described how he had at one time lived at the
+Charterhouse, and had seemed to regret, before the end of his life, that
+he had not become a Carthusian; she told her of the precious parcel that
+had been sent from the Tower to Chelsea the day before his death, and
+how she had helped Margaret Roper to unfasten it and disclose the
+hair-shirt that he had worn secretly for years, and which now he had
+sent back for fear that it should be seen by unfriendly eyes or praised
+by flattering tongues.
+
+Her face grew inexpressibly soft and loving as she talked; more than
+once her black eyes filled with tears, and her voice faltered; and the
+nun sat almost terrified at the emotion she had called up. It was hardly
+possible that this tender feminine creature who talked so softly of
+divine and human things and of the strange ardent lawyer in whom both
+were so manifest, could be the same stately lady of downstairs who
+fenced so gallantly, who never winced at a wound and trod so bravely
+over sharp perilous ground.
+
+“They killed him,” said Beatrice. “King Henry killed him; for that he
+could not bear an honest, kindly, holy soul so near his own. And we are
+left to weep for him, of whom--of whom the world was not worthy.”
+
+Margaret felt her hand caught and caressed; and the two sat in silence a
+moment.
+
+“But--but--” began the nun softly, bewildered by this revelation.
+
+“Yes, my dear; you did not know--how should you?--what a wound I carry
+here--what a wound we all carry who knew him.”
+
+Again there was a short silence. Margaret was searching for some word of
+comfort.
+
+“But you did what you could for him, did you not? And--and even Ralph, I
+think I heard--”
+
+Beatrice turned and looked at her steadily. Margaret read in her face
+something she could not understand.
+
+“Yes--Ralph?” said Beatrice questioningly.
+
+“You told father so, did you not? He did what he could for Master More?”
+
+Beatrice laid her other hand too over Margaret’s.
+
+“My dear; I do not know. I cannot speak of that.”
+
+“But you said--”
+
+“Margaret, my pet; you would not hurt me, would you? I do not think I
+can bear to speak of that.”
+
+The nun gripped the other’s two hands passionately, and laid her cheek
+against them.
+
+“Beatrice, I did not know--I forgot.”
+
+Beatrice stooped and kissed her gently.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The nun loved her tenfold more after that. It had been before a kind of
+passionate admiration, such as a subject might feel for a splendid
+queen; but the queen had taken this timid soul in through the
+palace-gates now, into a little inner chamber intimate and apart, and
+had sat with her there and shown her everything, her broken toys, her
+failures; and more than all her own broken heart. And as, after that
+evening, Margaret watched Beatrice again in public, heard her retorts
+and marked her bearing, she knew that she knew something that the others
+did not; she had the joy of sharing a secret of pain. But there was one
+wound that Beatrice did not show her; that secret was reserved for one
+who had more claim to it, and could understand. The nun could not have
+interpreted it rightly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mary and Nicholas went back to Great Keynes at the end of January; and
+Beatrice was out on the terrace with the others to see them go. Jim, the
+little seven-year-old boy, had fallen in love with her, ever since he
+had found that she treated him like a man, with deference and courtesy,
+and did not talk about him in his presence and over his head. He was
+walking with her now, a little apart, as the horses came round, and
+explaining to her how it was that he only rode a pony at present, and
+not a horse.
+
+“My legs would not reach, Mistress Atherton,” he said, protruding a
+small leather boot. “It is not because I am afraid, or father either. I
+rode Jess, the other day, but not astride.”
+
+“I quite understand,” said Beatrice respectfully, without the shadow of
+laughter in her face.
+
+“You see--” began the boy.
+
+Then his mother came up.
+
+“Run, Jim, and hold my horse. Mistress Beatrice, may I have a word with
+you?”
+
+The two turned and walked down to the end of the terrace again.
+
+“It is this,” said Mary, looking at the other from under her plumed hat,
+with her skirt gathered up with her whip in her gloved hand. “I wished
+to tell you about my mother. I have not dared till now. I have never
+seen her so stirred in my life, as she is now. I--I think she will do
+anything you wish in time. It is useless to feign that we do not
+understand one another--anything you wish--come back to her Faith
+perhaps; treat my father better. She--she loves you, I think; and yet
+dare not--”
+
+“On Ralph’s account,” put in Beatrice serenely.
+
+“Yes; how did you know? It is on Ralph’s account. She cannot forgive
+that. Can you say anything to her, do you think? Anything to explain?
+You understand--”
+
+“I understand.”
+
+“I do not know how I dare say all this,” went on Mary blushing
+furiously, “but I must thank you too for what you have done for my
+sister. It is wonderful. I could have done nothing.”
+
+“My dear,” said Beatrice. “I love your sister. There is no need for
+thanks.”
+
+A loud voice hailed them.
+
+“Sweetheart,” shouted Sir Nicholas, standing with his legs apart at the
+mounting steps. “The horses are fretted to death.”
+
+“You will remember,” said Mary hurriedly, as they turned. “And--God
+bless you, Beatrice!”
+
+Lady Torridon was indeed very quiet now. It was strange for the others
+to see the difference. It seemed as if she had been conquered by the one
+weapon that she could wield, which was brutality. As Mr. Carleton had
+said, she had never been faced before; she had been accustomed to regard
+devoutness as incompatible with strong character; she had never been
+resisted. Both her husband and children had thought to conquer by
+yielding; it was easier to do so, and appeared more Christian; and she
+herself, like Ralph, was only provoked further by passivity. And now she
+had met one of the old school, who was as ready in the use of worldly
+weapons as herself; she had been ignored and pricked alternately, and
+with astonishing grace too, by one who was certainly of that tone of
+mind that she had gradually learnt to despise and hate.
+
+Chris saw this before his father; but he saw too that the conquest was
+not yet complete. His mother had been cowed with respect, as a dog that
+is broken in; she had not yet been melted with love. He had spoken to
+Mary the day before the Maxwells’ departure, and tried to put this into
+words; and Mary had seen where the opening for love lay, through which
+the work could be done; and the result had been the interview with
+Beatrice, and the mention of Ralph’s name. But Mary had not a notion how
+Beatrice could act; she only saw that Ralph was the one chink in her
+mother’s armour, and she left it to this girl who had been so adroit up
+to the present, to find how to pierce it.
+
+Sir James had given up trying to understand the situation. He had for so
+long regarded his wife as an irreconcilable that he hoped for nothing
+better than to be able to keep her pacified; anything in the nature of a
+conversion seemed an idle dream. But he had noticed the change in her
+manner, and wondered what it meant; he hoped that the pendulum had not
+swung too far, and that it was not she who was being bullied now by
+this imperious girl from town.
+
+He said a word to Mr. Carleton one day about it, as they walked in the
+garden.
+
+“Father,” he said, “I am puzzled. What has come to my wife? Have you not
+noticed how she has not spoken for three days. Do you think she dislikes
+Mistress Atherton. If I thought that--”
+
+“No, sir,” said the priest. “I do not think it is that. I think it is
+the other way about. She did dislike her--but not now.”
+
+“You do not think, Mistress Atherton is--is a little--discourteous and
+sharp sometimes. I have wondered whether that was so. Chris thinks not,
+however.”
+
+“Neither do I, sir. I think--I think it is all very well as it is. I
+hope Mistress Atherton is to stay yet a while.”
+
+“She speaks of going in a week or two,” said the old man. “She has been
+here six weeks now.”
+
+“I hope not,” said the priest, “since you have asked my opinion, sir.”
+
+Sir James sighed, looked at the other, and then left him, to search for
+his wife and see if she wanted him. He was feeling a little sorry for
+her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A week later the truth began to come out, and Beatrice had the
+opportunity for which she was waiting.
+
+They were all gathered before the hall-fire expecting supper; the
+painted windows had died with the daylight, and the deep tones of the
+woodwork in gallery and floor and walls had crept out from the gloom
+into the dancing flare of the fire and the steady glow of the sconces.
+The weather had broken a day or two before; all the afternoon sheets of
+rain had swept across the fields and gardens, and heavy cheerless
+clouds marched over the sky. The wind was shrilling now against the
+north side of the hall, and one window dripped a little inside on to the
+matting below it. The supper-table shone with silver and crockery, and
+the napkins by each place; and the door from the kitchen was set wide
+for the passage of the servants, one of whom waited discreetly in the
+opening for the coming of the lady of the house. They were all there but
+she; and the minutes went by and she did not come.
+
+Sir James turned enquiringly as the door from the court opened, but it
+was only a wet shivering dog who had nosed it open, and now crept
+deprecatingly towards the blaze.
+
+“You poor beast,” said Beatrice, drawing her skirts aside. “Take my
+place,” and she stepped away to allow him to come. He looked gratefully
+up, wagged his rat-tail, and lay down comfortably at the edge of the
+tiles.
+
+“My wife is very late,” said Sir James. “Chris--”
+
+He stopped as footsteps sounded in the flagged passage leading from the
+living rooms; and the next moment the door was flung open, and a woman
+ran forward with outstretched hands.
+
+“O! mon Dieu, mon Dieu!” she cried. “My lady is ill. Come, sir, come!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE ELDER SON
+
+
+Ralph had prospered exceedingly since his return from the Sussex
+Visitation. He had been sent on mission after mission by Cromwell, who
+had learnt at last how wholly he could be trusted; and with each success
+his reputation increased. It seemed to Cromwell that his man was more
+whole-hearted than he had been at first; and when he was told abruptly
+by Ralph that his relations with Mistress Atherton had come to an end,
+the politician was not slow to connect cause and effect. He had always
+regretted the friendship; it seemed to him that his servant’s character
+was sure to be weakened by his alliance with a friend of Master More;
+and though he had said nothing--for Ralph’s manner did not encourage
+questions--he had secretly congratulated both himself and his agent for
+so happy a termination to an unfortunate incident.
+
+For the meantime Ralph’s fortunes rose with his master’s; Lord Cromwell
+now reigned in England next after the King in both Church and State. He
+held a number of offices, each of which would have been sufficient for
+an ordinary man, but all of which did not overtax his amazing energy. He
+stood absolutely alone, with all the power in his hands; President of
+the Star Chamber, Foreign Minister, Home-Minister, and the Vicar-General
+of the Church; feared by Churchmen, distrusted by statesmen and nobles;
+and hated by all except his own few personal friends--an unique figure
+that had grown to gigantic stature through sheer effort and adroitness.
+
+And beneath his formidable shadow Ralph was waxing great. He had failed
+to get Lewes for himself, for Cromwell designed it for Gregory his son;
+but he was offered his choice among several other great houses. For the
+present he hesitated to choose; uncertain of his future. If his father
+died there would be Overfield waiting for him, so he did not wish to tie
+himself to one of the far-away Yorkshire houses; if his father lived, he
+did not wish to be too near him. There was no hurry, said Cromwell;
+there would be houses and to spare for the King’s faithful servants; and
+meantime it would be better for Mr. Torridon to remain in Westminster,
+and lay his foundations of prosperity deeper and wider yet before
+building. The title too that Cromwell dangled before him sometimes--that
+too could wait until he had chosen his place of abode.
+
+Ralph felt that he was being magnificently treated by his master; and
+his gratitude and admiration grew side by side with his rising fortune.
+There was no niggardliness, now that Cromwell had learnt to trust in
+him; he could draw as much money as he wished for the payment of his
+under-agents, or for any other purpose; and no questions were asked.
+
+The little house at Westminster grew rich in treasures; his bed-coverlet
+was the very cope he had taken from Rusper; his table was heavy with
+chalices beaten into secular shape; his fire-screen was a Spanish
+chasuble taken in the North. His servants were no longer three or four
+sleeping in the house; there was a brigade of them, some that attended
+for orders morning by morning, some that skirmished for him in the
+country and returned rich in documents and hearsay; and a dozen waited
+on his personal wants.
+
+He dealt too with great folks. Half a dozen abbots had been to see him
+in the last year or two, stately prelates that treated him as an equal
+and pleaded for his intercession; the great nobles, enemies of his
+master and himself, eyed him with respectful suspicion as he walked with
+Cromwell in Westminster Hall. The King had pulled his ears and praised
+him; Ralph had stayed at Greenwich a week at a time when the execution
+of the Benedictine abbots was under discussion; he had ridden down
+Cheapside with Henry on his right and Cromwell beyond, between the
+shouting crowds and beneath the wild tossing of gold-cloth and tapestry
+and the windy pealing of a hundred brazen bells. He had gone up with
+Norfolk to Doncaster, a mouth through which the King might promise and
+threaten, and had strode up the steps beside the Duke to make an end of
+the insurgent-leaders of the northern rebellion.
+
+He did not lack a goad, beside that of his own ambition, to drive him
+through this desperate stir; he found a sufficient one in his memory. He
+did not think much of his own family, except with sharp contempt. He did
+not even trouble to make any special report about Chris or Margaret; but
+it was impossible to remember Beatrice with contempt. When she had left
+him kneeling at his table, she had left something besides--the sting of
+her words, and the bitter coldness of her eyes.
+
+As he looked back he did not know whether he loathed her or loved her;
+he only knew that she affected him profoundly. Again and again as he
+dealt brutally with some timid culprit, or stood with his hand on his
+hip to direct the destruction of a shrine, the memory whipped him on his
+raw soul. He would show her whether he were a man or no; whether he
+depended on her or no; whether her woman’s tongue could turn him or no.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was exercised now with very different matters. Religious affairs for
+the present had fallen into a secondary place, and home and foreign
+politics absorbed most of Cromwell’s energies and time. Forces were
+gathering once more against England, and the Catholic powers were coming
+to an understanding with one another against the country that had thrown
+off allegiance to the Pope and the Empire. There was an opportunity,
+however, for Henry’s propensity to marriage once more to play a part in
+politics; he had been three years without a wife; and Cromwell had
+hastened for the third time to avail himself of the King’s passions as
+an instrument in politics. He had understood that a union between
+England and the Lutheran princes would cause a formidable obstacle to
+Catholic machinations; and with this in view had excited Henry by a
+description and a picture of the Lady Anne, daughter of the Duke of
+Cleves and sister-in-law of the Elector of Saxony. He had been perfectly
+successful in the first stages; the stout duchess had landed at Deal at
+the end of December; and the marriage had been solemnised a few days
+later. But unpleasant rumour had been busy ever since; it was whispered
+far and wide that the King loathed his wife, and complained that he had
+been deceived as to her charms; and Ralph, who was more behind the
+scenes than most men, knew that the rumour was only too true. He had
+been present at an abominable incident the day after the marriage had
+taken place, when the King had stormed and raved about the council-room,
+crying out that he had been deceived, and adding many gross details for
+the benefit of his friends.
+
+Cromwell had been strangely moody ever since. Ralph had watched his
+heavy face day after day staring vacantly across the room, and his hand
+that held the pen dig and prick at the paper beneath it.
+
+Even that was not all. The Anglo-German alliance had provoked opposition
+on the continent instead of quelling it; and Ralph saw more than one
+threatening piece of news from abroad that hinted at a probable invasion
+of England should Cromwell’s schemes take effect. These too, however,
+had proved deceptive, and the Lutheran princes whom he had desired to
+conciliate were even already beginning to draw back from the
+consequences of their action.
+
+Ralph was in Cromwell’s room one day towards the end of January, when a
+courier arrived with despatches from an agent who had been following the
+Spanish Emperor’s pacific progress through France, undertaken as a kind
+of demonstration against England.
+
+Cromwell tore open the papers, and glanced at them, running his quick
+attentive eye over this page and that; and Ralph saw his face grow stern
+and white. He tossed the papers on to the table, and nodded to the
+courier to leave the room.
+
+Then he took up a pen, examined it; dashed it point down against the
+table; gnawed his nails a moment, and then caught Ralph’s eye.
+
+“We are failing,” he said abruptly. “Mr. Torridon, if you are a rat you
+had better run.”
+
+“I shall not run, sir,” said Ralph.
+
+“God’s Body!” said his master, “we shall all run together, I think;--but
+not yet.”
+
+Then he took up the papers again, and began to read.
+
+It was a few days later that Ralph received the news of his mother’s
+illness.
+
+She had written to him occasionally, telling him of his father’s
+tiresome ways, his brother’s arrogance, his sister’s feeble piety, and
+finally she had told him of Beatrice’s arrival.
+
+“I consented very gladly,” she had written, “for I thought to teach my
+lady a lesson or two; but I find her very pert and obstinate. I do not
+understand, my dear son, how you could have wished to make her your
+wife; and yet I will grant that she has a taking way with her; she seems
+to fear nothing but her own superstitions and folly, but I am very happy
+to think that all is over between you. She never loved you, my Ralph;
+for she cares nothing when I speak your name, as I have done two or
+three times; nor yet Master More either. I think she has no heart.”
+
+Ralph had wondered a little as he read this, at his mother’s curious
+interest in the girl; and he wondered too at the report of Beatrice’s
+callousness. It was her damned pride, he assured himself.
+
+Then, one evening as he arrived home from Hackney where he had slept the
+previous night, he found a messenger waiting for him. The letter had not
+been sent on to him, as he had not left word where he was going.
+
+It contained a single line from his father.
+
+“Your mother is ill. Come at once. She wishes for you.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in the stormy blackness of a February midnight that he rode up
+through the lighted gatehouse to his home. Above the terrace as he came
+up the road the tall hall-window glimmered faintly like a gigantic
+luminous door hung in space; and the lower window of his father’s room
+shone and faded as the fire leapt within.
+
+A figure rose up suddenly from before the hall-fire as he came in,
+bringing with him a fierce gust of wet wind through the opened door; and
+when he had slipped off his dripping cloak into his servant’s hands, he
+saw that his father was there two yards away, very stern and white, with
+outstretched hands.
+
+“My son,” said the old man, “you are too late. She died two hours ago.”
+
+It was a fierce shock, and for a moment he stood dazed, blinking at the
+light, holding his father’s warm slender hands in his own, and trying to
+assimilate the news. He had been driven inwards, and his obstinacy
+weakened, during that long ride from town through the stormy sunset into
+the black, howling night; memories had reasserted themselves on the
+strength of his anxiety; and the past year or two slipped from him, and
+left him again the eldest son of the house and of his two parents.
+
+Then as he looked into the pale bearded face before him, and the eyes
+which had looked into his own a few months ago with such passionate
+anger, he remembered all that was between them, dropped the hands and
+went forward to the fire.
+
+His father followed him and stood by him there as he spread his fingers
+to the blaze, and told him the details, in short detached sentences.
+
+She had been seized with pain and vomiting on the previous night at
+supper time; the doctor had been sent for, and had declared the illness
+to be an internal inflammation. She had grown steadily worse on the
+following day, with periods of unconsciousness; she had asked for Ralph
+an hour after she had been taken ill; the pain had seemed to become
+fiercer as the hours went on; she had died at ten o’clock that night.
+
+Ralph stood there and listened, his head pressed against the high
+mantelpiece, and his fingers stretching and closing mechanically to
+supple the stiffened joints.
+
+“Mistress Atherton was with her all the while,” said his father; “she
+asked for her.”
+
+Ralph shot a glance sideways, and down again.
+
+“And--” he began.
+
+“Yes; she was shriven and anointed, thank God; she could not receive
+Viaticum.”
+
+Ralph did not know whether he was glad or sorry at that news. It was a
+proper proceeding at any rate; as proper as the candles and the shroud
+and the funeral rites. As regards grief, he did not feel it yet; but he
+was aware of a profound sensation in his soul, as of a bruise.
+
+There was silence for a moment or two; then the wind bellowed suddenly
+in the chimney, the tall window gave a crack of sound, and the smoke
+eddied out into the room. Ralph turned round.
+
+“They are with her still,” said Sir James; “we can go up presently.”
+
+The other shook his head abruptly.
+
+“No,” he said, “I will wait until to-morrow. Which is my room?”
+
+“Your old room,” said his father. “I have had a truckle-bed set there
+for your man. Will you find your way? I must stay here for Mistress
+Atherton.”
+
+Ralph nodded sharply, and went out, down the hill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was half an hour more before Beatrice appeared; and then Sir James
+looked up from his chair at the sound of a footstep and saw her coming
+up the matted floor. Her face was steady and resolute, but there were
+dark patches under her eyes, for she had not slept for two nights.
+
+Sir James stood up, and held out his hands.
+
+“Ralph has come,” he said. “He is gone to his room. Where are the
+others?”
+
+“The priests are at prayers and Meg too,” she said. “It is all ready,
+sir. You may go up when you please.”
+
+“I must say a word first,” said Sir James. “Sit down, Mistress
+Atherton.”
+
+He drew forward his chair for her; and himself stood up on the hearth,
+leaning his head on his hand and looking down into the fire.
+
+“It is this,” he said: “May our Lord reward you for what you have done
+for us.”
+
+Beatrice was silent.
+
+“You know she asked my pardon,” he said, “when we were left alone
+together. You do not know what that means. And she gave me her
+forgiveness for all my folly--”
+
+Beatrice drew a sharp breath in spite of herself.
+
+“We have both sinned,” he went on; “we did not understand one another;
+and I feared we should part so. That we have not, we have to thank
+you--”
+
+His old voice broke suddenly; and Beatrice heard him draw a long sobbing
+breath. She knew she ought to speak, but her brain was bewildered with
+the want of sleep and the long struggle; she could not think of a word
+to say; she felt herself on the verge of hysteria.
+
+“You have done it all,” he said again presently. “She took all that Mr.
+Carleton said patiently enough, he told me. It is all your work.
+Mistress Atherton--”
+
+She looked up questioningly with her bright tired eyes.
+
+“Mistress Atherton; may I know what you said to her?”
+
+Beatrice made a great effort and recovered her self-control.
+
+“I answered her questions,” she said.
+
+“Questions? Did she ask you of the Faith? Did she speak of me? Am I
+asking too much?”
+
+Beatrice shook her head. For a moment again she could not speak.
+
+“I am asking what I should not,” said the old man.
+
+“No, no,” cried the girl, “you have a right to know. Wait, I will tell
+you--”
+
+Again she broke off, and felt her own breath begin to sob in her throat.
+She buried her face in her hands a moment.
+
+“God forgive me,” said the other. “I--”
+
+“It was about your son Ralph,” said Beatrice bravely, though her lips
+shook.
+
+“She--she asked whether I had ever loved him at all--and--”
+
+“Mistress Beatrice, Mistress Beatrice, I entreat you not to say more.”
+
+“And I told her--yes; and, yes--still.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MUMMERS
+
+
+It was a strange meeting for Beatrice and Ralph the next morning. She
+saw him first from the gallery in chapel at mass, kneeling by his
+father, motionless and upright, and watched him go down the aisle when
+it was over. She waited a few minutes longer, quieting herself,
+marshalling her forces, running her attention over each movement or word
+that might prove unruly in his presence; and then she got up from her
+knees and went down.
+
+It had been an intolerable pain to tell the dying woman that she loved
+her son; it tore open the wound again, for she had never yet spoken that
+secret aloud to any living soul, not even to her own. When the question
+came, as she knew it would, she had not hesitated an instant as to the
+answer, and yet the answer had materialised what had been impalpable
+before.
+
+As she had looked down from the gallery this morning she knew that she
+hated, in theory, every detail of his outlook on life; he was brutal,
+insincere; he had lied to her; he was living on the fruits of sacrilege;
+he had outraged every human tie he possessed; and yet she loved every
+hair of his dark head, every movement of his strong hands. It was that
+that had broken down the mother’s reserve; she had been beaten by the
+girl’s insolence, as a dog is beaten into respect; she had only one
+thing that she had not been able to forgive, and that was that this
+girl had tossed aside her son’s love; then the question had been asked
+and answered; and the work had been done. The dying woman had
+surrendered wholly to the superior personality; and had obeyed like a
+child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She had a sense of terrible guilt as she went downstairs into the
+passage that opened on the court; the fact that she had put into words
+what had lain in her heart, made her fancy that the secret was written
+on her face. Then again she drove the imagination down by sheer will;
+she knew that she had won back her self-control, and could trust her own
+discretion.
+
+Their greeting was that of two acquaintances. There was not the tremor
+of an eyelid of either, or a note in either voice, that betrayed that
+their relations had once been different. Ralph thanked her courteously
+for her attention to his mother; and she made a proper reply. Then they
+all sat down to breakfast.
+
+Then Margaret had to be attended to, for she was half-wild with remorse;
+she declared to Beatrice when they went upstairs together that she had
+been a wicked daughter, that she had resented her mother’s words again
+and again, had behaved insolently, and so forth. Beatrice took her in
+her arms.
+
+“My dear,” she said, “indeed you must leave all that now. Come and see
+her; she is at peace, and you must be.”
+
+The bedroom where Lady Torridon had died was arranged as a _chapelle
+ardente;_ the great bed had been moved out into the centre of the room.
+Six tall candlesticks with escutcheons and yellow tapers formed a
+slender mystical wall of fire and light about it; the windows were
+draped; a couple of kneeling desks were set at the foot of the bed.
+Chris was kneeling at one beside his father as they went in, and Mary
+Maxwell, who had arrived a few hours before death had taken place, was
+by herself in a corner.
+
+Beatrice drew Margaret to the second desk, pushed the book to her, and
+knelt by her. There lay the body of the strange, fierce, lonely woman,
+with her beautiful hands crossed, pale as wax, with a crucifix between
+them; and those great black eyebrows beyond, below which lay the double
+reverse curve of the lashes. It seemed as if she was watching them both,
+as her manner had been in life, with a tranquil cynicism.
+
+And was she at peace, thought Beatrice, as she had told her daughter
+just now? Was it possible to believe that that stormy, vicious spirit
+had been quieted so suddenly? And yet that would be no greater miracle
+than that which death had wrought to the body. If the one was so still,
+why not the other? At least she had asked pardon of her husband for
+those years of alienation; she had demanded the sacraments of the
+Church!
+
+Beatrice bowed her head, and prayed for the departed soul.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was disturbed by the soft opening of a door, and lifted her eyes to
+see Ralph stand a moment by the head of the bed, before he sank on his
+knees. She could watch every detail of his face in the candlelight; his
+thin tight lips, his heavy eyebrows so like his mother’s, his curved
+nostrils, the clean sharp line of his jaw.
+
+She found herself analysing his processes of thought. His mother had
+been the one member of his family with whom he had had sympathy; they
+understood one another, these two bitter souls, as no one else did,
+except perhaps Beatrice herself. How aloof they had stood from all
+ordinary affections; how keen must have been their dual loneliness! And
+what did this snapped thread mean to him now? To what, in his opinion,
+did the broken end lead that had passed out from the visible world to
+the invisible? Did he think that all was over, and that the one soul
+that had understood his own had passed like a candle flame into the
+dark? And she too--was she crying for her son, a thin soundless sobbing
+in the world beyond sight? Above all, did he understand how alone he was
+now--how utterly, eternally alone, unless he turned his course?
+
+A great well of pity broke up and surged in her heart, flooding her eyes
+with tears, as she looked at the living son and the dead mother; and she
+dropped her head on her hands again, and prayed for his soul as well as
+for hers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a very strange atmosphere in the house during the day or two that
+passed before the funeral. The household met at meals and in the parlour
+and chapel, but seldom at other times. Ralph was almost invisible; and
+silent when he appeared. There were no explanations on either side; he
+behaved with a kind of distant courtesy to the others, answered their
+questions, volunteered a word or two sometimes; made himself useful in
+small ways as regarded giving orders to the servants, inspecting the
+funeral standard and scutcheons, and making one or two arrangements
+which fell to him naturally; and went out by himself on horseback or on
+foot during the afternoon. His contempt seemed to have fallen from him;
+he was as courteous to Chris as to the others; but no word was spoken on
+either side as regarded either the past and the great gulf that
+separated him from the others, or the future relations between him and
+his home.
+
+The funeral took place three days after death, on the Saturday morning;
+a requiem was sung in the presence of the body in the parish church; and
+Beatrice sat with the mourners in the Torridon chapel behind the black
+hearse set with lights, before the open vault in the centre of the
+pavement. Ralph sat two places beyond her, with Sir James between; and
+she was again vividly conscious of his presence, of his movements as he
+knelt and sat; and again she wondered what all the solemn ceremonies
+meant to him, the yellow candles, the black vestments, the mysterious
+hallowing of the body with incense and water--counteracting, as it were,
+with fragrance and brightness, the corruption and darkness of the grave.
+
+She walked back with Margaret, who clung to her now, almost desperately,
+finding in her sane serenity an antidote to her own remorse; and as she
+walked through the garden and across the moat, with Nicholas and Mary
+coming behind, she watched the three men going in front, Sir James in
+the middle, the monk on his left, and the slow-stepping Ralph on his
+right, and marvelled at the grim acting.
+
+There they went, the father and his two sons, side by side in courteous
+silence--she noticed Ralph step forward to lift the latch of the
+garden-gate for the others to pass through--and between them lay an
+impassable gulf; she found herself wondering whether the other gulf that
+they had looked into half an hour before were so deep or wide.
+
+She was out again with Sir James alone in the evening before supper, and
+learnt from him then that Ralph was to stay till Monday.
+
+“He has not spoken to me of returning again,” said the old man. “Of
+course it is impossible. Do you not think so, Mistress Atherton.”
+
+“It is impossible,” she said. “What good would be served?”
+
+“What good?” repeated the other.
+
+The evening was falling swiftly, layer on layer of twilight, as they
+turned to come back to the house. The steeple of the church rose up on
+their left, slender and ghostly against the yellow sky, out of the black
+yews and cypresses that lay banked below it. They stopped and looked at
+it a moment, as it aspired to heaven from the bones that lay about its
+base, like an eternal resurrection wrought in stone. There all about it
+were the mortal and the dead; the stones and iron slabs leaned, as they
+knew, in hundreds about the grass; and round them again stood the roofs,
+beginning now to kindle under the eaves, where the living slept and ate.
+There was a rumbling of heavy carts somewhere beyond the village, a
+crack or two of a whip, the barking of a dog.
+
+Then they turned again and went up to the house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the chaplain who was late this evening for supper. The others
+waited a few minutes by the fire, but there was no sign of him. A
+servant was sent up to his room and came back to report that he had
+changed his cassock and gone out; a boy had come from the parish-priest,
+said the man, ten minutes before, and Mr. Carleton had probably been
+sent for.
+
+They waited yet five minutes, but the priest did not appear, and they
+sat down. Supper was nearly over before he came. He came in by the
+side-door from the court, splashed with mud, and looking pale and
+concerned. He went straight up to Sir James.
+
+“May I speak with you, sir?” he said.
+
+The old man got up at once, and went down the hall with him.
+
+The rest waited, expecting them to return, but there was no sign of
+them; and Ralph at last rose and led the way to the oak-parlour. As they
+passed the door of Sir James’s room they heard the sound of voices
+within.
+
+Conversation was a very difficult matter that evening. Ralph had behaved
+with considerable grace and tact, but Nicholas had not responded. Ever
+since his arrival on the day before the funeral he had eyed Ralph like a
+strange dog intruded into a house; Mary had hovered round her husband,
+watchful and anxious, stepping hastily into gaps in the conversation,
+sliding in a sentence or two as Nicholas licked his lips in preparation
+for a snarl; once even putting her hand swiftly on his and drowning a
+growl with a word of her own. Ralph had been wonderfully
+self-controlled; only once had Beatrice seen him show his teeth for a
+moment as his brother-in-law had scowled more plainly than usual.
+
+The atmosphere was charged to-night, now that the master of the house
+was away; and as Ralph took his seat in his father’s chair, Beatrice had
+caught her breath for a moment as she saw the look on Nicholas’s face.
+It seemed as if the funeral had lifted a stone that had hitherto held
+the two angry spirits down; Nicholas, after all, was but a son-in-law,
+and Ralph, to his view at least, a bad son. She feared that both might
+think that a quarrel did not outrage decency; but she feared for
+Nicholas more than for Ralph.
+
+Ralph appeared not to notice the other’s scowl, and leaned easily back,
+his head against the carved heraldry, and rapped his fingers softly and
+rhythmically on the bosses of the arms.
+
+Then she heard Nicholas draw a slow venomous breath; and the talk died
+on Mary’s lips. Beatrice stood up abruptly, in desperation; she did not
+know what to say; but the movement checked Nicholas, and he glanced at
+her a moment. Then Mary recovered herself, put her hand sharply on her
+husband’s, and slid out an indifferent sentence. Beatrice saw Ralph’s
+eyes move swiftly and sideways and down again, and a tiny wrinkle of a
+smile show itself at the corners of his mouth. But that danger was
+passed; and a minute later they heard the door of Sir James’s room
+opposite open, and the footsteps of the two men come out.
+
+Ralph stood up at once as his father came in, followed by the priest,
+and stepped back to the window-seat; there was the faintest hint in the
+slight motion of his hands to the effect that he had held his post as
+the eldest son until the rightful owner came. But the consciousness of
+it in Beatrice’s mind was swept away as she looked at the old man,
+standing with a white stern face and his hands clenched at his sides.
+She could see that something impended, and stood up quickly.
+
+“Mr. Carleton has brought shocking news,” he said abruptly; and his eyes
+wandered to his eldest son standing in the shadow of the curtain. “A
+company of mummers has arrived in the village--they--they are to give
+their piece to-morrow.”
+
+There was a dead silence for a moment, for all knew what this meant.
+
+Nicholas sprang to his feet.
+
+“By God, they shall not!” he said.
+
+Sir James lifted his hand sharply.
+
+“We cannot hinder it,” he said. “The priests have done what they can.
+The fellow tells them--” he paused, and again his eyes wandered to
+Ralph--“the fellow tells them he is under the protection of my Lord
+Cromwell.”
+
+There was a swift rustle in the room. Nicholas faced sharply round to
+the window-seat, his hands clenched and his face quivering. Ralph did
+not move.
+
+“Tell them, father,” said Sir James.
+
+The chaplain gave his account. He had been sent for by the parish priest
+just before supper, and had gone with him to the barn that had been
+hired for the performance. The carts had arrived that evening from
+Maidstone; and were being unpacked. He had seen the properties; they
+were of the usual kind--all the paraphernalia for the parody of the Mass
+that was usually given by such actors. He had seen the vestments, the
+friar’s habit, the red-nosed mask, the woman’s costume and wig--all the
+regular articles. The manager had tried to protest against the priests’
+entrance; had denied at first that any insult was intended to the
+Catholic Religion; and had finally taken refuge in defiance; he had
+flung out the properties before their eyes; had declared that no one
+could hinder him from doing as he pleased, since the Archbishop had not
+protested; and Lord Cromwell had given him his express sanction.
+
+“We did all we were able,” said the priest. “Master Rector said he would
+put all the parishioners who came, under the ban of the Church; the
+fellow snapped his fingers in his face. I told them of Sir James’s
+wishes; the death of my Lady--it was of no avail. We can do nothing.”
+
+The priest’s sallow face was flushed with fury as he spoke; and his lips
+trembled piteously with horror and pain. It was the first time that the
+mummers had been near Overfield; they had heard tales of them from other
+parts of the country, but had hoped that their own village would escape
+the corruption. And now it had come.
+
+He stood shaking, as he ended his account.
+
+“Mr. Carleton says it would be of no avail for me to go down myself. I
+wished to. We can do nothing.”
+
+Again he glanced at Ralph, who had sat down silently in the shadow while
+the priest talked.
+
+Nicholas could be restrained no longer. He shook off his wife’s hand and
+took a step across the room.
+
+“And you--you sit there, you devil!” he shouted.
+
+Sir James was with him in a moment, so swiftly that Beatrice did not see
+him move. Margaret was clinging to her now, whispering and sobbing.
+
+“Nick,” snapped out the old man, “hold your tongue, sir. Sit down.”
+
+“God’s Blood!” bellowed the squire. “You bid me sit down.”
+
+Sir James gripped him so fiercely that he stepped back.
+
+“I bid you sit down,” he said. “Ralph, will you help us?”
+
+Ralph stood up instantly. He had not stirred a muscle as Nick shouted at
+him.
+
+“I waited for that, sir,” he said. “What is it you would have me do?”
+
+Beatrice saw that his face was quite quiet as he spoke; his eyelids
+drooped a little; and his mouth was tight and firm. He seemed not to be
+aware of Nicholas’s presence.
+
+“To hinder the play-acting,” said his father.
+
+There fell a dead silence again.
+
+“I will do it, sir,” said his son. “It--it is but decent.”
+
+And in the moment of profound astonishment that fell, he came straight
+across the room, passed by them all without turning his head, and went
+out.
+
+Beatrice felt a fierce emotion grip her throat as she looked after him,
+and saw the door close. Then Margaret seized her again, and she turned
+to quiet her.
+
+She was aware that Sir James had gone out after his son, after a moment
+of silence, and she heard his footsteps pass along the flags outside.
+
+“Oh! God bless him!” sobbed Margaret.
+
+Sir James came back immediately, shook his head, went across the room,
+and sat down in the seat that Ralph had left. A dreadful stillness fell.
+Margaret was quiet now. Mary was sitting with her husband on the other
+side of the hearth. Chris rose presently and sat down by his father, but
+no one spoke a word.
+
+Then Nicholas got up uneasily, came across the room, and stood with his
+back to the hearth warming himself. Beatrice saw him glance now and
+again to the shadowed window-seat where the two men sat; he hummed a
+note or two to himself softly; then turned round and stared at the fire
+with outstretched hands.
+
+The bell rang for prayers, and still without a word being spoken they
+all got up and went out.
+
+In the same silence they came back. Ralph’s servant was standing by the
+door as they entered.
+
+“If you please, sir, Mr. Ralph is come in. He bade me tell you that all
+is arranged.”
+
+The old man looked at him, swallowed once in his throat; and at last
+spoke.
+
+“It is arranged, you say? It will not take place?”
+
+“It will not take place, sir.”
+
+“Where is Mr. Ralph?”
+
+“He is gone to his room, sir. He bade me tell you he would be leaving
+early for London.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A CATASTROPHE
+
+
+Ralph rode away early next morning, yet not so early as to escape an
+interview with his father. They met in the hall, Sir James in his loose
+morning gown and Ralph booted and spurred with his short cloak and tight
+cap. The old man took him by the sleeve, drawing him to the fire that
+burned day and night in winter.
+
+“Ralph--Ralph, my son,” he said, “I must thank you for last night.”
+
+“You have to thank yourself only, sir, and my mother. I could do no
+otherwise.”
+
+“It is you--” began his father.
+
+“It is certainly not Nick, sir. The hot fool nearly provoked me.”
+
+“But you hate such mummery yourself, my son?”
+
+Ralph hesitated.
+
+“It is not seemly--” began his father again.
+
+“It is certainly not seemly; but neither are the common folk seemly.”
+
+“Did you have much business with them, my son?” Ralph smiled in the
+firelight.
+
+“Why, no, sir. I told them who I was. I charged myself with the burden.”
+
+“And you will not be in trouble with my Lord?”
+
+“My Lord has other matters to think of than a parcel of mummers.”
+
+Then they separated; and Ralph rode down the drive with his servants
+behind him. Neither father nor son had said a word of any return.
+Neither had Ralph had one private word with Beatrice during his three
+days’ stay. Once he had come into the parlour to find her going out at
+the other door; and he had wondered whether she had heard his step and
+gone out on purpose. But he knew very well that under the superficial
+courtesy between him and her there lay something deeper--some passionate
+emotion vibrated like a beam between them; but he did not know, even on
+his side and still less on hers, whether that emotion were one of love
+or loathing. It was partly from the discomfort of the charged
+atmosphere, partly from a shrinking from thanks and explanations that he
+had determined to go up to London a day earlier than he had intended; he
+had a hatred of personal elaborateness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He found Cromwell, on his arrival in London, a little less moody than he
+had been in the previous week; for he was busy with preparations for the
+Parliament that was to meet in April; and to the occupation that this
+gave him there was added a good deal of business connected with Henry’s
+negotiations with the Emperor. The dispute, that at present centred
+round the treatment of Englishmen in Spain, and other similar matters,
+in reality ran its roots far deeper; and there were a hundred details
+which occupied the minister. But there was still a hint of storm in the
+air; Cromwell spoke brusquely once or twice without cause, and Ralph
+refrained from saying anything about the affair at Overfield, but took
+up his own work again quietly.
+
+A fortnight later, however, he heard of it once more.
+
+He was sitting at a second table in Cromwell’s own room in the Rolls
+House, when one of the secretaries came up with a bundle of reports, and
+laid them as usual before Ralph.
+
+Ralph finished the letter he was engaged on--one to Dr. Barnes who had
+preached a Protestant sermon at Paul’s Cross, and who now challenged
+Bishop Gardiner to a public disputation. Ralph was telling him to keep
+his pugnacity to himself; and when he had done took up the reports and
+ran his eyes over them.
+
+They were of the usual nature--complaints, informations, protests,
+appeals from men of every rank of life; agents, farm-labourers, priests,
+ex-Religious, fanatics--and he read them quickly through, docketing
+their contents at the head of each that his master might be saved
+trouble.
+
+At one, however, he stopped, glanced momentarily at Cromwell, and then
+read on.
+
+It was an illiterate letter, ill-spelt and smudged, and consisted of a
+complaint from a man who signed himself Robert Benham, against “Mr.
+Ralph Torridon, as he named himself,” for hindering the performance of a
+piece entitled “The Jolly Friar” in the parish of Overfield, on Sunday,
+February the first. Mr. Torridon, the writer stated, had used my Lord
+Cromwell’s name and authority in stopping the play; expenses had been
+incurred in connection with it, for a barn had been hired, and the
+transport of the properties had cost money; and Mr. Benham desired to
+know whether these expenses would be made good to him, and if Mr.
+Torridon had acted in accordance with my Lord’s wishes.
+
+Ralph bit his pen in some perplexity, when he had finished making out
+the document. He wondered whether he had better show it to Cromwell; it
+might irritate him or not, according to his mood. If it was destroyed
+surely no harm would be done; and yet Ralph had a disinclination to
+destroy it. He sat a moment or two longer considering; once he took the
+paper by the corners to tear it; then laid it down again; glanced once
+more at the heavy intent face a couple of yards away, and then by a
+sudden impulse took up his pen and wrote a line on the corner explaining
+the purport of the paper, initialled it, and laid it with the rest.
+
+Cromwell was so busy during the rest of the day that there was no
+opportunity to explain the circumstances to him; indeed he was hardly in
+the room again, so great was the crowd that waited on him continually
+for interviews, and Ralph went away, leaving the reports for his chief
+to examine at his leisure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning there was a storm.
+
+Cromwell burst out on him as soon as he came in.
+
+“Shut the door, Mr. Torridon,” he snapped. “I must have a word with
+you.”
+
+Ralph closed the door and came across to Cromwell’s table and stood
+there, apparently imperturbable, but with a certain quickening of his
+pulse.
+
+“What is this, sir?” snarled the other, taking up the letter that was
+laid at his hand. “Is it true?”
+
+Ralph looked at him coolly.
+
+“What is it, my Lord? Mr. Robert Benham?”
+
+“Yes, Mr. Robert Benham. Is it true? I wish an answer.”
+
+“Certainly, my Lord. It is true.”
+
+“You hindered this piece being played? And you used my name?”
+
+“I told them who I was--yes.”
+
+Cromwell slapped the paper down.
+
+“Well, that is to use my name, is it not, Mr. Torridon?”
+
+“I suppose it is.”
+
+“You suppose it is! And tell me, if you please, why you hindered it.”
+
+“I hindered it because it was not decent. My mother had been buried
+that day. My father asked me to do so.”
+
+“Not decent! When the mummers have my authority!
+
+“If your Lordship does not understand the indecency, I cannot explain
+it.”
+
+Ralph was growing angry now. It was not often that Cromwell treated him
+like a naughty boy; and he was beginning to resent it.
+
+The other stared at him under black brows.
+
+“You are insolent, sir.”
+
+Ralph bowed.
+
+“See here,” said Cromwell, “my men must have no master but me. They must
+leave houses and brethren and sisters for my sake. You should understand
+that by now; and that I repay them a hundredfold. You have been long
+enough in my service to know it. I have said enough. You can sit down,
+Mr. Torridon.”
+
+Ralph went to his seat in a storm of fury. He felt he was supremely in
+the right--in the right in stopping the play, and still more so for not
+destroying the complaint when it was in his hands. He had been scolded
+like a school-child, insulted and shouted down. His hand shook as he
+took up his pen, and he kept his back resolutely turned to his master.
+Once he was obliged to ask him a question, and he did so with an icy
+aloofness. Cromwell answered him curtly, but not unkindly, and he went
+to his seat again still angry.
+
+When dinner-time came near, he rose, bowed slightly to Cromwell and went
+towards the door. As his fingers touched the handle he heard his name
+called; and turned round to see the other looking at him oddly.
+
+“Mr. Torridon--you will dine with me?”
+
+“I regret I cannot, my Lord,” said Ralph; and went out of the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were no explanations or apologies on either side when they met
+again; but in a few days their behaviour to one another was as usual.
+Yet underneath the smooth surface Ralph’s heart rankled and pricked with
+resentment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the meeting of Parliament in April, the business in Cromwell’s hands
+grew more and more heavy and distracting.
+
+Ralph went with him to Westminster, and heard him deliver his eloquent
+little speech on the discord that prevailed in England, and the King’s
+determination to restore peace and concord.
+
+“On the Word of God,” cried the statesman, speaking with extraordinary
+fervour, his eyes kindling as he looked round the silent crowded
+benches, and his left hand playing with his chain. “On the Word of God
+His Highness’ princely mind is fixed; on this Word he depends for his
+sole support; and with all his might his Majesty will labour that error
+shall be taken away, and true doctrines be taught to his people,
+modelled by the rule of the Gospel.”
+
+Three days later when Ralph came into his master’s room, Cromwell looked
+up at him with a strange animation in his dark eyes.
+
+“Good-day, sir,” he said; “I have news that I hope will please you. His
+Grace intends to confer on me one more mark of his favour. I am to be
+Earl of Essex.”
+
+It was startling news. Ralph had supposed that the minister was not
+standing so high with the King as formerly, since the unfortunate
+incident of the Cleves marriage. He congratulated him warmly.
+
+“It is a happy omen,” said the other. “Let us pray that it be a
+constellation and not a single star. There are others of my friends, Mr.
+Torridon, who have claim to His Highness’ gratitude.”
+
+He looked at him smiling; and Ralph felt his heart quicken once more, as
+it always did, at the hint of an honour for himself.
+
+The business of Parliament went on; and several important bills became
+law. A land-act was followed by one that withdrew from most of the towns
+of England the protection of a sanctuary in the case of certain
+specified crimes; the navy was dealt with; and then in spite of the
+promises of the previous years a heavy money-bill was passed. Finally
+five more Catholics, four priests and a woman, were attainted for high
+treason on various charges.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph was not altogether happy as May drew on. There began to be signs
+that his master’s policy with regard to the Cleves alliance was losing
+ground in the councils of the State; but Cromwell himself seemed to
+acquiesce, so it appeared as if his own mind was beginning to change.
+There was a letter to Pate, the ambassador to the Emperor, that Ralph
+had to copy one day, and he gathered from it that conciliation was to be
+used towards Charles in place of the old defiance.
+
+But he did not see much of Parliament affairs this month.
+
+Cromwell had told him to sort a large quantity of private papers that
+had gradually accumulated in Ralph’s own house at Westminster; for that
+he desired the removal of most of them to his own keeping.
+
+They were an enormous mass of documents, dealing with every sort and
+kind of the huge affairs that had passed through Cromwell’s hands for
+the last five years. They concerned hundreds of persons, living and
+dead--statesmen, nobles, the foreign Courts, priests, Religious,
+farmers, tradesmen--there was scarcely a class that was not represented
+there.
+
+Ralph sat hour after hour in his chair with locked doors, sorting,
+docketting, and destroying; and amazed by this startling object-lesson
+of the vast work in which he had had a hand. There were secrets there
+that would burst like a bomb if they were made public--intrigues,
+bribes, threats, revelations; and little by little a bundle of the most
+important documents accumulated on the table before him. The rest lay in
+heaps on the floor.
+
+Those that he had set aside beneath his own eye were a miscellaneous set
+as regarded their contents; the only unity between them lay in the fact
+that they were especially perilous to Cromwell. Ralph felt as if he were
+handling gunpowder as he took them up one by one or added to the heap.
+
+The new coronet that my Lord of Essex had lately put upon his head would
+not be there another day, if these were made public. There would not be
+left even a head to put it upon. Ralph knew that a great minister like
+his master was bound to have a finger in very curious affairs; but he
+had not recognised how exceptional these were, nor how many, until he
+had the bundle of papers before him. There were cases in which persons
+accused and even convicted of high treason had been set at liberty on
+Cromwell’s sole authority without reference to the King; there were
+commissions issued in his name under similar conditions; there were
+papers containing drafts, in Cromwell’s own hand of statements of
+doctrine declared heretical by the Six Articles, and of which copies had
+been distributed through the country at his express order; there were
+copies of letters to country-sheriffs ordering the release of convicted
+heretics and the imprisonment of their accusers; there were evidences of
+enormous bribes received by him for the perversion of justice.
+
+Ralph finished his task one June evening, and sat dazed with work and
+excitement, his fingers soiled with ink, his tired eyes staring at the
+neat bundle before him.
+
+The Privy Council, he knew, was sitting that afternoon. Even at this
+moment, probably, my Lord of Essex was laying down the law, speaking in
+the King’s name, silencing his opponents by sheer force of will, but
+with the Royal power behind him. And here lay the papers.
+
+He imagined to himself with a fanciful recklessness what would happen if
+he made his way into the Council-room, and laid them on the table. It
+would be just the end of all things for his master. There would be no
+more bullying and denouncing then on that side; it would be a matter of
+a fight for life.
+
+The memory of his own grudge, only five months old, rose before his
+mind; and his tired brain grew hot and cloudy with resentment. He took
+up the bundle in his hand and wielded it a moment, as a man might test a
+sword. Here was a headsman’s axe, ground and sharp.
+
+Then he was ashamed; set the bundle down again, leaned back in his chair
+and stretched his arms, yawning.
+
+What a glorious evening it was! He must go out and take the air for a
+little by the river; he would walk down towards Chelsea.
+
+He rose up from his chair and went to the window, threw it open and
+leaned out. His house stood back a little from the street; and there was
+a space of cobbled ground between his front-door and the uneven stones
+of the thoroughfare. Opposite rose up one of the tall Westminster
+houses, pushing forward in its upper stories, with a hundred diamond
+panes bright in the slanting sunshine that poured down the street from
+the west. Overhead rose up the fantastic stately chimneys, against the
+brilliant evening sky, and to right and left the street passed out of
+sight in a haze of sunlight.
+
+It was a very quiet evening; the men had not yet begun to stream
+homewards from their occupations; and the women were busy within. A
+chorus of birds sounded somewhere overhead; but there was not a living
+creature to be seen except a dog asleep in the sunshine at the corner of
+the gravel.
+
+It was delicious to lean out here, away from the fire that burned hot
+and red in the grate under its black mass of papers that had been
+destroyed,--out in the light and air. Ralph determined that he would let
+the fire die now; it would not be needed again.
+
+He must go out, he told himself, and not linger here. He could lock up
+the papers for the present in readiness for their transport next day;
+and he wondered vaguely whether his hat and cane were in the
+entrance-hall below.
+
+He straightened himself, and turned away from the window, noticing as he
+did so the dog at the corner of the street sit up with cocked ears. He
+hesitated and turned back.
+
+There was a sound of furious running coming up the street. He would just
+see who the madman was who ran like this on a hot evening, and then go
+out himself.
+
+As he leaned again the pulsating steps came nearer; they were coming
+from the left, the direction of the Palace.
+
+A moment later a figure burst into sight, crimson-faced and hatless,
+with arms gathered to the sides and head thrown back; it appeared to be
+a gentleman by the dress--but why should he run like that? He dashed
+across the opening and disappeared.
+
+Ralph was interested. He waited a minute longer; but the footsteps had
+ceased; and he was just turning once more from the window, when another
+sound made him stand and listen again.
+
+It came from the same direction as before; and at first he could not
+make out what it was. There was a murmur and a pattering.
+
+It came nearer and louder; and he could distinguish once more running
+footsteps. Were they after a thief? he wondered. The murmur and clatter
+grew louder yet; and a second or two later two men burst into sight;
+one, an apprentice with his leather apron flapping as he ran, the other
+a stoutish man like a merchant. They talked and gesticulated as they
+went.
+
+The murmur behind swelled up. There were the voices of many people, men
+and women, talking, screaming, questioning. The dog was on his feet by
+now, looking intently down the street.
+
+Then the first group appeared; half a dozen men walking fast or
+trotting, talking eagerly. Ralph could not hear what they said.
+
+Then a number surged into sight all at once, jostling round a centre,
+and a clamour went up to heaven. The dog trotted up suspiciously as if
+to enquire.
+
+Ralph grew excited; he scarcely knew why. He had seen hundreds of such
+crowds; it might mean anything, from a rise in butter to a declaration
+of war. But there was something fiercely earnest about this mob. Was the
+King ill?
+
+He leaned further from the window and shouted; but no one paid him the
+slightest attention. The crowd shifted up the street, the din growing
+as they went; there was a sound of slammed doors; windows opened
+opposite and heads craned out. Something was shouted up and the heads
+disappeared.
+
+Ralph sprang back from the window, as more and more surged into sight;
+he went to his door, glancing at his papers as he ran across; unlocked
+the door; listened a moment; went on to the landing and shouted for a
+servant.
+
+There was a sound of footsteps and voices below; the men were already
+alert, but no answer came to his call. He shouted again.
+
+“Who is there? Find out what the disturbance means.”
+
+There was an answer from one of his men; and the street door opened and
+closed. Again he ran to the window, and saw his man run out without his
+doublet across the court, and seize a woman by the arm.
+
+He waited in passionate expectancy; saw him drop the woman’s arm and
+turn to another; and then run swiftly back to the house.
+
+There was something sinister in the man’s very movements across that
+little space; he ran desperately, with his head craning forward; once he
+stumbled; once he glanced up at his master; and Ralph caught a sight of
+his face.
+
+Ralph was on the landing as the steps thundered upstairs, and met him at
+the head of the flight.
+
+“Speak man; what is it?”
+
+The servant lifted a face stamped with terror, a couple of feet below
+Ralph’s.
+
+“They--they say--”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“They say that the King’s archers are about my Lord Essex’s house.”
+
+Ralph drew a swift breath.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“And that my Lord was arrested at the Council to-day.”
+
+Ralph turned, and in three steps was in his room again. The key clacked
+in the lock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A QUESTION OF LOYALTY
+
+
+He did not know how long he stood there, with the bundle of papers
+gripped in his two hands; and the thoughts racing through his brain.
+
+The noises in the street outside waned and waxed again, as the news
+swept down the lanes, and recoiled with a wave of excited crowds
+following it. Then again they died to a steady far-off murmur as the mob
+surged and clamoured round the Palace and Abbey a couple of hundred
+yards away.
+
+At last Ralph sat down; still holding the papers. He must clear his
+brain; and how was that possible with the images flashing through it in
+endless and vivid succession? For a while he could not steady himself;
+the shock was bewildering; he could think of nothing but the appalling
+drama. Essex was fallen!
+
+Then little by little the muddy current of thought began to run clear.
+He began to understand what lay before him; and the question that still
+awaited decision.
+
+His first instinct had been to dash the papers on to the fire and grind
+them into the red heart of the wood; but something had checked him. Very
+slowly he began to analyse that instinct.
+
+First, was it not useless? He knew he did not possess one hundredth part
+of the incriminating evidence that was in existence. Of what service
+would it be to his master to destroy that one small bundle?
+
+Next, what would be the result to himself if he did? It was known that
+he was a trusted agent of the minister’s; his house would be searched;
+papers would be found; it would be certainly known that he had made away
+with evidence. There would be records of what he had, in the other
+houses. And what then?
+
+On the other hand if he willingly gave up all that was in his
+possession, it would go far to free him from complicity.
+
+Lastly, like a venomous snake lifting its head, his own private
+resentment looked him in the eyes, and there was a new sting added to it
+now. He had lost all, he knew well enough; wealth, honour and position
+had in a moment shrunk to cinders with Cromwell’s fall, and for these
+cinders he had lost Beatrice too. He had sacrificed her to his master;
+and his master had failed him. A kind of fury succeeded to his dismay.
+
+Oh, would it not be sweet to add even one more stone to the mass that
+was tottering over the head of that mighty bully, that had promised and
+not performed?
+
+He blinked his eyes, shocked by the horror of the thought, and gripped
+the bundle yet more firmly. The memories of a thousand kindnesses
+received from his master cried at the door of his heart. The sweat
+dropped from his forehead; he lifted a stiff hand to wipe it away, and
+dropped it again into its grip on the papers.
+
+Then he slowly recapitulated to himself the reasons for not destroying
+them. They were overwhelming, convincing! What was there to set against
+them? One slender instinct only, that cried shrill and thin that in
+honour he must burn that damning evidence--burn it--burn it--whether or
+no it would help or hinder, it must be burnt!
+
+Then again he recurred to the other side; told himself that his
+instinct was no more than a ludicrous sentimentality; he must be guided
+by reason, not impulse. Then he glanced at the impulse again. Then the
+two sides rushed together, locked in conflict. He moaned a little, and
+lay back in his chair.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The bright sunlight outside had faded to a mellow evening atmosphere
+before he moved again; and the fire had died to one dull core of
+incandescence.
+
+As he stirred, he became aware that bells were pealing outside; a
+melodious roar filled the air. Somewhere behind the house five brazen
+voices, shouting all together, bellowed the exultation of the city over
+the great minister’s fall.
+
+He was weary and stiff as he stood up; but the fever had left his brain;
+and the decision had been made. He relaxed his fingers and laid the
+bundle softly down on the table from which he had snatched it a couple
+of hours before.
+
+They would be here soon, he knew; he wondered they had not come already.
+
+Leaving his papers there, he went out, taking the key with him, and
+locking the door after him. He called up one of his men, telling him he
+would be ready for supper immediately in the parlour downstairs, and
+that any visitors who came for him were to be admitted at once.
+
+Then he passed into his bedroom to wash and change his clothes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half an hour later he came upstairs again.
+
+He had supped alone, listening and watching the window as he ate; but no
+sign had come of any arrival. He had dressed with particular care,
+intending to be found at his ease when the searchers did arrive; there
+must be no sign of panic or anxiety. He had told his man as he rose
+from table, to say to any that came for him that they were expected, and
+to bring them immediately upstairs.
+
+He unlocked the door of his private room, and went in. All was as he had
+left it; the floor between the window and table was white with ordered
+heaps of papers; the bundle on the table itself glimmered where he had
+laid it.
+
+The fire had sunk to a spark. He tenderly lifted off the masses of black
+sheets that crackled as he touched them; it had not occurred to him
+before that these evidences of even a harmless destruction had better be
+removed; and he slid them carefully on to a broad sheet of paper, folded
+it, shaking the ashes together as he did so, and stood a moment,
+wondering where he should hide it.
+
+The room was growing dark now; he put the package down; went to the fire
+and blew it up a little, added some wood, and presently the flames were
+dancing on the broad hearth.
+
+As he stood up again he heard the knocker rap on his street-door. For a
+moment he had an instinct to run to the window and see who was there;
+but he put it aside; there was scarcely time to hide the ashes; and it
+was best too to give no hint of anxiety. He lifted the package of burnt
+papers once more, and stood hesitating; a press would be worse than
+useless as a hiding-place; all such would of course be searched. Then a
+thought struck him; he stood up noiselessly on his chair. The Holbein
+portrait of Cromwell in his furred gown and chain leaned forward from
+the tapestry over the mantelpiece. Ralph set one hand against the wall
+at the side; and then tenderly let the package fall behind the portrait.
+As he did so the painted and living eyes were on a level; it seemed
+strange to him that the faces were so near together at that moment; and
+it struck him with a grim irony that the master should be so protecting
+the servant under these circumstances.
+
+Then he dropped lightly to the ground, and sat quickly in the chair,
+snatching up the bundle of papers from the table as he did so.
+
+The steps were on the landing now; he heard the crack of the balustrade;
+but it seemed they were coming very quietly.
+
+There was a moment’s silence; the muscles of his throat contracted
+sharply, then there came the servant’s tap; the handle was turned.
+
+Ralph stood up quickly, still holding the papers, as the door opened,
+and Beatrice stepped forward into the room. The door shut noiselessly
+behind her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She stood there, with the firelight playing on her dark loose-sleeved
+mantle, the hood that surrounded her head, her pale face a little
+flushed, and her black steady eyes. Her breath came quickly between her
+parted lips.
+
+Ralph stared at her, dazed by the shock, still gripping the bundle of
+papers. She moved forward a step; and the spell snapped.
+
+“Mistress Beatrice,” he said.
+
+“I have come,” she said; “what is it? You want me?”
+
+She came round the table, with an air of eager expectancy.
+
+“I--I did not know,” said Ralph.
+
+“But you wanted me. What is the matter? I heard you call.”
+
+Ralph stared again, bewildered.
+
+“Call?” he said.
+
+“Yes, I heard you. I was in my room at my aunt’s house--ah! a couple of
+hours ago. You called me twice. ‘Beatrice! Beatrice!’ Then--then they
+told me what had happened about my Lord Essex.”
+
+“I called you?” repeated Ralph.
+
+“Yes--you called me. Your voice was quite close to me, at my ear; I
+thought you were in the room. Tell me what it is.”
+
+She loosened her hold of her mantle as she stood there by the table; and
+it dropped open, showing a sparkle of jewels at her throat. She threw
+back her hood, and it dropped on to her shoulders, leaving visible the
+coiled masses of her black hair set with knots of ribbon.
+
+“I did not call,” said Ralph dully. “I do not know what you mean,
+Mistress Atherton.”
+
+She made a little impatient gesture.
+
+“Ah! yes,” she said, “it is something. Tell me quickly. I suppose it has
+to do with my Lord. What is it?”
+
+“It is nothing,” said Ralph again.
+
+They stood looking at one another in silence. Beatrice’s eyes ran a
+moment up and down his rich dress, the papers in his hands, then
+wandered to the heaped floor, the table, and returned to the papers in
+his hands.
+
+“You must tell me,” she said. “What is that you are holding?”
+
+An angry terror seized Ralph.
+
+“That is my affair, Mistress Atherton. What is your business with me?”
+
+She came a step nearer, and leant her left hand on his table. He could
+see those steady eyes on his face; she looked terribly strong and
+controlled.
+
+“Indeed you must tell me, Mr. Torridon. I am come here to do something.
+I do not know what. What are those papers?”
+
+He turned and dropped them on to the chair behind him.
+
+“I tell you again, I do not know what you mean.”
+
+“It is useless,” she said. “Have they been to you yet? What do you mean
+to do about my Lord? You know he is in the Tower?”
+
+“I suppose so,” said Ralph, “but my counsel is my own.”
+
+“Mr. Torridon, let us have an end of this. I know well that you must
+have many secrets against my lord--”
+
+“I tell you that what I know is nothing. I have not a hundredth part of
+his papers.”
+
+He felt himself desperate and bewildered, like a man being pushed to the
+edge of a precipice, step by step. But those black eyes held and
+compelled him on. He scarcely knew what he was saying.
+
+“And are these papers all his? What have you been doing with them?”
+
+“My Lord told me to sort them.”
+
+The words were drawn out against his own will.
+
+“And those in your hand--on the chair. What are they?”
+
+Ralph made one more violent effort to regain the mastery.
+
+“If you were not a woman, Mistress Atherton, I should tell you you were
+insolent.”
+
+Not a ripple troubled those strong eyes.
+
+“Tell me, Mr. Torridon, what are they?”
+
+He stood silent and furious.
+
+“I will tell you what they are,” she said; “they are my Lord’s secrets.
+Is it not so? And you were about to burn them. Oh! Ralph, is it not so?”
+
+Her voice had a tone of entreaty in it. He dropped his eyes, overcome by
+the passion that streamed from her.
+
+“Is it not so?” she cried again.
+
+“Do you wish me to do so?” he said amazed. His voice seemed not his own;
+it was as if another spoke for him. He had the same sensation of
+powerlessness as once before when she had lashed him with her tongue in
+the room downstairs.
+
+“Wish you?” she cried. “Why, yes; what else?”
+
+He lifted his eyes to hers; the room seemed to have grown darker yet in
+those few minutes. He could only see now a shadowed face looking at him;
+but her bright passionate eyes shone out from it and dominated him.
+
+Again he spoke, in spite of himself.
+
+“I shall not burn them,” he said.
+
+“Shall not? shall not?”
+
+“I shall not,” he said again.
+
+There was silence. Ralph’s soul was struggling desperately within him.
+He put out his hand mechanically and took up the papers once more, as if
+to guard them from this fierce, imperious woman. Beatrice’s eyes
+followed the movement; and then rested once more on his face. Then she
+spoke again, with a tense deliberateness that drove every word home,
+piercing and sharp to the very centre of his spirit.
+
+“Listen,” she said, “for this is what I came to say. I know what you are
+thinking--I know every thought as if it were my own. You tell yourself
+that it is useless to burn those secrets; that there are ten thousand
+more--enough to cast my lord. I make no answer to that.
+
+“You tell yourself that you can only save yourself by giving them up to
+his enemies. I make no answer to that.
+
+“You tell yourself that it will be known if you destroy them--that you
+will be counted as one of His Highness’s enemies. I make no answer to
+that. And I tell you to burn them.”
+
+She came a step nearer. There was not a yard between them now; and the
+fire of her words caught and scorched him with their bitterness.
+
+“You have been false to every high and noble thing. You have been false
+to your own conscience--to your father--your brother--your sister--your
+Church--your King and your God. You have been false to love and honour.
+You have been false to yourself. And now Almighty God of His courtesy
+gives you one more opportunity--an opportunity to be true to your
+master. I say nothing of him. God is his judge. You know what that
+verdict will be. And yet I bid you be true to him. He has a thousand
+claims on you. You have served him, though it be but Satan’s service;
+yet it is the highest that you know--God help you! He is called
+friendless now. Shall that be wholly true of him? You will be called a
+traitor presently--shall that be wholly true of you? Or shall there be
+one tiny point in which you are not false and treacherous as you have
+been in all other points?”
+
+She stopped again, looking him fiercely in the eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From the street outside there came the sound of footsteps; the ring of
+steel on stone. Ralph heard it, and his eyes rolled round to the window;
+but he did not move.
+
+Beatrice was almost touching him now. He felt the fragrance that hung
+about her envelop him for a moment. Then he felt a touch on the papers;
+and his fingers closed more tightly.
+
+The steps outside grew louder and ceased; and the house suddenly
+reverberated with a thunder of knocking.
+
+Beatrice sprang back.
+
+“Nay, you shall give me them,” she said; and stood waiting with
+outstretched hand.
+
+Ralph lifted the papers slowly, stared at them, and at her.
+
+Then he held them out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a moment she had snatched them; and was on her knees by the hearth.
+Ralph watched her, and listened to the steps coming up the stairs. The
+papers were alight now. The girl dashed her fingers among them,
+grinding, tearing, separating the heavy pages.
+
+They were almost gone by now; the thick smoke poured up the chimney; and
+still Beatrice tore and dashed the ashes about.
+
+There was a knocking at the door; and the handle turned. The girl rose
+from her knees and smiled at Ralph as the door opened, and the
+pursuivants stood there in the opening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+TO CHARING
+
+
+Chris had something very like remorse after Ralph had left Overfield,
+and no words of explanation or regret had been spoken on either side. He
+recognised that he had not been blameless at the beginning of their
+estrangement--if, indeed, there ever had been a beginning--for their
+inflamed relations had existed to some extent back into boyhood as far
+as he could remember; but he had been responsible for at least a share
+in the fierce words in Ralph’s house after the death of the Carthusians.
+He had been hot-headed, insolent, theatrical; and he had not written to
+acknowledge it. He had missed another opportunity at Lewes--at least
+one--when pride had held him back from speaking, for fear that he should
+be thought to be currying favour. And now this last opportunity, the
+best of all--when Ralph had been accessible and courteous, affected,
+Chris imagined, by the death of his mother--this too had been missed;
+and he had allowed his brother to ride away without a word of regret or
+more than formal affection.
+
+He was troubled at mass, an hour after Ralph had gone; the distraction
+came between him and the sweet solemnity upon which he was engaged. His
+soul was dry and moody. He showed it in his voice. As a younger brother
+in past years; as a monk and a priest now, he knew that the duty of the
+first step to a reconciliation had lain with him; and that he had not
+taken it.
+
+It had been a troubled household altogether when Ralph had gone. There
+was first the shock of Lady Torridon’s death, and the hundred regrets
+that it had left behind. Then Beatrice too, who had helped them all so
+much, had told them that she must go back to town--her aunt was alone in
+the little house at Charing, for the friend who had spent Christmas
+there was gone back to the country; and Margaret, consequently, had been
+almost in despair. Lastly Sir James himself had been troubled; wondering
+whether he might not have been warmer with Ralph, more outspoken in his
+gratitude for the affair of the mummers, more ready to welcome an
+explanation from his son. The shadow of Ralph then rested on the
+household, and there was something of pathos in it. He was so much
+detached now, so lonely, and it seemed that he was content it should be
+so.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were pressing matters too to be arranged; and, weightiest of all,
+those relating to Margaret’s future. She would now be the only woman
+besides the servants, in the house; and it was growing less and less
+likely that she would be ever able to take up the Religious Life again
+in England. There seemed little reason for her remaining in the country,
+unless indeed she threw aside the Religious habit altogether, and went
+to live at Great Keynes as Mary preferred. Beatrice made an offer to
+receive her in London for a while, but in this case again she would have
+to wear secular dress.
+
+The evening before Beatrice left, the two sat and talked for a couple of
+hours. Margaret was miserable; she cried a little, clung to Beatrice,
+and then was ashamed of herself.
+
+“My dear child,” said the other. “It is in your hands. You can do as you
+please.”
+
+“But I cannot,” sobbed the nun. “I cannot; I do not know. Let me come
+with you, Beatrice.”
+
+Beatrice then settled down and talked to her. She told her of her duty
+to her father for the present; she must remember that he was lonely now.
+In any case she must not think of leaving home for another six months.
+In the meantime she had to consider two points. First, did she consider
+herself in conscience bound to Religion? What did the priest tell her?
+If she did so consider herself, then there was no question; she must go
+to Bruges and join the others. Secondly, if not, did she think herself
+justified in leaving her father in the summer? If so, she might either
+go to Great Keynes, or come up for at least a long visit to Charing.
+
+“And what do you think?” asked the girl piteously.
+
+“Do you wish me to tell you!” said Beatrice.
+
+Margaret nodded.
+
+“Then I think you should go to Bruges in July or August.”
+
+Margaret stared at her; the tears were very near her eyes again.
+
+“My darling; I should love to have you in London,” went on the other
+caressing her. “Of course I should. But I cannot see that King Henry
+and his notions make any difference to your vows. They surely stand. Is
+it not so, my dear?”
+
+And so after a little more talk Margaret consented. Her mind had told
+her that all along; it was her heart only that protested against this
+final separation from her friend.
+
+Chris too agreed when she spoke to him a day or two later when Beatrice
+had gone back. He said he had been considering his own case too; and
+that unless something very marked intervened he proposed to follow Dom
+Anthony abroad. They could travel together, he said. Finally, when the
+matter was laid before their father he also consented.
+
+“I shall do very well,” he said. “Mary spoke to me of it; and Nicholas
+has asked me to make my home at Great Keynes; so if you go, my son, with
+Meg in the summer, I shall finish matters here, lease out the estate,
+and Mr. Carleton and I shall betake ourselves there. Unless”--he
+said--“unless Ralph should come to another mind.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the spring and early summer drew on, the news, as has been seen, was
+not reassuring.
+
+In spite of the Six Articles of the previous year by which all vows of
+chastity were declared binding before God, there was no hint of making
+it possible for the thousands of Religious in England still compelled by
+them to return to the Life in which such vows were tolerable. The
+Religious were indeed dispensed from obedience and poverty by the civil
+authority; it was possible for them to buy, inherit, and occupy
+property; but a recognition of their corporate life was as far as ever
+away. It was becoming plainer every day that those who wished to pursue
+their vocation must do so in voluntary exile; and letters were already
+being exchanged between the brother and sister at home and the
+representatives of their respective communities on the Continent.
+
+Then suddenly on the eleventh of June there arrived the news of
+Cromwell’s fall and of all that it involved to Ralph.
+
+They were at dinner when it came.
+
+There was a door suddenly thrust open at the lower end of the hall; and
+a courier, white with dust and stiff with riding, limped up the matting
+and delivered Beatrice’s letter. It was very short.
+
+“Come,” she had written. “My Lord of Essex is arrested. He is in the
+Tower. Mr. Ralph, too, is there for refusing to inform against him. He
+has behaved gallantly.”
+
+There followed a line from Mistress Jane Atherton, her aunt, offering
+rooms in her own house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A wild confusion fell upon the household. Men ran to and fro, women
+whispered and sobbed in corners under shadow of the King’s displeasure
+that lay on the house, the road between the terrace and the stable
+buzzed with messengers, ordering and counter-ordering, for it was not
+certain at first that Margaret would not go. A mounted groom dashed up
+for instructions and was met by Sir James in his riding-cloak on the
+terrace who bade him ride to Great Keynes with the news, and entreat Sir
+Nicholas Maxwell to come up to London and his wife to Overfield; there
+was not time to write. Sir James’s own room was in confusion; his
+clothes lay tumbled on the ground and a distraught servant tossed them
+this way and that; Chris was changing his habit upstairs, for it would
+mean disaster to go to town as a monk. Margaret was on her knees in
+chapel, silent and self-controlled, but staring piteously at the
+compassionate figure of the great Mother who looked down on her with Her
+Son in Her arms. The huge dog under the chapel-cloister lifted his head
+and bayed in answer, as frantic figures fled across the court before
+him. And over all lay the hot June sky, and round about the deep
+peaceful woods.
+
+A start was made at three o’clock.
+
+Sir James was already in his saddle, as Chris ran out; an unfamiliar
+figure in his plain priest’s cloak and cap and great riding boots
+beneath. A couple of grooms waited behind, and another held the monk’s
+horse. Margaret was on the steps, white and steadied by prayer; and the
+chaplain stood behind with a strong look in his eyes as they met those
+of his patron.
+
+“Take care of her, father; take care of her. Her sister will be here
+to-night, please God. Oh! God bless you, my dear! Pray for us all. Jesu
+keep us all! Chris, are you mounted?”
+
+Then they were off; and the white dust rose in clouds about them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was between eight and nine as they rode up the north bank of the
+river from London Bridge to Charing.
+
+It had been a terrible ride, with but few words between the two, and
+long silences that were the worst of all; as, blotting out the rich
+country and the deep woods and the meadows and heathery hills on either
+side of the road through Surrey, visions moved and burned before them,
+such as the King’s vengeance had made possible to the imagination. From
+far away across the Southwark fields Chris had seen the huddled
+buildings of the City, the princely spire that marked them, and had
+heard the sweet jangling of the thousand bells that told the Angelus;
+but he had thought of little but of that high gateway under which they
+must soon pass, where the pikes against the sky made palpable the
+horrors of his thought. He had given one swift glance up as he went
+beneath; and then his heart sickened as they went on, past the houses
+and St. Thomas’s chapel with gleams of the river seen beneath. Then as
+he looked his breath came sharp; far down there eastwards, seen for a
+moment, rose up the sombre towers where Ralph lay, and the saints had
+suffered.
+
+The old Religious Houses, stretching in a splendid line upwards, from
+the Augustinian priory near the river-bank, along the stream that flowed
+down from Ludgate, caught the last rays of sunlight high against the
+rich sky as the riders went along towards Charing between the
+sedge-brinked tide and the slope of grass on their right; and the monk’s
+sorrowful heart was overlaid again with sorrow as he looked at them,
+empty now and desolate where once the praises of God had sounded day and
+night.
+
+They stopped beneath the swinging sign of an inn, with Westminster
+towers blue and magical before them, to ask for Mistress Atherton’s
+house, and were directed a little further along and nearer to the
+water’s edge.
+
+It was a little old house when they came to it, built on a tiny private
+embankment that jutted out over the flats of the river-bank; of plaster
+and timber with overhanging storeys and windows beneath the roof. It
+stood by itself, east of the village, and almost before the jangle of
+the bell had died away, Beatrice herself was at the door, in her
+house-dress, bare-headed; with a face at once radiant and constrained.
+
+She took them upstairs immediately, after directing the men to take the
+horses, when they had unloaded the luggage, back to the inn where they
+had enquired the way: for there was no stable, she said, attached to the
+house.
+
+Chris came behind his father as if in a dream through the dark little
+hall and up the two flights on to the first landing. Beatrice stopped at
+a door.
+
+“You can say what you will,” she said, “before my aunt. She is of our
+mind in these matters.”
+
+Then they were in the room; a couple of candles burned on a table before
+the curtained window; and an old lady with a wrinkled kindly face
+hobbled over from her chair and greeted the two travellers.
+
+“I welcome you, gentlemen,” she said, “if a sore heart may say so to
+sore hearts.”
+
+There was no news of Nicholas, they were told; he had not been heard of.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They heard the story so far as Beatrice knew it; but it was softened for
+their ears. She had found Ralph, she said, hesitating what to do. He had
+been plainly bewildered by the sudden news; they had talked a while; and
+then he had handed her the papers to burn. The magistrate sent by the
+Council had arrived to find the ashes still smoking. He had questioned
+Ralph sharply, for he had come with authority behind him; and Ralph had
+refused to speak beyond telling him that the bundles lying on the floor
+were all the papers of my Lord Essex that were in his possession. They
+had laid hands on these, and then searched the room. A quantity of
+ashes, Beatrice said, had fallen from behind a portrait over the hearth
+when they had shifted it. Then the magistrate had questioned her too,
+enquired where she lived, and let her go. She had waited at the corner
+of the street, and watched the men come out. Ralph walked in the centre
+as a prisoner. She had followed them to the river; had mixed with the
+crowd that gathered there; and had heard the order given to the
+wherryman to pull to the Tower. That was all that she knew.
+
+“Thank God for your son, sir. He bore himself gallantly.”
+
+There was a silence as she ended. The old man looked at her wondering
+and dazed. It was so sad, that the news scarcely yet conveyed its
+message.
+
+“And my Lord Essex?” he said.
+
+“My Lord is in the Tower too. He was arrested at the Council by the Duke
+of Norfolk.”
+
+The old lady intervened then, and insisted on their going down to
+supper. It would be ready by now, she said, in the parlour downstairs.
+
+They supped, themselves silent, with Beatrice leaning her arms on the
+table, and talking to them in a low voice, telling them all that was
+said. She did not attempt to prophesy smoothly. The feeling against
+Cromwell, she said, passed all belief. The streets had been filled with
+a roaring crowd last night. She had heard them bellowing till long after
+dark. The bells were pealed in the City churches hour after hour, in
+triumph over the minister’s fall.
+
+“The dogs!” she said fiercely. “I never thought to say it, but my heart
+goes out to him.”
+
+Her spirit was infectious. Chris felt a kind of half-joyful recklessness
+tingle in his veins, as he listened to her talk, and watched her black
+eyes hot with indignation and firm with purpose. What if Ralph were
+cast? At least it was for faithfulness--of a kind. Even the father’s
+face grew steadier; that piteous trembling of the lower lip ceased, and
+the horror left his eyes. It was hard to remain in panic with that girl
+beside them.
+
+They had scarcely done supper when the bell of the outer door rang
+again, and a moment later Nicholas was with them, flushed with hard
+riding. He strode into the room, blinking at the lights, and tossed his
+riding whip on to the table.
+
+“I have been to the Lieutenant of the Tower,” he said; “I know him of
+old. He promises nothing. He tells me that Ralph is well-lodged. Mary is
+gone to Overfield. God damn the King!”
+
+He had no more news to give. He had sent off his wife at once on
+receiving the tidings, and had started half an hour later for London. He
+had been ahead of them all the way, it seemed; but had spent a couple of
+hours first in trying to get admittance to the Tower, and then in
+interviewing the Lieutenant; but there was no satisfaction to be gained
+there. The utmost he had wrung from him was a promise that he would see
+him again, and hear what he had to say.
+
+Then Nicholas had to sup and hear the whole story from the beginning;
+and Chris left his father to tell it, and went up with Beatrice to
+arrange about rooms.
+
+Matters were soon settled with the old lady; Nicholas and Chris were to
+sleep in one room, and Sir James in another. Two servants only could
+be accommodated in the house; the rest were to put up at the inn.
+Beatrice went off to give the necessary orders.
+
+Mistress Jane Atherton and Chris had a few moments together before the
+others came up.
+
+“A sore heart,” said the old lady again, “but a glad one too. Beatrice
+has told me everything.”
+
+“I am thankful too,” said Chris softly. “I wonder if my father
+understands.”
+
+“He will, father, he will. But even if he does not--well, God knows
+all.”
+
+It was evident when Sir James came upstairs presently that he did not
+understand anything yet, except that Beatrice thought that Ralph had
+behaved well.
+
+“But it is to my Lord Essex--who has been the worker of all the
+mischief--that my son is faithful. Is that a good thing then?”
+
+“Why, yes,” said Chris. “You would not have him faithless there too?”
+
+“But would he not be on God’s side at last, if he were against
+Cromwell?”
+
+The old man was still too much bewildered to understand explanations,
+and his son was silent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris could not sleep that night, and long after Nicholas lay deep in
+his pillow, with open mouth and tight eyes, the priest was at the window
+looking out over the river where the moon hung like a silver shield
+above Southwark. The meadows beyond the stream were dim and colourless;
+here and there a roof rose among trees; and straight across the broad
+water to his feet ran a path of heaving glory, where the strong ripple
+tossed the silver surface that streamed down upon it from the moon.
+
+London lay round him as quiet as Overfield, and Chris remembered with a
+stir at his heart his moonlight bathe all those years ago in the lake at
+home, when he had come back hot from hunting and had slipped down with
+the chaplain after supper. Then the water had seemed like a cool restful
+gulf in the world of sensation; the moon had not been risen at first;
+only the stars pricked above and below in air and water. Then the moon
+had come up, and a path of splendour had smitten the surface into sight.
+He had swum up it, he remembered, the silver ripple washing over his
+shoulders as he went.
+
+And now those years of monastic peace and storm had come and gone,
+sifting and penetrating his soul, washing out from it little by little
+the heats and passions with which he had plunged. As he looked back on
+himself he was astonished at his old complacent smallness. His figure
+appeared down that avenue of years, a tiny passionate thing,
+gesticulating, feverish, self-conscious. He remembered his serene
+certainty that he was right and Ralph wrong in every touch of friction
+between them, his own furious and theatrical outburst at the death of
+the Carthusians, his absurd dignity on later occasions. Even in those
+first beginnings of peace when the inner life had begun to well up and
+envelop him he had been narrow and self-centred; he had despised the
+common human life, not understanding that God’s Will was as energetic in
+the bewildering rush of the current as in the quiet sheltered
+back-waters to which he himself had been called. He had been awakened
+from that dream by the fall of the Priory, and that to which he opened
+his eyes had been forced into his consciousness by the months at home,
+when he had had that astringent mingling of the world and the spirit, of
+the interpenetration of the inner by the outer. And now for the first
+time he stood as a balanced soul between the two, alight with a tranquil
+grace within, and not afraid to look at the darkness without. He was
+ready now for either life, to go back to the cloister and labour there
+for the world at the springs of energy, or to take his place in the new
+England and struggle at the tossing surface.
+
+He stood here now by the hurrying turbulent stream, a wider and more
+perilous gulf than that that had lain before him as he looked at the
+moonlit lake at Overfield and yet over it brooded the same quiet shield
+of heaven, gilding the black swift flowing forces with the promise of a
+Presence greater than them all.
+
+He stood there long, staring and thinking.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A RELIEF-PARTY
+
+
+The days that followed were very anxious and troubled ones for Ralph’s
+friends at Charing. They were dreadful too from their very
+uneventfulness.
+
+On the morning following their arrival Chris went off to the Temple to
+consult a lawyer that the Lieutenant had recommended to Nicholas, and
+brought him back with him an hour later. The first need to be supplied
+was their lack of knowledge as to procedure; and the four men sat
+together until dinner, in the parlour on the first floor looking over
+the sunlit river; and discussed the entire situation.
+
+The lawyer, Mr. Herries, a shrewd-faced Northerner, sat with his back to
+the window, fingering a quill horizontally in his lean brown fingers and
+talking in short sentences, glancing up between them, with patient
+silences as the others talked. He seemed the very incarnation of the
+slow inaction that was so infinitely trying to these anxious souls.
+
+The three laymen did not even know the crime with which Ralph was
+charged, but they soon learnt that the technical phrase for it was
+misprision of treason.
+
+“Mr. Torridon was arrested, I understand,” said the lawyer, “by order of
+Council. He would have been arrested in any case. He was known to be
+privy to my Lord Essex’s schemes. You inform me that he destroyed
+evidence. That will go against him if they can prove it.”
+
+He drew the quill softly through his lips, and then fell to fingering it
+again, as the others stared at him.
+
+“However,” went on Mr. Herries, “that is not our affair now. There will
+be time for that. Our question is, when will he be charged, and how? My
+Lord Essex may be tried by a court, or attainted in Parliament. I should
+suppose the latter. Mr. Torridon will be treated in the same way. If it
+be the former, we can do nothing but wait and prepare our case. If it be
+the latter, we must do our utmost to keep his name out of the bill.”
+
+He went on to explain his reasons for thinking that a bill of attainder
+would be brought against Cromwell. It was the customary method, he said,
+for dealing with eminent culprits, and its range had been greatly
+extended by Cromwell himself. At this moment three Catholics lay in the
+Tower, attainted through the statesman’s own efforts, for their supposed
+share in a conspiracy to deliver up Calais to the invaders who had
+threatened England in the previous year. Feeling, too, ran very high
+against Cromwell; the public would be impatient of a long trial; and a
+bill of attainder would give a readier outlet to the fury against him.
+
+This then was the danger; but they could do nothing, said the lawyer, to
+avert it, until they could get information. He would charge himself with
+that business, and communicate with them as soon as he knew.
+
+“And then?” asked Chris, looking at him desperately, for the cold
+deliberate air of Mr. Herries gave him a terrible sense of the
+passionless process of the law.
+
+“I was about to speak of that,” said the lawyer. “If it goes as I think
+it will, and Mr. Torridon’s name is suggested for the bill, we must
+approach the most powerful friends we can lay hold on, to use their
+influence against his inclusion. Have you any such, sir?” he added,
+looking at Sir James sharply over the quill.
+
+The old man shook his head.
+
+“I know no one,” he said.
+
+The lawyer pursed his lips.
+
+“Then we must do the best we can. We can set aside at once all of my
+Lord Essex’s enemies--and--and he has many now. Two names come to my
+mind. Master Ralph Sadler--the comptroller; and my Lord of Canterbury.”
+
+“Ah!” cried Chris, dropping his hand, “my Lord of Canterbury! My brother
+has had dealings with him.”
+
+Sir James straightened himself in his chair.
+
+“I will ask no favour of that fellow,” he said sternly.
+
+The lawyer looked at him with a cocked eyebrow.
+
+“Well, sir,” he said, “if you will not you will not. But I cannot
+suggest a better. He is in high favour with his Grace; they say he has
+already said a word for my Lord Essex--not much--much would be too much,
+I think; but still ’twas something. And what of Master Sadler?”
+
+“I know nothing of him,” faltered the old man.
+
+There was silence a moment.
+
+“Well, sir,” said Mr. Herries, “you can think the matter over. I am for
+my Lord of Canterbury; for the reasons I have named to you. But we can
+wait a few days. We can do nothing until the method of procedure is
+known.”
+
+Then he went; promising to let them know as soon as he had information.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rumours began to run swiftly through the City. It was said, though
+untruly at that time, that Cromwell had addressed a letter to the King
+at Henry’s own request, explaining his conduct, utterly denying that he
+had said certain rash words attributed to him, and that His Majesty was
+greatly affected by it. There was immense excitement everywhere; a crowd
+assembled daily outside Westminster Hall; groups at every corner of the
+streets discussed the fallen minister’s chances; and shouts were raised
+for those who were known to be his enemies, the Duke of Norfolk, Rich,
+and others--as they rode through to the Palace.
+
+Meanwhile Ralph’s friends could do little. Nicholas rode down once or
+twice to see the Lieutenant of The Tower, and managed to extract a
+promise that Ralph should hear of their presence in London; but he could
+not get to see him, or hear any news except that he was in good health
+and spirits, and was lodged in a private cell.
+
+Then suddenly one afternoon a small piece of news arrived from Mr.
+Herries to the effect that Cromwell was to be attainted; and anxiety
+became intense as to whether Ralph would be included. Sir James could
+eat nothing at supper, but sat crumbling his bread, while Beatrice
+talked almost feverishly in an attempt to distract him. Finally he rose
+and went out, and the others sat on, eyeing one another, anxious and
+miserable.
+
+In desperation Nicholas began to talk of his visit to the Tower, of the
+Lieutenant’s timidity, and his own insistence; and they noticed nothing,
+till the door was flung open, and the old man stood there, his eyes
+bright and his lips trembling with hope. He held a scrap of paper in his
+hand.
+
+“Listen,” he cried as the others sprang to their feet.
+
+“A fellow has just come from Mr. Herries with this”--he lifted the paper
+and read,--“Mr. Torridon’s name is not in the bill. I will be with you
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Thank God!” said Chris.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was another long discussion the following morning. Mr. Herries
+arrived about ten o’clock to certify his news; and the four sat till
+dinner once again, talking and planning. There was not the same
+desperate hurry now; the first danger was passed.
+
+There was only one thing that the lawyer could do, and that was to
+repeat his advice to seek the intercession of the Archbishop. He
+observed again that while Cranmer had the friendship of the fallen
+minister, he had not in any sense been involved in his fall; he was
+still powerful with the King, and of considerable weight with the
+Council in consequence. He was likely therefore to be both able and
+willing to speak on behalf of Cromwell’s agent.
+
+“But I would advise nothing to be done until the bill of attainder has
+come before Parliament. We do not know yet how far Mr. Torridon’s action
+has affected the evidence. From what you say, gentlemen, and from what I
+have heard elsewhere, I should think that the papers Mr. Torridon
+destroyed are not essential to a conviction. My Lord’s papers at his own
+house are sufficient.”
+
+But they had some difficulty in persuading Sir James to consent to ask a
+favour of the Archbishop. In his eyes, Cranmer was beyond the pale of
+decency; he had lived with two women, said the old man, whom he called
+his wives, although as a priest he was incapable of marriage; he had
+violated his consecration oath; he had blessed and annulled the frequent
+marriages of the King with equal readiness; he was a heretic confessed
+and open on numberless points of the Catholic Faith.
+
+Mr. Herries pointed out with laborious minuteness that this was beside
+the question altogether. He did not propose that Sir James Torridon
+should go to the Archbishop as to a spiritual superior, but as to one
+who chanced to have great influence;--if he were a murderer it would
+make no difference to his advice.
+
+Chris broke in with troubled eyes.
+
+“Indeed, sir,” he said to his father, “you know how I am with you in
+all that you say; and yet I am with Mr. Herries too. I do not
+understand--”
+
+“God help us,” cried the old man. “I do not know what to do.”
+
+“Will you talk with Mistress Beatrice?” asked Chris.
+
+Sir James nodded.
+
+“I will do that,” he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day the bill was passed; and the party in the house at Charing
+sat sick at heart within doors, hearing the crowds roaring down the
+street, singing and shouting in triumph. Every cry tore their hearts;
+for was it not against Ralph’s master and friend that they rejoiced? As
+they sat at supper a great battering broke out at the door that looked
+on to the lane; and they sprang up to hear a drunken voice bellowing at
+them to come out and shout for liberty. Nicholas went crimson with
+anger; and he made a movement towards the hall, his hand on his hilt.
+
+“Ah! sit down, Nick,” said the monk. “The drunken fool is away again.”
+
+And they heard the steps reel on towards Westminster.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not until a fortnight later that they went at last to Lambeth.
+
+Sir James had been hard to persuade; but Beatrice had succeeded at last.
+Nicholas had professed himself ready to ask a favour of the devil
+himself under the circumstances; and Chris himself continued to support
+the lawyer’s opinion. He repeated his arguments again and again.
+
+Then it was necessary to make an appointment with the Archbishop; and a
+day was fixed at last. My Lord would see them, wrote a secretary, at
+two o’clock on the afternoon of July the third.
+
+Beatrice sat through that long hot afternoon in the window-seat of the
+upstairs parlour, looking out over the wide river below, conscious
+perhaps for the first time of the vast weight of responsibility that
+rested on her.
+
+She had seen them go off in a wherry, the father and son with Nicholas
+in the stern, and the lawyer facing them on the cross-bench; they had
+been terribly silent as they walked down to the stairs; had stood
+waiting there without a word being spoken but by herself, as the wherry
+made ready; and she had talked hopelessly, desperately, to relieve the
+tension. Then they had gone off. Sir James had looked back at her over
+his shoulder as the boat put out; and she had seen his lips move. She
+had watched them grow smaller and smaller as they went, and then when a
+barge had come between her and them, she had gone home alone to wait for
+their return, and the tidings that they would bring.
+
+And she, in a sense was responsible for it all. If it had not been for
+her visit to Ralph, he would have handed the papers over to the
+authorities; he would be at liberty now, no doubt, as were Cromwell’s
+other agents; and, as she thought of it, her tortured heart asked again
+and again whether after all she had done right.
+
+She went over the whole question, as she sat there, looking out over the
+river towards Lambeth, fingering the shutter, glancing now and again at
+the bent old figure of her aunt in her tall chair, and listening to the
+rip of the needle through the silk. Could she have done otherwise? Was
+her interference and advice after all but a piece of mad chivalry,
+unnecessary and unpractical?
+
+And yet she knew that she would do it again, if the same circumstances
+arose. It would be impossible to do otherwise. Reason was against it;
+Mr. Herries had hinted as much with a quick lifting of his bushy
+eyebrows as she had told him the story. It would have made no difference
+to Cromwell--ah! but she had not done it for that; it was for the sake
+of Ralph himself; that he might not lose the one opportunity that came
+to him of making a movement back towards the honour he had forfeited.
+
+But it was no less torture to think of it all, as she sat here. She had
+faced the question before; but now the misery she had watched during
+these last three weeks had driven it home. Day by day she had seen the
+old father’s face grow lined and haggard as the suspense gnawed at his
+heart; she had watched him at meals--had seen him sit in bewildered
+grief, striving for self-control and hope--had seen him, as the light
+faded in the parlour upstairs, sink deeper into himself; his eyes hidden
+by his hand, and his grey pointed beard twitching at the trembling of
+his mouth. Once or twice she had met his eyes fixed on hers, in a
+questioning stare, and had known what was in his heart--a simple,
+unreproachful wonder at the strange events that had made her so
+intimately responsible for his son’s happiness.
+
+She thought of Margaret too, as she sat there; of the poor girl who had
+so rested on her, believed in her, loved her. There she was now at
+Overfield, living in a nightmare of suspense, watching so eagerly for
+the scanty letters, disappointed every time of the good news for which
+she hoped....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The burden was an intolerable one. Beatrice was scarcely conscious of
+where she sat or for what she waited. She was living over again every
+detail of her relations with Ralph. She remembered how she had seen him
+at first at Chelsea; how he had come out with Master More from the door
+of the New Building and across the grass. She had been twisting a
+grass-ring then as she listened to the talk, and had tossed it on to the
+dog’s back. Then, day by day she had met him; he had come at all hours;
+and she had watched him, for she thought she had found a man. She
+remembered how her interest had deepened; how suddenly her heart had
+leapt that evening when she came into the hall and found him sitting in
+the dark. Then, step by step, the friendship had grown till it had
+revealed its radiant face at the bitterness of Chris’s words in the
+house at Westminster. Then her life had become magical; all the world
+cried “Ralph” to her; the trumpets she heard sounded to his praise; the
+sunsets had shone for him and her. Then came the news of the Visitors’
+work; and her heart had begun to question her insistently; the questions
+had become affirmation; and in one passionate hour she had gone to him,
+scourged him with her tongue, and left him. She had seen him again once
+or twice in the years that followed; had watched him from a window hung
+with tapestries in Cheapside, as he rode down beside the King; and had
+not dared to ask herself what her heart so longed to tell her. Then had
+come the mother’s question; and the falling of the veils.
+
+Then he had called her; she never doubted that; as she sat alone in her
+room one evening. It had come, thin and piteous;--“Beatrice, Beatrice.”
+He needed her, and she had gone, and meddled with his life once more.
+
+And he lay in the Tower....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Beatrice, my child.”
+
+She turned from the window, her eyes blind with tears; and in a moment
+was kneeling at her aunt’s side, her face buried in her lap, and felt
+those kindly old hands passing over her hair. She heard a murmur over
+her head, but scarcely caught a word. There was but one thing she
+needed, and that--
+
+Then she knelt suddenly upright listening, and the caressing hand was
+still.
+
+“Beatrice, my dear, Beatrice.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were footsteps on the stairs outside, eager and urgent. The girl
+rose to her feet, and stood there, swaying a little with a restrained
+expectation.
+
+Then the door was open, and Chris was there, flushed and radiant, with
+the level evening light full on his face.
+
+“It is all well,” he cried, “my Lord will take us to the King.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+PLACENTIA
+
+
+The river-front of Greenwich House was a magnificent sight as the four
+men came up to it one morning nearly three weeks later. The long
+two-storied row of brick buildings which Henry had named Placentia, with
+their lines of windows broken by the two clusters of slender towers, and
+porticos beneath, were fronted by broad platforms and a strip of turf
+with steps leading down to the water, and at each of these entrances
+there continually moved brilliant figures, sentries with the sunlight
+flashing on their steel caps and pike-points, servants in the royal
+livery, watermen in their blue and badges.
+
+Here and there at the foot of the steps rocked gaudy barges, a mass of
+gilding and colour, with broad low canopies at the stern, and flags
+drooping at the prow; wherries moved to and fro, like water-beetles,
+shooting across from bank to bank with passengers, above and below the
+palace, or pausing with uplifted oars as the stream swept them down, for
+the visitors to stare and marvel at the great buildings. Behind rose up
+the green masses of trees against the sloping park. And over all lay the
+July sky, solemn flakes of cloud drifting across a field of intense
+blue.
+
+There had been a delay in the fulfilment of the Archbishop’s promise; at
+one time he himself was away in the country on affairs, at another time
+the King was too much pressed, Cranmer reported, to have such a matter
+brought before him; and then suddenly a messenger had come across from
+Lambeth with a letter, bidding them present themselves at Greenwich on
+the following morning; for the day following that had been fixed for
+Cromwell’s execution, and the Archbishop hoped that the King would be
+ready to hear a word on behalf of the agent whose loyalty had failed to
+save his master.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The boatman suddenly backed water with his left-hand oar, took a stroke
+or two with his right, glancing over his shoulder; and the boat slid up
+to the foot of the steps.
+
+A couple of watermen were already waiting there, in the Archbishop’s
+livery, and steadied the boat for the four gentlemen to step out; and a
+moment later the four were standing on the platform, looking about them.
+
+They were at one of the smaller entrances to the palace, up-stream. A
+hundred yards further down was the royal entrance, canopied and
+carpeted, with the King’s barge rocking at the foot, a number of
+servants coming and going on the platform, and the great state windows
+overlooking all; but here they were in comparative quiet. A small
+doorway with its buff and steel-clad sentry before it opened on their
+right into the interior of the palace.
+
+One of the watermen saluted the party.
+
+“Master Torridon?” he said.
+
+Chris assented.
+
+“My Lord bade me take you through to him, sir, as soon as you arrived.”
+
+He went before them to the door, said a word to the guard, and then the
+party passed on through the little entrance-hall into the interior. The
+corridor was plainly and severely furnished with matting under-foot,
+chairs here and there set along the wainscot, pieces of stuff with
+crossed pikes between hanging on the walls; through the bow windows
+they caught a glimpse now and again of a little court or two, a
+shrubbery and a piece of lawn, and once a vista of the park where Henry
+in his younger days used to hold his May-revels, a gallant and princely
+figure all in green from cap to shoes, breakfasting beneath the trees.
+
+Continually, as they went, first in the corridor and then through the
+waiting rooms at the end, they passed others going to and fro, servants
+hurrying on messages, leisurely and magnificent persons with their hats
+on, pages standing outside closed doors; and twice they were asked their
+business.
+
+“For my Lord of Canterbury,” answered the waterman each time.
+
+It seemed to Chris that they must have gone an immense distance before
+the waterman at last stopped, motioning them to go on, and a page in
+purple livery stepped forward from a door.
+
+“For my Lord of Canterbury,” said the waterman for the last time.
+
+The page bowed, turned, and threw open the door.
+
+They found themselves in a square parlour, carpeted and hung with
+tapestries from floor to ceiling. A second door opened beyond, in the
+window side, into another room. A round table stood in the centre, with
+brocaded chairs about it, and a long couch by the fireplace. Opposite
+rose up the tall windows through which shone the bright river with the
+trees and buildings on the north bank beyond.
+
+They had hardly spoken a word to one another since they had left
+Charing, for all that was possible had been said during the weeks of
+waiting for the Archbishop’s summons.
+
+Cranmer had received them kindly, though he had not committed himself
+beyond promising to introduce them to the King, and had expressed no
+opinion on the case.
+
+He had listened to them courteously, had nodded quietly as Chris
+explained what it was that Ralph had done, and then almost without
+comment had given his promise. It seemed as if the Archbishop could not
+even form an opinion, and still less express one, until he had heard
+what his Highness had to say.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris walked to the window and the lawyer followed him.
+
+“Placentia!” said Mr. Herries, “I do not wonder at it. It is even more
+pleasing from within.”
+
+He stood, a prim, black figure, looking out at the glorious view, the
+shining waterway studded with spots of colour, the long bank of the
+river opposite, and the spires of London city lying in a blue heat-haze
+far away to the left.
+
+Chris stared at it too, but with unseeing eyes. It seemed as if all
+power of sensation had left him. The suspense of the last weeks had
+corroded the surfaces of his soul, and the intensity to which it was now
+rising seemed to have paralysed what was left. He found himself
+picturing the little house at Charing where Beatrice was waiting, and,
+he knew, praying; and he reminded himself that the next time he saw her
+he would know all, whether death or life was to be Ralph’s sentence. The
+solemn quiet and the air of rich and comfortable tranquillity which the
+palace wore, and which had impressed itself on his mind even in the
+hundred yards he had walked in it, gave him an added sense of what it
+was that lay over his brother, the huge passionless forces with which he
+had become entangled.
+
+Then he turned round. His father was sitting at the table, his head on
+his hand; and Nicholas was staring round the grave room with the
+solemnity of a child, looking strangely rustic and out of place in these
+surroundings.
+
+It was very quiet as Chris leaned against the window-shutter, in his
+secular habit, with his hands clasped behind his back, and looked. Once
+a footstep passed in the corridor outside, and the floor vibrated
+slightly to the tread; once a horn blew somewhere far away; and from the
+river now and again came the cry of a waterman, or the throb of oars in
+rowlocks.
+
+Sir James looked up once, opened his lips as if to speak; and then
+dropped his head on to his hand again.
+
+The waiting seemed interminable.
+
+Chris turned round to the window once more, slipped his breviary out of
+his pocket, and opened it. He made the sign of the cross and began--
+
+“_In nomine Patris et Filii...._”
+
+Then the second door opened; he turned back abruptly; there was a rustle
+of silk, and the Archbishop came through in his habit and gown.
+
+Chris bowed slightly as the prelate went past him briskly towards the
+table where Sir James was now standing up, and searched his features
+eagerly for an omen. There was nothing to be read there; his smooth
+large-eyed face was smiling quietly as its manner was, and his wide lips
+were slightly parted.
+
+“Good-day, Master Torridon; you are in good time. I am just come from
+His Highness, and will take you to him directly.”
+
+Chris saw his father’s face blanch a little as he bowed in return.
+Nicholas merely stared.
+
+“But we have a few minutes,” went on the Archbishop. “Sir Thomas
+Wriothesly is with him. Tell me again sir, what you wish me to say.”
+
+Sir James looked hesitatingly to the lawyer.
+
+“Mr. Herries,” he said.
+
+Cranmer turned round, and again made that little half-deprecating bow to
+the priest and the lawyer. Mr. Herries stepped forward as Cranmer sat
+down, clasping his hands so that the great amethyst showed on his
+slender finger.
+
+“It is this, my Lord,” he said, “it is as we told your Lordship at
+Lambeth. This gentleman desires the King’s clemency towards Mr. Ralph
+Torridon, now in the Tower. Mr. Torridon has served--er--Mr. Cromwell
+very faithfully. We wish to make no secret of that. He destroyed certain
+private papers--though that cannot be proved against him, and you will
+remember that we were doubtful whether his Highness should be informed
+of that--”
+
+Sir James broke in suddenly.
+
+“I have been thinking of that, my Lord. I would sooner that the King’s
+Grace knew everything. I have no wish that that should be kept from
+him.”
+
+The Archbishop who had been looking with smiling attention from one to
+the other, now himself broke in.
+
+“I am glad you think that, sir. I think so myself. Though it cannot be
+proved as you say, it is far best that His Grace should know all. Indeed
+I think I should have told him in any case.”
+
+“Then, my Lord, if you think well,” went on Mr. Herries, “you might lay
+before his Grace that this is a free and open confession. Mr. Torridon
+did burn papers, and important ones; but they would not have served
+anything. Master Cromwell was cast without them.”
+
+“But Mr. Torridon did not know that?” questioned the Archbishop blandly.
+
+“Yes, my Lord,” cried Sir James, “he must have known--that my Lord
+Cromwell--”
+
+The Archbishop lifted his hand delicately.
+
+“Master Cromwell,” he corrected.
+
+“Master Cromwell,” went on the old man, “he must have known that Mr.
+Cromwell had others, more important, that would be certainly found and
+used against him.”
+
+“Then why did he burn them? You understand, sir, that I only wish to
+know what I have to say to his Grace.”
+
+“He burned them, my Lord, because he could not bear that his hand should
+be lifted against his master. Surely that is but loyal and good!”
+
+The Archbishop nodded quietly three or four times.
+
+“And you desire that his Grace will take order to have Mr. Torridon
+released?”
+
+“That is it, my Lord,” said the lawyer.
+
+“Yes, I understand. And can you give any pledge for Mr. Torridon’s good
+behaviour?”
+
+“He has served Mr. Cromwell,” answered the lawyer, “very well for many
+years. He has been with him in the matter of the Religious Houses; he
+was one of the King’s Visitors, and assisted in the--the destruction of
+Lewes priory; and that, my Lord, is a sufficient--”
+
+Sir James gave a sudden sob.
+
+“Mr. Herries, Mr. Herries--”
+
+Cranmer turned to him smiling.
+
+“I know what you feel, sir,” he said. “But if this is true--”
+
+“Why, it is true! God help him,” cried the old man.
+
+“Then that is what we need, sir; as you said just now. Yes, Mr.
+Herries?”
+
+The lawyer glanced at the old man again.
+
+“That is sufficient guarantee, my Lord, that Mr. Ralph Torridon is no
+enemy of his Grace’s projects.”
+
+“I cannot bear that!” cried Sir James.
+
+Nicholas, who had been looking awed and open-mouthed from one to the
+other, took him by the arm.
+
+“You must, father,” he said. “It--it is devilish; but it is true. Chris,
+have you nothing?”
+
+The monk came forward a step.
+
+“It is true, my Lord,” he said. “I was a monk of Lewes myself.”
+
+“And you have conformed,” put in the Archbishop swiftly.
+
+“I am living at home peaceably,” said Chris; “it is true that my brother
+did all this, but--but my father wishes that it should not be used in
+his cause.”
+
+“If it is true,” said the Archbishop, “it is best to say it. We want
+nothing but the bare truth.”
+
+“But I cannot bear it,” cried the old man again.
+
+Chris came round behind the Archbishop to his father.
+
+“Will you leave it, father, to my Lord Archbishop? My Lord understands
+what we think.”
+
+Sir James looked at him, dazed and bewildered.
+
+“God help us! Do you think so, Chris?”
+
+“I think so, father. My Lord, you understand all?”
+
+The Archbishop bowed again slightly.
+
+“Then, my Lord, we will leave it all in your hands.”
+
+There was a tap at the door.
+
+The Archbishop rose.
+
+“That is our signal,” he said. “Come, gentlemen, his Grace will be ready
+immediately.”
+
+Mr. Herries sprang to the door and opened it, bowing as the Archbishop
+went through, followed by Sir James and Nicholas. He and Chris followed
+after.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a kind of dull recklessness in the monk’s heart as he went
+through. He knew that he was in more peril than any of the others, and
+yet he did not fear it. The faculty of fear had been blunted, not
+sharpened, by his experiences; and he passed on towards the King’s
+presence, almost without a tremor.
+
+The room was empty, except for a page by the further door, who opened it
+as the party advanced; and beyond was a wide lobby, with doors all
+round, and a staircase on the right as they came out. The Archbishop
+made a little motion to the others as he went up, gathering his skirts
+about him, and acknowledging with his disengaged hand the salute of the
+sentry that stood in the lobby.
+
+At the top of the stairs was a broad landing; then a corridor through
+which they passed, and on. They turned to the left, and as they went it
+was apparent that they were near the royal apartments. There were thick
+leather rugs lying here and there; along the walls stood magnificent
+pieces of furniture, inlaid tables with tall dragon-jars upon them,
+suits of Venetian armour elaborately worked in silver, and at the door
+of every room that opened on the corridor there was standing a sentry or
+a servant, who straightened themselves at the sight of the Archbishop.
+He carefully acknowledged each salutation, and nodded kindly once or
+twice.
+
+There was a heavy odour in the air, warm and fragrant, as of mingled
+stuffs and musk, which even the wide windows set open towards the garden
+on the right hand did not wholly obliterate.
+
+For the first time since leaving Charing, Chris’s heart quickened. The
+slow stages of approach to the formidable presence had begun to do their
+work; if he had seen the King at once he would not have been moved; if
+he had had an hour longer, he would have recovered from his emotion; but
+this swift ordered approach, the suggestiveness of the thick carpets
+and furniture, the sight of the silent figures waiting, the musky smell
+in the air, all combined now to work upon him; he began to fancy that he
+was drawing nearer the presence of some great carrion-beast that had
+made its den here, that was guarded by these discreet servitors, and to
+which this smooth prelate, in the rôle of the principal keeper, was
+guiding him. Any of these before him might mark the sanctuary of the
+labyrinth, where the creature lurked; one might open, and a savage face
+look out, dripping blood and slaver.
+
+A page threw back a door at last, and they passed through; but again
+there was a check. It was but one more waiting room. The dozen persons,
+folks of all sorts, a lawyer, a soldier, and others stood up and bowed
+to the prelate.
+
+Then the party sat down near the further door in dead silence, and the
+minutes began to pass.
+
+There were cries from the river once or twice as they waited; once a
+footstep vibrated through the door, and twice a murmur of voices sounded
+and died again.
+
+Then suddenly a hand was laid on the handle from the other side, and the
+Archbishop rose, with Sir James beside him.
+
+There was still a pause. Then a voice sounded loud and near, and there
+was a general movement in the room as all rose to their feet. The door
+swung open and the Garter King-at-Arms came through, bland and smiling,
+his puffed silk sleeves brushing against the doorpost as he passed. A
+face like a mask, smooth and expressionless, followed him, and nodded to
+the Archbishop.
+
+Cranmer turned slightly to his party, again made that little movement,
+and went straight through.
+
+Chris followed with Mr. Herries.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE KING’S HIGHNESS
+
+
+As Chris knelt with the others, and the door closed behind him, he was
+aware of a great room with a tall window looking on to the river on his
+left, tapestry-hung walls, a broad table heaped with papers in the
+centre, a high beamed ceiling, and the thick carpet under his knees.
+
+For a moment he did not see the King. The page who had beckoned them in
+had passed across the room, and Chris’s eyes followed him out through an
+inner door in the corner.
+
+Then, still on his knees, he turned his eyes to see the Archbishop going
+towards the window, and up the step that led on to the dais that
+occupied the floor of the oriel.
+
+Then he saw the King.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A great figure was seated opposite the side door at which they had
+entered on the broad seat that ran round the three sides of the window.
+The puffed sleeves made the shoulders look enormous; a gold chain lay
+across them, with which the gross fingers were playing. Beneath, the
+vast stomach swelled out into the slashed trunks, and the scarlet legs
+were crossed one over the other. On the head lay a broad plumed velvet
+cap, and beneath it was the wide square face, at once jovial and solemn,
+with the narrow slits of eyes above, and the little pursed mouth fringed
+by reddish hair below, that Chris remembered in the barge years before.
+The smell of musk lay heavy in the air.
+
+Here was the monstrous carrion-beast then at last, sunning himself and
+waiting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So the party rested a moment or two, while the Archbishop went across to
+the dais; he knelt again and then stood up and said a word or two
+rapidly that Chris could not hear.
+
+Henry nodded, and turned his bright narrow eyes on to them; and then
+made a motion with his hand. The Archbishop turned round and repeated
+the gesture; and Chris rose in his place as did the others.
+
+“Master Torridon, your Grace,” explained the Archbishop, with a
+deferential stoop of his shoulders. “Your Grace will remember--”
+
+The King nodded abruptly, and thrust his hand out.
+
+Chris touched his father behind.
+
+“Go forward,” he whispered; “kiss hands.”
+
+The old man went forward a hesitating step or two. The Archbishop
+motioned sharply, and Sir James advanced again up to the dais, sank
+down, and lifted the hand to his lips, and fell back for the others.
+
+When Chris’s turn came, and he lifted the heavy fingers, he noticed for
+a moment a wonderful red stone on the thumb, and recognised it. It was
+the Regal of France that he had seen years before at his visit to St.
+Thomas’s shrine at Canterbury. In a flash, too, he remembered Cromwell’s
+crest as he had seen it on the papers at Lewes--the demi-lion holding up
+the red-gemmed ring.
+
+Then he too had fallen back, and the Archbishop was speaking.
+
+“Your Grace will remember that there is a Mr. Ralph Torridon in the
+Tower--an agent of Mr. Cromwell’s--”
+
+The King’s face moved slightly, but he said nothing.
+
+--“Who is awaiting trial for destroying evidence. It is that, at least,
+your Grace, that is asserted against him. But it has not been proved.
+Master Torridon here tells me, your Highness, that it cannot be proved,
+but that he wishes to acknowledge it freely on his son’s behalf.”
+
+Henry’s eyes shot back again at the old man, ran over the others, and
+settled again on Cranmer’s face, who was standing beside him with his
+back to the window.
+
+“He is here to plead for your Grace’s clemency. He wishes to lay before
+your Grace that his son erred through over-faithfulness to Mr.
+Cromwell’s cause; and above all that the evidence so destroyed has not
+affected the course of justice--”
+
+“God’s Body!” jarred in the harsh voice suddenly, “it has not. Nor shall
+it.”
+
+Cranmer waited a moment with downcast eyes; but the King was silent
+again.
+
+“Master Torridon has persuaded me to come with him to your Grace to
+speak for him. He is not accustomed--”
+
+“And who are these fellows?”
+
+Chris felt those keen eyes running over him.
+
+“This is Master Nicholas Maxwell,” explained the Archbishop, indicating
+him. “Master Torridon’s son-in-law; and this, Mr. Herries--”
+
+“And the priest?” asked the King.
+
+“The priest is Sir Christopher Torridon, living with his father at
+Overfield.”
+
+“Ha! has he always lived there then?”
+
+“No, your Grace,” said Cranmer smoothly, “he was a monk at Lewes until
+the dissolution of the house.”
+
+“I have heard somewhat of his name,” mused Henry. “What is it, sir, that
+I have heard of you?”
+
+“It was perhaps Mr. Ralph Torridon’s name that your Grace--” began
+Cranmer.
+
+“Nay, nay, it was not. What was it, sir?”
+
+Chris’s heart was beating in his ears like a drum now. It had come,
+then, that peril that had always been brooding on the horizon, and which
+he had begun to despise. He had thought that there could be no danger in
+his going to the King; it was so long since Lewes had fallen, and his
+own part had been so small. But his Grace’s memory was good, it seemed!
+Danger was close to him, incarnate in that overwhelming presence. He
+said nothing, but stood awaiting detection.
+
+“It is strange,” said Henry. “I have forgot. Well, my Lord?”
+
+“I have told your Grace all,” explained the Archbishop. “Mr. Ralph
+Torridon has not yet been brought to trial, and his father hopes that
+your Grace will take into consideration these two things: that it was a
+mistake of over-faithfulness that his son committed; and that it has not
+hindered the course of justice.”
+
+“Well, well,” said Henry, “and that sounds to be in reason. We have none
+too much of either faithfulness or justice in these days. And there is
+no other charge against the fellow?”
+
+“There is no other charge, your Grace.”
+
+There fell a complete silence for a moment or two.
+
+Chris glanced up at his father, his own heart uplifted by hope, and saw
+the old man’s face trembling with it too. The wrinkled eyes were full of
+tears, and his lips quivered; and Chris could feel the short cloak that
+hung against him shaking at his hand. Nicholas’s crimson face showed a
+mingling of such emotion and solemnity that Chris was seized with an
+internal hysterical spasm; but it suddenly died within him as he
+brought his eyes round, and saw that the King was staring at him
+moodily....
+
+The Archbishop’s voice broke in again.
+
+“Are we to understand, your Grace, that your Grace’s clemency is
+extended to Mr. Ralph Torridon?”
+
+“Eh! then,” said the King peevishly, “hold your tongue, my Lord. I am
+trying to remember. Where is Michael?”
+
+“Shall I call him, your Grace?”
+
+“Nay, then; let the lawyer ring the bell!”
+
+Mr. Herries sprang to the table at the King’s gesture, and struck the
+little hand-bell that stood there. The door where the page had
+disappeared five minutes before opened silently, and the servant stood
+there.
+
+“Michael,” said the King, and the page vanished.
+
+There was an uncomfortable silence. Cranmer stood back a little with an
+air of patient deference, and his quick eyes glanced up now and again at
+the party before him. There was a certain uneasiness in his manner, as
+Chris could see; but the monk presently dropped his eyes again, as he
+saw that the King was once more looking at him keenly, with tight pursed
+lips, and a puzzled look on his forehead.
+
+The thoughts began to race through Chris’s brain. He found himself
+praying with desperate speed that Michael, whoever he was, might not
+know; and that the King might not remember; and meanwhile through
+another part of his being ran the thought of the irony of his situation.
+Here he was, come to plead for his brother’s life, and on the brink of
+having to plead for his own. The quiet room increased his sense of the
+irony. It seemed so safe and strong and comfortable, up here in the rich
+room, with the tall window looking on to the sunlit river, in a palace
+girt about with guards; and yet the very security of it was his danger.
+He had penetrated into the stronghold of the great beast that ruled
+England: he was within striking distance of those red-stained claws and
+teeth.
+
+Then suddenly the creature stirred and snarled.
+
+“I know it now, sir. You were one of the knaves that would not sign the
+surrender of Lewes.”
+
+Chris lifted his eyes and dropped them again.
+
+“God’s Body,” said the King, “and you come here!”
+
+Again there was silence.
+
+Chris saw his father half turn towards him with a piteous face, and
+perceived that the lawyer had drawn a little away.
+
+The King turned abruptly to Cranmer.
+
+“Did you know this, my Lord?”
+
+“Before God, I did not!”--but his voice shook as he answered.
+
+Chris was gripping his courage, and at last spoke.
+
+“We were told it was a free-will act, your Grace.”
+
+Henry said nothing to this. His eyes were rolling up and down the monk’s
+figure, with tight, thoughtful lips. Cranmer looked desperately at Sir
+James.
+
+“I did not know that, your Grace,” he said again. “I only knew that this
+priest’s brother had been very active in your Grace’s business.”
+
+Henry turned sharply.
+
+“Eh?” he said.
+
+Sir James’s hands rose and clasped themselves instinctively. Cranmer
+again looked at him almost fiercely.
+
+“Mr. Ralph Torridon was one of the Visitors,” explained the Archbishop
+nervously.
+
+“And this fellow a monk!” cried the King.
+
+“They must have met at Lewes, your Grace.”
+
+“Ah! my Lord,” cried Sir James suddenly. “I entreated you--”
+
+Henry turned on him suddenly.
+
+“Tell us the tale, sir. What is all this?”
+
+Sir James took a faltering step forward, and then suddenly threw out his
+hands.
+
+“Ah! your Grace, it is a bitter tale for a father to tell. It is true,
+all of it. My son here was a monk at Lewes. He would not sign the
+surrender. I--I approved him for it. I--I was there when my son Ralph
+cast him out--”
+
+“God’s blood!” cried the King with a beaming face. “The one brother cast
+the other out!”
+
+Chris saw the Archbishop’s face suddenly lighten as he watched the King
+sideways.
+
+“But I cannot bear that he should be saved for that!” went on the old
+man piteously. “He was a good servant to your Grace, but a bad one to
+our Lord--”
+
+The Archbishop drew a swift breath of horror, and his hands jerked. But
+Henry seemed not to hear; his little mouth had opened in a round hole of
+amazed laughter, and he was staring at the old man without hearing him.
+
+“And you were there?” he said. “And your wife? And your aunts and
+sisters?”
+
+“My wife is dead,” cried the old man. “Your Grace--”
+
+“And on which side was she?”
+
+“She was--was on your Grace’s side.”
+
+Henry threw himself back in his chair.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For one moment Chris did not know whether it was wrath or laughter that
+shook him. His face grew crimson, and his narrow eyes disappeared into
+shining slits; his fat hands were on his knees, and his great body
+shook. From his round open mouth came silent gusts of quick breath, and
+he began to sway a little from side to side.
+
+Across the Archbishop’s face came a deferential and sympathetic smile,
+and he looked quickly and nervously from the King to the group and back
+again. Sir James had fallen back a pace at the King’s laughter, and
+stood rigid and staring. Chris took a step close to him and gripped his
+hand firmly.
+
+There was a footstep behind, and the King leaned forward again, wiping
+the tears away with his sleeve.
+
+“Oh, Michael, Michael!” he sobbed, “here is a fine tale.”
+
+A dark-dressed man stepped forward from behind, and stood expectant.
+
+“God! What a happy family!” said the King. “And this fellow here?”
+
+He motioned towards Nicholas, with a feeble gesture. He was still weak
+with laughter.
+
+The young squire moved forward a step, rigid and indignant.
+
+“I am against your Grace,” he said sharply.
+
+Henry grew suddenly grave.
+
+“Eh! that is no way to speak,” he said.
+
+“It is the only way I can speak,” said Nicholas, “if your Grace desires
+the truth.”
+
+The King looked at him a moment; but the humour still shone in his eyes.
+
+“Well, well. It is the truth I want. Michael, I sent for you to know
+about the priest here; but I know now. And is it true that his brother
+in the Tower--Ralph Torridon--was one of the Visitors?”
+
+The man pursed his lips a moment. He was standing close to Chris, a
+little in front of him.
+
+“Yes, your Majesty.”
+
+“Oh! well. We must let him out, I suppose--if there is nothing more
+against him. You shall tell me presently, Michael.”
+
+The Archbishop looked swiftly across at the party.
+
+“Then your Grace extends--”
+
+“Well, Michael, what is it?” interrupted the King.
+
+“It is a matter your Majesty might wish to hear in private,” said the
+stranger.
+
+“Oh, step aside, my Lord. And you, gentlemen.”
+
+The King motioned down to the further end of the room, as Michael came
+forward.
+
+The Archbishop stepped off the low platform, and led the way down the
+floor; and the others followed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris was in a whirl of bewilderment. He could see the King’s great face
+interested and attentive as the secretary said something in his ear, and
+then suddenly light up with amusement again.
+
+“Not a word, not a word,” whispered Henry harshly. “Very good, Michael.”
+
+The secretary then whispered once more. Chris could hear the sharp
+sibilants, but no word. The King nodded once more, and the man stepped
+down off the dais.
+
+“Prepare the admission, then,” said the King after him.
+
+The secretary bowed as he turned and went out of the room once more.
+
+Henry beckoned.
+
+“Come, gentlemen.”
+
+He watched them with a solemn joviality as they came up, the Archbishop
+in front, the father and son together, and the two others behind.
+
+“You are a sad crew,” began the King, eyeing them pleasantly, and
+sitting forward with a hand on either knee, “and I am astonished, my
+Lord of Canterbury, at your companying with them. But we will have
+mercy, and remember your son’s services, Master Torridon, in the past.
+That alone will excuse him. Remember that. That alone. He is the
+stronger man, if he turned out the priest there. And I remember your son
+very well, too; and will forgive him. But I shall not employ him again.
+And his forgiveness shall cover yours, Master Priest; but you must be
+off--you must be off, sir,” he barked suddenly, “out of these realms in
+a week. We will have no more treason from you.”
+
+The fierce overpowering personality flared out as he spoke, and Chris
+felt his heart beat sick at the force of it.
+
+“And you two gentlemen,” went on the King, still smouldering, “you two
+had best hold your tongues. We will not hear such talk in our presence
+or out of it. But we will excuse it now. There, sir, have I said
+enough?”
+
+Sir James dropped abruptly on his knees.
+
+“Oh! God bless your Grace!” he began, with the tears running down.
+
+Henry made an abrupt gesture.
+
+“You shall go to your son,” he said, “and see how he fares, and tell him
+this. And she shall have the order of release presently, from me or
+another.”
+
+Again the little mouth creased and twitched with amusement.
+
+“And I hope he will be happy with his mother. You may tell him that from
+me.”
+
+The Archbishop looked up.
+
+“Mistress Torridon is dead, your Grace,” he said softly and
+questioningly.
+
+“Oh, well,” said the King; and thrust out his hand to be kissed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris did not know how they got out of the room. They kissed hands
+again; the old man muttered out his thanks; but he seemed bewildered by
+the rush of events, and the supreme surprise. Chris, as he backed away
+from the presence, saw for the last time those narrow royal eyes fixed
+on him, still bright with amusement and expectancy, and the great
+red-fringed cheeks creased about the tiny mouth with an effort to keep
+back laughter. Why was the King laughing, he wondered?
+
+They waited a few minutes in the ante-room for the order that the
+Archbishop had whispered to them should be sent out immediately. They
+said nothing to one another--but the three sat close, looking into one
+another’s eyes now and again in astonishment and joy, while Mr. Herries
+stood a little apart solemn and happy at the importance of the rôle he
+had played in the whole affair, and disdaining even to look at the rest
+of the company who sat on chairs and watched the party.
+
+The secretary came to them in a few minutes, and handed them the order.
+
+“My Lord of Canterbury is detained,” he said; “he bade me tell you
+gentlemen that he could not see you again.”
+
+Sir James was standing up and examining the order.
+
+“For four?” he said.
+
+“Why, yes,” said the secretary, and glanced at the four men.
+
+Chris put his hand on his father’s arm.
+
+“It is all well,” he whispered, “say nothing more. It will do for
+Beatrice.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE TIDINGS AT THE TOWER
+
+
+They debated as they stood on the steps in the sunlight five minutes
+later, as to whether they should go straight to the Tower, or back to
+Charing and take Beatrice with them. They spoke softly to one another,
+as men that have come out from darkness to light, bewildered by the
+sense of freedom and freshness that lay round them. Instead of the
+musk-scented rooms, the formidable dominating presence, the suspense and
+the terror, the river laughed before them, the fresh summer breeze blew
+up it, and above all Ralph was free, and that, not only of his prison,
+but of his hateful work. It had all been done in those few sentences;
+but as yet they could not realise it; and they regarded it, as they
+regarded the ripples at their feet, the lapping wherry, and far-off
+London city, as a kind of dazzling picture which would by and by be
+found to move and live.
+
+The lawyer congratulated them, and they smiled back and thanked him.
+
+“If you will put me to shore at London Bridge,” said Mr. Herries--“I
+have a little business I might do there--that is, if you will be going
+so far.”
+
+Chris looked at his father, whose arm he was holding.
+
+“We must take her with us,” he said. “She has earned it.”
+
+Sir James nodded, dreamily, and turned to the boat.
+
+“To the London Bridge Stairs first,” he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a kind of piquant joy in their hearts as they crept up past
+the Tower, and saw its mighty walls and guns across the water. He was
+there, but it was not for long. They would see him that day, and
+to-morrow--to-morrow at the latest, they would all leave it together.
+
+There were a hundred plans in the old man’s mind, as he leaned gently
+forward and back to the motion of the boat and stared at the bright
+water. Ralph and he should live at Overfield again; his son would surely
+be changed by all that had come to him, and above all by his own
+response to the demands of loyalty. They should learn to understand one
+another better now--better than ever before. The hateful life lay behind
+them of distrust and contempt; Ralph would come back to his old self,
+and be again as he had been ten years back before he had been dazzled
+and drugged by the man who was to die next day. Then he thought of that
+man, and half-pitied him even then; those strong walls held nothing but
+terror for him--terror and despair; the scaffold was already going up on
+Tower Hill--and as the old man thought of it he leaned forward and tried
+to see over the wharf and under the trees where the rising ground lay;
+but there was nothing to be seen--the foliage hid it.
+
+Chris, also silent beside him, was full of thoughts. He would go abroad
+now, he knew, with Margaret, as they had intended. The King’s order was
+the last sign of God’s intention for him. He would place Margaret with
+her own sisters at Bruges, and then himself go on to Dom Anthony and
+take up the life again. He knew he would meet some of his old brethren
+in Religion--Dom Anthony had written to say that three or four had
+already joined him at Cluny; the Prior--he knew--had turned his back for
+ever on the monastic life, and had been put into a prebendal stall at
+Lincoln.
+
+And meanwhile he would have the joy of knowing that Ralph was free of
+his hateful business; the King would not employ him again; he would live
+at home now, and rule Overfield well: he and his father together. Ah!
+and what if Beatrice consented to rule it with him! Surely now--He
+turned and looked at his father as he thought of it, and their eyes met.
+
+Chris leaned a little closer.
+
+“Beatrice!” he said. “What if she--?”
+
+The old man nodded tenderly, and his drawn eyes shone in his face.
+
+“Oh! Chris--I was thinking that--”
+
+Then Nicholas came out of his maze.
+
+Ever since his entrance into the palace, except when he had flared out
+at the King, he had moved and stood and sat in a solemn bewilderment.
+The effect of the changed atmosphere had been to paralyse his simple and
+sturdy faculties; and his face had grown unintelligent during the
+process. More than once Chris had been seized with internal laughter, in
+spite of the tragedy; the rustic squire was so strangely incongruous
+with the situation. But he awoke now.
+
+“God bless me!” he said wonderingly. “It is all over and done. God--”
+
+Chris gave a short yelp of laughter.
+
+“Dear Nick,” he said, “yes. God bless you indeed! You spoke up well!”
+
+“Did I do right, sir,” said the other to Sir James, “I could not help
+it. I--”
+
+“Oh! Nick,” said the old man, and leaned forward and put his hand on his
+knee.
+
+Nicholas preened himself as he sat there; he would tell Mary how he had
+bearded his Majesty, and what a diplomatist was her husband.
+
+“You did very well, sir,” put in Mr. Herries ironically. “You terrified
+his Grace, I think.”
+
+Chris glanced at the lawyer; but Nicholas took it all with the greatest
+complacency; tilted his hilt a little forward, smoothed his doublet, and
+sat smiling and well-pleased.
+
+They reached the Stairs presently and put Mr. Herries ashore.
+
+“I will be at your house to-morrow, sir,” he said, “when you go to take
+Mr. Ralph out of prison. The order will be there by the morning, I make
+no doubt.”
+
+He bowed and smiled and moved off, a stiff figure deliberately picking
+its way up the oozy steps to the crowded street overhead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Beatrice’s face was at the window as they came up the tide half-an-hour
+later. Chris stood up in the wherry, when he saw it, and waved his cap
+furiously, and the face disappeared.
+
+She was at the landing stage before they reached it, a slender brilliant
+figure in her hood and mantle, with her aunt beside her. Chris stood up
+again and cried between his hands across the narrowing space that all
+was well; and her face was radiant as the boat slipped up to the side,
+and balanced there with the boatman’s hand on the stone edging.
+
+“It is all well,” said Chris again as he stood by her a moment later.
+“He is to go free, and we are to tell him.”
+
+He dared not look at her; but he was aware that she stood very still and
+rigid, and that her eyes were on his father’s.
+
+“Oh! Mistress Beatrice--”
+
+Chris began to understand it all a little better, a few minutes later,
+as the boat was once again on its way downstream. He and Nicholas had
+moved to the bows of the wherry, and the girl and the old man sat alone
+in the stern.
+
+They were all very silent at first; Chris leaned on his elbow and stared
+out at the sliding banks, the trees on this side and that, the great
+houses with their high roofs and towers behind, and their stone steps in
+front, the brilliant glare on the water, the hundreds of boats--great
+barges flashing jewels from their dozen blades, spidery wherries making
+this way and that; and his mind was busy weaving pictures. He saw it all
+now; there had been that in Beatrice’s face during the moment he had
+looked at her, that was more than sympathy. In the shock of that great
+joy the veils had fallen, and her soul had looked out through her black
+tearful eyes.
+
+There was little doubt now as to what would happen. It was not for their
+sake alone, or for Ralph’s, that she had looked like that; she had not
+said one word, but he knew what was unspoken.
+
+As they passed under London Bridge he turned a little and looked across
+the boatman’s shoulder at the two as they sat there in the stern, and
+what he saw confirmed him. The old man had flung an arm along the back
+of the seat, and was leaning a little forward, talking in a low voice,
+his face showing indeed the lines and wrinkles that had deepened more
+than ever during these last weeks, but irradiated with an extraordinary
+joy. And the girl was beside him, smiling with downcast eyes, turning a
+quick look now and again as she sat there. Chris could see her scarlet
+lips trembling, and her hands clasped on her knee, shifting a little now
+and again as she listened. It was a strange wooing; the father courting
+for the son, and the woman answering the son through the father; and
+Chris understood what was the answer that she was giving.
+
+Nicholas was watching it too; and presently the two in the stern looked
+up suddenly; first Beatrice and then Sir James, and their eyes flashed
+joy across and across as the four souls met.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Five minutes later again they were at the Tower Stairs.
+
+Mr. Morris, who had been sent on by Mistress Jane Atherton when she had
+heard the news, was there holding his horse by the bridle; and behind
+him had collected a little crowd of idlers. He gave the bridle to one of
+them, and came down the steps to help them out of the boat.
+
+“You have heard?” said Chris as he stepped out last.
+
+“Yes, father,” said the servant.
+
+Chris looked at him; and his mask-like face too seemed strangely lighted
+up. There was still across his cheek the shadow of a mark as of an old
+whip-cut.
+
+As they passed up the steps they became aware that the little crowd that
+had waited at the top was only the detached fringe of a multitude that
+had assembled further up the slope. It stretched under the trees as far
+as they could see to right and left, from the outer wall of the Tower on
+the one side, to where the rising ground on the left was hidden under
+the thick foliage in the foreground. There was a murmur of talking and
+laughter, the ringing of hand-bells, the cracking of whips and the cries
+of children. The backs of the crowd were turned to the steps: there was
+plainly something going on higher up the slope, and it seemed somewhat
+away to the left.
+
+For a moment Chris did not understand, and he turned to Morris.
+
+“What is it?” he asked.
+
+“The scaffold,” said the servant tersely.
+
+At the same moment high above the murmur of the crowd came the sound of
+heavy resounding blows, as of wood on wood.
+
+Then Chris remembered; and for one moment he sickened as he walked. His
+father turned and looked over his shoulder as he went with Beatrice in
+front, and his eyes were eloquent.
+
+“I had forgotten,” said Chris softly. “God help him!”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They turned in towards the right almost immediately to the low outer
+gate of the fortress; and those for the first time remembered that the
+order they carried was for four only.
+
+Nicholas instantly offered to wait outside and let Morris go in. Morris
+flatly refused. There was a short consultation, and then Nicholas went
+up to the sentry on guard with the order in his hand.
+
+The man looked at it, glanced at the party, and then turned and knocked
+with his halberd on the great door behind, and in a minute or two an
+officer came out in his buff and feathers. He took the order and ran his
+eyes over it.
+
+Nicholas explained.
+
+The officer looked at him a moment without answering.
+
+“And the lady too?” he said.
+
+“Why, yes,” said Nicholas.
+
+“The lady wishes--” then he broke off. “You will have to see the
+Lieutenant,” he went on. “I can let you all through to his lodgings.”
+
+They passed in with a yeoman to conduct them under the low heavy
+vaulting and through to the open way beyond. On their right was the wall
+between them and the river, and on their left the enormous towers and
+battlements of the inner court.
+
+Chris walked with Morris behind, remembering the last time he was here
+with the Prior all those years before. They had walked silently then,
+too, but for another reason.
+
+They passed the low Traitor’s Gate on their right; Chris glanced at the
+green lapping water beneath it as he went--Ralph had landed there--and
+turned up the steep slope to the left under the gateway of the inner
+court; and in a minute or two more were at the door of the Lieutenant’s
+lodgings.
+
+There seemed a strange suggestiveness in the silence and order of the
+wide ward that lay before them. The great White Tower dominated the
+whole place on the further side, huge and menacing, pierced by its
+narrow windows set at wide intervals; on the left, the row of towers
+used as prisons diminished in perspective down to where the wall turned
+at right angles and ran in behind the keep; and the great space enclosed
+by the whole was almost empty. There were soldiers on guard here and
+there at the doorways; a servant hurried across the wide sunlit ground,
+and once, as they waited, a doctor in his short gown came out of one
+door and disappeared into another.
+
+And here they waited for an answer to their summons, silent and happy in
+their knowledge. The place held no terrors for them.
+
+The soldier knocked again impatiently, and again stood aside.
+
+Chris saw Nicholas sidle up to the man with something of the same awe on
+his face that had been there an hour ago.
+
+“My Lord--Master Cromwell?” he heard him whisper, correcting himself.
+
+The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
+
+“There,” he said.
+
+There were three soldiers, Chris noticed, standing at the foot of one of
+the Towers a little distance off. It was there, then, that Thomas
+Cromwell, wool-carder, waited for death, hearing, perhaps, from his
+window the murmur of the crowd beyond the moat, and the blows of mallet
+on wood as his scaffold went up.
+
+Then the door opened, and after a word or two the soldier motioned them
+in.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Again they had to wait.
+
+The Lieutenant, they were told, had been called away. He was expected
+back presently.
+
+They sat down, still in silence, in the little ground-floor parlour. It
+was a pleasant little room, with a wide hearth, and two windows looking
+on to the court.
+
+But the suspense was not like that of the morning. Now they knew how it
+must end. There would be a few minutes more, long perhaps to Ralph, as
+he sat in his cell somewhere not far from them, knowing nothing of the
+pardon that was on its way; and then the door would open, where day by
+day for the last six weeks the gaoler had come and gone; and the faces
+he knew would be there, and it would be from their lips that he would
+hear the message.
+
+The old man and the girl still sat together in the window-seat, silent
+now like the others. They had had their explanations in the boat, and
+each knew what was in the other’s heart. Chris and Nicholas stood by the
+hearth, Mr. Morris by the door; and there was not the tremor of a doubt
+in any of them as to what the future held.
+
+Chris looked tranquilly round the room, at the little square table in
+the centre, the four chairs drawn close to it, with their brocade
+panels stained and well-worn showing at the back, the dark ceiling, the
+piece of tapestry that hung over the side-table between the doors--it
+was a martial scene, faded and discoloured, with ghostly bare-legged
+knights on fat prancing horses all in inextricable conflict, a great
+battleaxe stood out against the dusky foliage of an autumn tree; and a
+stag with his fore feet in the air, ramped in the foreground, looking
+over his shoulder. It was a ludicrously bad piece of work, picked up no
+doubt by some former Lieutenant who knew more of military than artistic
+matters, and had hung there--how long? Chris wondered.
+
+He found himself criticising it detail by detail, comparing it with his
+own designs in the antiphonary; he had that antiphonary still at home;
+he had carried it off from Lewes, when Ralph--Ralph!--had turned him
+out. He had put it up into a parcel on the afternoon of the spoilers’
+arrival. He would show it to Ralph again now--in a day or two at
+Overfield; they would laugh over it together; and he would take it with
+him abroad, and perhaps finish it there. God’s work is not so easily
+hindered after all.
+
+But all the while, the wandering stream of his thought was lighted and
+penetrated by the radiant joy of his heart. It was all true, not a
+dream!
+
+He glanced again at the two in the window-seat.
+
+His father was looking out of the lattice; but Beatrice raised her eyes
+to his, and smiled at him.
+
+Sir James stood up.
+
+“The Lieutenant is coming,” he said.
+
+A moment later there were steps in the flagged passage; and a murmur of
+voices. The soldier who had brought them to the lodgings was waiting
+there with the order of admission, and was no doubt explaining the
+circumstances.
+
+Then the door opened suddenly; and a tall soldierly-looking man,
+grey-haired and clean-shaven, in an officer’s dress, stood there, with
+the order in his hand, as the two in the window-seat rose to meet him.
+
+“Master Torridon,” he said abruptly.
+
+Sir James stepped forward.
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“You have come to see Mr. Ralph Torridon whom we have here?”
+
+“Yes, sir--my son.”
+
+Nicholas stepped forward, and the Lieutenant nodded at him.
+
+“Yes, sir,” said the officer to him, “I could not admit you before--” he
+stopped, as if embarrassed, and turned to Beatrice.
+
+“And this lady too?”
+
+“Yes, Master Lieutenant,” said the old man.
+
+“But--but--I do not understand--”
+
+He looked at the radiant faces before him, and then dropped his eyes.
+
+“I suppose--you have not heard then?”
+
+Chris felt his heart leap, and then begin to throb furiously and
+insistently. What had happened? Why did the man look like that? Why did
+he not speak?
+
+The Lieutenant came a step forward and put his hand on the table. He was
+looking strangely from face to face.
+
+Outside the court was very still. The footstep that had passed on the
+flagstones a minute before had ceased; and there was no sound but the
+chirp of a bird under the eaves.
+
+“You have not heard then?” said the Lieutenant again.
+
+“Oh! for God’s sake--” cried the old man suddenly.
+
+“I have just come from your son,” said the other steadily. “You are only
+just in time. He is at the point of death.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE RELEASE
+
+
+It was morning, and they still sat in Ralph’s cell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The attendant had brought in stools and a tall chair with a broken back,
+and these were grouped round the low wooden bed; the old man in the
+chair on one side, from where he could look down on his son’s face, with
+Beatrice beside him, Chris and Nicholas on the other side. Mr. Morris
+was everywhere, sitting on a form by the door, in and out with food and
+medicine, at his old master’s bedside, lifting his pillow, turning him
+in bed, holding his convulsive hands.
+
+He had been ill six days, the Lieutenant told them. The doctor who had
+been called in from outside named the disease _phrenitis_. It was
+certain that he would not recover; and a message to that effect had been
+sent across on the morning before, with the usual reports to Greenwich.
+
+They had supped as they sat--silently--on what the gaoler brought; and
+had slept by turns in the tall chair, wakening at a sound from the bed;
+at the movement of the light across the floor as Morris slipped to and
+fro noiselessly; at the chirp of the birds and the noises of the
+stirring City as the daylight broadened on the wall, and the narrow
+window grew bright and luminous.
+
+And now the morning was high, and they were waiting for the end.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little table stood by the door, white-covered, with two candles,
+guttering now in their sockets, and a tall crucifix, ivory and black,
+lifting its arms in the midst. Before it stood two veiled vessels.
+
+“He will speak before he passes,” the doctor had told them the evening
+before; “I do not know whether he will be able to receive Viaticum.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris raised himself a little in his chair--he was stiff with leaning
+elbows on knees; and he stretched out his feet softly; looking down
+still at the bed.
+
+His brother lay with his back to him; the priest could see the black
+hair, longer than Court fashion allowed now, the brown sinewy neck
+beneath; and one arm outlined over his hip beneath the piled clothes.
+The fingers were moving a little, contracting and loosening, contracting
+and loosening; and he could hear the long slow breaths.
+
+Beyond sat Beatrice, upright and quiet, one hand in her lap, and the
+other holding the father’s. The old man was bowed with his head on his
+other hand, as he had been for the last hour, his back bent forward with
+the burden, and his feet crossed before him.
+
+From outside the noises grew louder as the morning advanced. There had
+been the sound of continual coming and going since it was light. Wheels
+had groaned and rattled up out of the distance and ceased abruptly; and
+the noise of hoofs had been like an endless patter over the
+stone-paving. And now, as the hours passed a murmur had been increasing,
+a strange sound like the wind in dry trees, as the huge crowd gathered.
+
+Beatrice raised her eyes suddenly.
+
+The fortress itself which had been quiet till now seemed to awaken
+abruptly.
+
+The sound seemed to come to them up the stairs, but they had learnt
+during those hours that all sounds from within came that way. There was
+a trumpet-note or two, short and brazen; a tramp of feet for a moment,
+the throb of drums; then silence again; then the noise of moving
+footsteps that came and went in an instant. And as the sound came, Ralph
+stirred.
+
+He swayed slowly over on to his back; his breath came in little groans
+that died to silence again as he subsided, and his arm drew out and lay
+on the bedclothes. Chris could see his face now in sharp profile against
+Beatrice’s dark skirt, white and sharp; the skin was tightly stretched
+over the nose and cheekbones, his long thin lips were slightly open,
+there was a painful frown on his forehead, and his eyes squinted
+terribly at the ceiling.
+
+A contraction seized the priest’s throat as he watched; the face was at
+once so august and so pitiable.
+
+The lips began to move again, as they had moved during the night; it
+seemed as if the dying man were talking and listening. The eyelids
+twitched a little; and once he made a movement as if to rise up. Chris
+was down on his knees in a moment, holding him tenderly down; he felt
+the thin hands come up and fumble with his own, and noticed lines deepen
+between the flickering eyelids. Then the hands lay quiet.
+
+Chris lifted his eyes and saw his father’s face and Beatrice’s watching.
+Something of the augustness of the dying man seemed to rest on the grey
+bearded lips and solemn eyes that looked down. Beatrice’s face was
+steady and tender, and as the priest’s eyes met hers, she nodded.
+
+“Yes, speak to him,” she said.
+
+Chris threw a hand across the bed and rested it on the wooden frame, and
+then lowered himself softly till his mouth was at the other’s ear.
+
+“Ralph,” he said, “Ralph, do you hear me?”
+
+Then he raised his face a little and watched.
+
+The eyelids were rising slowly; but they dropped again; and there came a
+little faint babbling from the writhing lips; but no words were
+intelligible. Then they were silent.
+
+“He hears,” said Beatrice softly.
+
+The priest bent low again; and as he did so, from outside came a strange
+sound, as of a long monstrous groan from a thousand throats. Again the
+dying man stirred; his hand sought his brother’s arm and gripped it with
+a kind of feeble strength; then dropped again on to the coverlet.
+
+Chris hesitated a moment, and again glanced up; and as he did so, there
+was a sound on the stairs. He threw himself back on his heels and looked
+round, as the doctor came in with Morris behind him.
+
+He was a stout ruddy man, and moved heavily across the floor; but Ralph
+seemed not to hear it.
+
+The doctor came to the end of the bed, and stood staring down at the
+dying man’s face, frowning and pursing his lips; Chris watched him
+intently for some sign. Then he came round by Beatrice, leaned over the
+bed, and took Ralph’s wrist softly into his fingers. He suddenly seemed
+to remember himself, and turned his face abruptly over his shoulder to
+Sir James.
+
+“There is a man come from the palace,” he whispered harshly. “I suppose
+it is the pardon.” And Chris saw him arch his eyebrows and purse his
+lips again. Then he bent over Ralph once more.
+
+Then again the doctor jerked his head towards the window behind and
+spoke across to Chris.
+
+“They have him out there,” he said; “Master Cromwell, I mean.”
+
+Then he rose abruptly.
+
+“He cannot receive Viaticum; and he will not be able to make his
+confession. I should shrive him at once, sir, and anoint him.”
+
+“At once?” whispered Chris.
+
+“The sooner the better,” said the doctor; “there is no telling.”
+
+Chris rose swiftly from his knees, and made a sharp sign to Morris. Then
+he sank down once more, looking round, and lifted the purple stole from
+the floor where he had laid it the evening before; and even as he did so
+his soul revolted.
+
+He looked up at Beatrice. Would not she understand the unchivalry of the
+act? But the will in her eyes compelled him.--Yes, yes! Who could set a
+limit to mercy?
+
+He slipped the strip over his shoulders, and again bent down over his
+brother, with one arm across the motionless body. Beatrice and Sir James
+were on their knees by now. Nicholas was busy with Morris at the further
+end of the room. The doctor was gone.
+
+There was a profound silence now outside as the priest bent lower and
+lower till his lips almost touched the ear of the dying man; and every
+word of the broken abrupt sentences was audible to all in the room.
+
+“Ralph--Ralph--dear brother. You are at the point of death. I must
+shrive you. You have sinned very deeply against God and man. I shall
+anoint you afterwards. Make an act of sorrow in your heart for all your
+sins; it will stand for confession. Think of Jesu’s love, and of His
+death on the bitter cross--the wounds that He bore for us in love. Give
+me a sign if you can that you repent.”
+
+Chris spoke rapidly, and leaned back a moment. Now he was terrified of
+waiting--he did not know how long it would be; but for an intent instant
+he stared down on the shadowed face.
+
+Again the eyelids flickered; the lips formed words, and ceased again.
+
+The priest glanced up, scarcely knowing why; and then again lowered
+himself that if it were possible Ralph might hear.
+
+Then he spoke, with a tense internal effort as if to drive the grace
+home....
+
+“_Ego te absolvo ab omnibus censuris et peccatis, in nomine Patris_--”
+He raised himself a little and lifted his hand, moving it sideways
+across and down as he ended--“_et Filii et Spiritus Sancti_.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The priest rose up once more, his duty driving his emotion down; he did
+not dare to look across at the two figures beyond the bed, or even to
+question himself again as to what he was doing.
+
+The two men at the further end of the room were waiting now; they had
+lifted the candles and crucifix off the table, and set them on the bench
+by the side.
+
+Chris went swiftly across the room, dropped on one knee, rose again,
+lifted the veiled vessel that stood in the centre, with the little linen
+cloth beneath, and set it all down on the bench. He knelt again, went a
+step aside back to the table, lifted the other vessel, and signed with
+his head.
+
+The two men grasped the ends of the table, and carried it across the
+floor to the end of the bed. Chris followed and set down the sacred oils
+upon it.
+
+“The cross and one candle,” he whispered sharply.
+
+A minute later he was standing by the bed once more.
+
+“_Oremus_--” he began, reading rapidly off the book that Beatrice held
+steadily beneath his eyes.
+
+“_Almighty Everlasting God, Who through blessed James Thy Apostle, hast
+spoken, saying, Is any sick among you, let him call the priests of the
+Church_--” (The lips of the dying man were moving again at the sound of
+the words; was it in protest or in faith?)--“... _that what is done
+without through our ministry, may be wrought within spiritually by Thy
+divine power, and invisibly by Thy healing; through our Lord Jesus
+Christ. Amen._”
+
+The lips were moving faster than ever on the pillow; the head was
+beginning to turn from side to side, and the mouth lay open.
+
+“_Usquequo, Domine_” ... began Beatrice.
+
+Chris dipped his thumb in the vessel, and sank swiftly on to his knees.
+
+“_Per istam sanctam Unctionem_”--“_through this holy unction_....”
+
+(The old man leaned suddenly forward on to his knees, and steadied that
+rolling head in his two hands; and Chris signed firmly on the eyelids,
+pressing them down and feeling the fluttering beneath his thumb as he
+did so.)
+
+“... _And His most loving mercy, may the Lord forgive thee whatsoever
+thou hast sinned through sight._”
+
+Ah! that was done--dear God! those eyes that had drooped and sneered,
+that had looked so greedily on treasure--their lids shone now with the
+loving-kindness of God.
+
+Chris snatched a morsel of wool that Morris put forward from behind,
+wiped the eyelids, and dropped the fragment into the earthen basin at
+his side.
+
+“_Per istam sanctam Unctionem_....”
+
+And the ears were anointed--the ears that had listened to Layton’s
+filth, to Cromwell’s plotting; and to the cries of the oppressed.
+
+The nostrils; the lips that had lied and stormed and accused against
+God’s people, compressed now in his father’s fingers--they seemed to
+sneer even now, and to writhe under the soft oil; the hands that had
+been laid on God’s portion, that had torn the vessels from the altar and
+the cloth of gold from the treasury--those too were signed now, and lay
+twitching on the coverlet.
+
+The bed clothes at the foot of the wooden framework were lifted and laid
+back as Chris passed round to the end, and the long feet, icy cold, were
+lying exposed side by side.
+
+_Per Istam sanctam Unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat
+tibi Domimus quidquid peccasti per incessum pedum. Amen._
+
+Then they too were sealed with pardon, the feet that had been so swift
+and unwearied in the war with God, that had trodden the sanctuary in His
+despite, and trampled down the hearts of His saints--they too were
+signed now with the mark of Redemption and lay again under the folded
+coverlet at the end of their last journey.
+
+A convulsion tore at the priest’s heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then suddenly in the profound silence outside there broke out an
+indescribable clamour, drowning in an instant the murmur of prayers
+within. It seemed as if the whole world of men were there, and roaring.
+The sound poured up through the window, across the moat; the boards of
+the flooring vibrated with the sound. There was the throb of drums
+pulsating through the long-drawn yell, the screams of women, the barking
+of dogs; and a moment later, like some devilish benediction, the bells
+of Barking Church pealed out, mellow and jangling, in an exultation of
+blood.
+
+Ralph struggled in his bed; his hands rose clutching at his throat,
+tearing open his shirt before Beatrice’s fingers could reach them. The
+breath came swift and hoarse through his open teeth, and his eyelids
+flickered furiously. Then they opened, and his face grew quiet, as he
+looked out across the room.
+
+“My--my Lord!” he said.
+
+THE END.
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 16375 ***
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+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 16375 ***</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>THE KING’S ACHIEVEMENT</h1>
+
+<p class="center p2">By <span class="big">Robert Hugh Benson</span><br>Author of “By What Authority?” “The Light Invisible,”
+“A Book of the Love of Jesus,” etc.</p>
+
+<p class="center p2"><i>Non minus principi turpia sunt multa supplicia, quam medico multa
+funera.</i><br>(Sen. de clem. 1, 24, 1.)</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><i>I must express my gratitude once more to the Rev. Dom Bede Camm,
+O.S.B., as well as to the Very Rev. Mgr. Barnes, who have done me great
+service in revising proofs and making suggestions; to the Rev. E.
+Conybeare, who very kindly provided the coins for the cover-design of
+the book; to my mother and sister, to Eustace Virgo, Esq., to Dr.
+Ross-Todd, and to others, who have been extremely kind in various ways
+during the writing of this book in the summer and autumn of 1904.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I must also express my great indebtedness to the Right Rev. Abbot
+Gasquet, O.S.B., both on account of his invaluable books, which I have
+used freely, and for his personal kindness in answering my questions.</i></p>
+
+<p class="right">ROBERT HUGH BENSON</p>
+
+<p><i>The Catholic Rectory,
+Cambridge,
+July 14, 1905.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr><td class="tdc">BOOK I.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">THE KING’S WILL.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdr">CHAPTER</td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.&nbsp; A DECISION</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.&nbsp; A FORETASTE OF PEACE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.&nbsp; THE ARRIVAL AT LEWES</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.&nbsp; A COMMISSION</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.&nbsp; MASTER MORE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.&nbsp; RALPH’S INTERCESSION</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.&nbsp; A MERRY PRISONER</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.  A HIGHER STEP</a></td></tr><tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.&nbsp; LIFE AT LEWES</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.&nbsp; THE ARENA</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.&nbsp; A CLOSING-IN</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.&nbsp; A RECOVERY</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.  PRISONER AND PRINCE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.&nbsp; THE SACRED PURPLE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.&nbsp; THE KING’S FRIEND</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">BOOK II.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">THE KING’S TRIUMPH.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">PART I.—THE SMALLER HOUSES.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_2I">I.&nbsp; AN ACT OF FAITH</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_2II">II.&nbsp; THE BEGINNING OF THE VISITATION</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_2III">III.&nbsp; A HOUSE OF LADIES</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_2IV">IV.&nbsp; AN UNEXPECTED MEETING</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_2V">V.&nbsp; FATHER AND SON</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_2VI">VI.&nbsp; A NUN’S DEFIANCE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_2VII">VII. ST. PANCRAS PRIORY</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_2VIII">VIII. RALPH’S RETURN</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_2IX">IX. RALPH’S WELCOME</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">PART II—THE FALL OF LEWES.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_3I">I. INTERNAL DISSENSION</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_3II">II. SACERDOS IN AETERNUM</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_3III">III. THE NORTHERN RISING</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_3IV">IV. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SEAL</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_3V">V. THE SINKING SHIP</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_3VI">VI. THE LAST STAND</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_3VII">VII. AXES AND HAMMERS</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">BOOK III.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tdc">THE KING’S GRATITUDE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_4I">I. A SCHEME</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_4II">II. A DUEL</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_4III">III. A PEACE-MAKER</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_4IV">IV. THE ELDER SON</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_4V">V. THE MUMMERS</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_4VI">VI. A CATASTROPHE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_4VII">VII. A QUESTION OF LOYALTY</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_4VIII">VIII. TO CHARING</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_4IX">IX. A RELIEF-PARTY</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_4X">X. PLACENTIA</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_4XI">XI. THE KING’S HIGHNESS</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_4XII">XII. THE TIDINGS AT THE TOWER</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_4XIII">XIII. THE RELEASE</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center big">BENEFICO—IGNOTO<br>
+HVNC—LIBRVM<br>
+D.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center xbig">THE KING’S ACHIEVEMENT</p>
+</div>
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br><span class="small">A DECISION</span></h2>
+
+
+
+<p>Overfield Court lay basking in warm June sunshine. The western side of
+the great house with its new timber and plaster faced the evening sun
+across the square lawns and high terrace; and the woods a couple of
+hundred yards away cast long shadows over the gardens that lay beyond
+the moat. The lawns, in their broad plateaux on the eastern side
+descended by steps, in cool shadow to the lake that formed a
+quarter-circle below the south-eastern angle of the house; and the
+mirrored trees and reeds on the other side were broken, circle after
+circle, by the great trout that were rising for their evening meal. The
+tall front of the house on the north, formed by the hall in the centre
+with the kitchen at its eastern end and the master’s chamber on the
+western, was faced by a square-towered gatehouse through which the
+straight drive leading into the main road approached the house under a
+lime-avenue; and on the south side the ground fell away again rapidly
+below the chapel and the morning-room, in copse and garden and wild
+meadow bright with buttercups and ox-eye daisies, down to the lake again
+and the moat that ran out of it round the entire domain.</p>
+
+<p>The cobbled courtyard in the centre of the house, where the tall leaded
+pump stood, was full of movement. Half a dozen trunks lay there that
+had just been carried in from the luggage-horses that were now being led
+away with patient hanging heads towards the stables that stood outside
+the gatehouse on the right, and three or four dusty men in livery were
+talking to the house-servants who had come out of their quarters on the
+left. From the kitchen corner came a clamour of tongues and dishes, and
+smoke was rising steadily from the huge outside chimney that rose beyond
+the roofs.</p>
+
+<p>Presently there came clear and distinct from the direction of the
+village the throb of hoofs on the hard road; and the men shouldered the
+trunks, and disappeared, staggering, under the low archway on the right,
+beside which the lamp extinguisher hung, grimy with smoke and grease.
+The yard dog came out at the sound of the hoofs, dragging his chain
+after him, from his kennel beneath the little cloister outside the
+chapel, barked solemnly once or twice, and having done his duty lay down
+on the cool stones, head on paws, watching with bright eyes the door
+that led from the hall into the Court. A moment later the little door
+from the masters chamber opened; and Sir James Torridon came out and,
+giving a glance at the disappearing servants, said a word or two to the
+others, and turned again through the hall to meet his sons.</p>
+
+<p>The coach was coming up the drive round toward the gatehouse, as he came
+out on the wide paved terrace; and he stood watching the glitter of
+brasswork through the dust, the four plumed cantering horses in front,
+and the bobbing heads of the men that rode behind; and there was a grave
+pleased expectancy on his bearded face and in his bright grey eyes as he
+looked. His two sons had met at Begham, and were coming home, Ralph from
+town sites a six months’ absence, and Christopher from Canterbury,
+where he had been spending a week or two in company with Mr. Carleton,
+the chaplain of the Court. He was the more pleased as the house had been
+rather lonely in their absence, since the two daughters were both from
+home, Mary with her husband, Sir Nicholas Maxwell, over at Great Keynes,
+and Margaret at her convent education at Rusper: and he himself had had
+for company his wife alone.</p>
+
+<p>She came out presently as the carriage rolled through the archway, a
+tall dignified figure of a woman, finely dressed in purple and black,
+and stood by him, silently, a yard or two away, watching the carriage
+out of steady black eyes. A moment later the carriage drew up at the
+steps, and a couple of servants ran down to open the door.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph stepped out first, a tall man like both his parents, with a face
+and slow gait extraordinarily like his mother’s, and dressed in the same
+kind of rich splendour, with a short silver-clasped travelling cloak,
+crimson hose, and plumed felt cap; and his face with its pointed black
+beard had something of the same steady impassivity in it; he was
+flicking the dust from his shoulder as he came up the steps on to the
+terrace.</p>
+
+<p>Christopher followed him, not quite so tall as the other, and a good ten
+years younger, with the grey eyes of his father, and a little brown
+beard beginning to sprout on his cheeks and chin.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph turned at the top of the steps</p>
+
+<p>“The bag,” he said shortly; and then turned again to kiss his parents’
+hands; as Christopher went back to the carriage, from which the priest
+was just stepping out. Sir James asked his son about the journey.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes,” he said; and then added, “Christopher was late at Begham.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you are well, my son?” asked his mother, as they turned to walk up
+to the house.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes!” he said again.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James waited for Christopher and Mr. Carleton, and the three
+followed the others a few yards behind.</p>
+
+<p>“You saw her?” said his father.</p>
+
+<p>Christopher nodded.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he said, “I must speak to you, sir, before I tell the others.”</p>
+
+<p>“Come to me when you are dressed, then. Supper will be in an hour from
+now;” and he looked at his son with a kind of sharp expectancy.</p>
+
+<p>The courtyard was empty as they passed through, but half a dozen
+servants stood crowded in the little flagged passage that led from it
+into the kitchen, and watched Ralph and his mother with an awed interest
+as they came out from the hall. Mr. Ralph had come down from the heart
+of life, as they knew; had been present at the crowning of Anne Boleyn a
+week before, had mixed with great folks; and what secrets of State might
+there not be in that little strapped bag that his brother carried behind
+him?</p>
+
+<p>When the two first had disappeared, the servants broke into talk, and
+went back to the kitchen.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Lady Torridon, with her elder son and the chaplain, had to wait a few
+minutes on the dais in the hall an hour later, before the door under the
+musicians’ gallery opened, and the other two came in from the master’s
+chamber. Sir James looked a little anxious as he came across the clean
+strewed rushes, past the table at the lower end where the household sat,
+but Christopher’s face was bright with excitement. After a word or two
+of apology they moved to their places. Mr. Carleton said grace, and as
+they sat down the door behind from the kitchen opened, and the servants
+came through with the pewter dishes.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was very silent at first; his mother sat by him almost as silent
+as himself; the servants sprang about noiseless and eager to wait on
+him; and Sir James and the chaplain did most of the conversation,
+pleasant harmless talk about the estate and the tenants; but as supper
+went on, and the weariness of the hot journey faded, and the talk from
+the lower tables grew louder, Ralph began to talk a little more freely.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he said, “the crowning went well enough. The people were quiet
+enough. She looked very pretty in her robes; she was in purple velvet,
+and her gentlemen in scarlet. We shall have news of her soon.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James looked up sharply at his son. They were all listening
+intently; and even a servant behind Ralph’s chair paused with a silver
+jug.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said Ralph again with a tranquil air, setting down his Venetian
+glass; “God has blessed the union already.”</p>
+
+<p>“And the King?” asked his father, from his black velvet chair in the
+centre.</p>
+
+<p>There fell a deeper silence yet as that name was mentioned. Henry
+dominated the imagination of his subjects to an extraordinary degree, no
+less in his heavy middle-age than in the magnificent strength and
+capacity of his youth.</p>
+
+<p>But Ralph answered carelessly enough. He had seen the King too often.</p>
+
+<p>“The King looked pleased enough; he was in his throne. He is stouter
+than when I saw him last. My Lord of Canterbury did the crowning; Te
+Deum was sung after, and then solemn mass. There was a dozen abbots, I
+should think, and my Lords of York and London and Winchester with two or
+three more. My Lord of Suffolk bore the crown.”</p>
+
+<p>“And the procession?” asked his father again.</p>
+
+<p>“That, too, was well enough. There came four chariots after the Queen,
+full of ancient old ladies, at which some of the folks laughed. And then
+the rest of them.”</p>
+
+<p>They talked a few minutes about the coronation, Sir James asking most of
+the questions and Ralph answering shortly; and presently Christopher
+broke in—</p>
+
+<p>“And the Lady Katharine—” he began.</p>
+
+<p>“Hush, my son,” said his father, glancing at Ralph, who sat perfectly
+still a moment before answering.</p>
+
+<p>“Chris is always eager about the wrong thing,” he said evenly; “he is
+late at Begham, and then asks me about the Princess Dowager. She is
+still alive, if you mean that.”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon looked from one to the other.</p>
+
+<p>“And Master Cromwell?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Master Cromwell is well enough. He asked me to give you both his
+respects. I left him at Hackney.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The tall southern windows of the hall, above the pargetted plaster, had
+faded through glowing ruby and blue to dusk before they rose from the
+table and went down and through the passage into the little parlour next
+the master’s chamber, where they usually took their dessert. This part
+of the house had been lately re-built, but the old woodwork had been
+re-used, and the pale oak panels, each crowned by an elaborate foliated
+head, gave back the pleasant flicker of the fire that burned between the
+polished sheets of Flemish tiles on either side of the hearth. A great
+globe stood in the corner furthest from the door, with a map of England
+hanging above it. A piece of tapestry hung over the mantelpiece,
+representing Diana bending over Endymion, and two tall candles in brass
+stands burned beneath. The floor was covered with rushes.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carleton, who had come with them as far as the door, according to
+custom, was on the point of saying-good-night, when Sir James called him
+back.</p>
+
+<p>“Come in, father,” he said, “we want you to-night. Chris has something
+to tell us.”</p>
+
+<p>The priest came in and sat down with the others, his face in shadow, at
+the corner of the hearth.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James looked across at his younger son and nodded; and Chris, his
+chin on his hand, and sitting very upright on the long-backed settle
+beside the chaplain, began rather nervously and abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>“I—I have told Ralph,” he said, “on the way here and you, sir; but I
+will tell you again. You know I was questioning whether I had a vocation
+to the religious life; and I went, with that in my mind, to see the Holy
+Maid. We saw her, Mr. Carleton and I; and—and I have made up my mind I
+must go.”</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, hesitating a little, Ralph and his mother sat perfectly
+still, without a word or sign of either sympathy or disapproval. His
+father leaned forward a little, and smiled encouragingly.</p>
+
+<p>“Go on, my son.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris drew a breath and leaned back more easily.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, we went to St. Sepulchre’s; and she could not see us for a day or
+two. There were several others staying with us at the monastery; there
+was a Carthusian from Sheen—I forget his name.”</p>
+
+<p>“Henry Man,” put in the chaplain.</p>
+
+<p>“—And some others,” went on Chris, “all waiting to see her. Dr. Bocking
+promised to tell us when we could see her; and he came to us one morning
+after mass, and told us that she was in ecstasy, and that we were to
+come at once. So we all went to the nuns’ chapel, and there she was on
+her knees, with her arms across her breast.”</p>
+
+<p>He stopped again. Ralph cleared his throat, crossed his legs, and drank
+a little wine.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes?” said the knight questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>“Well—she said a great deal,” went on Chris hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>“About the King?” put in his mother who was looking at the fire.</p>
+
+<p>“A little about the King,” said Chris, “and about holy things as well.
+She spoke about heaven; it was wonderful to hear her; with her eyes
+burning, and such a voice; and then she spoke low and deep and told us
+about hell, and the devil and his torments; and I could hardly bear to
+listen; and she told us about shrift, and what it did for the soul; and
+the blessed sacrament. The Carthusian put a question or two to her, and
+she answered them: and all the while she was speaking her voice seemed
+to come from her body, and not from her mouth; and it was terrible to
+see her when she spoke of hell; her tongue lay out on her cheek, and her
+eyes grew little and afraid.”</p>
+
+<p>“Her tongue in her cheek, did you say?” asked Ralph politely, without
+moving.</p>
+
+<p>Chris flushed, and sat back silent. His father glanced quickly from one
+to the other.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell us more, Chris,” he said. “What did she say to you?”</p>
+
+<p>The young man leaned forward again.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish, Ralph—” he began.</p>
+
+<p>“I was asking—” began the other.</p>
+
+<p>“There, there,” said Sir James. “Go on, Chris.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, after a while Dr. Bocking brought me forward; and told her to
+look at me; and her eyes seemed to see something beyond me; and I was
+afraid. But he told me to ask her, and I did. She said nothing for a
+while; and then she began to speak of a great church, as if she saw it;
+and she saw there was a tower in the middle, and chapels on either side,
+and tombs beside the high altar; and an image, and then she stopped, and
+cried out aloud ‘Saint Pancras pray for us’—and then I knew.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris was trembling violently with excitement as he turned to the priest
+for corroboration. Mr. Carleton nodded once or twice without speaking.</p>
+
+<p>“Then I knew,” went on Chris. “You know it was what I had in my mind;
+and I had not spoken a word of Lewes, or of my thought of going there.”</p>
+
+<p>“Had you told any?” asked his father.</p>
+
+<p>“Only Dr. Bocking. Then I asked her, was I to go there; but she said
+nothing for a while; and her eyes wandered about; and she began to speak
+of black monks going this way and that; and she spoke of a prior, and of
+his ring; it was of gold, she said, with figures engraved on it. You
+know the ring the Prior wears?” he added, looking eagerly at his father.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James nodded.</p>
+
+<p>“I know it,” he said. “Well?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I asked her again, was I to go there; and then she looked at me
+up and down; I was in my travelling suit; but she said she saw my cowl
+and its hanging sleeves, and an antiphoner in my hands; and then her
+face grew dreadful and afraid again, and she cried out and fell forward;
+and Dr. Bocking led us out from the chapel.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence as Chris ended and leaned back again, taking
+up a bunch of raisins. Ralph sighed once as if wearied out, and his
+mother put her hand on his sleeve. Then at last Sir James spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“You have heard the story,” he said, and then paused; but there was no
+answer. At last the chaplain spoke from his place.</p>
+
+<p>“It is all as Chris said,” he began, “I was there and heard it. If the
+woman is not from God, she is one of Satan’s own; and it is hard to
+think that Satan would tell us of the sacraments and bid us use them
+greedily, and if she is from God—” he stopped again.</p>
+
+<p>The knight nodded at him.</p>
+
+<p>“And you, sweetheart?” he said to his wife.</p>
+
+<p>She turned to him slowly.</p>
+
+<p>“You know what I think,” she said. “If Chris believes it, he must go, I
+suppose.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you, Ralph?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph raised himself in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you wish me to say what I think?” he asked deliberately, “or what
+Chris wishes me to say? I will do either.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris made a quick movement of his head; but his father answered for
+him.</p>
+
+<p>“We wish you to say what you think,” he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, then,” said Ralph, “it is this. I cannot agree with the father. I
+think the woman is neither of God nor Satan; but that she speaks of her
+own heart, and of Dr. Bocking’s. I believe they are a couple of
+knaves—clever knaves, I will grant, though perhaps the woman is
+something of a fool too; for she deceives persons as wise even as Mr.
+Carleton here by speaking of shrift and the like; and so she does the
+priests’ will, and hopes to get gain for them and herself. I am not
+alone in thinking this—there are many in town who think with me, and
+holy persons too.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is Master Cromwell one of them?” put in Chris bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph raised his eyebrows a little.</p>
+
+<p>“There is no use in sneering,” he said, “but Master Cromwell is one of
+them. I suppose I ought not to speak of this; but I know you will not
+speak of it again; and I can tell you of my own knowledge that the Holy
+Maid will not be at St. Sepulchre’s much longer.”</p>
+
+<p>His father leaned forward.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you mean—” he began.</p>
+
+<p>“I mean that His Grace is weary of her prophesyings. It was all very
+well till she began to meddle with matters of State; but His Grace will
+have none of that. I can tell you no more. On the other hand if Chris
+thinks he must be a monk, well and good; I do not think so myself; but
+that is not my affair; but I hope he will not be a monk only because a
+knavish woman has put out her tongue at him, and repeated what a knavish
+priest has put into her mouth. But I suppose he had made up his mind
+before he asked me.”</p>
+
+<p>“He has made up his mind,” said his father, “and will hold to it unless
+reason is shown to the contrary; and for myself I think he is right.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very well, then,” said Ralph; and leaned back once more.</p>
+
+<p>The minutes passed away in silence for a while; and then Ralph asked a
+question or two about his sisters.</p>
+
+<p>“Mary is coming over to hunt to-morrow with her husband,” said Sir
+James. “I have told Forrest to be here by nine o’clock. Shall you come
+with us?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph yawned, and sipped his Bordeaux.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not know,” he said, “I suppose so.”</p>
+
+<p>“And Margaret is at Rusper still,” went on the other. “She will not be
+here until August.”</p>
+
+<p>“She, too, is thinking of Religion,” put in Lady Torridon impassively.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph looked up lazily.</p>
+
+<p>“Indeed,” he said, “then Mary and I will be the only worldlings.”</p>
+
+<p>“She is very happy with the nuns,” said his father, smiling, “and a
+worldling can be no more than that; and perhaps not always as much.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph smiled with one corner of his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>“You are quite right, sir,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The bell for evening prayers sounded out presently from the turret in
+the chapel-corner, and the chaplain rose and went out.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you forgive me, sir,” said Ralph, “if I do not come this evening?
+I am worn out with travelling. The stay at Begham was very troublesome.”</p>
+
+<p>“Good-night, then, my son. I will send Morris to you immediately.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, after prayers,” said Ralph. “I need not deprive God of his prayers
+too.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Lady Torridon had gone out silently after the chaplain, and Sir James
+and Chris walked across the Court together. Overhead the summer night
+sky was clear and luminous with stars, and the air still and fragrant.
+There were a few lights here and there round the Court, and the tall
+chapel windows shone dimly above the little cloister. A link flared
+steadily on its iron bracket by the door into the hall, and threw waves
+of flickering ruddy light across the cobble-stones, and the shadow of
+the tall pump wavered on the further side.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James put his hand tenderly on Chris’ shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>“You must not be angry at Ralph, my son,” he said. “Remember he does not
+understand.”</p>
+
+<p>“He should not speak like that,” said Chris fiercely. “How dare he do
+so?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course he should not; but he does not know that. He thinks he is
+advising you well. You must let him alone, Chris. You must remember he
+is almost mad with business. Master Cromwell works him hard.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The chapel was but dimly lighted as Chris made his way up to the high
+gallery at the west where he usually knelt. The altar glimmered in the
+dusk at the further end, and only a couple of candles burned on the
+priest’s kneeling stool on the south side. The rest was dark, for the
+house hold knew compline by heart; and even before Chris reached his
+seat he heard the blessing asked for a quiet night and a perfect end. It
+was very soothing to him as he leaned over the oak rail and looked down
+on the dim figures of his parents in their seat at the front, and the
+heads of the servants below, and listened to the quiet pulsation of
+those waves of prayer going to and fro in the dusk, beating, as a summer
+tide at the foot of a cliff against those white steps that rose up to
+the altar where a single spark winked against the leaded window beneath
+the silk-shrouded pyx. He had come home full of excitement and joy at
+his first sight of an ecstatic, and at the message that she had seemed
+to have for him, and across these heightened perceptions had jarred the
+impatience of his brother in the inn at Begham and in the carriage on
+their way home, and above all his sharp criticism and aloofness in the
+parlour just now. But he became quieter as he knelt now; the bitterness
+seemed to sink beneath him and to leave him alone in a world of
+peaceful glory—the world of mystic life to which his face was now set,
+illuminated by the words of the nun. He had seen one who could see
+further than he himself; he had looked upon eyes that were fixed on
+mysteries and realms in which he indeed passionately believed, but which
+were apt to be faint and formless sometimes to the weary eyes of faith
+alone; and as a proof that these were more than fancies she had told him
+too of what he could verify—of the priory at Lewes which she had never
+visited, and even the details of the ring on the Prior’s finger which he
+alone of the two had seen. And then lastly she had encouraged him in his
+desires, had seen him with those same wide eyes in the habit that he
+longed to wear, going about the psalmody—the great <i>Opus Dei</i>—to which
+he longed to consecrate his life. If such were not a message from God to
+him for what further revelation could he hope?</p>
+
+<p>And as for Ralph’s news and interests, of what value were they? Of what
+importance was it to ask who sat on the Consort’s throne, or whether she
+wore purple velvet or red? These were little matters compared with those
+high affairs of the soul and the Eternal God, of which he was already
+beginning to catch glimpses, and even the whispers that ran about the
+country places and of which Ralph no doubt could tell him much if he
+chose, of the danger that threatened the religious houses, and of
+Henry’s intentions towards them—even these were but impotent cries of
+the people raging round the throne of the Anointed.</p>
+
+<p>So he knelt here now, pacified and content again, and thought with
+something of pity of his brother dozing now no doubt before the parlour
+fire, cramped by his poor ideals and dismally happy in his limitations.</p>
+
+<p>His father, too, was content down below in the chapel. He himself had
+at one time before his marriage looked towards the religious life; and
+now that it had turned out otherwise had desired nothing more than that
+he should be represented in that inner world of God’s favourites by at
+least one of his children. His daughter Margaret had written a week
+earlier to say that her mind was turning that way, and now Christopher’s
+decision had filled up the cup of his desires. To have a priest for a
+son, and above all one who was a monk as well was more than he had dared
+to hope, though not to pray for; if he could not be one himself, at
+least he had begotten one—one who would represent him before God, bring
+a blessing on the house, and pray and offer sacrifice for his soul until
+his time should be run out and he see God face to face. And Ralph would
+represent him before men and carry on the line, and hand on the house to
+a third generation—Ralph, at whom he had felt so sorely puzzled of
+late, for he seemed full of objects and ambitions for which the father
+had very little sympathy, and to have lost almost entirely that delicate
+relation with home that was at once so indefinable and so real. But he
+comforted himself by the thought that his elder son was not wholly
+wasting time as so many of the country squires were doing round about,
+absorbed in work that a brainless yeoman could do with better success.
+Ralph at least was occupied with grave matters, in Cromwell’s service
+and the King’s, and entrusted with high secrets the issue of which both
+temporal and eternal it was hard to predict. And, no doubt, the knight
+thought, in time he would come back and pick up the strands he had
+dropped; for when a man had wife and children of his own to care for,
+other businesses must seem secondary; and questions that could be
+ignored before must be faced then.</p>
+
+<p>But he thought with a little anxiety of his wife, and wondered whether
+his elder son had not after all inherited that kind of dry rot of the
+soul, in which the sap and vigour disappear little by little, leaving
+the shape indeed intact but not the powers. When he had married her,
+thirty-five years before, she had seemed to him an incarnate mystery of
+whose key he was taking possession—her silence had seemed pregnant with
+knowledge, and her words precious pieces from an immeasurable treasury;
+and then little by little he had found that the wide treasury was empty,
+clean indeed and capacious, but no more, and above all with no promise
+of any riches as yet unperceived. Those great black eyes, that high
+forehead, those stately movements, meant nothing; it was a splendid
+figure with no soul within. She did her duty admirably, she said her
+prayers, she entertained her guests with the proper conversation, she
+could be trusted to behave well in any circumstances that called for
+tact or strength; and that was all. But Ralph would not be like that; he
+was intensely devoted to his work, and from all accounts able in its
+performance; and more than that, with all his impassivity he was capable
+of passion; for his employer Sir Thomas Cromwell was to Ralph’s eyes,
+his father had begun to see, something almost more than human. A word
+against that master of his would set his eyes blazing and his voice
+trembling; and this showed that at least the soul was not more than
+sleeping, or its powers more than misdirected.</p>
+
+<p>And meanwhile there was Chris; and at the thought the father lifted his
+eyes to the gallery, and saw the faint outline of his son’s brown head
+against the whitewash.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br><span class="small">A FORETASTE OF PEACE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p>It was not until the party was riding home the next day that Sir
+Nicholas Maxwell and his wife were informed of Chris’ decision.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>They had had a fair day’s sport in the two estates that marched with one
+another between Overfield and Great Keynes, and about fifteen stags had
+been killed as well as a quantity of smaller game.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph had ridden out after the party had left, and had found Sir
+Nicholas at the close of the afternoon just as the last drive was about
+to take place; and had stepped into his shelter to watch the finish. It
+was a still, hot afternoon, and the air over the open space between the
+copse in which they stood and the dense forest eighty yards away danced
+in the heat.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph nodded to his brother-in-law, who was flushed and sunburnt, and
+then stood behind, running his eyes up and down that sturdy figure with
+the tightly-gaitered legs set well apart and the little feathered cap
+that moved this way and that as the sportsman peered through the
+branches before him. Once he turned fierce eyes backwards at the whine
+of one of the hounds, and then again thrust his hot dripping face into
+the greenery.</p>
+
+<p>Then very far away came a shout, and a chorus of taps and cries followed
+it, sounding from a couple of miles away as the beaters after sweeping
+a wide circle entered the thick undergrowth on the opposite side of the
+wood. Sir Nicholas’ legs trembled, and he shifted his position a little,
+half lifting his strong spliced hunting bow as he did so.</p>
+
+<p>For a few minutes there was silence about them except for the distant
+cries, and once for the stamp of a horse behind them. Then Sir Nicholas
+made a quick movement, and dropped his hands again; a single rabbit had
+cantered out from the growth opposite, and sat up with cocked ears
+staring straight at the deadly shelter. Then another followed; and again
+in a sudden panic the two little furry bodies whisked back into cover.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph marvelled at this strange passion that could set a reasonable man
+twitching and panting like the figure in front of him. He himself was a
+good rider, and a sufficiently keen hunter when his blood was up; but
+this brother-in-law of his seemed to live for little else. Day after
+day, as Ralph knew, from the beginning of the season to the end he was
+out with his men and hounds, and the rest of the year he seemed to spend
+in talking about the sport, fingering and oiling his weapons through
+long mornings, and elaborating future campaigns, in which the quarries’
+chances should be reduced to a minimum.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>On a sudden Sir Nicholas’s figure stiffened and then relaxed. A doe had
+stepped out noiselessly from the cover, head up and feet close together,
+sniffing up wind—and they were shooting no does this month. Then again
+she moved along against the thick undergrowth, stepping delicately and
+silently, and vanished without a sound a hundred yards along to the
+left.</p>
+
+<p>The cries and taps were sounding nearer now, and at any moment the game
+might appear. Sir Nicholas shifted his position again a little, and
+simultaneously the scolding voice of a blackbird rang out in front, and
+he stopped again. At the same moment a hare, mad with fright, burst out
+of the cover, making straight for the shelter. Sir Nicholas’ hands rose,
+steady now the crisis had come; and Ralph leaning forward touched him on
+the shoulder and pointed.</p>
+
+<p>A great stag was standing in the green gloom within the wood eighty
+yards away, with a couple of does at his flank. Then as a shout sounded
+out near at hand, he bolted towards the shelter in a line that would
+bring him close to it. Ralph crouched down, for he had left his bow with
+his man an hour earlier, and one of the hounds gave a stifled yelp as
+Nicholas straightened himself and threw out his left foot. Either the
+sound or the movement startled the great brown beast in front, and as
+the arrow twanged from the string he checked and wheeled round, and went
+off like the wind, untouched. A furious hiss of the breath broke from
+Nicholas, and he made a swift sign as he turned to his horse; and in a
+moment the two lithe hounds had leapt from the shelter and were flying
+in long noiseless leaps after the disappearing quarry; the does,
+confused by the change of direction, had whisked back into cover. A
+moment later Nicholas too was after the hounds, his shoulders working
+and his head thrust forward, and a stirrup clashed and jingled against
+the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph sat down on the ground smiling. It gave him a certain pleasure to
+see such a complete discomfiture; Nicholas was always so amusingly angry
+when he failed, and so full of reasons.</p>
+
+<p>The forest was full of noises now; a crowd of starlings were protesting
+wildly overhead, there were shouts far away and the throb of hoofs, and
+the ground game was pouring out of the undergrowth and dispersing in
+all directions. Once a boar ran past, grumbling as he went, turning a
+wicked and resentful eye on the placid gentleman in green who sat on the
+ground, but who felt for his long dirk as he saw the fury on the brute’s
+face and the foam on the tusks. But the pig thought discretion was best,
+and hurried on complaining. More than one troop of deer flew past, the
+does gathered round their lord to protect him, all swerving together
+like a string of geese as they turned the corner of the shelter and
+caught sight of Ralph; but the beaters were coming out now, whistling
+and talking as they came, and gathering into groups of two or three on
+the ground, for the work was done, and it had been hot going.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Maxwell appeared presently on her grey horse, looking slender and
+dignified in her green riding-suit with the great plume shading her
+face, and rode up to Ralph whom she had seen earlier in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>“My husband?” she enquired looking down at Ralph who was lying with his
+hat over his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“He left me just now,” said her brother, “very hot and red, after a stag
+which he missed. That will mean some conversation to-night, Minnie.”</p>
+
+<p>She smiled down at him.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall agree with him, you know,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course you will; it is but right. And I suppose I shall too.”</p>
+
+<p>“Will you wait for him? Tell him we are going home by the mill. It is
+all over now.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph nodded, and Mary moved off down the glade to join the others.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph began to wonder how Nicholas would take the news of Chris’
+decision. Mary, he knew very well, would assent to it quietly as she
+did to all normal events, even though they were not what she would have
+wished; and probably her husband would assent too, for he had a great
+respect for a churchman. For himself his opinions were divided and he
+scarcely knew what he thought. From the temporal point of view Chris’
+step would be an advantage to him, for the vow of poverty would put an
+end to any claims upon the estate on the part of the younger son; but
+Ralph was sufficiently generous not to pay much attention to this. From
+the social point of view, no great difference would be made; it was as
+respectable to have a monk for a brother as a small squire, and Chris
+could never be more than this unless he made a good marriage. From the
+spiritual point of view—and here Ralph stopped and wondered whether it
+was very seriously worth considering. It was the normal thing of course
+to believe in the sublimity of the religious life and its peculiar
+dignity; but the new learning was beginning to put questions on the
+subject that had very considerably affected the normal view in Ralph’s
+eyes. In that section of society where new ideas are generated and to
+which Ralph himself belonged, there were very odd tales being told; and
+it was beginning to be thought possible that monasticism had
+over-reached itself, and that in trying to convert the world it had
+itself been converted by the world. Ralph was proud enough of the honour
+of his family to wonder whether it was an unmixed gain that his own
+brother should join such ranks as these. And lastly there were the facts
+that he had learnt from his association with Cromwell that made him
+hesitate more than ever in giving Chris his sympathy. He had been
+thinking these points over in the parlour the night before when the
+others had left him, and during the day in the intervals of the sport;
+and he was beginning to come to the conclusion that all things
+considered he had better just acquiesce in the situation, and neither
+praise nor blame overmuch.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sleepy afternoon. The servants had all gone by now, and the
+horn-blowings and noises had died away in the direction of the mill;
+there was no leisure for stags to bray, as they crouched now far away in
+the bracken, listening large-eyed and trumpet-eared for the sounds of
+pursuit; only the hum of insect life in the hot evening sunshine filled
+the air; and Ralph began to fall asleep, his back against a fallen
+trunk.</p>
+
+<p>Then he suddenly awakened and saw his brother-in-law, black against the
+sky, looking down at him, from the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>“Well?” said Ralph, not moving.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas began to explain. There were a hundred reasons, it seemed, for
+his coming home empty-handed; and where were his men?</p>
+
+<p>“They are all gone home,” said Ralph, getting up and stretching himself.
+“I waited for you. It is all over.”</p>
+
+<p>“You understand,” said Nicholas, putting his horse into motion, and
+beginning to explain all over again, “you understand that it had not
+been for that foul hound yelping, I should have had him here. I never
+miss such a shot; and then when we went after him—”</p>
+
+<p>“I understand perfectly, Nick,” said Ralph. “You missed him because you
+did not shoot straight, and you did not catch him because you did not go
+fast enough. A lawyer could say no more.”</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas threw back his head and laughed loudly, for the two were good
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, if you will have it,” he said, “I was a damned fool. There! A
+lawyer dare not say as much—not to me, at any rate.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph found his man half a mile further on coming to meet him with his
+horse, and he mounted and rode on with Nicholas towards the mill.</p>
+
+<p>“I have something to tell you,” he said presently. “Chris is to be a
+monk.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mother of God!” cried Nicholas, half checking his horse, “and when was
+that arranged?”</p>
+
+<p>“Last night,” went on Ralph. “He went to see the Holy Maid at St.
+Sepulchre’s, and it seems that she told him he had a vocation; so there
+is an end of it.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what do you all think of it?” asked the other.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! I suppose he knows his business.”</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas asked a number of questions, and was informed that Chris
+proposed to go to Lewes in a month’s time. He was already twenty-three,
+the Prior had given his conditional consent before, and there was no
+need for waiting. Yes, they were Cluniacs; but Ralph believed that they
+were far from strict just at present. It need not be the end of Chris so
+far as this world was concerned.</p>
+
+<p>“But you must not say that to him,” he went on, “he thinks it is heaven
+itself between four walls, and we shall have a great scene of farewell.
+I think I must go back to town before it takes place: I cannot do that
+kind of thing.”</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas was not attending, and rode on in silence for a few yards,
+sucking in his lower lip.</p>
+
+<p>“We are lucky fellows, you and I,” he said at last, “to have a monk to
+pray for us.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph glanced at him, for he was perfectly grave, and a rather intent
+and awed look was in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“I think a deal of that,” he went on, “though I cannot talk to a
+churchman as I should. I had a terrible time with my Lord of Canterbury
+last year, at Oxford. He was not a hunter like this one, and I knew not
+what else to speak of.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph’s eyes narrowed with amusement.</p>
+
+<p>“What did you say to him?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“I forget,” said Nicholas, “and I hope my lord did. Mary told me I
+behaved like a fool. But this one is better, I hear. He is at Ashford
+now with his hounds.”</p>
+
+<p>They talked a little more about Chris, and Ralph soon saw on which side
+Nicholas ranged himself. It was an unfeigned pleasure to this hunting
+squire to have a monk for a brother-in-law; there was no knowing how
+short purgatory might not be for them all under the circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>It was evident, too, when they came up with the others a couple of miles
+further on, that Nicholas’s attitude towards the young man had undergone
+a change. He looked at him with a deep respect, refrained from
+criticising his bloodless hands, and was soon riding on in front beside
+him, talking eagerly and deferentially, while Ralph followed with Mary
+and his father.</p>
+
+<p>“You have heard?” he said to her presently.</p>
+
+<p>“Father has just told me,” she said. “We are very much pleased—dear
+Chris!”</p>
+
+<p>“And then there is Meg,” put in her father.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! Meg; yes, I knew she would. She is made for a nun.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James edged his horse in presently close to Ralph, as Mary went in
+front through a narrow opening in the wood.</p>
+
+<p>“Be good to him,” he said. “He thinks so much of you.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph glanced up and smiled into the tender keen eyes that were looking
+into his own.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, of course, sir,” he said.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was an immense pleasure to Chris to notice the difference in
+Nicholas’s behaviour towards him. There was none of that loud and
+cheerful rallying that stood for humour, no criticisms of his riding or
+his costume. The squire asked him a hundred questions, almost nervously,
+about the Holy Maid and himself, and what had passed between them.</p>
+
+<p>“They say the Host was carried to her through the air from Calais,
+Chris, when the King was there. Did you hear her speak of that?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>“There was not time,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“And then there was the matter of the divorce—” Nicholas turned his
+head slightly; “Ralph cannot hear us, can he? Well—the matter of the
+divorce—I hear she denounced that, and would have none of it, and has
+written to the Pope, too.”</p>
+
+<p>“They were saying something of the kind,” said Chris, “but I thought it
+best not to meddle.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what did she say to you?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris told him the story, and Nicholas’s eyes grew round and fixed as he
+listened; his mouth was a little open, and he murmured inarticulate
+comments as they rode together up from the mill.</p>
+
+<p>“Lord!” he said at last, “and she said all that about hell. God save us!
+And her tongue out of her mouth all the while! And did you see anything
+yourself? No devils or angels?”</p>
+
+<p>“I saw nothing,” said Chris. “I just listened, but she saw them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Lord!” said Nicholas again, and rode on in profound silence.</p>
+
+<p>The Maxwells were to stay to supper at the Court; and drive home
+afterwards; so there was no opportunity for Chris to go down and bathe
+in the lake as he usually did in summer after a day’s hunting, for
+supper was at seven o’clock, and he had scarcely more than time to
+dress.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas was very talkative at supper, and poured out all that Chris had
+told him, with his usual lack of discretion; for the other had already
+told the others once all the details that he thought would interest
+them.</p>
+
+<p>“They were talking about the divorce,” he broke out, and then stopped
+and eyed Ralph craftily; “but I had better not speak of that here—eh,
+Chris?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph looked blandly at his plate.</p>
+
+<p>“Chris did not mention that,” he said. “Tell us, Nick.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, no,” cried Nicholas. “I do not want you to go with tales to town.
+Your ears are too quick, my friend. Then there was that about the Host
+flying from Calais, eh, Chris? No, no; you said you had heard nothing of
+that.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris looked up and his face was a little flushed.</p>
+
+<p>“No, Nick,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“There seems to have been a great deal that Chris did not tell us—”
+began Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James glanced swiftly from his seat under the canopy.</p>
+
+<p>“He told us all that was needed,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“Aha!” broke out Nicholas again, “but the Holy Maid said that the King
+would not live six months if he—”</p>
+
+<p>Chris’s face was full of despair and misery, and his father interrupted
+once more.</p>
+
+<p>“We had better not speak of that, my son,” he said to Nicholas. “It is
+best to leave such things alone.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was smiling broadly with tight lips by now.</p>
+
+<p>“By my soul, Nick, you are the maddest wind-bag I have ever heard. All
+our heads might go for what you have said to-night. Thank God the
+servants are gone.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nick,” cried Mary imploringly, “do hold your tongue.”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon looked from one to the other with serene amusement, and
+there was an odd pause such as generally fell when she showed signs of
+speaking. Her lips moved but she said nothing, and ran her eyes over the
+silver flagons before her.</p>
+
+<p>When the Maxwells had gone at last, and prayers were over, Chris slipped
+across the Court with a towel, and went up to the priest’s room over the
+sacristy. Mr. Carleton looked up from his lamp and rose.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Chris,” he said, “I will come. The moon will be up soon.”</p>
+
+<p>They went down together through the sacristy door on to the level
+plateaux of lawns that stretched step after step down to the dark lake.
+The sky was ablaze with stars, and in the East there was a growing light
+in the quarter where the moon was at its rising. The woods beyond the
+water were blotted masses against the sky; and the air was full of the
+rich fragrance of the summer night. The two said very little, and the
+priest stopped on the bank as Chris stepped out along the little boarded
+pier that ran out among the rushes into deep water. There was a scurry
+and a cry, and a moor-hen dashed out from under cover, and sped across
+the pond, scattering the silver points that hung there motionless,
+reflected from the heaven overhead.</p>
+
+<p>Chris was soon ready, and stood there a moment, a pale figure in the
+gloom, watching the shining dots rock back again in the ripples to
+motionlessness. Then he lifted his hands and plunged.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to him, as he rose to the surface again, as if he were
+swimming between two sides. As he moved softly out across the middle,
+and a little ripple moved before him, the water was invisible. There was
+only a fathomless gulf, as deep below as the sky was high above, pricked
+with stars. As he turned his head this way and that the great trees,
+high overhead, seemed less real than those two immeasurable spaces above
+and beneath. There was a dead silence everywhere, only broken by the
+faint suck of the water over his shoulder, and an indescribably sweet
+coolness that thrilled him like a strain of music. Under its influence,
+again, as last night, the tangible, irritating world seemed to sink out
+of his soul; here he was, a living creature alone in a great silence
+with God, and nothing else was of any importance.</p>
+
+<p>He turned on his back, and there was the dark figure on the bank
+watching him, and above it the great towered house, with its half-dozen
+lighted windows along its eastern side, telling him of the world of men
+and passion.</p>
+
+<p>“Look,” came the priest’s voice, and he turned again, and over the
+further bank, between two tall trees, shone a great silver rim of the
+rising moon. A path of glory was struck now across the black water, and
+he pleased himself by travelling up it towards the remote splendour,
+noticing as he went how shadows had sprung into being in that moment,
+and how the same light that made the glory made the dark as well. His
+soul seemed to emerge a stage higher yet from the limits in which the
+hot day and the shouting and the horns and the crowded woods had
+fettered it. How remote and little seemed Ralph’s sneers and Nicholas’s
+indiscretions and Mary’s pity! Here he moved round in a cooler and
+serener mood. That keen mood, whether physical or spiritual he did not
+care to ask, made him inarticulate as he walked up with the priest ten
+minutes later. But Mr. Carleton seemed to understand.</p>
+
+<p>“There are some things besides the divorce best not talked about,” he
+said, “and I think bathing by starlight is one of them.”</p>
+
+<p>They passed under the chapel window presently, and Chris noticed with an
+odd sensation of pleasure the little translucent patch of colour between
+the slender mullions thrown by the lamp within—a kind of reflex or
+anti-type of the broad light shining over the water.</p>
+
+<p>“Come up for a while,” went on the priest, as they reached the
+side-entrance, “if you are not too tired.”</p>
+
+<p>The two went through the sacristy-door, locking it behind them, and up
+the winding stairs in the turret at the corner to the priest’s chamber.
+Chris threw himself down, relaxed and happy, in the tall chair by the
+window, where he could look out and see the moon, clear of the trees
+now, riding high in heaven.</p>
+
+<p>“That was a pity at supper,” said the priest presently, as he sat at the
+table. “I love Sir Nicholas and think him a good Christian, but he is
+scarcely a discreet one.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me, father,” broke out Chris, “what is going to happen?”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carleton looked at him smiling. He had a pleasant ugly face, with
+little kind eyes and sensitive mouth.</p>
+
+<p>“You must ask Mr. Ralph,” he said, “or rather you must not. But he knows
+more than any of us.”</p>
+
+<p>“I wish he would not speak like that.”</p>
+
+<p>“Dear lad,” said the priest, “you must not feel it like that. Remember
+our Lord bore contempt as well as pain.”</p>
+
+<p>There was silence a moment, and then Chris began again. “Tell me about
+Lewes, father. What will it be like?”</p>
+
+<p>“It will be bitterly hard,” said the priest deliberately. “Christ Church
+was too bitter for me, as you know. I came out after six months, and the
+Cluniacs are harder. I do not know if I lost my vocation or found it;
+but I am not the man to advise you in either case.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ralph thinks it is easy enough. He told me last night in the carriage
+that I need not trouble myself, and that monks had a very pleasant time.
+He began to tell me some tale about Glastonbury, but I would not hear
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah,” said the chaplain regretfully, “the world’s standard for monks is
+always high. But you will find it hard enough, especially in the first
+year. But, as I said, I am not the man to advise you—I failed.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris looked at him with something of pity in his heart, as the priest
+fingered the iron pen on the table, and stared with pursed lips and
+frowning forehead. The chaplain was extraordinarily silent in public,
+just carrying on sufficient conversation not to be peculiar or to seem
+morose, but he spoke more freely to Chris, and would often spend an hour
+or two in mysterious talk with Sir James. Chris’s father had a very
+marked respect for the priest, and had had more than one sharp word with
+his wife, ten years before when he had first come to the house, and had
+found Lady Torridon prepared to treat her chaplain with the kind of
+respect that she gave to her butler. But the chaplain’s position was
+secured by now, owing in a large measure to his own tact and
+unobtrusiveness, and he went about the house a quiet, sedate figure of
+considerable dignity and impressiveness, performing his duties
+punctually and keeping his counsel. He had been tutor to both the sons
+for a while, to Ralph only for a few months, but to Chris since his
+twelfth birthday, and the latter had formed with him a kind of peaceful
+confederacy, often looking in on him at unusual hours, always finding
+him genial, although very rarely confidential. It was to Mr. Carleton,
+too, that Chris owed his first drawings to the mystical life of prayer;
+there was a shelf of little books in the corner by the window of the
+priest’s room, from which he would read to the boy aloud, first
+translating them into English as he went, and then, as studies
+progressed, reading the Latin as it stood; and that mysteriously
+fascinating world in which great souls saw and heard eternal things and
+talked familiarly with the Saviour and His Blessed Mother had first
+dawned on the boy there. New little books, too, appeared from time to
+time, and the volumes had overflowed their original home; and from that
+fact Christopher gathered that the priest, though he had left the
+external life of Religion, still followed after the elusive spirit that
+was its soul.</p>
+
+<p>“But tell me,” he said again, as the priest laid the pen down and sat
+back in his chair, crossing his buckled feet beneath the cassock; “tell
+me, why is it so hard? I am not afraid of the discipline or the food.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is the silence,” said the priest, looking at him.</p>
+
+<p>“I love silence,” said Chris eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, you love an hour or two, or there would be no hope of a vocation
+for you. But I do not think you will love a year. However, I may be
+wrong. But it is the day after day that is difficult. And there is no
+relaxation; not even in the infirmary. You will have to learn signs in
+your novitiate; that is almost the first exercise.”</p>
+
+<p>The priest got up and fetched a little book from the corner cupboard.</p>
+
+<p>“Listen,” he said, and then began to read aloud the instructions laid
+down for the sign-language of novices; how they were to make a circle in
+the air for bread since it was round, a motion of drinking for water,
+and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>“You see,” he said, “you are not even allowed to speak when you ask for
+necessaries. And, you know, silence has its peculiar temptations as well
+as its joys. There is accidie and scrupulousness and contempt of
+others, and a host of snares that you know little of now.”</p>
+
+<p>“But—” began Chris.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes; it has its joys, and gives a peculiar strength.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris knew, of course, well enough by now in an abstract way what the
+Religious discipline would mean, but he wished to have it made more
+concrete by examples, and he sat long with the chaplain asking him
+questions. Mr. Carleton had been, as he said, in the novitiate at
+Canterbury for a few months, and was able to tell him a good deal about
+the life there; but the differences between the Augustinians and the
+Cluniacs made it impossible for him to go with any minuteness into the
+life of the Priory at Lewes. He warned him, however, of the tendency
+that every soul found in silence to think itself different from others,
+and of so peculiar a constitution that ordinary rules did not apply to
+it. He laid so much stress on this that the other was astonished.</p>
+
+<p>“But it is true,” said Chris, “no two souls are the same.”</p>
+
+<p>The priest smiled.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, that is true, too; no two sheep are the same, but the sheep nature
+is one, and you will have to learn that for yourself. A Religious rule
+is drawn up for many, not for one; and each must learn to conform
+himself. It was through that I failed myself; I remembered that I was
+different from others, and forgot that I was the same.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carleton seemed to take a kind of melancholy pleasure in returning
+to what he considered his own failure, and Chris began to wonder whether
+the thought of it was not the secret of that slight indication to
+moroseness that he had noticed in him.</p>
+
+<p>The moon was high and clear by now, and Chris often leaned his cheek on
+the sash as the priest talked, and watched that steady shining shield
+go up the sky, and the familiar view of lawns and water and trees,
+ghostly and mystical now in the pale light.</p>
+
+<p>The Court was silent as he passed through it near midnight, as the
+household had been long in bed; the flaring link had been extinguished
+two hours before, and the shadows of the tall chimneys lay black and
+precise at his feet across the great whiteness on the western side of
+the yard. Again the sense of the smallness of himself and his
+surroundings, of the vastness of all else, poured over his soul; these
+little piled bricks and stones, the lawns and woods round about, even
+England and the world itself, he thought, as his mind shot out towards
+the stars and the unfathomable spaces—all these were but very tiny
+things, negligeable quantities, when he looked at them in the eternal
+light. It was this thought, after all, that was calling him out of the
+world, and had been calling him fitfully ever since his soul awoke eight
+years ago, and knew herself and her God: and his heart expanded and grew
+tremulous as he remembered once more that his vocation had been sealed
+by a divine messenger, and that he would soon be gone out of this little
+cell into the wide silent liberty of the most dear children of God.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br><span class="small">THE ARRIVAL AT LEWES</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p>Ralph relented as the month drew on, and was among those who wished
+Chris good-bye on the afternoon of the July day on which he was to
+present himself at Lewes. The servants were all drawn up at the back of
+the terrace against the hall, watching Ralph, even more than his
+departing brother, with the fascinated interest that the discreet and
+dignified friend of Cromwell always commanded. Ralph was at his best on
+such occasions, genial and natural, and showed a pleasing interest in
+the girths of the two horses, and the exact strapping of the couple of
+bags that Chris was to take with him. His own man, too, Mr. Morris, who
+had been with him ever since he had come to London, was to ride with
+Chris, at his master’s express wish; stay with him in the guest-house
+that night, and return with the two horses and a precise report the next
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>“You have the hares for my Lord Prior,” he said impressively, looking at
+the game that was hanging head downwards from the servant’s saddle.
+“Tell him that they were killed on Tuesday.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James and his younger son were walking together a few yards away in
+deep talk; and Lady Torridon had caused a chair to be set for her at the
+top of the terrace steps where she could at once do her duty as a
+mother, and be moderately comfortable at the same time. She hardly spoke
+at all, but looked gravely with her enigmatic black eyes at the horses’
+legs and the luggage, and once held up her hand to silence a small dog
+that had begun to yelp with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>“They must be going,” said Ralph, when all was ready; and at the same
+moment Chris and his father came up, Sir James’s arm thrown over his
+son’s shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>The farewells were very short; it was impossible to indulge in sentiment
+in the genial business-atmosphere generated by Ralph, and a minute later
+Chris was mounted. Sir James said no more, but stood a little apart
+looking at his son. Lady Torridon smiled rather pleasantly and nodded
+her head two or three times, and Ralph, with Mr. Carleton, stood on the
+gravel below, his hand on Chris’s crupper, smiling up at him.</p>
+
+<p>“Good-bye, Chris,” he said, and added with an unusual piety, “God keep
+you!”</p>
+
+<p>As the two horses passed through the gatehouse, Chris turned once again
+with swimming eyes, and saw the group a little re-arranged. Sir James
+and Ralph were standing together, Ralph’s arm thrust through his
+father’s; Mr. Carleton was still on the gravel, and Lady Torridon was
+walking very deliberately back to the house.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The distance to Lewes was about fourteen miles, and it was not until
+they had travelled some two of them, and had struck off towards Burgess
+Hill that Chris turned his head for Mr. Morris to come up.</p>
+
+<p>It was very strange to him to ride through that familiar country, where
+he had ridden hundreds of times before, and to know that this was
+probably the last time that he would pass along those lanes, at least
+under the same circumstances. It had the same effect on him, as a death
+in the house would have; the familiar things were the same, but they
+wore a new and strange significance. The few men and children he passed
+saluted him deferentially as usual, and then turned fifty yards further
+on and stared at the young gentleman who, as they knew, was riding off
+on such an errand, and with such grave looks.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morris came up with an eager respectfulness at Chris’s sign, keeping
+a yard or two away lest the swinging luggage on his own horse should
+discompose the master, and answered a formal question or two about the
+roads and the bags, which Chris put to him as a gambit of conversation.
+The servant was clever and well trained, and knew how to modulate his
+attitude to the precise degree of deference due to his master and his
+master’s relations; he had entered Ralph’s service from Cromwell’s own
+eight years before. He liked nothing better than to talk of London and
+his experiences there, and selected with considerable skill the topics
+that he knew would please in each case. Now he was soon deep on the
+subject of Wolsey, pausing respectfully now and again for corroboration,
+or to ask a question the answer to which he knew a good deal better than
+Chris himself.</p>
+
+<p>“I understand, sir, that the Lord Cardinal had a wonderful deal of
+furniture at York House: I saw some of it at Master Cromwell’s; his
+grace sent it to him, at least, so I heard. Is that so, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris said he did not know.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I believe it was so, sir; there was a chair there, set with
+agates and pearl, that I think I heard Mr. Ralph say had come from
+there. Did you ever see my lord, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris said he had seen him once in a narrow street at Westminster, but
+the crowd was so great he could not get near.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! sir; then you never saw him go in state. I remember once seeing
+him, sir, going down to Hampton Court, with his gentlemen bearing the
+silver pillars before him, and the two priests with crosses. What might
+the pillars mean, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>Again Chris confessed he did not know.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, sir!” said Morris reflectively, as if he had received a
+satisfactory answer. “And there was his saddle, Mr. Christopher, with
+silver-gilt stirrups, and red velvet, set on my lord’s mule. And there
+was the Red Hat borne in front by another gentleman. At mass, too, he
+would be served by none under the rank of an earl; and I heard that he
+would have a duke sometimes for his lavabo. I heard Mr. Ralph say that
+there was more than a hundred and fifty carts that went with the Lord
+Cardinal up to Cawood, and that was after the King’s grace had broken
+with him, sir; and he was counted a poor man.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris asked what was in the carts.</p>
+
+<p>“Just his stuff, sir,” said Mr. Morris reverentially.</p>
+
+<p>The servant seemed to take a melancholy pleasure in recounting these
+glories, but was most discreet about the political aspects of Wolsey,
+although Chris tried hard to get him to speak, and he would neither
+praise nor blame the fallen prelate; he was more frank, however, about
+Campeggio, who as an Italian, was a less dangerous target.</p>
+
+<p>“He was not a good man, I fear, Mr. Christopher. They told some very
+queer tales of him when he was over here. But he could ride, sir, Master
+Maxwell’s man told me, near as well as my Lord of Canterbury himself.
+You know they say, sir, that the Archbishop can ride horses that none of
+his grooms can manage. But I never liked to think that a foreigner was
+to be sent over to do our business for us, and more than ever not such
+an one as that.”</p>
+
+<p>He proceeded to talk a good deal about Campeggio; his red silk and his
+lace, his gout, his servants, his un-English ways; but it began to get a
+little tiresome to Chris, and soon after passing through Ditchling, Mr.
+Morris, having pointed across the country towards Fatton Hovel, and
+having spoken of the ghost of a cow that was seen there with two heads,
+one black and one white, fell gradually behind again, and Chris rode
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>They were coming up now towards the downs, and the great rounded green
+shoulders heaved high against the sky, gashed here and there by white
+strips and patches where the chalk glared in the bright afternoon sun.
+Ditchling beacon rose to their right, a hundred feet higher than the
+surrounding hills, and the high country sloped away from it parallel
+with their road, down to Lewes. The shadows were beginning to lie
+eastwards and to lengthen in long blue hollows and streaks against the
+clear green turf.</p>
+
+<p>Chris wondered when he would see that side of the downs again; his ride
+was like a kind of farewell progress, and all that he looked on was
+dearer than it had ever been before, but he comforted himself by the
+thought of that larger world, so bright with revelation and so
+enchanting in its mystery that lay before him. He pleased himself by
+picturing this last journey as a ride through an overhung lane,
+beautiful indeed, but dusky, towards shining gates beyond which lay
+great tracts of country set with palaces alive with wonderful presences,
+and watered by the very river of life.</p>
+
+<p>He did not catch sight of Lewes until he was close upon it, and it
+suddenly opened out beneath him, with its crowded roofs pricked by a
+dozen spires, the Norman castle on its twin mounds towering to his left,
+a silver gleam of the Ouse here and there between the plaster and timber
+houses as the river wound beneath its bridges, and beyond all the vast
+masses of the Priory straight in front of him to the South of the town,
+the church in front with its tall central tower, a huddle of convent
+roofs behind, all white against the rich meadows that lay beyond the
+stream.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morris came up as Chris checked his horse here.</p>
+
+<p>“See, Mr. Christopher,” he said, and the other turned to see the town
+gallows on the right of the road, not fifty yards away, with a ragged
+shape or two hanging there, and a great bird rising heavily and winging
+its way into the west. Mr. Morris’s face bore a look of judicial
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>“We are making a sweep of them,” he said, and as a terrible figure, all
+rags and sores, with blind red eyes and toothless mouth rose croaking
+and entreating from the ditch by the road, the servant pointed with
+tight lips and solemn eyes to Hangman’s Acre. Chris fumbled in his
+purse, threw a couple of groats on to the ground, and rode on down the
+hill.</p>
+
+<p>His heart was beating fast as he went down Westgate Lane into the High
+Street, and it quickened yet further as the great bells in the Priory
+church began to jangle; for it was close on vesper time, and
+instinctively he shook his reins to hasten his beast, who was picking
+his way delicately through the filth and tumbled stones that lay
+everywhere, for the melodious roar seemed to be bidding him haste and be
+welcome. Mr. Morris was close beside him, and remarked on this and that
+as they went, the spire of St. Ann’s away to the right, with St.
+Pancras’s Bridge, a swinging sign over an inn with Queen Katharine’s
+face erased, but plainly visible under Ann Boleyn’s, the tall mound
+beyond the Priory crowned by a Calvary, and the roof of the famous
+dove-cote of the Priory, a great cruciform structure with over two
+thousand cells. But Christopher knew it all better than the servant,
+and paid little attention, and besides, his excitement was running too
+high. They came down at last through Antioch Street, Puddingbag Lane,
+and across the dry bed of the Winterbourne, and the gateway was before
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The bells had ceased by now, after a final stroke. Mr. Morris sprang off
+his horse, and drew on the chain that hung by the smaller of the two
+doors. There was a sound of footsteps and a face looked out from the
+grating. The servant said a word or two; the face disappeared, and a
+moment later there was the turning of a key, and one leaf of the
+horse-entrance rolled back. Chris touched his beast with his heel,
+passed through on to the paved floor, and sat smiling and flushed,
+looking down at the old lay-brother, who beamed up at him pleasantly and
+told him he was expected.</p>
+
+<p>Chris dismounted at once, telling the servant to take the horses round
+to the stables on the right, and himself went across the open court
+towards the west end of the church, that rose above him fifty feet into
+the clear evening air, faced with marble about the two doors, and
+crowned by the western tower and the high central spire beyond where the
+bells hung. On the right lay the long low wall of the Cellarer’s
+offices, with the kitchen jutting out at the lower end, and the
+high-pitched refectory roof above and beyond it. The church was full of
+golden light as he entered, darkening to dusk in the chapels on either
+side, pricked with lights here and there that burned before the images,
+and giving an impression of immense height owing to its narrowness and
+its length. The air was full of rolling sound, sonorous and full, that
+echoed in the two high vaults on this side and that of the high altar,
+was caught in the double transepts, and lost in the chapels that opened
+in a corona of carved work at the further end, for the monks were busy
+at the <i>Opus Dei</i>, and the psalms rocked from side to side, as if the
+nave were indeed a great ship ploughing its way to the kingdom of
+heaven.</p>
+
+<p>There were a few seats at the western end, and into one of these
+Christopher found his way, signing himself first from the stoup at the
+door, and inclining before he went in. Then he leaned his chin on his
+hands and looked eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>It was difficult to make out details clearly at the further end, for the
+church was poorly lighted, and there was no western window; the glare
+from the white roads, too, along which he had come still dazzled him,
+but little by little, helped by his own knowledge of the place, he began
+to see more clearly.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>High above him ran the lines of the clerestory, resting on the rounded
+Norman arches, broken by the beam that held the mighty rood, with the
+figures of St. Mary and St. John on either side; and beyond, yet higher,
+on this side of the high altar, rose the lofty air of the vault ninety
+feet above the pavement. To left and right opened the two western
+transepts, and from where he knelt he could make out the altar of St.
+Martin in the further one, with its apse behind. The image of St.
+Pancras himself stood against a pillar with the light from the lamp
+beneath flickering against his feet. But Christopher’s eyes soon came
+back to the centre, beyond the screen, where a row of blackness on
+either side in the stalls, marked where the monks rested back, and where
+he would soon be resting with them. There were candles lighted at sparse
+intervals along the book-rests, that shone up into the faces bent down
+over the wide pages beneath; and beyond all rose the altar with two
+steady flames crowning it against the shining halpas behind that cut it
+off from the four groups of slender carved columns that divided the five
+chapels at the extreme east. Half-a-dozen figures sat about the nave,
+and Christopher noticed an old man, his white hair falling to his
+shoulders, two seats in front, beginning to nod gently with sleep as the
+soft heavy waves of melody poured down, lulling him.</p>
+
+<p>He began now to catch the words, as his ears grew accustomed to the
+sound, and he, too, sat back to listen.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Fiat pax in virtute tua: et abundantia in turribus tuis;” “Propter
+fratres meos et proximos meos<i>:” came back the answer, “</i>loquebar pacem
+de te<i>.” And once more: “</i>Propter domum Domini Dei nostri: quaesivi bona
+tibi</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a soft clattering roar as the monks rose to their feet,
+and in double volume from the bent heads sounded out the <i>Gloria Patri</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It was overwhelming to the young man to hear the melodious tumult of
+praise, and to remember that in less than a week he would be standing
+there among the novices and adding his voice. It seemed to him as if he
+had already come into the heart of life that he had felt pulsating round
+him as he swam in the starlight a month before. It was this that was
+reality, and the rest illusion. Here was the end for which man was made,
+the direct praise of God; here were living souls eager and alert on the
+business of their existence, building up with vibration after vibration
+the eternal temple of glory in which God dwelt. Once he began to sing,
+and then stopped. He would be silent here until his voice had been
+authorized to join in that consecrated offering.</p>
+
+<p>He waited until all was over, and the two lines of black figures had
+passed out southwards, and the sacristan was going round putting out
+the lights; and then he too rose and went out, thrilled and excited,
+into the gathering twilight, as the bell for supper began to sound out
+from the refectory tower.</p>
+
+<p>He found Mr. Morris waiting for him at the entrance to the guest-house,
+and the two went up the stairs at the porter’s directions into the
+parlour that looked out over the irregular court towards the church and
+convent.</p>
+
+<p>Christopher sat down in the window seat.</p>
+
+<p>Over the roofs opposite the sky was still tender and luminous, with rosy
+light from the west, and a little troop of pigeons were wheeling over
+the church in their last flight before returning home to their huge
+dwelling down by the stream. The porter had gone a few minutes before,
+and Christopher presently saw him returning with Dom Anthony Marks, the
+guest-master, whom he had got to know very well on former visits. In a
+fit of shyness he drew back from the window, and stood up, nervous and
+trembling, and a moment later heard steps on the stairs. Mr. Morris had
+slipped out, and now stood in the passage, and Chris saw him bowing with
+a nicely calculated mixture of humility and independence. Then a black
+figure appeared in the doorway, and came briskly through.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear Chris,” he said warmly, holding out his hands, and Chris took
+them, still trembling and excited.</p>
+
+<p>They sat down together in the window-seat, and the monk opened the
+casement and threw it open, for the atmosphere was a little heavy, and
+then flung his arm out over the sill and crossed his feet, as if he had
+an hour at his disposal. Chris had noticed before that extraordinary
+appearance of ease and leisure in such monks, and it imperceptibly
+soothed him. Neither would Dom Anthony speak on technical matters, but
+discoursed pleasantly about the party at Overfield Court and the beauty
+of the roads between there and Lewes, as if Chris were only come to pay
+a passing visit.</p>
+
+<p>“Your horses are happy enough,” he said. “We had a load of fresh beans
+sent in to-day. And you, Chris, are you hungry? Supper will be here
+immediately. Brother James told the guest-cook as soon as you came.”</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to want no answer, but talked on genially and restfully about
+the commissioners who had come from Cluny to see after their possessions
+in England, and their queer French ways.</p>
+
+<p>“Dom Philippe would not touch the muscadel at first, and now he cannot
+have too much. He clamoured for claret at first, and we had to give him
+some. But he knows better now. But he says mass like a holy angel of
+God, and is a very devout man in all ways. But they are going soon.”</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony fulfilled to perfection the ideal laid down for a
+guest-master in the Custumal. He showed, indeed, the “cheerful
+hospitality to guests” by which “the good name of the monastery was
+enhanced, friendships multiplied, enmities lessened, God honoured, and
+charity increased.” He recognised perfectly well the confused terror in
+Christopher’s mind and his anxiety to make a good beginning, and
+smoothed down the tendency to awkwardness that would otherwise have
+shown itself. He had a happy tranquil face, with wide friendly eyes that
+almost disappeared when he laughed, and a row of even white teeth.</p>
+
+<p>As he talked on, Christopher furtively examined his habit, though he
+knew every detail of it well enough already. He had, of course, left his
+cowl, or ample-sleeved singing gown, in the sacristy on leaving the
+church, and was in his black frock girded with the leather belt, and
+the scapular over it, hanging to the ground before and behind. His hood,
+Christopher noticed, was creased and flat as if he were accustomed to
+sit back at his ease. He wore strong black leather boots that just
+showed beneath his habit, and a bunch of keys, duplicates of those of
+the camerarius and cook, hung on his right side. He was tonsured
+according to the Benedictine pattern, and his lips and cheeks were
+clean-shaven.</p>
+
+<p>He noticed presently that Christopher was eyeing him, and put his hand
+in friendly fashion on the young man’s knee.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he said, smiling, “yours is ready too. Dom Franklin looked it out
+to-day, and asked me whether it would be the right size. But of the
+boots I am not so sure.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a clink and a footstep outside, and the monk glanced out.</p>
+
+<p>“Supper is here,” he said, and stood up to look at the table—the
+polished clothless top laid ready with a couple of wooden plates and
+knives, a pewter tankard, salt-cellar and bread. There was a plain chair
+with arms drawn up to it. The rest of the room, which Christopher had
+scarcely noticed before, was furnished plainly and efficiently, and had
+just that touch of ornament that was intended to distinguish it from a
+cell. The floor was strewn with clean rushes; a couple of iron
+candlesticks stood on the mantelpiece, and the white walls had one or
+two religious objects hanging on them—a wooden crucifix opposite the
+table, a framed card bearing an “Image of Pity” with an indulgenced
+prayer illuminated beneath, a little statue of St. Pancras on a bracket
+over the fire, and a clear-written copy of rules for guests hung by the
+low oak door.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony nodded approvingly at the table, took up a knife and rubbed
+it delicately on the napkin, and turned round.</p>
+
+<p>“We will look here,” he said, and went towards the second door by the
+fire. Christopher followed him, and found himself in the bedroom,
+furnished with the same simplicity as the other; but with an iron
+bedstead in the corner, a kneeling stool beside it, with a little French
+silver image of St. Mary over it, and a sprig of dried yew tucked in
+behind. A thin leather-bound copy of the Little Office of Our Lady lay
+on the sloping desk, with another book or two on the upper slab. Dom
+Anthony went to the window and threw that open too.</p>
+
+<p>“Your luggage is unpacked, I see,” he said, nodding to the press beside
+which lay the two trunks, emptied now by Mr. Morris’s careful hands.</p>
+
+<p>“There are some hares, too,” said Christopher. “Ralph has sent them to
+my Lord Prior.”</p>
+
+<p>“The porter has them,” said the monk, “they look strangely like a
+bribe.” And he nodded again with a beaming face, and his eyes grew
+little and bright at his own humour.</p>
+
+<p>He examined the bed before he left the room again, turned back the
+sheets and pressed them down, and the straw rustled drily beneath;
+glanced into the sweating earthenware jug, refolded the coarse towel on
+its wooden peg, and then smiled again at the young man.</p>
+
+<p>“Supper,” he said briefly.</p>
+
+<p>Christopher stayed a moment with a word of excuse to wash off the dust
+of his ride from his hands and face, and when he came back into the
+sitting-room found the candles lighted, the wooden shutters folded over
+the windows, and a basin of soup with a roast pigeon steaming on the
+table. The monk was standing, waiting for him by the door.</p>
+
+<p>“I must be gone, Chris,” he said, “but I shall be back before compline.
+My Lord Prior will see you to-morrow. There is nothing more? Remember
+you are at home now.”</p>
+
+<p>And on Christopher’s assurances that he had all he could need, he was
+gone, leisurely and cheerfully, and his footsteps sounded on the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morris came up before Chris had finished supper, and as he silently
+slipped away his plate and set another for the cheese, Chris remembered
+with a nervous exultation that this would be probably the last time that
+he would have a servant to wait on him. He was beginning to feel
+strangely at home already; the bean soup was strong and savoury, the
+beer cool; and he was pleasantly exercised by his ride. Mr. Morris, too,
+in answer to his enquiries, said that he had been well looked after in
+the servants’ quarters of the guest-house, and had had an entertaining
+supper with an agreeable Frenchman who, it seemed, had come with the
+Cluniac commissioners. Respect for his master and a sense of the
+ludicrous struggled in Mr. Morris’s voice as he described the
+foreigner’s pronunciation and his eloquent gestures.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s not like a man, sir,” he said, and shook with reminiscent
+laughter.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was half an hour before Dom Anthony returned, and after hospitable
+enquiries, sat down by Chris again in the wide window-seat and began to
+talk.</p>
+
+<p>He told him that guests were not expected to attend the night-offices,
+and that indeed he strongly recommended Chris doing nothing of the kind
+at any rate that night; that masses were said at all hours from five
+o’clock onwards; that prime was said at seven, and was followed by the
+<i>Missa familiaris</i> for the servants and work-people of the house.
+Breakfast would be ready in the guest-house at eight; the chapter-mass
+would be said at the half-hour and after the daily chapter which
+followed it had taken place, the Prior wished to see Christopher. The
+high mass was sung at ten, and dinner would be served at eleven. He
+directed his attention, too, to the card that hung by the door on which
+these hours were notified.</p>
+
+<p>Christopher already knew that for the first three or four days he would
+have to remain in the guest-house before any formal step was taken with
+regard to him, but he said a word to Father Anthony about this.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said the monk, “my Lord Prior will tell you about that. But you
+will be here as a guest until Sunday, and on that day you will come to
+the morning chapter to beg for admission. You will do that for three
+days, and then, please God, you will be clothed as a novice.”</p>
+
+<p>And once more he looked at him with deep smiling eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Chris asked him a few more questions, and Dom Anthony told him what he
+wished to know, though protesting with monastic etiquette that it was
+not his province.</p>
+
+<p>“Dom James Berkely is the novice-master,” he said, “you will find him
+very holy and careful. The first matter you will have to learn is how to
+wear the habit, carry your hands, and to walk with gravity. Then you
+will learn how to bow, with the hands crossed on the knees, so—” and he
+illustrated it by a gesture—“if it is a profound inclination; and when
+and where the inclinations are to be made. Then you will learn of the
+custody of the eyes. It is these little things that help the soul at
+first, as you will find, like—like—the bindings of a peach-tree, that
+it may learn how to grow and bear its fruit. And the Rule will be given
+you, and what a monk must have by rote, and how to sing. You will not be
+idle, Chris.”</p>
+
+<p>It was no surprise to Christopher to hear how much of the lessons at
+first were concerned with external behaviour. In his visits to Lewes
+before, as well as from the books that Mr. Carleton had lent him, he had
+learnt that the perfection of the Religious Life depended to a
+considerable extent upon minutiæ that were both aids to, and the result
+of, a tranquil and recollected mind, the acquirement of which was part
+of the object of the monk’s ambition. The ideal, he knew, was the
+perfect direction of every part of his being, of hands and eyes, as well
+as of the great powers of the soul; what God had joined together man
+must not put asunder, and the man who had every physical movement under
+control, and never erred through forgetfulness or impulse in these
+little matters, presumably also was master of his will, and retained
+internal as well as external equanimity.</p>
+
+<p>The great bell began to toll presently for compline, and the
+guest-master rose in the midst of his explanations.</p>
+
+<p>“My Lord Prior bade me thank you for the hares,” he said. “Perhaps your
+servant will take the message back to Mr. Ralph to-morrow. Come.”</p>
+
+<p>They went down the stairs together and out into the summer twilight, the
+great strokes sounding overhead in the gloom as they walked. Over the
+high wall to the left shone a light or two from Lewes town, and beyond
+rose up the shadowy masses of the downs over which Christopher had
+ridden that afternoon. Over those hills, too, he knew, lay his old home.
+As they walked together in silence up the paved walk to the west end of
+the church, a vivid picture rose before the young man’s eyes of the
+little parlour where he had sat last night—of his silent mother in her
+black satin; his father in the tall chair, Ralph in an unwontedly easy
+and genial mood lounging on the other side and telling stories of town,
+of the chaplain with his homely, pleasant face, slipping silently out at
+the door. That was the last time that all that was his,—that he had a
+right and a place there. If he ever saw it again it would be as a guest
+who had become the son of another home, with new rights and relations,
+and at the thought a pang of uncontrollable shrinking pricked at his
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>But at the door of the church the monk drew his arm within his own for a
+moment and held it, and Chris saw the shadowed eyes under his brows rest
+on him tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>“God bless you, Chris!” he said.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br><span class="small">A COMMISSION</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p>Within a few days of Christopher’s departure to Lewes, Ralph also left
+Overfield and went back to London.</p>
+
+<p>He was always a little intolerant at home, and generally appeared there
+at his worst—caustic, silent, and unsympathetic. It seemed to him that
+the simple country life was unbearably insipid; he found there neither
+wit nor affairs: to see day after day the same faces, to listen to the
+same talk either on country subjects that were distasteful to him, or,
+out of compliment to himself, political subjects that were unfamiliar to
+the conversationalists, was a very hard burden, and he counted such
+things as the price he must pay for his occasional duty visits to his
+parents. He could not help respecting the piety of his father, but he
+was none the less bored by it; and the atmosphere of silent cynicism
+that seemed to hang round his mother was his only relief. He thought he
+understood her, and it pleased him sometimes to watch her, to calculate
+how she would behave in any little domestic crisis or incident that
+affected her, to notice the slight movement of her lips and her eyelids
+gently lowering and rising again in movements of extreme annoyance. But
+even this was not sufficient compensation for the other drawbacks of
+life at Overfield Court, and it was with a very considerable relief that
+he stepped into his carriage at last towards the end of July, nodded and
+smiled once more to his father who was watching him from the terrace
+steps with a wistful and puzzled face, anxious to please, and heard the
+first crack of the whip of his return journey.</p>
+
+<p>He had, indeed, a certain excuse for going, for a despatch-rider had
+come down from London with papers for him from Sir Thomas Cromwell, and
+it was not hard to assume a serious face and announce that he was
+recalled by affairs; and there was sufficient truth in it, too, for one
+of the memoranda bore on the case of Elizabeth Barton, the holy maid of
+Kent, and announced her apprehension. Cromwell however, did not actually
+recall him, but mentioned the fact of her arrest, and asked if he had
+heard much said of her in the country, and what the opinion of her was
+in that district.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The drive up to London seemed very short to him now; he went slowly
+through the bundle of papers on which he had to report, annotating them
+in order here and there, and staring out of the window now and again
+with unseeing eyes. There were a dozen cases on which he was engaged,
+which had been forwarded to him during his absence in the country—the
+priest at High Hatch was reported to have taken a wife, and Cromwell
+desired information about this; Ralph had ridden out there one day and
+gossipped a little outside the parsonage; an inn-keeper a few miles to
+the north of Cuckfield had talked against the divorce and the reigning
+Consort; a mistake had been made in the matter of a preaching license,
+and Cranmer had desired Cromwell to look into it; a house had been sold
+in Cheapside on which Ralph had been told to keep a suspicious eye, and
+he was asked his opinion on the matter; and such things as these
+occupied his time fully, until towards four o’clock in the afternoon his
+carriage rolled up to the horse-ferry at Lambeth, and he thrust the
+papers back into his bag before stepping out.</p>
+
+<p>On arriving at his own little house in Westminster, the rent of which
+was paid by his master, he left his other servants to carry up the
+luggage, and set out himself again immediately with Morris in a hackney
+carriage for Chancery Lane.</p>
+
+<p>As he went, he found himself for the hundredth time thinking of the
+history of the man to whom he was going.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thomas Cromwell was beginning to rise rapidly from a life of
+adventure and obscurity abroad. He had passed straight from the
+Cardinal’s service to the King’s three years before, and had since then
+been knighted, appointed privy-councillor, Master of the Jewel-house,
+and Clerk of the Hanaper in the Court of Chancery. At the same time he
+was actively engaged on his amazing system of espionage through which he
+was able to detect disaffection in all parts of the country, and thereby
+render himself invaluable to the King, who, like all the Tudors, while
+perfectly fearless in the face of open danger was pitiably terrified of
+secret schemes.</p>
+
+<p>And it was to this man that he was confidential agent! Was there any
+limit to the possibilities of his future?</p>
+
+<p>Ralph found a carriage drawn up at the door and, on enquiry, heard that
+his master was on the point of leaving; and even as he hesitated in the
+entrance, Cromwell shambled down the stairs with a few papers in his
+hand, his long sleeveless cloak flapping on each step behind him, and
+his felt plumed cap on his head in which shone a yellow jewel.</p>
+
+<p>His large dull face, clean shaven like a priest’s, lighted up briskly as
+he saw Ralph standing there, and he thrust his arm pleasantly through
+his agent’s.</p>
+
+<p>“Come home to supper,” he said, and the two wheeled round and went out
+and into the carriage. Mr. Morris handed the bag through the window to
+his master, and stood bare-headed as the carriage moved off over the
+newly laid road.</p>
+
+<p>It would have been a very surprising sight to Sir James Torridon to see
+his impassive son’s attitude towards Cromwell. He was deferential, eager
+to please, nervous of rebuke, and almost servile, for he had found his
+hero in that tremendous personality. He pulled out his papers now, shook
+them out briskly, and was soon explaining, marking and erasing. Cromwell
+leaned back in his corner and listened, putting in a word of comment now
+and again, or dotting down a note on the back of a letter, and watching
+Ralph with a pleasant, oblique look, for he liked to see his people
+alert and busy. But he knew very well what his demeanour was like at
+other times, and had at first indeed been drawn to the young man by his
+surprising insolence of manner and impressive observant silences.</p>
+
+<p>“That is very well, Mr. Torridon,” he said. “I will see to the license.
+Put them all away.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph obeyed, and then sat back too, silent indeed, but with a kind of
+side-long readiness for the next subject; but Cromwell spoke no more of
+business for the present, only uttering short sentences about current
+affairs, and telling his friend the news.</p>
+
+<p>“Frith has been burned,” he said. “Perhaps you knew it. He was obstinate
+to the end, my Lord Bishop reported. He threw Saint Chrysostom and Saint
+Augustine back into their teeth. He gave great occasion to the funny
+fellows. There was one who said that since Frith would have no
+purgatory, he was sent there by my Lord to find out for himself whether
+there be such a place or not. There was a word more about his manner of
+going there, ‘Frith frieth,’ but ’twas not good. Those funny fellows
+over-reach themselves. Hewet went with him to Smithfield and hell.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph smiled, and asked how they took it.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, very well. A priest bade the folk pray no more for Frith than for a
+dog, but Frith smiled on him and begged the Lord to forgive him his
+unkind words.”</p>
+
+<p>He was going on to tell him a little more about the talk of the Court,
+when the carriage drove up to the house in Throgmorton Street, near
+Austin Friars, which Cromwell had lately built for himself.</p>
+
+<p>“My wife and children are at Hackney,” he said as he stepped out. “We
+shall sup alone.”</p>
+
+<p>It was a great house, built out of an older one, superbly furnished with
+Italian things, and had a large garden at the back on to which looked
+the windows of the hall. Supper was brought up almost immediately—a
+couple of woodcocks and a salad—and the two sat down, with a pair of
+servants in blue and silver to wait on them. Cromwell spoke no more word
+of business until the bottle of wine had been set on the table, and the
+servants were gone. And then he began again, immediately.</p>
+
+<p>“And what of the country?” he said. “What do they say there?” He took a
+peach from the carved roundel in the centre of the table, and seemed
+absorbed in its contemplation.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph had had some scruples at first about reporting private
+conversations, but Cromwell had quieted them long since, chiefly by the
+force of his personality, and partly by the argument that a man’s duty
+to the State over-rode his duty to his friends, and that since only talk
+that was treasonable would be punished, it was simpler to report all
+conversations in general that had any suspicious bearing, and that he
+himself was most competent to judge whether or no they should be
+followed up. Ralph, too, had become completely reassured by now that no
+injury would be done to his own status among his friends, since his
+master had never yet made direct use of any of his information in such a
+manner as that it was necessary for Ralph to appear as a public witness.
+And again, too, he had pointed out that the work had to be done, and
+that was better for the cause of justice and mercy that it should be
+done by conscientious rather than by unscrupulous persons.</p>
+
+<p>He talked to him now very freely about the conversations in his father’s
+house, knowing that Cromwell did not want more than a general specimen
+sketch of public feeling in matters at issue.</p>
+
+<p>“They have great faith in the Maid of Kent, sir,” he said. “My
+brother-in-law, Nicholas, spoke of her prophecy of his Grace’s death. It
+is the devout that believe in her; the ungodly know her for a fool or a
+knave.”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Filii hujus saeculi prudentiores sunt</i>,”—quoted Cromwell gravely.
+“Your brother-in-law, I should think, was a child of light.”</p>
+
+<p>“He is, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“I should have thought so. And what else did you hear?”</p>
+
+<p>“There is a good deal of memory of the Lady Katharine, sir. I heard the
+foresters talking one day.”</p>
+
+<p>“What of the Religious houses?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>“My brother Christopher has just gone to Lewes,” he said. “So I heard
+more of the favourable side, but I heard a good deal against them, too.
+There was a secular priest talking against them one day, with our
+chaplain, who is a defender of them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who was he?” asked Cromwell, with the same sharp, oblique glance.</p>
+
+<p>“A man of no importance, sir; the parson of Great Keynes.”</p>
+
+<p>“The Holy Maid is in trouble,” went on the other after a minute’s
+silence. “She is in my Lord of Canterbury’s hands, and we can leave her
+there. I suppose she will be hanged.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph waited. He knew it was no good asking too much.</p>
+
+<p>“What she said of the King’s death and the pestilence is enough to cast
+her,” went on Cromwell presently. “And Bocking and Hadleigh will be in
+his hands soon, too. They do not know their peril yet.”</p>
+
+<p>They went on to talk of the friars, and of the disfavour that they were
+in with the King after the unfortunate occurrences of the previous
+spring, when Father Peto had preached at Greenwich before Henry on the
+subject of Naboth’s vineyard and the end of Ahab the oppressor. There
+had been a dramatic scene, Cromwell said, when on the following Sunday a
+canon of Hereford, Dr. Curwin, had preached against Peto from the same
+pulpit, and had been rebuked from the rood-loft by another of the
+brethren, Father Elstow, who had continued declaiming until the King
+himself had fiercely intervened from the royal pew and bade him be
+silent.</p>
+
+<p>“The two are banished,” said Cromwell, “but that is not the end of it.
+Their brethren will hear of it again. I have never seen the King so
+wrathful. I suppose it was partly because the Lady Katharine so
+cossetted them. She was always in the church at the night-office when
+the Court was at Greenwich, and Friar Forrest, you know, was her
+confessor. There is a rod in pickle.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph listened with all his ears. Cromwell was not very communicative
+on the subject of the Religious houses, but Ralph had gathered from
+hints of this kind that something was preparing.</p>
+
+<p>When supper was over and the servants were clearing away, Cromwell went
+to the window where the glass glowed overhead with his new arms and
+scrolls—a blue coat with Cornish choughs and a rose on a fess between
+three rampant lions—and stood there, a steady formidable figure, with
+his cropped head and great jowl, looking out on to the garden.</p>
+
+<p>When the men had gone he turned again to Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“I have something for you,” he said, “but it is greater than those other
+matters—a fool could not do it. Sit down.”</p>
+
+<p>He came across the room to the fireplace, as Ralph sat down, and himself
+took a chair by the table, lifting the baudkin cushion and settling it
+again comfortably behind him.</p>
+
+<p>“It is this,” he said abruptly. “You know that Master More has been in
+trouble. There was the matter of the gilt flagon which Powell said he
+had taken as a bribe, and the gloves lined with forty pound. Well, he
+disproved that, and I am glad of it, glad of it,” he repeated steadily,
+looking down at his ring and turning it to catch the light. “But there
+is now another matter—I hear he has been practising with the Holy Maid
+and hearkening to her ravings, and that my Lord of Rochester is in it
+too. But I am not sure of it.”</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell stopped, glanced up at Ralph a moment, and then down again.</p>
+
+<p>“I am not sure of it,” he said again, “and I wish to be. And I think you
+can help me.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph waited patiently, his heart beginning to quicken. This was a great
+matter.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish you to go to him,” said his master, “and to get him into talk.
+But I do not see how it can be managed.”</p>
+
+<p>“He knows I am in your service, sir,” suggested Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes,” said Cromwell a little impatiently, “that is it. He is no
+fool, and will not talk. This is what I thought of. That you should go
+to him from me, and feign that you are on his side in the matter. But
+will he believe that?” he ended gloomily, looking at the other
+curiously.</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for a minute, while Cromwell drummed his fingers
+softly on the table. Then presently Ralph spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“There is this, sir,” he said. “I might speak to him about my brother
+Chris who, as I told you, has gone to Lewes at the Maid’s advice, and
+then see what Master More has to say.”</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell still looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he said, “that seems reasonable. And for the rest—well, I will
+leave that in your hands.”</p>
+
+<p>They talked a few minutes longer about Sir Thomas More, and Cromwell
+told the other what a quiet life the ex-Chancellor had led since his
+resignation of office, of his house at Chelsea, and the like, and of the
+decision that he had apparently come to not to mix any further in public
+affairs.</p>
+
+<p>“There is thunder in the air,” he said, “as you know very well, and
+Master More is no mean weather-prophet. He mis-liked the matter of the
+Lady Katharine, and Queen Anne is no friend of his. I think he is wise
+to be quiet.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph knew perfectly well that this tolerant language did not represent
+Cromwell’s true attitude towards the man of whom they were speaking, but
+he assented to all that was said, and added a word or two about Sir
+Thomas More’s learning, and of the pleasant manner in which he himself
+had been received when he had once had had occasion to see him before.</p>
+
+<p>“He was throwing Horace at me,” said the other, with a touch of
+bitterness, “the last time that I was there. I do not know which he
+loves best, that or his prayers.”</p>
+
+<p>Again Ralph recognised an animus. Cromwell had suffered somewhat from
+lack of a classical education.</p>
+
+<p>“But it is a good thing to love the classics and devotion,” he went on
+presently with a sententious air, “they are solaces in time of trouble.
+I have found that myself.”</p>
+
+<p>He glanced up at the other and down again.</p>
+
+<p>“I was caught saying our Lady matins one day,” he said, “when the
+Cardinal was in trouble. I remember I was very devout that morning.”</p>
+
+<p>He went on to talk of Wolsey and of his relations with him, and Ralph
+watched that heavy smooth face become reminiscent and almost
+sentimental.</p>
+
+<p>“If he had but been wiser;” he said. “I have noticed again and again the
+folly of wise men. There is always clay mixed with gold. I suppose
+nothing but the fire that Frith denied can purge it out; and my lord’s
+was ambition.”</p>
+
+<p>He wagged his head in solemn reprobation, and Ralph did not know whether
+to laugh or to look grave. Then there fell a long silence, and Cromwell
+again fell to fingering his signet-ring, taking it off his thumb and
+rolling it on the smooth oak, and at last stood up with a brisker air.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” he said, “I have a thousand affairs, and my son Gregory is
+coming here soon. Then you will see about that matter. Remember I wish
+to know what Master More thinks of her, that—that I may know what to
+think.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ralph understood sufficiently clearly, as he walked home in the evening
+light, what it was that his master wanted. It was no less than to catch
+some handle against the ex-chancellor, though he had carefully abstained
+from saying so. Ralph recognised the adroitness, and saw that while the
+directions had been plain and easy to understand, yet that not one word
+had been spoken that could by any means be used as a handle against
+Cromwell. If anyone in England at that time knew how to wield speech it
+was his master; it was by that weapon that he had prevailed with the
+King, and still kept him in check; it was that weapon rashly used by his
+enemies that he was continually turning against them, and under his
+tutoring Ralph himself had begun to be practised in the same art.</p>
+
+<p>Among other causes, too, of his admiration for Cromwell, was the
+latter’s extraordinary business capacity. There was hardly an affair of
+any importance in which he did not have a finger at least, and most of
+them he held in the palm of his hand, and that, not only in the mass but
+in their minutest details. Ralph had marvelled more than once at the
+minutiæ that he had seen dotted down on the backs of old letters lying
+on his master’s table. Matters of Church and State, inextricably
+confused to other eyes, were simple to this man; he understood
+intuitively where the key of each situation lay, and dealt with them one
+after another briefly and effectively. And yet with all this no man wore
+an appearance of greater leisure; he would gossip harmlessly for an
+hour, and yet by the end had said all that he wished to say, and
+generally learnt, too, from his companion whoever he might be, all he
+wished to learn. Ralph had watched him more than once at this business;
+had seen delicate subjects introduced in a deft unsuspicious sentence
+that roused no alarm, and had marvelled at his power to play with men
+without their dreaming of what was going forward.</p>
+
+<p>And now it was Master More that was threatened. Ralph knew well that
+there was far more behind the scenes than he could understand or even
+perceive, and recognised that the position of Sir Thomas was more
+significant than would appear, and that developments might be expected
+to follow soon.</p>
+
+<p>For himself he had no shrinking from his task. He understood that
+government was carried on by such methods, and that More himself would
+be the first to acknowledge that in war many things were permissible
+that would be outrageous in times of peace, and that these were times of
+war. To call upon a friend, to eat his bread and salt, and talk
+familiarly with him, and to be on the watch all the while for a weak
+spot through which that friend might be wounded, seemed to Ralph,
+trained now and perfected in Cromwell’s school, a perfectly legitimate
+policy, and he walked homewards this summer evening, pleased with this
+new mark of confidence, and anxious to acquit himself well in his task.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The house that Ralph occupied in Westminster was in a street to the west
+of the Abbey, and stood back a little between its neighbours. It was a
+very small one, of only two rooms in width and one in depth, and three
+stories high; but it had been well furnished, chiefly with things
+brought up from Overfield Court, to which Ralph had taken a fancy, and
+which his father had not denied him. He lived almost entirely in the
+first floor, his bedroom and sitting-room being divided by the narrow
+landing at the head of the stairs that led up to the storey above, which
+was occupied by Mr. Morris and a couple of other servants. The lower
+storey Ralph used chiefly for purposes of business, and for interviews
+which were sufficiently numerous for one engaged in so many affairs.
+Cromwell had learnt by now that he could be trusted to say little and to
+learn much, and the early acts of many little dramas that had ended in
+tragedy had been performed in the two gravely-furnished rooms on the
+ground floor. A good deal of the law-business, in its early stages,
+connected with the annulling of the King’s marriage with Queen Katharine
+had been done there; a great canonist from a foreign university had
+explained there his views in broken English, helped out with Latin, to a
+couple of shrewd-faced men, while Ralph watched the case for his master;
+and Cromwell himself had found the little retired house a convenience
+for meeting with persons whom he did not wish to frighten over much,
+while Ralph and Mr. Morris sat alert and expectant on the other side of
+the hall, with the door open, listening for raised voices or other signs
+of a quarrel.</p>
+
+<p>The rooms upstairs had been furnished with considerable care. The floors
+of both were matted, for the plan involved less trouble than the
+continual laying of clean rushes. The sitting-room was panelled up six
+feet from the floor, and the three feet of wall above were covered with
+really beautiful tapestry that Ralph had brought up from Overfield.
+There was a great table in the centre, along one side of which rested a
+set of drawers with brass handles, and in the centre of the table was a
+deep well, covered by a flap that lay level with the rest of the top.
+Another table stood against the wall, on which his meals were served,
+and the door of a cupboard in which his plate and knives were kept
+opened immediately above it, designed in the thickness of the wall.
+There were half-a-dozen chairs, two or three other pieces of furniture,
+a backed settle by the fire and a row of bookshelves opposite the
+windows; and over the mantelpiece, against the tapestry, hung a picture
+of Cromwell, painted by Holbein, and rejected by him before it was
+finished. Ralph had begged it from the artist who was on the point of
+destroying it. It represented the sitter’s head and shoulders in
+three-quarter face, showing his short hair, his shrewd heavy face, with
+its double chin, and the furred gown below.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morris was ready for his master and opened the door to him.</p>
+
+<p>“There are some letters come, Mr. Ralph, sir,” he said. “I have laid
+them on your table.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph nodded, slipped off his thin cloak into his servant’s hands
+without speaking, laid down his cane and went upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>The letters were very much what he expected, and dealt with cases on
+which he was engaged. There was an entreaty from a country squire near
+Epping Forest, whose hounds had got into trouble with the King’s
+foresters that he would intercede for him to Cromwell. A begging letter
+from a monk who had been ejected from his monastery for repeated
+misconduct, and who represented himself as starving; Ralph lifted this
+to his nostrils and it smelt powerfully of spirits, and he laid it down
+again, smiling to himself. A torrent of explanation from a schoolmaster
+who had been reported for speaking against the sacrament of the altar,
+calling the saints to witness that he was no follower of Frith in such
+detestable heresy. A dignified protest from a Justice of the Peace in
+Kent who had been reproved by Cromwell, through Ralph’s agency, for
+acquitting a sturdy beggar, and who begged that he might in future deal
+with a responsible person; and this Ralph laid aside, smiling again and
+promising himself that he would have the pleasure of granting the
+request. An offer, written in a clerkly hand, from a fellow who could
+not sign his name but had appended a cross, to submit some important
+evidence of a treasonable plot, on the consideration of secrecy and a
+suitable reward.</p>
+
+<p>A year ago such a budget would have given Ralph considerable pleasure,
+and a sense of his own importance; but business had been growing on him
+rapidly of late, as his master perceived his competence, and it gave him
+no thrill to docket this one, write a refusal to that, a guarded answer
+to another, and finally to open the well of his table and drop the
+bundle in.</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned round his chair, blew out one candle carefully, and set
+to thinking about Master Thomas More.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br><span class="small">MASTER MORE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p>It was not until nearly a month later that Ralph made an opportunity to
+call upon Sir Thomas More. Cromwell had given him to understand that
+there was no immediate reason for haste; his own time was tolerably
+occupied, and he thought it as well not to make a show of over-great
+hurry. He wrote to Sir Thomas, explaining that he wished to see him on a
+matter connected with his brother Christopher, and received a courteous
+reply begging him to come to dinner on the following Thursday, the
+octave of the Assumption, as Sir Thomas thought it proper to add.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was a wonderfully pleasant house, Ralph thought, as his wherry came
+up to the foot of the garden stairs that led down from the lawn to the
+river. It stood well back in its own grounds, divided from the river by
+a wall with a wicket gate in it. There was a little grove of trees on
+either side of it; a flock of pigeons were wheeling about the
+bell-turret that rose into the clear blue sky, and from which came a
+stroke or two, announcing the approach of dinner-time as he went up the
+steps.</p>
+
+<p>There was a figure lying on its face in the shadow by the house, as
+Ralph came up the path, and a small dog, that seemed to be trying to dig
+the head out from the hands in which it was buried, ceased his
+excavations and set up a shrill barking. The figure rolled over, and sat
+up; the pleasant brown face was all creased with laughter; small pieces
+of grass were clinging to the long hair, and Ralph, to his amazement,
+recognised the ex-Lord Chancellor of England.</p>
+
+<p>“I beg your pardon, sir,” said More, rising and shaking himself. “I had
+no idea—you take me at a disadvantage; it is scarcely dignified”—and
+he stopped, smiling and holding out one hand, while he stretched the
+other deprecatingly, to quiet that insistent barking.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph had a sensation of mingled contempt and sympathy as he took his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>“I had the honour of seeing you once before, Master More,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes,” said More, “and I hope I cut a better figure last time, but
+Anubis would take no refusal. But I am ashamed, and beg you will not
+speak of it to Mrs. More. She is putting on a new coif in your honour.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will be discreet,” said Ralph, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>They went indoors almost immediately, when Sir Thomas had flicked the
+grass sufficiently off his gown to escape detection, and straight
+through to the hall where the table was laid, and three or four girls
+were waiting.</p>
+
+<p>“Your mother is not here yet, I see,” said Sir Thomas, when he had made
+Ralph known to his daughters, and the young man had kissed them
+deferentially, according to the proper etiquette—“I will tell you
+somewhat—hush—” and he broke off again sharply as the door from the
+stairs opened, and a stately lady, with a rather solemn and
+uninteresting face, sailed in, her silk skirts rustling behind her, and
+her fresh coif stiff and white on her head. A middle-aged man followed
+her in, looking a little dejected, and made straight across to where the
+ladies were standing with an eagerness that seemed to hint at a sense of
+escape.</p>
+
+<p>“Mrs. Alice,” said Sir Thomas, “this is Mr. Ralph Torridon, of whom you
+have heard me speak. I was fortunate enough to welcome him on the lawn
+just now.”</p>
+
+<p>“I saw you, Mr. More,” said his wife with dignity, as she took Ralph’s
+hand and said a word about the weather.</p>
+
+<p>“Then I will confess,” said Sir Thomas, smiling genially round, “I
+welcomed Mr. Torridon with the back of my head, and with Anubis biting
+my ears.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph felt strangely drawn to this schoolboy kind of man, who romped
+with dogs and lay on his stomach, and was so charmingly afraid of his
+wife. His contempt began to melt as he looked at him and saw those wise
+twinkling eyes, and strong humorous mouth, and remembered once more who
+he was, and his reputation.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thomas said grace with great gravity and signed himself reverently
+before he sat down. There was a little reading first of the Scriptures
+and a commentary on it, and then as dinner went on Ralph began to attend
+less and less to his hostess, who, indeed appeared wholly absorbed in
+domestic details of the table and with whispering severely to the
+servants behind her hand, and to listen and look towards the further end
+where Sir Thomas sat in his tall chair, his flapped cap on his head, and
+talked to his daughters on either side. Mr. Roper, the man who had come
+in with Mrs. More, was sitting opposite Ralph, and seemed to be chiefly
+occupied in listening too. A bright-looking tall girl, whom her father
+had introduced by the name of Cecily, sat between Ralph and her father.</p>
+
+<p>“Not at all,” cried Sir Thomas, in answer to something that Ralph did
+not catch, “nothing of the kind! It was Juno that screamed. Argus would
+not condescend to it. He was occupied in dancing before the bantams.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph lost one of the few remarks that Mrs. More addressed to him, in
+wondering what this meant, and the conversation at the other end swept
+round a corner while he was apologising. When he again caught the
+current Sir Thomas was speaking of wherries.</p>
+
+<p>“I would love to row a wherry,” he said. “The fellows do not know their
+fortune; they might lead such sweet meditative lives; they do not, I am
+well aware, for I have never heard such blasphemy as I have heard from
+wherrymen. But what opportunities are theirs! If I were not your father,
+my darling, I would be a wherryman. <i>Si cognovisses et tu quae ad pacem
+tibi</i>! Mr. Torridon, would you not be a wherryman if you were not Mr.
+Torridon?”</p>
+
+<p>“I thought not this morning,” said Ralph, “as I came here. It seemed hot
+rowing against the stream.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is part of the day’s work,” said More. “When I was Chancellor I
+loved nothing more than a hot summer’s day in Court, for I thought of my
+cool garden where I should soon be walking. I must show you the New
+Building after dinner, Mr. Torridon.”</p>
+
+<p>Cecily and Margaret presently had a short encounter across the table on
+some subject that Ralph did not catch, but he saw Margaret on the other
+side flush up and bring her lips sharply together. Sir Thomas leapt into
+the breach.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Unde leves animae tanto caluere furore?</i>” he cried, and glanced up at
+Ralph to see if he understood the quotation, as the two girls dropped
+their eyes ashamed.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Pugnavare pares, succubuere pares</i>,” said Ralph by a flash of
+inspiration, and looking at the girls.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thomas’s eyes shone with pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>“I did not know you were such a treasure, Mr. Torridon. Now, Master
+Cromwell could not have done that.”</p>
+
+<p>There fell a silence as that name was spoken, and all at the table eyed
+Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“He was saying as much to me the other day,” went on Ralph, excited by
+his success. “He told me you knew Horace too well.”</p>
+
+<p>“And that my morals were corrupted by him,” went on More. “I know he
+thinks that, but I had the honour of confuting him the other day with
+regard to the flagon and gloves. Now, there is a subject for Martial,
+Mr. Torridon. A corrupt statesman who has retired on his ill-gotten
+gains disproves an accusation of bribery. Let us call him Atticus
+‘Attice ... Attice’ ...—We might say that he put on the gloves lest his
+forgers should be soiled while he drank from the flagon, or something of
+the kind.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thomas’s eyes beamed with delight as he talked. To make an apt
+classical quotation was like wine to him, but to have it capped
+appropriately was like drunkenness. Ralph blessed his stars that he had
+been so lucky, for he was no great scholar, and he guessed he had won
+his host’s confidence.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner passed on quietly, and as they rose from table More came round
+and took his guest by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>“You must come with me and see my New Building,” he said, “you are
+worthy of it, Mr. Torridon.”</p>
+
+<p>He still held his arm affectionately as they walked out into the garden
+behind the house, and as he discoursed on the joys of a country life.</p>
+
+<p>“What more can I ask of God?” he said. “He has given me means and tastes
+to correspond, and what man can say more. I see visions, and am able to
+make them realities. I dream of a dovecote with a tiled roof, and
+straightway build it; I picture a gallery and a chapel and a library
+away from the clack of tongues, and behold there it is. The eye cannot
+say to the hand, ‘I have no need of thee.’ To see and dream without the
+power of performance is heart-breaking. To perform without the gift of
+imagination is soul-slaying. The man is blessed that hath both eye and
+hand, tastes and means alike.”</p>
+
+<p>It was a very pleasant retreat that Sir Thomas More had built for
+himself at the end of his garden, where he might retire when he wanted
+solitude. There was a little entrance hall with a door at one corner
+into the chapel, and a long low gallery running out from it, lined with
+bookshelves on one side, and with an open space on the other lighted by
+square windows looking into the garden. The polished boards were bare,
+and there was a path marked on them by footsteps going from end to end.</p>
+
+<p>“Here I walk,” said More, “and my friends look at me from those shelves,
+ready to converse but never to interrupt. Shall we walk here, Mr.
+Torridon, while you tell me your business?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph had, indeed, a touch of scrupulousness as he thought of his host’s
+confidence, but he had learnt the habit of silencing impulses and of
+only acting on plans deliberately formed; so he was soon laying bare his
+anxiety about Chris, and his fear that he had been misled by the Holy
+Maid.</p>
+
+<p>“I am very willing, Mr. More,” he said, “that my brother should be a
+monk if it is right, but I could not bear he should be so against God’s
+leading. How am I to know whether the maid’s words are of God or no?”</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thomas was silent a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“But he had thoughts of it before, I suppose,” he said, “or he would not
+have gone to her. In fact, you said so.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph acknowledged that this was so.</p>
+
+<p>“—And for several years,” went on the other.</p>
+
+<p>Again Ralph assented.</p>
+
+<p>“And his tastes and habits are those of a monk, I suppose. He is long
+at his prayers, given to silence, and of a tranquil spirit?”</p>
+
+<p>“He is not always tranquil,” said Ralph. “He is impertinent sometimes.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes; we all are that. I was very impertinent to you at dinner in
+trying to catch you with Martial his epigram, though I shall not offend
+again. But his humour may be generally tranquil in spite of it. Well, if
+that is so, I do not see why you need trouble about the Holy Maid. He
+would likely have been a monk without that. She only confirmed him.”</p>
+
+<p>“But,” went on Ralph, fighting to get back to the point, “if I thought
+she was trustworthy I should be the more happy.”</p>
+
+<p>“There must always be doubtfulness,” said More, “in such matters. That
+is why the novitiate is so severe; it is to show the young men the worst
+at once. I do not think you need be unhappy about your brother.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what is your view about the Holy Maid?” asked Ralph, suddenly
+delivering his point.</p>
+
+<p>More stopped in his walk, cocked his head a little on one side like a
+clever dog, and looked at his companion with twinkling eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“It is a delicate subject,” he said, and went on again.</p>
+
+<p>“That is what puzzles me,” said Ralph. “Will you not tell me your
+opinion, Mr. More?”</p>
+
+<p>There was again a silence, and they reached the further end of the
+gallery and turned again before Sir Thomas answered.</p>
+
+<p>“If you had not answered me so briskly at dinner, Mr. Torridon, do you
+know that I should have suspected you of coming to search me out. But
+such a good head, I think, cannot be allied with a bad heart, and I
+will tell you.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph felt a prick of triumph but none of remorse.</p>
+
+<p>“I will tell you,” went on More, “and I am sure you will keep it
+private. I think the Holy Maid is a good woman who has a maggot.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph’s spirits sank again. This was a very non-committing answer.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not think her a knave as some do, but I think, to refer to what we
+said just now, that she has a large and luminous eye, and no hand worth
+mentioning. She sees many visions, but few facts. That tale about the
+Host being borne by angels from Calais to my mind is nonsense. Almighty
+God does not work miracles without reason, and there is none for that.
+The blessed sacrament is the same at Dover as at Calais. And a woman who
+can dream that can dream anything, for I am sure she did not invent it.
+On other matters, therefore, she may be dreaming too, and that is why
+once more I tell you that to my mind you can leave her out of your
+thoughts with regard to your brother. She is neither prophetess nor
+pythoness.”</p>
+
+<p>This was very unsatisfactory, and Ralph strove to remedy it.</p>
+
+<p>“And in the matter of the King’s death, Mr. More?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Again Sir Thomas stopped in his walk.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you know, Mr. Torridon, I think we may leave that alone,” he said a
+little abruptly. And Ralph sucked in his lip and bit it sharply at the
+consciousness of his own folly.</p>
+
+<p>“I hope your brother will be very happy,” went on the other after a
+moment, “and I am sure he will be, if his call is from God, as I think
+likely. I was with the Carthusians myself, you know, for four years,
+and sometimes I think I should have stayed there. It is a blessed life.
+I do not envy many folks, but I do those. To live in the daily
+companionship of our blessed Lord and of his saints as those do, and to
+know His secrets—<i>secreta Domini</i>—even the secrets of His Passion and
+its ineffable joys of pain—that is a very fortunate lot, Mr. Torridon.
+I sometimes think that as it was with Christ’s natural body so it is
+with His mystical body: there be some members, His hands and feet and
+side, through which the nails are thrust, though indeed there is not one
+whole spot in His body—<i>inglorius erit inter viros aspectus ejus—nos
+putavimus eum quasi leprosum</i>—but those parts of His body that are
+especially pained are at once more honourable and more happy than those
+that are not. And the monks are those happy members.”</p>
+
+<p>He was speaking very solemnly, his voice a little tremulous, and his
+kindly eyes were cast down, and Ralph watched him sidelong with a little
+awe and pity mingled. He seemed so natural too, that Ralph thought that
+he must have over-rated his own indiscretion.</p>
+
+<p>A shadow fell across the door into the garden as they came near it, and
+one of the girls appeared in the opening.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Meg,” cried her father, “what is it, my darling?”</p>
+
+<p>“Beatrice has come, sir,” said the girl. “I thought you would wish to
+know.”</p>
+
+<p>More put out his arm and laid it round his daughter’s waist as she
+turned with him.</p>
+
+<p>“Come, Mr. Torridon,” he said, “if you have no more to say, let us go
+and see Beatrice.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a group on the lawn under one of the lime trees, two or three
+girls and Mr. Roper, who all rose to their feet as the three came up.
+More immediately sat down on the grass, putting his feet delicately
+together before him.</p>
+
+<p>“Will, fetch this gentleman a chair. It is not fit for Master
+Cromwell’s friend to sit on the grass like you and me.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph threw himself down on the lawn instantly, entreating Mr. Roper not
+to move.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, well,” said Sir Thomas, “let be. Sit down too, Will, <i>et cubito
+remanete presso</i>. Mr. Torridon understands that, I know, even if Master
+Cromwell’s friend does not. Why, tillie-vallie, as Mrs. More says, I
+have not said a word to Beatrice. Beatrice, this is Mr. Ralph Torridon,
+and this, Mr. Torridon, is Beatrice. Her other name is Atherton, but to
+me she is a feminine benediction, and nought else.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph rose swiftly and looked across at a tall slender girl that was
+sitting contentedly on an outlying root of the lime tree, beside of Sir
+Thomas, and who rose with him.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. More cannot let my name alone, Mr. Torridon,” she said tranquilly,
+as she drew back after the salute. “He made a play upon it the other
+day.”</p>
+
+<p>“And have been ashamed of it ever since,” said More; “it was sacrilege
+with such a name. Now, I am plain Thomas, and more besides. Why did you
+send for me, Beatrice?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have no defence,” said the girl, “save that I wanted to see you.”</p>
+
+<p>“And that is the prettiest defence you could have made—if it does not
+amount to corruption. Mr. Torridon, what is the repartee to that?”</p>
+
+<p>“I need no advocate,” said the girl; “I can plead well enough.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph looked up at her again with a certain interest. She seemed on
+marvellously good terms with the whole family, and had an air of being
+entirely at her ease. She had her black eyes bent down on to a piece of
+grass that she was twisting into a ring between her slender jewelled
+fingers, and her white teeth were closed firmly on her lower lip as she
+worked. Her long silk skirts lay out unregarded on the grass, and her
+buckles gleamed beneath. Her voice was pleasant and rather deep, and
+Ralph found himself wondering who she was, and why he had not seen her
+before, for she evidently belonged to his class, and London was a small
+place.</p>
+
+<p>“I see you are making one more chain to bind me to you,” said More
+presently, watching her.</p>
+
+<p>She held it up.</p>
+
+<p>“A ring only,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“Then it is not for me,” said More, “for I do not hold with Dr.
+Melanchthon, nor yet Solomon in the matter of wives. Now, Mr. Torridon,
+tell us all some secrets. Betray your master. We are all agog. Leave off
+that ring, Beatrice, and attend.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am listening,” said the girl as serenely as before, still intent on
+her weaving.</p>
+
+<p>“The King breakfasted this morning at eight of the clock,” said Ralph
+gravely. “It is an undoubted fact, I had it on the highest authority.”</p>
+
+<p>“This is excellent,” said Sir Thomas. “Let us all talk treason. I can
+add to that. His Grace had a fall last night and lay senseless for
+several hours.”</p>
+
+<p>He spoke with such gravity that Ralph glanced up. At the same moment
+Beatrice looked up from her work and their eyes met.</p>
+
+<p>“He fell asleep,” added Sir Thomas.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was very pleasant to lie there in the shadow of the lime that
+afternoon, and listen to the mild fooling, and Ralph forgot his
+manners, and almost his errand too, and never offered to move. The grass
+began to turn golden as the sun slanted to the West, and the birds began
+to stir after the heat of the day, and to chirp from tree to tree. A
+hundred yards away the river twinkled in the sun, seen beyond the trees
+and the house, and the voices of the boatmen came, softened by distance
+and water, as they plied up and down the flowing highway. Once a barge
+went past under the Battersea bank, with music playing in the stern, and
+Ralph raised himself on his elbow to watch it as it went down the stream
+with flags flying behind, and the rhythmical throb of the row-locks
+sounding time to the dancing melody.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph did his best to fall in with the humour of the day, and told a
+good story or two in his slow voice—among them one of his mother
+exercising her gift of impressive silence towards a tiresome chatterbox
+of a man, with such effect that the conversationalist’s words died on
+his lips, after the third or fourth pause made for applause and comment.
+He told the story well, and Lady Torridon seemed to move among them, her
+skirts dragging majestically on the grass, and her steady, sombre face
+looking down on them all beneath half-closed languid eye-lids.</p>
+
+<p>“He has never been near us again,” said Ralph, “but he never fails to
+ask after my mother’s distressing illness when I meet him in town.”</p>
+
+<p>He was a little astonished at himself as he talked, for he was not
+accustomed to take such pains to please, but he was conscious that
+though he looked round at the faces, and addressed himself to More, he
+was really watching for the effect on the girl who sat behind. He was
+aware of every movement that she made; he knew when she tossed the ring
+on the little sleeping brown body of the dog that had barked at him
+earlier in the day, and set to work upon another. She slipped that on
+her finger when she had done, and turned her hand this way and that, her
+fingers bent back, a ruby catching the light as she did so, looking at
+the effect of the green circle against the whiteness. But he never
+looked at her again, except once when she asked him some question, and
+then he looked her straight in her black eyes as he answered.</p>
+
+<p>A bell sounded out at last again from the tower, and startled him. He
+got up quickly.</p>
+
+<p>“I am ashamed,” he said smiling, “how dare I stay so long? It is your
+kindness, Mr. More.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nay, nay,” said Sir Thomas, rising too and stretching himself. “You
+have helped us to lose another day in the pleasantest manner
+possible—you must come again, Mr. Torridon.”</p>
+
+<p>He walked down with Ralph to the garden steps, and stood by him talking,
+while the wherry that had been hailed from the other side made its way
+across.</p>
+
+<p>“Beatrice is like one of my own daughters,” he said, “and I cannot give
+her better praise than that. She is always here, and always as you saw
+her to-day. I think she is one of the strongest spirits I know. What did
+you think of her, Mr. Torridon?”</p>
+
+<p>“She did not talk much,” said Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“She talks when she has aught to say,” went on More, “and otherwise is
+silent. It is a good rule, sir; I would I observed it myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who is she?” asked Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“She is the daughter of a friend I had, and she lives just now with my
+wife’s sisters, Nan and Fan. She is often in town with one of them. I am
+astonished you have not met her before.”</p>
+
+<p>The wherry slid up to the steps and the man in his great boots slipped
+over the side to steady it.</p>
+
+<p>“Now is the time to begin your philosophy,” said More as Ralph stepped
+in, “and a Socrates is ready. Talk it over, Mr. Torridon.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br><span class="small">RALPH’S INTERCESSION</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p>Ralph was astonished to find how the thought of the tall girl he had met
+at Sir Thomas More’s house remained with him. He had reported the result
+of his interview with More himself to his master; and Cromwell had
+received it rather coldly. He had sniffed once or twice.</p>
+
+<p>“That was not very well done, Mr. Torridon. I fear that you have
+frightened him, and gained nothing by it.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph stood silent.</p>
+
+<p>“But I see you make no excuses,” went on Cromwell, “so I will make them
+for you. I daresay he was frightened already; and knew all about what
+had passed between her and the Archbishop. You must try again, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph felt his heart stir with pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>“I may say I have made friends with Mr. More, sir,” he said. “I had good
+fortune in the matter of a quotation, and he received me kindly. I can
+go there again without excusing my presence, as often as you will.”</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>“There is not much to be gained now,” he said, “but you can go if you
+will; and you may perhaps pick up something here and there. The more
+friends you make the better.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph went away delighted; he had not wholly failed then in his master’s
+business, and he seemed to have set on foot a business of his own; and
+he contemplated with some excitement his future visits to Chelsea.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He had his first word with the King a couple of months later. He had
+often, of course, seen him before, once or twice in the House of Lords,
+formidable and frowning on his throne, his gross chin on his hand,
+barking out a word or two to his subjects, or instructing them in
+theology, for which indeed he was very competent; and several times in
+processions, riding among his gentlemen on his great horse, splendid in
+velvet and gems; and he had always wondered what it was that gave him
+his power. It could not be mere despotism, he thought, or his burly
+English nature; and it was not until he had seen him near at hand, and
+come within range of his personality that he understood why it was that
+men bore such things from him.</p>
+
+<p>He was sent for one afternoon by Cromwell to bring a paper and was taken
+up at once by a servant into the gallery where the minister and the King
+were walking together. They were at the further end from that at which
+he entered, and he stood, a little nervous at his heart, but with his
+usual appearance of self-possession, watching the two great backs turned
+to him, and waiting to be called.</p>
+
+<p>They turned again in a moment, and Cromwell saw him and beckoned,
+himself coming a few steps to meet him. The King waited, and Ralph was
+aware of, rather than saw, that wide, coarse, strong face, and the long
+narrow eyes, with the feathered cap atop, and the rich jewelled dress
+beneath. The King stood with his hands behind his back and his legs well
+apart.</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell took the paper from Ralph, who stepped back, hesitating what to
+do.</p>
+
+<p>“This is it, your Grace,” said the minister going back again. “Your
+Grace will see that it is as I said.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph perceived a new tone of deference in his master’s voice that he
+had never noticed before, except once when Cromwell was ironically
+bullying a culprit who was giving trouble.</p>
+
+<p>The King said nothing, took the paper and glanced over it, standing a
+little aside to let the light fall on it.</p>
+
+<p>“Your Grace will understand—” began Cromwell again.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes, yes,” said the harsh voice impatiently. “Let the fellow take
+it back,” and he thrust the paper into Cromwell’s hand, who turned once
+more to Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“Who is he?” said the King. “I have seen his face. Who are you?”</p>
+
+<p>“This is Mr. Ralph Torridon,” said Cromwell; “a very useful friend to
+me, your Grace.”</p>
+
+<p>“The Torridons of Overfield?” questioned Henry once more, who never
+forgot a face or a name.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, your Grace,” said Cromwell.</p>
+
+<p>“You are tall enough, sir,” said the King, running his narrow eyes up
+and down Ralph’s figure;—“a strong friend.”</p>
+
+<p>“I hope so, your Grace,” said Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>The King again looked at him, and Ralph dropped his eyes in the glare of
+that mighty personality. Then Henry abruptly thrust out his hand to be
+kissed, and as Ralph bent over it he was aware of the thick straight
+fingers, the creased wrist, and the growth of hair on the back of the
+hand.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ralph was astonished, and a little ashamed at his own excitement as he
+passed down the stairs again. It was so little that had happened; his
+own part had been so insignificant; and yet he was tingling from head to
+foot. He felt he knew now a little better how it was that the King’s
+will, however outrageous in its purposes, was done so quickly. It was
+the sheer natural genius of authority and royalty that forced it
+through; he had felt himself dominated and subdued in those few moments,
+so that he was not his own master. As he went home through the street or
+two that separated the Palace gate from his own house, he found himself
+analysing the effect of that presence, and, in spite of its repellence,
+its suggestion of coarseness, and its almost irritating imperiousness,
+he was conscious that there was a very strong element of attractiveness
+in it too. It seemed to him the kind of attractiveness that there is for
+a beaten dog in the chastising hand: the personality was so overwhelming
+that it compelled allegiance, and that not wholly one of fear. He found
+himself thinking of Queen Katharine and understanding a little better
+how it was that the refined, delicately nurtured and devout woman, so
+constant in her prayers, so full of the peculiar fineness of character
+that gentle birth and religion alone confer, could so cling to this
+fierce lord of hers, throw herself at his feet with tears before all the
+company, and entreat not to be separated from him, calling him her “dear
+lord,” her “love,” and her most “merciful and gracious prince.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The transition from this train of thought to that bearing on Beatrice
+was not a difficult one; for the memory of the girl was continually in
+his mind. He had seen her half a dozen times now since their first
+meeting; for he had availed himself to the full of Cromwell’s
+encouragement to make himself at home at Chelsea; and he found that his
+interest in her deepened every time. With a touch of amusement he found
+himself studying Horace and Terence again, not only for Sir Thomas
+More’s benefit, but in order to win his approval and his good report to
+his household, among whom Beatrice was practically to be reckoned.</p>
+
+<p>He was pleased too by More’s account of Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>“She is nearly as good a scholar as my dear Meg,” he had said one day.
+“Try her, Mr. Torridon.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph had carefully prepared an apt quotation that day, and fired it off
+presently, not at Beatrice, but, as it were, across her; but there was
+not the faintest response or the quiver of an eyelid.</p>
+
+<p>There was silence a moment; and then Sir Thomas burst out—</p>
+
+<p>“You need not look so demure, my child; we all know that you
+understand.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice had given him a look of tranquil amusement in return.</p>
+
+<p>“I will not be made a show of,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph went away that day more engrossed than ever. He began to ask
+himself where his interest in her would end; and wondered at its
+intensity.</p>
+
+<p>As he questioned himself about it, it seemed that to him it was to a
+great extent her appearance of detached self-possession that attracted
+him. It was the quality that he most desired for himself, and one which
+he had in measure attained; but he was aware that in the presence of
+Cromwell at least it deserted him. He knew well that he had found his
+master there, and that he himself was nothing more than a
+hero-worshipper before a shrine; but it provoked him to feel that there
+was no one who seemed to occupy the place of a similar divinity with
+regard to this girl. Obviously she admired and loved Sir Thomas
+More—Ralph soon found out how deeply in the course of his visits—but
+she was not in the least afraid of her friend. She serenely contradicted
+him when she disagreed with what he said, would fail to keep her
+appointments at his house with the same equanimity, and in spite of Sir
+Thomas’s personality never appeared to give him more than a friendly and
+affectionate homage. With regard to Ralph himself, it was the same. She
+was not in the least awed by him, or apparently impressed by his
+reputation which at this time was growing rapidly as that of a capable
+and daring agent of Cromwell’s; and even once or twice when he
+condescended to hint at the vastness of the affairs on which he was
+engaged, in a desperate endeavour to rouse her admiration, she only
+looked at him steadily a moment with very penetrating eyes, and began to
+speak of something else. He began to feel discouraged.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The first hint that Ralph had that he had been making a mistake in his
+estimate of her, came from Margaret Roper, who was still living at
+Chelsea with her husband Will.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph had walked up to the house one bleak afternoon in early spring
+along the river-bank from Westminster, and had found Margaret alone in
+the dining-hall, seated by the window with her embroidery in her hand,
+and a Terence propped open on the sill to catch the last gleams of light
+from the darkening afternoon. She greeted Ralph warmly, for he was a
+very familiar figure to them all by now, and soon began to talk, when he
+had taken a seat by the wide open fireplace whence the flames flickered
+out, casting shadows and lights round the high room, across the
+high-hung tapestries and in the gloomy corners.</p>
+
+<p>“Beatrice is here,” she said presently, “upstairs with father. I think
+she is doing some copying for him.”</p>
+
+<p>“She is a great deal with him,” observed Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes; father thinks so much of her. He says that none can write so
+well as she, or has such a quick brain. And then she does not talk, he
+says, nor ask foolish woman-questions like the rest of us.” And Margaret
+glanced up a moment, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose I must not go up,” said Ralph, a little peevishly; for he was
+tired with his long day.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, no, you must not,” said Margaret, “but she will be down soon, Mr.
+Torridon.”</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for a moment or two; and then Margaret spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Torridon,” she said, “may I say something?” Ralph made a little
+sound of assent. The warmth of the fire was making him sleepy.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it is this,” said Margaret slowly, “I think you believe that
+Beatrice does not like you. That is not true. She is very fond of you;
+she thinks a great deal of you,” she added, rather hastily.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph sat up; his drowsiness was gone.</p>
+
+<p>“How do you know that, Mrs. Roper?” he asked. His voice sounded
+perfectly natural, and Margaret was reassured at the tone of it. She
+could not see Ralph well; it was getting dark now.</p>
+
+<p>“I know it well,” she said. “Of course we talk of you when you are
+gone.”</p>
+
+<p>“And does Mrs. Beatrice talk of me?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not so much,” said Margaret, “but she listens very closely; and asks us
+questions sometimes.” The girl’s heart was beating with excitement as
+she spoke; but she had made up her mind to seek this opportunity. It
+seemed a pity, she thought, that two friends of hers should so
+misunderstood one another.</p>
+
+<p>“And what kind of questions?” asked Ralph again.</p>
+
+<p>“She wonders—what you really think—” went on Margaret slowly, bending
+down over her embroidery, and punctuating her words with
+stitches—“about—about affairs—and—and she said one day that—”</p>
+
+<p>“Well?” said Ralph in the same tone.</p>
+
+<p>“That she thought you were not so severe as you seemed,” ended Margaret,
+her voice a little tremulous with amusement.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph sat perfectly still, staring at the great fire-plate on which a
+smoky Phoebus in relief drove the chariot of the sun behind the tall
+wavering flames that rose from the burning logs. He knew very well why
+Margaret had spoken, and that she would not speak without reason; but
+the fact revealed was so bewilderingly new to him that he could not take
+it in. Margaret looked at him once or twice a little uneasily; and at
+last sighed.</p>
+
+<p>“It is too dark,” she said, “I must fetch candles.”</p>
+
+<p>She slipped out of the side-door that led to the servants’ quarters, and
+Ralph was left alone. All his weariness was gone now; the whirl of
+images and schemes with which his brain had been seething as he walked
+up the river-bank half-an-hour before, had receded into obscurity; and
+one dominating thought filled their place: What if Margaret were right?
+And what did he mean to do himself? Surely he was not—</p>
+
+<p>The door from the entrance passage opened, and a tall slender figure
+stood there, now in light, now in shadow, as the flames rose and fell.</p>
+
+<p>“Meg,” said a voice.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph sat still a moment longer.</p>
+
+<p>“Meg,” said Beatrice again, “how dark you are.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph stood up.</p>
+
+<p>“Mrs. Roper has just gone,” he said, “you must put up with me, Mrs.
+Beatrice.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who is it?” said the girl advancing. “Mr. Torridon?”</p>
+
+<p>She had a paper in her hand as she came across the floor, and Ralph drew
+out a chair for her on the other side of the hearth.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he said. “Mrs. Roper has gone for lights. She will be back
+immediately.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice sat down.</p>
+
+<p>“It is a troublesome word,” she said. “Master More cannot read it
+himself, and has sent me to ask Meg. He says that every dutiful daughter
+should be able to read her father’s hand.”</p>
+
+<p>And Ralph could see a faint amused smile in her black eyes, as the
+firelight shone on them.</p>
+
+<p>“Master More always has an escape ready,” he said, as he too sat down.</p>
+
+<p>The girl’s hand holding the paper suddenly dropped on to her knee, and
+the man saw she was looking at him oddly.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes?” he said interrogatively; and then—</p>
+
+<p>“Why do you look at me like that, Mrs. Beatrice?”</p>
+
+<p>“It is what you said. Do you really think that, Mr. Torridon?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was bewildered for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not understand,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you truly think he always has an escape ready?” repeated the girl.</p>
+
+<p>Then Ralph understood.</p>
+
+<p>“You mean he is in danger,” he said steadily. “Well, of course he is.
+There is no great man that is not. But I do not see why he should not
+escape as he has always done.”</p>
+
+<p>“You think that, Mr. Torridon?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes;” went on Ralph, a little hastily. “You remember the matter
+of the bribe. See how he cleared himself. Surely, Mrs. Beatrice—”</p>
+
+<p>“And you really think so,” said the girl. “I know that you know what we
+do not; and I shall believe what you say.”</p>
+
+<p>“How can I tell?” remonstrated Ralph. “I can only tell you that in this
+matter I know nothing that you do not. Master More is under no
+suspicion.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice drew a breath of relief.</p>
+
+<p>“I am glad I spoke to you, sir,” she said. “It has been on my mind. And
+something that he said a few minutes ago frightened me.”</p>
+
+<p>“What did he say?” asked Ralph curiously.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! it was not much. It was that no man knew what might come next; that
+matters were very strange and dismaying—and—and that he wanted this
+paper copied quickly, for fear—”</p>
+
+<p>The girl stopped again, abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>“I know what you feel, Mrs. Beatrice,” said Ralph gently. “I know how
+you love Master More, and how terrified we may become for our friends.”</p>
+
+<p>“What do you think yourself, Mr. Torridon,” she said suddenly, almost
+interrupting him.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her doubtfully a moment, and half wished that Margaret
+would come back.</p>
+
+<p>“That is a wide question,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you know what I mean,” she said coolly, completely herself again.
+She was sitting back in her chair now, drawing the paper serenely to and
+fro between her fingers; and he could see the firelight on her chin and
+brows, and those steady eyes watching him. He had an impulse of
+confidence.</p>
+
+<p>“I do think changes are coming,” he said. “I suppose we all do.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you approve?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! how can I say off-hand?—But I think changes are needed.”</p>
+
+<p>She was looking down at the fire again now, and did not speak for a
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Master More said you were of the new school,” she said meditatively.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph felt a curious thrill of exultation. Margaret was right then; this
+girl had been thinking about him.</p>
+
+<p>“There is certainly a stirring,” he said; and his voice was a little
+restrained.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I am not blind or deaf,” said the girl. “Of course, there is a
+stirring—but I wondered—”</p>
+
+<p>Then Margaret came in with the candles.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph went away that evening more excited than he liked. It seemed as if
+Mistress Roper’s words had set light to a fire ready laid, and he could
+perceive the warmth beginning to move about his heart and odd wavering
+lights flickering on his circumstances and business that had not been
+there before.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He received his first letter from Beatrice a few weeks later, and it
+threw him into a strait between his personal and official claims.</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell at this time was exceedingly occupied with quelling the ardour
+of the House of Lords, who were requesting that the Holy Maid of Kent
+and her companions might have an opportunity of defending themselves
+before the Act of Attainder ordered by the King was passed against them;
+but he found time to tell his agent that trouble was impending over More
+and Fisher; and to request him to hand in any evidence that he might
+have against the former.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose we shall have to let the Bishop off with a fine,” said the
+minister, “in regard to the Maid’s affair; but we shall catch him
+presently over the Act; and Mr. More is clear of it. But we shall have
+him too in a few days. Put down what you have to say, Mr. Torridon, and
+let me have it this evening.”</p>
+
+<p>And then he rustled off down the staircase to where his carriage was
+waiting to take him to Westminster, where he proposed to tell the
+scrupulous peers that the King was not accustomed to command twice, and
+that to suspect his Grace of wishing them to do an injustice was a piece
+of insolence that neither himself nor his royal master had expected of
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was actually engaged in putting down his very scanty accusations
+against Sir Thomas More when the letter from Beatrice was brought up to
+him. He read it through twice in silence; and then ordered the courier
+to wait below. When the servant had left the room, he read it through a
+third time.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long; but it was pregnant.</p>
+
+<p>“I entreat you, sir,” wrote the girl, “for the love of Jesu, to let us
+know if anything is designed against our friend. Three weeks ago you
+told me it was not so; I pray God that may be true still. I know that
+you would not lift a finger against him yourself—” (Ralph glanced at
+his own neat little list at these words, and bit his pen)—“but I wish
+you to do what you can for him and for us all.” Then followed an
+erasure.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph carried the paper to the window, flattened it against the panes
+and read clearly the words, “If my” under the scratching lines, and
+smiled to himself as he guessed what the sentence was that she was
+beginning.</p>
+
+<p>Then the letter continued.</p>
+
+<p>“I hear on good authority that there is something against him. He will
+not escape; and will do nothing on such hearsay, but only tells us to
+trust God, and laughs at us all. Good Mr. Torridon, do what you can.
+Your loving friend, B.A.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph went back from the window where he was still standing, and sat
+down again, bending his head into his hands. He had no sort of scruples
+against lying as such or betraying Mr. More’s private conversation; his
+whole training was directed against such foolishness, and he had learnt
+at last from Cromwell’s incessant precept and example that the good of
+the State over-rode all private interests. But he had a disinclination
+to lie to Beatrice; and he felt simply unable to lose her friendship by
+telling her the truth.</p>
+
+<p>As he sat there perfectly still, the servant peeped in once softly to
+see if the answer was ready, and noiselessly withdrew. Ralph did not
+stir; but still sat on, pressing his eyeballs till they ached and fiery
+rings twisted before him in the darkness. Then he abruptly sat up,
+blinked a moment or two, took up a pen, bit it again, and laid it down
+and sat eyeing the two papers that lay side by side on his desk.</p>
+
+<p>He took up his own list, and read it through. After all, it was very
+insignificant, and contained no more than minute scraps of conversation
+that Sir Thomas More had let drop. He had called Queen Katharine “poor
+woman” three or four times; had expressed a reverence for the Pope of
+Rome half a dozen times, and had once called him the Vicar of Christ. He
+had been silent when someone had mentioned Anne Boleyn’s name; he had
+praised the Carthusians and the Religious Life generally, at some
+length.</p>
+
+<p>They were the kind of remarks that might mean nothing or a great deal;
+they were consistent with loyalty; they were not inconsistent with
+treason; in fact they were exactly the kind of material out of which
+serious accusations might be manufactured by a skilled hand, though as
+they stood they proved nothing.</p>
+
+<p>A further consideration to Ralph was his duty to Cromwell; he scarcely
+felt it seemly to lie whole-heartedly to him; and on the other hand he
+felt now simply unable to lie to Beatrice. There was only one way out of
+it,—to prevaricate to them both.</p>
+
+<p>He took up his own paper, glanced at it once more; and then with a
+slightly dramatic gesture tore it across and across, and threw it on the
+ground. Then he took up his pen and wrote to Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>“I have only had access to one paper against our friend—that I have
+destroyed, though I do not know what Master Cromwell will say. But I
+tell you this to show at what a price I value your friendship.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course our friend is threatened. Who is not in these days? But I
+swear to you that I do not know what is the design.”</p>
+
+<p>He added a word or two more for politeness’ sake, prayed that “God might
+have her in His keeping,” and signed himself as she had done, her
+“loving friend.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he dried the ink with his pounce box, sealed the letter with great
+care, and took it down to the courier himself.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He faced Cromwell in the evening with a good deal of terror, but with
+great adroitness; swore positively that More had said nothing actually
+treasonable, and had found, on putting pen to paper, that the
+accusations were flimsier than he thought.</p>
+
+<p>“But it is your business to see that they be not so,” stormed his
+master. Ralph paused a moment respectfully.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot make a purse out of a sow’s ear, sir. I must have at least
+some sort of silk.”</p>
+
+<p>When Cromwell had ceased to walk up and down, Ralph pointed out with
+considerable shrewdness that he did not suppose that his evidence was
+going to form the main ground of the attack on More; and that it would
+merely weaken the position to bring such feeble arguments to bear.</p>
+
+<p>“Why he would tear them to shreds, sir, in five minutes; he would make
+out that they were our principal grounds—he is a skilled lawyer. If I
+may dare to say so, Master Cromwell, let your words against Mr. More be
+few and choice.”</p>
+
+<p>This was bolder speaking than he had ever ventured on before; but
+Cromwell was in a good humour. The peers had proved tractable and had
+agreed to pass the attainder against Elizabeth Barton without any more
+talk of justice and the accused’s right of defence; and he looked now at
+Ralph with a grim approval.</p>
+
+<p>“I believe you are right, Mr. Torridon. I will think over it.”</p>
+
+<p>A week later the blow fell.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Cromwell looked up at him one Sunday evening as he came into the room,
+with his papers, and without any greeting spoke at once.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish you to go to Lambeth House to-morrow morning early, Mr.
+Torridon. Master More is to be there to have the Oath of Succession
+tendered to him with the others. Do your best to persuade him to take
+it; be his true friend.”</p>
+
+<p>A little grim amusement shone in his eyes as he spoke. Ralph looked at
+him a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“I mean it, Mr. Torridon: do your best. I wish him to think you his
+friend.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>As Ralph went across the Thames in a wherry the following morning, he
+was still thinking out the situation. Apparently Cromwell wished to keep
+in friendly touch with More; and this now, of course, was only possible
+through Ralph, and would have been impossible if the latter’s evidence
+had been used, or were going to be used. It was a relief to him to know
+that the consummation of his treachery was postponed at least for the
+present; (but he would not have called it treachery).</p>
+
+<p>As Lambeth towers began to loom ahead, Ralph took out Beatrice’s letter
+that had come in answer to his own a few days before, and ran his eyes
+over it. It was a line of passionate thanks and blessing. Surely he had
+reached her hidden heart at last. He put the letter back in his inner
+pocket, just before he stepped ashore. It no doubt would be a useful
+evidence of his own sincerity in his interview with More.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great crowd in the court as he passed through, for many were
+being called to take the oath, which, however, was not made strictly
+legal until the following Second Act in the autumn. Several carriages
+were drawn up near the house door, and among them Ralph recognised the
+liveries of his master and of Lord Chancellor Audley. A number of horses
+and mules too were tethered to rings in the wall on the other side with
+grooms beside them, and ecclesiastics and secretaries were coming and
+going, disputing in groups, calling to one another, in the pleasant
+April sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>On enquiry he found that the Commissioners were sitting in one of the
+downstair parlours; but one of Cromwell’s servants at the door told him
+that he was not to go in there, but that Mr. More was upstairs by
+himself, and that if he pleased he would show him the way.</p>
+
+<p>It was an old room looking on to the garden, scantily furnished, with a
+patch of carpet by the window and a table and chair set upon it. More
+turned round from the window-seat on which he was kneeling to look out,
+and smiled genially as Ralph heard the servant close the door.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Mr. Torridon, are you in trouble too? This is the detention-room
+whither I am sent to consider myself.”</p>
+
+<p>He led Ralph, still holding his hand, to the window-seat, where he
+leaned again looking eagerly into the garden.</p>
+
+<p>“There go the good boys,” he said, “to and fro in the playground; and
+here sit I. I suppose I have nothing but the rod to look for.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph felt a little awkward in the presence of this gaiety; and for a
+minute or two leaned out beside More, staring mechanically at the
+figures that passed up and down. He had expected almost to find him at
+his prayers, or at least thoughtfully considering himself.</p>
+
+<p>More commented agreeably on the passers-by.</p>
+
+<p>“Dr. Wilson was here a moment ago; but he is off now, with a man on
+either side. He too is a naughty fellow like myself, and will not listen
+to reason. There is the Vicar of Croydon, good man, coming out of the
+buttery wiping his mouth.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph looked down at the priest’s flushed excited face; he was talking
+with a kind of reckless gaiety to a friend who walked beside him.</p>
+
+<p>“He was sad enough just now,” went on the other, “while he was still
+obstinate; but his master hath patted him on the head now and given him
+cake and wine. He was calling out for a drink just now (which he hath
+got, I see) either for gladness or for dryness, or else that we might
+know <i>quod ille notus erat pontifici</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Latimer passed presently, his arms on either side flung round a
+priest’s neck; he too was talking volubly and laughing; and the skirts
+of his habit wagged behind him.</p>
+
+<p>“He is in high feather,” said More, “and I have no doubt that his
+conscience is as clear as his eyes. Come, Mr. Torridon; sit you down.
+What have you come for?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph sat back on the window-seat with his back to the light, and his
+hat between his knees.</p>
+
+<p>“I came to see you, sir; I have not been to the Commissioners. I heard
+you were here.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes,” said More, “here I am.”</p>
+
+<p>“I came to see if I could be of any use to you, Master More; I know a
+friend’s face is a good councillor sometimes, even though that friend be
+a fool.”</p>
+
+<p>More patted him softly on the knee.</p>
+
+<p>“No fool,” he said, “far from it.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked at him so oddly that Ralph feared that he suspected him; so he
+made haste to bring out Beatrice’s letter.</p>
+
+<p>“Mistress Atherton has written me this,” he said. “I was able to do her
+a little service—at least I thought it so then.”</p>
+
+<p>More took the letter and glanced at it.</p>
+
+<p>“A very pretty letter,” he said, “and why do you show it me?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph looked at him steadily.</p>
+
+<p>“Because I am Master Cromwell’s servant; and you never forget it.”</p>
+
+<p>More burst into a fit of laughter; and then took Ralph kindly by the
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>“You are either very innocent or very deep,” he said. “And what have you
+come to ask me?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have come to ask nothing, Master More,” said Ralph indignantly,
+withdrawing his hand—“except to be of service to you.”</p>
+
+<p>“To talk about the oath,” corrected the other placidly. “Very well then.
+Do you begin, Mr. Torridon.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph made a great effort, for he was sorely perplexed by Sir Thomas’
+attitude, and began to talk, putting all the reasons forward that he
+could think of for the accepting of the oath. He pointed out that
+government and allegiance would be impossible things if every man had to
+examine for himself the claims of his rulers; when vexed and elaborate
+questions arose—and this certainly was one such—was it not safer to
+follow the decrees of the King and Parliament, rather than to take up a
+position of private judgment, and decide upon details of which a subject
+could have no knowledge? How, too, could More, under the circumstances,
+take upon himself to condemn those who had subscribed the oath?—he
+named a few eminent prelates, the Abbot of Westminster and others.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not condemn them,” put in More, who was looking interested.</p>
+
+<p>“Then you are uncertain of the matter?” went on Ralph who had thought
+out his line of argument with some care.</p>
+
+<p>More assented.</p>
+
+<p>“But your duty to the King’s grace is certain; therefore it should
+outweigh a thing that is doubtful.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir Thomas sucked in his lower lip, and stared gravely on the young
+man.</p>
+
+<p>“You are very shrewd, sir,” he said. “I do not know how to answer that
+at this moment; but I have no reasonable doubt but that there is an
+answer.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was delighted with his advantage, and pursued it eagerly; and
+after a few minutes had won from More an acknowledgment that he might be
+willing to consider the taking of the oath itself; it was the other
+clauses that touched his conscience more. He could swear to be loyal to
+Anne’s children; but he could not assent to the denunciation of the Pope
+contained in the preamble of the Act, and the oath would commit him to
+that.</p>
+
+<p>“But you will tell that to the Commissioners, sir?” asked Ralph eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>“I will tell them all that I have told you,” said More smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph himself was somewhat doubtful as to whether the concession would
+be accepted; but he professed great confidence, and secretly
+congratulated himself with having made so much way. But presently a
+remark of More’s showed that he appreciated the situation.</p>
+
+<p>“I am very grateful to you, Mr. Torridon, for coming and talking to me;
+and I shall tell my wife and children so. But it is of no use. They are
+resolved to catch me. First there was the bribe; then the matter of the
+Maid; then this; and if I took a hundred oaths they would find one more
+that I could not, without losing my soul; and that indeed I do not
+propose to do. <i>Quid enim proficit homo?</i>”</p>
+
+<p>There was a knock at the door a moment later, and a servant came in to
+beg Mr. More to come downstairs again; the Commissioners were ready for
+him.</p>
+
+<p>“Then good-day, Mr. Torridon. You will come and see me sometimes, even
+if not at Chelsea. Wherever I may be it will be as nigh heaven as
+Chelsea.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph went down with him, and parted from him at the door of the
+Commissioner’s room; and half-an-hour later a message was sent out to
+him by Cromwell that he need wait no longer; Mr. More had refused the
+oath, and had been handed over to the custody of the Abbot of
+Westminster.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br><span class="small">A MERRY PRISONER</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p>The arrest of Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher and their committal to
+the Tower a few days later caused nothing less than consternation in
+England and of furious indignation on the Continent. It was evident that
+greatness would save no man; the best hope lay in obscurity, and men who
+had been loud in self-assertion now grew timorous and silent.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was now in the thick of events. Besides his connection with More,
+he had been present at one of the examinations of the Maid of Kent and
+her admirers; had formed one of the congregation at Paul’s Cross when
+the confession drawn up for her had been read aloud in her name by Dr.
+Capon, who from the pulpit opposite the platform where the penitents
+were set, preached a vigorous sermon against credulity and superstition.
+Ralph had read the confession over a couple of days before in Cromwell’s
+room, and had suggested a few verbal alterations; and he had been
+finally present, a few days after More’s arrest, at the last scene of
+the drama, when Elizabeth Barton, with six priests, suffered, under the
+provisions of an act of attainder, on Tyburn gallows.</p>
+
+<p>All these events were indications of the course that things were taking
+in regard to greater matters. Parliament had now advanced further than
+ever in the direction of a breach with Rome, and had transferred the
+power of nomination to bishoprics from the Holy See to the Crown, and,
+what was at least as significant, had dealt in a similar manner with the
+authority over Religious houses.</p>
+
+<p>On the other side, Rome had declared definitely against the annulling of
+Queen Katharine’s marriage, and to this the King had retorted by turning
+the pulpits against the Pope, and in the course of this had found
+himself compelled to deal sharply with the Franciscans, who were at the
+same time the most popular and the most papal of all preachers. In the
+following out of this policy, first several notable friars were
+imprisoned, and next a couple of subservient Religious, a Dominican and
+an Augustinian, were appointed grand visitors of the rebellious Order.</p>
+
+<p>A cloud of terror now began to brood over the Religious houses in
+England, as the news of these proceedings became known, and Ralph had a
+piteous letter from his father, entreating him to give some explanation
+of the course of affairs so far as was compatible with loyalty to his
+master, and at least his advice as to Christopher’s profession.</p>
+
+<p>“We hear sad tales, dear son,” wrote Sir James, “on all sides are fears,
+and no man knows what the end will be. Some even say that the Orders
+will be reduced in number. And who knows what may be toward now that the
+Bishop and Mr. More are in trouble. I know not what is all this that
+Parliament has been doing about the Holy Father his authority; but I am
+sure that it cannot be more than what other reigns have brought about in
+declaring that the Prince is temporal lord of his land. But, however
+that may be, what do you advise that your brother should do? He is to be
+professed in August, unless it is prevented, and I dare not put out my
+hand to hinder it, until I know more. I do not ask you, dear son, to
+tell me what you should not; I know my duty and yours too well for that.
+But I entreat you to tell me what you can, that I may not consent to
+your brother’s profession if it is better that it should not take place
+until affairs are quieter. Your mother would send you her dear love, I
+know, if she knew I were writing, but she is in her chamber, and the
+messenger must go with this. Jesu have you in His blessed keeping!”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph wrote back that he knew no reason against Christopher’s
+profession, except what might arise from the exposure of the Holy Maid
+on whose advice he had gone to Lewes, and that if his father and brother
+were satisfied on that score, he hoped that Christopher would follow
+God’s leading.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time that he wrote this he was engaged, under Cromwell’s
+directions, in sifting the evidence offered by the grand visitors to
+show that the friars refused to accept the new enactments on the subject
+of the papal jurisdiction.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>On the other hand, the Carthusians in London had proved more submissive.
+There had been a struggle at first when the oath of the succession had
+been tendered to them, and Prior Houghton, with the Procurator, Humphrey
+Middlemore, had been committed to the Tower. The oath affirmed the
+nullity of Queen Katharine’s marriage with the King on the alleged
+ground of her consummated marriage with Henry’s elder brother, and
+involved, though the Carthusians did not clearly understand it so at the
+time, a rejection of the Pope’s authority as connected with the
+dispensation for Katharine’s union with Henry. In May their scruples
+were removed by the efforts of some who had influence with them, and the
+whole community took the oath as required of them, though with the
+pathetic addition of a clause that they only submitted “so far as it
+was lawful for them so to do.” This actual submission, to Cromwell’s
+mind and therefore to Ralph’s, was at first of more significance than
+was the uneasy temper of the community, as reported to them, which
+followed their compliance; but as the autumn drew on this opinion was
+modified.</p>
+
+<p>It was in connection with this that Ralph became aware for the first
+time of what was finally impending with regard to the King’s supremacy
+over the Church.</p>
+
+<p>He had been sitting in Cromwell’s room in the Chancery all through one
+morning, working at the evidence that was flowing in from all sides of
+disaffection to Henry’s policy, sifting out worthless and frivolous
+charges from serious ones. Every day a flood of such testimony poured in
+from the spies in all parts of the country, relating to the deepening
+dissatisfaction with the method of government; and Cromwell, as the
+King’s adviser, came in for much abuse. Every kind of manifestation of
+this was reported, the talk in the ale-houses and at gentlemen’s tables
+alike, words dropped in the hunting-field or over a game of cards; and
+the offenders were dealt with in various ways, some by a sharp rebuke or
+warning, others by a sudden visit of a pursuivant and his men.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph made his report as usual at the end of the morning, and was on the
+point of leaving, when his master called him back from the door.</p>
+
+<p>“A moment,” he said, “I have something to say. Sit down.”</p>
+
+<p>When Ralph had taken the chair again that he had just left, Cromwell
+took up a pen, and began to play with it delicately as he talked.</p>
+
+<p>“You will have noticed,” he began, “how hot the feeling runs in the
+country, and I am sure you will also have understood why it is so. It
+is not so much what has happened,—I mean in the matter of the marriage
+and of the friars,—but what folk fear is going to happen. It seems to
+the people that security is disappearing; they do not understand that
+their best security lies in obedience. And, above all, they think that
+matters are dangerous with regard to the Church. They know now that the
+Pope has spoken, and that the King pays no heed, but, on the other hand,
+waxes more bold. And that because his conscience bids him. Remember
+that, sir, when you have to do with his Highness.”</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at Ralph again, but there was no mockery in his solemn eyes.
+Then he went on.</p>
+
+<p>“I am going to tell you, Mr. Torridon, that these folks are partly
+right, and that his Grace has not yet done all that he intends. There is
+yet one more step to take—and that is to declare the King supreme over
+the Church of England.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph felt those strong eyes bent upon him, and he nodded, making no
+sign of approval or otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>“This is no new thing, Mr. Torridon,” went on Cromwell, after a moment’s
+silence. “The King of England has always been supreme, though I will
+acknowledge that this has become obscured of late. But it is time that
+it be re-affirmed. The Popes have waxed presumptuous, and have laid
+claim to titles that Christ never gave them, and it is time that they be
+reminded that England is free, and will not suffer their domination. As
+for the unity of the Catholic Church, that can be attended to later on,
+and on firmer ground; when the Pope has been taught not to wax so proud.
+There will be an Act passed by Parliament presently, perhaps next year,
+to do this business, and then we shall know better what to do. Until
+that, it is very necessary, as you have already seen, to keep the folks
+quiet, and not to suffer any contradiction of his Grace’s rights. Do you
+understand me, Mr. Torridon?”</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell laid the pen clown and leaned back in his chair, with his
+fingers together.</p>
+
+<p>“I understand, sir,” said Ralph, in a perfectly even tone.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, that is all that I have to say,” ended his master, still watching
+him. “I need not tell you how necessary secrecy is in the matter.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was considerably startled as he went home, and realized better
+what it was that he had heard. While prudent persons were already
+trembling at the King’s effrontery and daring in the past, Henry was
+meditating a yet further step. He began to see now that the instinct of
+the country was, as always, sharper than that of the individual, and
+that these uneasy strivings everywhere rose from a very definite
+perception of danger. The idea of the King’s supremacy, as represented
+by Cromwell, would not seem to be a very startling departure; similar
+protests of freedom had been made in previous reigns, but now, following
+as it did upon overt acts of disobedience to the Sovereign Pontiff, and
+of disregard of his authority in matters of church-law and even of the
+status of Religious houses, it seemed to have a significance that
+previous protests had lacked.</p>
+
+<p>And behind it all was the King’s conscience! This was a new thought to
+Ralph, but the more he considered it the more it convinced him. It was a
+curious conscience, but a mighty one, and it was backed by an
+indomitable will. For the first time there opened out to Ralph’s mind a
+glimpse of the possibility that he had scarcely dreamed of hitherto—of
+a Nationalism in Church affairs that was a reality rather than a
+theory—in which the Bishop of Rome while yet the foremost bishop of
+Christendom and endowed with special prerogatives, yet should have no
+finger in national affairs, which should be settled by the home
+authorities without reference to him. No doubt, he told himself, a
+readjustment was needed—visions and fancies had encrusted themselves so
+quickly round the religion credible by a practical man that a scouring
+was called for. How if this should be the method by which not only such
+accretions should be done away, but yet more practical matters should be
+arranged, and steps taken to amend the unwarranted interferences and
+pecuniary demands of this foreign bishop?</p>
+
+<p>He had had more than one interview with Sir Thomas More in the Tower,
+and once was able to take him news of his own household at Chelsea. For
+a month none of his own people, except his servant, was allowed to visit
+him, and Ralph, calling on him about three weeks after the beginning of
+his imprisonment, found him eager for news.</p>
+
+<p>He was in a sufficiently pleasant cell in the Beauchamp Tower, furnished
+with straw mats underfoot, and straw hangings in place of a wainscot;
+his bed stood in one corner, with his crucifix and beads on a little
+table beside it, and his narrow window looked out through eleven feet of
+wall towards the Court and the White Tower. His books, too, which his
+servant, John Wood, had brought from Chelsea, and which had not yet been
+taken from him, stood about the room, and several lay on the table among
+his papers, at which he was writing when Ralph was admitted by the
+warder.</p>
+
+<p>“I am very glad to see you, Mr. Torridon,” he said, “I knew you would
+not forget an old friend, even though he could not take your counsel. I
+daresay you have come to give it me again, however.”</p>
+
+<p>“If I thought you would take it,” began Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“But I will not,” said More smiling, “no more than before. Sit down, Mr.
+Torridon.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph had come at Cromwell’s suggestion, and with a very great
+willingness of his own, too. He knew he could not please Beatrice more
+than by visiting her friend, and he himself was pleased and amused to
+think that he could serve his master’s interests from one side and his
+own from another by one action.</p>
+
+<p>He talked a little about the oath again, and mentioned how many had
+taken it during the last week or two.</p>
+
+<p>“I am pleased that they can do it with a good conscience,” observed
+More. “And now let us talk of other matters. If I would not do it for my
+daughter’s sake, who begged me, I would not do it for the sake of both
+the Houses of Parliament, nor even, dear Mr. Torridon, for yours and
+Master Cromwell’s.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph saw that it was of no use, and began to speak of other things. He
+gave him news of Chelsea.</p>
+
+<p>“They are not very merry there,” he said, “and I hardly suppose you
+would wish them to be.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why not?” cried More, with a beaming face, “I am merry enough. I would
+not be a monk; so God hath compelled me to be one, and treats me as one
+of His own spoilt children. He setteth me on His lap and dandleth me. I
+have never been so happy.”</p>
+
+<p>He told Ralph presently that his chief sorrow was that he could not go
+to mass or receive the sacraments. The Lieutenant, Sir Edward
+Walsingham, who had been his friend, had told him that he would very
+gladly have given him liberties of this kind, but that he dared not, for
+fear of the King’s displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>“But I told him,” said More, “not to trouble himself that I liked his
+cheer well enough as it was, and if ever I did not he was to put me out
+of his doors.”</p>
+
+<p>After a little more talk he showed Ralph what he was writing. It was a
+treatise called a “Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is to persuade myself,” he said, “that I am no more a prisoner than
+I was before; I know I am, but sometimes forget it. We are all God’s
+prisoners.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph glanced down the page just written and was astonished at its good
+humour.</p>
+
+<p>“Some prisoner of another gaol,” he read, “singeth, danceth in his two
+fetters, and feareth not his feet for stumbling at a stone; while God’s
+prisoner, that hath but his one foot fettered by the gout, lieth
+groaning on a couch, and quaketh and crieth out if he fear there would
+fall on his foot no more than a cushion.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ralph went straight up the river from the Tower to Chelsea to take them
+news of the prisoner, and was silent and moody as he went. He had been
+half touched and half enraged by More’s bearing—touched by his
+simplicity and cheerfulness and enraged by his confidence in a bad
+cause.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alice More behaved as usual when he got there: she had a genius for
+the obvious; commented on the weariness of living in one room, the
+distress at the thought that one was fastened in at the will of another;
+deplored the plainness of the prison fare, and the folly of her husband
+in refusing an oath that she herself and her children and the vast
+majority of the prominent persons in England had found so simple in
+accepting. She left nothing unsaid.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, she apologized for the plainness of her dress.</p>
+
+<p>“You must think me a slattern, Mr. Torridon, but I cannot help it. I
+have not the heart nor the means, now that my man is in prison, to do
+better.”</p>
+
+<p>And her solemn eyes filled with tears.</p>
+
+<p>When he had given the news to the family he went aside from the group in
+the garden to where Beatrice Atherton was sitting below the Jesu tree,
+with work on her lap.</p>
+
+<p>He had noticed as he talked that she was sitting there, and had raised
+his voice for her benefit. He fancied, and with a pleasure at the
+delicate instinct, that she did not wish to appear as intimately
+interested in the news from the Tower as those who had a better right to
+be. He was always detecting now faint shades in her character, as he
+knew her better, that charmed and delighted him.</p>
+
+<p>She was doing some mending, and only glanced up and down again without
+ceasing or moving, as Ralph stood by her.</p>
+
+<p>“I thought you never used the needle,” he began in a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“It is never too late to mend,” she said, without the faintest movement.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph felt again an odd prick of happiness. It gave him a distinct
+thrill of delight that she would make such an answer and so swiftly; and
+at such a time, when tragedy was round her and in her heart, for he knew
+how much she loved the man from whom he had just come.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down on the garden chair opposite, and watched her fingers and
+the movements of her wrist as she passed the needle in and out, and
+neither spoke again till the others had dispersed.</p>
+
+<p>“You heard all I said?” said Ralph at last.</p>
+
+<p>She bowed her head without answering.</p>
+
+<p>“Shall I go and bring you news again presently?”</p>
+
+<p>“If you please,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“I hope to be able to do some little things for him,” went on Ralph,
+dropping his eyes, and he was conscious that she momentarily looked up.</p>
+
+<p>—“But I am afraid there is not much. I shall speak for him to Master
+Cromwell and the Lieutenant.”</p>
+
+<p>The needle paused and then went on again.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was conscious of an extraordinary momentousness in every word that
+he said. He was well aware that this girl was not to be wooed by
+violence, but that he must insinuate his mind and sympathies delicately
+with hers, watching for every movement and ripple of thought. He had
+known ever since his talk with Margaret Roper that Beatrice was, as it
+were, turned towards him and scrutinising him, and that any mistake on
+his part, however slight, might finally alienate her. Even his gestures,
+the tones of his voice, his manner of walking, were important elements.
+He knew now that he was the kind of person who might be acceptable to
+her—or rather that his personality contained one facet that pleased
+her, and that he must be careful now to keep that facet turned towards
+her continually at such an angle that she caught the flash. He had
+sufficient sense, not to act a part, for that, he knew, she would soon
+discover, but to be natural in his best way, and to use the fine
+instincts that he was aware of possessing to tell him exactly how she
+would wish him to express himself. It would be a long time yet, he
+recognised, before he could attain his final object; in fact he was not
+perfectly certain what he wanted; but meanwhile he availed himself of
+every possible opportunity to get nearer, and was content with his
+progress.</p>
+
+<p>He was sorely tempted now to discuss Sir Thomas’s position and to
+describe his own, but he perceived from her own aloofness just now that
+it would seem a profanity, so he preserved silence instead, knowing that
+it would be eloquent to her. At last she spoke again, and there was a
+suggestion of a tremor in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose you can do nothing for him really? He must stay in the
+Tower?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph threw out his hands, silently, expostulating.</p>
+
+<p>“Nothing?” she said again, bending over her work.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph stood up, looking down at her, but made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>“I—I would do anything,” she said deliberately, “anything, I think, for
+the man—” and then broke off abruptly.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ralph went away from Chelsea that afternoon with a whirling head and
+dancing heart. She had said no more than that, but he knew what she had
+meant, and knew, too that she would not have said as much to anyone to
+whom she was indifferent. Of course, it was hopeless to think of
+bringing about More’s release, but he could at least pretend to try, and
+Ralph was aware that to chivalrous souls a pathetic failure often
+appeals more than an excellent success.</p>
+
+<p>Folks turned to look after him more than once as he strode home.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br><span class="small">A HIGHER STEP</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p>As Chris, on the eve of his profession, looked back over the year that
+had passed since his reception at the guest-house, he scarcely knew
+whether it seemed like a week or a century. At times it appeared as if
+the old life in the world were a kind of far-away picture in which he
+saw himself as one detached from his present personality, moving among
+curious scenes in which now he had no part; at other times the familiar
+past rushed on him fiercely, deafened him with its appeal, and claimed
+him as its own. In such moods the monastery was an intolerable prison,
+the day’s round an empty heart-breaking formality in which his soul was
+being stifled, and even his habit, which he had once touched so
+reverently, the badge of a fool.</p>
+
+<p>The life of the world at such times seemed to him the only sanity; these
+men used the powers that God had given them, were content with simple
+and unostentatious doings and interests, reached the higher vocation by
+their very naiveté, and did not seek to fly on wings that were not meant
+to bear them. How sensible, Christopher told himself, was Ralph’s ideal!
+God had made the world, so Ralph lived in it—a world in which great and
+small affairs were carried on, and in which he interested himself. God
+had made horses and hawks, had provided materials for carriages and fine
+clothes and cross-bows, had formed the sexes and allowed for love and
+domestic matters, had created brains with their capacities of passion
+and intellect; and so Ralph had taken these things as he found them,
+hunted, dressed, lived, managed and mixed with men. At times in his cell
+Chris saw that imposing figure in all its quiet bravery of dress, that
+sane, clever face, those pitying and contemptuous eyes looking at him,
+and heard the well-bred voice asking and commenting and wondering at the
+misguided zeal of a brother who could give all this up, and seek to live
+a life that was built on and sustained by illusions.</p>
+
+<p>One event during his first six months of the novitiate helped to
+solemnise him and to clear the confusion.</p>
+
+<p>Old Dom Augustine was taken sick and died, and Chris for the first time
+in his life watched the melting tragedy of death. The old monk had been
+moved from the dormitory to the sick-room when the end seemed imminent,
+and one afternoon Chris noticed the little table set outside the door,
+with its candles and crucifix, the basin of cotton-wool, and the other
+signs that the last sacraments were to be administered. He knew little
+of the old man, except his bleared face and shaking hands as he had
+seen them in choir, and had never been greatly impressed by him; but it
+was another matter when in the evening of the same day, at his master’s
+order he passed into the cell and knelt down with the others to see the
+end.</p>
+
+<p>The old monk was lying now on the cross of ashes that had been spread on
+the floor; his features looked pinched and white in the candlelight; his
+old mouth moved incessantly, and opened now and again to gasp; but there
+was an august dignity on his face that Chris had never seen there
+before.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the night was still and frosty; only now and again the heavy
+stroke of the bell told the town that a soul was passing.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Augustine had received Viaticum an hour before. Chris had heard the
+steady tinkle of the bell, like the sound of Aaron’s garments, as the
+priest who had brought him Communion passed back with his sacred burden,
+and Chris had fallen on his knees where he stood as he caught a glimpse
+of the white procession passing back to the church, their frosty breath
+going up together in the winter night air, the wheeling shadows, and the
+glare of the torches giving a pleasant warm light in the dull cloister.</p>
+
+<p>But all that was over now, and the end was at hand.</p>
+
+<p>As Chris knelt there, mechanically responding to the prayers on which
+the monk’s soul was beginning to lift itself and flutter for escape,
+there fell a great solemnity on his spirit. The thought, as old as
+death, made itself real to him, that this was the end of every man and
+of himself too. Where Dom Augustine lay, he would lie, with his past
+behind him, of which every detail would be instinct with eternal import.
+All the tiny things of the monastic life—the rising in time for the
+night office, attention during it, the responses to grace, the little
+movements prescribed by etiquette, the invisible motions of a soul that
+had or had not acted for the love of God, those stirrings, falls,
+aspirations, that incessant activity of eighty years—all so incredibly
+minute from one point of view, so incredibly weighty from another—the
+account of all those things was to be handed in now, and an eternal
+judgment given.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the wearied, pained old face again, at the tight-shut eyes,
+the jerking movements of the unshaven lips, and wondered what was
+passing behind;—what strange colloquy of the soul with itself or its
+Master or great personages of the Court of Heaven. And all was set in
+this little bare setting of white walls, a tumbled bed, a shuttered
+window, a guttering candle or two, a cross of ashes on boards, a ring
+of faces, and a murmur of prayers!</p>
+
+<p>The solemnity rose and fell in Chris’s soul like a deep organ-note
+sounding and waning. How homely and tender were these last rites, this
+accompaniment of the departing soul to the edge of eternity with all
+that was dear and familiar to it—the drops of holy water, the mellow
+light of candles, and the sonorous soothing Latin! And yet—and yet—how
+powerless to save a soul that had not troubled to make the necessary
+efforts during life, and had lost the power of making them now!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>When all was over he went out of the cell with an indescribable gravity
+at his heart.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>When the great events in the spring of ’34 began to take place, Chris
+was in a period of abstracted peace, and the rumours of them came to him
+as cries from another planet.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony Marks came into the cloister one day from the guest-house
+with a great excitement in his face.</p>
+
+<p>“Here is news!” he said, joining himself to Chris and another young monk
+with whom the lonely novice was sometimes allowed to walk. “Master
+Humphreys, from London, tells me they are all in a ferment there.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris looked at him with a deferential coldness, and waited for more.</p>
+
+<p>“They say that Master More hath refused the oath, and that he is lodged
+in the Tower, and my Lord of Rochester too.”</p>
+
+<p>The young monk burst into exclamations and questions, but Chris was
+silent. It was sad enough, but what did it matter to him? What did it
+really matter to anyone? God was King.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony was in a hurry, and scuffled off presently to tell the
+Prior, and in an hour or two there was an air of excitement through the
+house. Chris, however, heard nothing more except the little that the
+novice-master chose to tell him, and felt a certain contempt for the
+anxious-eyed monks who broke the silence by whispers behind doors, and
+the peace of the monastery by their perturbed looks.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Even when a little later in the summer the commissioner came down to
+tender the oath of succession Chris heard little and cared less. He was
+aware of a fine gentleman striding through the cloister, lolling in the
+garth, and occupying a prominent seat in the church; he noticed that his
+master was long in coming to him after the protracted chapter-meetings,
+but it appeared to him all rather an irrelevant matter. These things
+were surely quite apart from the business for which they were all
+gathered in the house—the <i>opus Dei</i> and the salvation of souls; this
+or that legal document did not seriously affect such high matters.</p>
+
+<p>The novice-master told him presently that the community had signed the
+oath, as all others were doing, and that there was no need for anxiety:
+they were in the hands of their Religious Superiors.</p>
+
+<p>“I was not anxious,” said Chris abruptly, and Dom James hastened to snub
+him, and to tell him that he ought to have been, but that novices always
+thought they knew everything, and were the chief troubles that Religious
+houses had to put up with.</p>
+
+<p>Chris courteously begged pardon, and went to his lessons wondering what
+in the world all the pother was about.</p>
+
+<p>But such moods of detachment were not continuous; they visited him for
+weeks at a time, when his soul was full of consolation, and he was
+amazed that any other life seemed possible to anyone. He seemed to
+himself to have reached the very heart and secret of existence—surely
+it was plain enough; God and eternity were the only things worth
+considering; a life passed in an ecstasy, if such were possible, was
+surely more consonant with reality than one of ordinary activities.
+Activities were, after all, but concessions to human weakness and desire
+for variety; contemplation was the simple and natural attitude of a soul
+that knew herself and God.</p>
+
+<p>But he was a man as well as a novice, and when these moods ebbed from
+his soul they left him strangely bitter and dry: the clouds would
+gather; the wind of discontent would begin to shrill about the angles of
+his spirit, and presently the storm of desolation would be up.</p>
+
+<p>He had one such tempestuous mood immediately before his profession.</p>
+
+<p>During its stress he had received a letter from his father which he was
+allowed to read, in which Sir James half hinted at the advisability of
+postponing the irrevocable step until things were quieter, and his heart
+had leaped at the possibility of escape. He did not know till then how
+strong had grown the motive of appearing well in the eyes of his
+relatives and of fearing to lose their respect by drawing back; and now
+that his father, too, seemed to suggest that he had better re-consider
+himself, it appeared that a door was opened in the high monastery wall
+through which he might go through and take his honour with him.</p>
+
+<p>He passed through a terrible struggle that night.</p>
+
+<p>Never had the night-office seemed so wearisomely barren. The glamour
+that had lighted those dark walls and the double row of cowls and
+down-bent faces, the mystical beauty of the single flames here and
+there that threw patches of light on the carving of the stalls and the
+sombre habits, and gave visibility and significance to what without them
+was obscure, the strange suggestiveness of the high-groined roof and the
+higher vault glimmering through the summer darkness—all this had faded
+and left him, as it seemed, sane and perceptive of facts at last. Out
+there through those transepts lay the town where reasonable folk slept,
+husband and wife together, and the children in the great bed next door,
+with the tranquil ordinary day behind them and its fellow before; there
+were the streets, still now and dark and empty but for the sleeping
+dogs, where the signs swung and the upper stories leaned together, and
+where the common life had been transacted since the birth of the town
+and would continue till its decay. And beyond lay the cool round hills,
+with their dark dewy slopes, over which he had ridden a year ago, and
+all England beyond them again, with its human life and affairs and
+interests; and over all hung the serene stars whence God looked down
+well pleased with all that He had made.</p>
+
+<p>And, meanwhile, here he stood in his stall in his night shoes and black
+habit and cropped head, propped on his misericorde, with the great pages
+open before him, thumbed and greasy at their corners, from which he was
+repeating in a loud monotone formula after formula that had had time to
+grow familiar from repetition, but not yet sweet from associations—here
+he stood with heavy eyelids after his short sleep, his feet aching and
+hot, and his whole soul rebellious.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He was sent by his novice-master next day to the Prior, with his
+father’s letter in his hand, and stood humbly by the door while the
+Prior read it. Chris watched him under half-raised eye-lids; saw the
+clean-cut profile with its delicate mouth bent over the paper, and the
+hand with the enamelled ring turn the page. Prior Crowham was a
+cultivated, well-bred man, not over strong-willed, but courteous and
+sympathetic. He turned a little to Chris in his carved chair, as he laid
+the letter down.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” he said, smiling, “it is for you to choose whether you will
+offer yourself. Of course, there is uneasiness abroad, as this letter
+says, but what then?”</p>
+
+<p>He smiled pleasantly at the young man, and Chris felt a little ashamed.
+There was silence for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“It is for you to choose,” said the Prior again, “you have been happy
+with us, I think?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris pressed his lips together and looked down.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course Satan will not leave you alone,” went on the monk presently.
+“He will suggest many reasons against your profession. If he did not, I
+should be afraid that you had no vocation.”</p>
+
+<p>Again he waited for an answer, and again Chris was silent. His soul was
+so desolate that he could not trust himself to say all that he felt.</p>
+
+<p>“You must wait a little,” went on the Prior, “recommend yourself to our
+Lady and our Patron, and then leave yourself in their hands. You will
+know better when you have had a few days. Will you do this, and then
+come to me again?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my Lord Prior,” said Chris, and he took up the letter, bowed, and
+went out.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Within the week relief and knowledge came to him. He had done what the
+monk had told him, and it had been followed by a curious sense of relief
+at the thought suggested to him that the responsibility of decision did
+not rest on him but on his heavenly helpers. And then as he served mass
+the answer came.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, a little building entered
+from the north transept, with its windows opening directly on to the
+road leading up into the town; there was no one there but the two. It
+was about seven o’clock on the feast of the Seven Martyrs, and the
+chapel was full of a diffused tender morning light, for the chapel was
+sheltered from the direct sunshine by the tall church on its south.</p>
+
+<p>As they went up to the altar the bell sounded for the Elevation at the
+high-altar of the church, at the <i>missa familiaris</i>, and the footstep of
+someone passing through the north transept ceased instantly at the
+sound. The priest ascended the steps, set down the vessels, spread the
+corporal, opened the book, and came down again for the preparation.
+There was no one else in the chapel, and the peace of the place in the
+summer light, only vitalized by the brisk chirping of a sparrow under
+the eaves, entered into Christopher’s soul.</p>
+
+<p>As the mass went on it seemed as if a veil were lifting from his spirit,
+and leaving it free and sensible again. The things around him fell into
+their proper relationships, and there was no doubt in his mind that this
+newly restored significance of theirs was their true interpretation.
+They seemed penetrated and suffused by the light of the inner world; the
+red-brocaded chasuble moving on a level with his eyes, stirring with the
+shifting of the priest’s elbows, was more than a piece of rich stuff,
+the white alb beneath more than mere linen, the hood thrown back in the
+amice a sacramental thing. He looked up at the smoky yellow flames
+against the painted woodwork at the back of the altar, at the
+discoloured stones beside the grey window-mouldings still with the
+slanting marks of the chisel upon them, at the black rafters overhead,
+and last out through the shafted window at the heavy July foliage of the
+elm that stood by the road and the brilliant morning sky beyond; and
+once more he saw what these things meant and conveyed to an immortal
+soul. The words that he had said during these last weeks so mechanically
+were now rich and alive again, and as he answered the priest he
+perceived the spiritual vibration of them in the inner world of which
+his own soul was but a part. And then the climax was reached, and he
+lifted the skirt of the vestment with his left hand and shook the bell
+in his right; the last shreds of confusion were gone, and his spirit
+basked tranquil and content and certain again in the light that was
+newly risen on him.</p>
+
+<p>He went to the novice-master after the morning-chapter, and told him
+that he had made up his mind to offer himself for profession if it was
+thought advisable by the authorities.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Towards the end of August he presented himself once more before the
+chapter to make his solemn demand; his petition was granted, and a day
+appointed for his profession.</p>
+
+<p>Then he withdrew into yet stricter seclusion to prepare for the step.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX<br><span class="small">LIFE AT LEWES</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p>Under the direction of the junior-master who overlooked the young monks
+for some years after their profession, Chris continued his work of
+illumination, for which he had shown great aptitude during his year of
+noviceship.</p>
+
+<p>The art was beginning to disappear, since the introduction of printing
+had superseded the need of manuscript, but in some Religious Houses it
+was still thought a suitable exercise during the hours appointed for
+manual labour.</p>
+
+<p>It was soon after the beginning of the new year that Chris was entrusted
+with a printed antiphonary that had its borders and initials left white;
+and he carried the great loose sheets with a great deal of pride to the
+little carrel or wooden stall assigned to him in the northern cloister.</p>
+
+<p>It was a tiny room, scarcely six feet square, lighted by the window into
+the cloister-garth, and was almost entirely filled by the chair, the
+sloping desk against the wall, and the table where the pigments and
+brushes lay ready to the hand. The door opened on to the cloister itself
+where the professed monks were at liberty to walk, and on the opposite
+side stood the broad aumbries that held the library of the house; and it
+was from the books here that Chris was allowed to draw ideas for his
+designs. It was a great step in that life of minute details when now for
+the first time he was permitted to follow his own views, instead of
+merely filling in with colour outlines already drawn for him; and he
+found his scheme for the decoration a serious temptation to distraction
+during the office. As he stood among the professed monks, in his own
+stall at last, he found his eyes wandering away to the capitals of the
+round pillars, the stone foliage and fruit that burst out of the slender
+shafts, the grim heads that strained forward in mitre and crown
+overhead, and even the living faces of his brethren and superiors, clear
+against the dark woodwork. When he bent his eyes resolutely on his book
+he found his mind still intent on his more secular business; he mentally
+corrected this awkward curve of the initial, substituted an oak spray
+with acorns for that stiff monstrosity, and set my Lord Prior’s face
+grinning among griffins at the foot of the page where humour was more
+readily admitted.</p>
+
+<p>It was an immense joy when he closed his carrel-door, after his hour’s
+siesta in the dormitory, and sat down to his work. He was still warm
+with sleep, and the piercing cold of the unwarmed cloister did not
+affect him, but he set his feet on the sloping wooden footstool that
+rested on the straw for fear they should get cold, and turned smiling to
+his side-table.</p>
+
+<p>There were all the precious things laid out; the crow’s quills sharpened
+to an almost invisible point for the finer lines, the two sets of
+pencils, one of silver-point that left a faint grey line, and the other
+of haematite for the burnishing of the gold, the badger and minever
+brushes, the sponge and pumice-stone for erasures; the horns for black
+and red ink lay with the scissors and rulers on the little upper shelf
+of his desk. There were the pigments also there, which he had learnt to
+grind and prepare, the crushed lapis lazuli first calcined by heat
+according to the modern degenerate practice, with the cheap German blue
+beside it, and the indigo beyond; the prasinum; the vermilion and red
+lead ready mixed, and the rubrica beside it; the yellow orpiment, and,
+most important of all, the white pigments, powdered chalk and egg
+shells, lying by the biacca. In a separate compartment covered carefully
+from chance draughts or dust lay the precious gold leaf, and a little
+vessel of the inferior fluid gold used for narrow lines.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>His first business was to rule the thick red lines down the side of the
+text, using a special metal pen for it; and then to begin to sketch in
+his initials and decorations. For this latter part of the work he had
+decided to follow the lines of Foucquet from a Book of the Hours that he
+had taken out of its aumbry; a mass of delicate foliage and leaves, with
+medallions set in it united by twisted thorn-branches twining upwards
+through the broad border. These medallions on the first sheet he
+purposed to fill with miniatures of the famous relics kept at Lewes, the
+hanging sleeve of the Blessed Virgin in its crystal case, the
+drinking-cup of Cana, the rod of Moses, and the Magdalene’s box of
+ointment. In the later pages which would be less elaborate he would
+introduce the other relics, and allow his humour free play in designing
+for the scrolls at the foot tiny portraits of his brethren; the Prior
+should be in a mitre and have the legs and tail of a lion, the
+novice-master, with a fox’s brush emerging from his flying cowl, should
+be running from a hound who carried a discipline in his near paw. But
+there was time yet to think of these things; it would be weeks before
+that page could be reached, and meanwhile there was the foliage to be
+done, and the rose leaf that lay on his desk to be copied minutely from
+a hundred angles.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>His distractions at mass and office were worse than ever now that the
+great work was begun, and week after week in confession there was the
+same tale. The mere process was so absorbing, apart from the joy of
+creation and design. More than once he woke from a sweating nightmare in
+the long dormitory, believing that he had laid on gold-leaf without
+first painting the surface with the necessary mordant, or had run his
+stilus through his most delicate miniature. But he made extraordinary
+progress in the art; and the Prior more than once stepped into his
+carrel and looked over his shoulder, watching the slender fingers with
+the bone pen between them polishing the gold till it shone like a
+mirror, or the steady lead pencil moving over the white page in
+faultless curve. Then he would pat him on the shoulder, and go out in
+approving silence.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Chris was supremely content that he had done right in asking for
+profession. It appeared to him that he had found a life that was above
+all others worthy of an immortal soul. The whole day’s routine was
+directed to one end, the performance of the <i>Opus Dei</i>, the uttering of
+praises to Him who had made and was sustaining and would receive again
+all things to Himself.</p>
+
+<p>They rose at midnight for the night-office that the sleeping world might
+not be wholly dumb to God; went to rest again; rose once more with the
+world, and set about a yet sublimer worship. A stream of sacrifice
+poured up to the Throne through the mellow summer morning, or the cold
+winter darkness and gloom, from altar after altar in the great church.
+Christopher remembered pleasantly a morning soon after the beginning of
+his novitiate when he had been in the church as a set of priests came in
+and began mass simultaneously; the mystical fancy suggested itself as
+the hum of voices began that he was in a garden, warm and bright with
+grace, and that bees were about him making honey—that fragrant
+sweetness of which it had been said long ago that God should eat—and as
+the tinkle of the Elevation sounded out here and there, it seemed to him
+as a signal that the mysterious confection was done, and that every
+altar sprang into perfume from those silver vessels set with jewel and
+crystal.</p>
+
+<p>When the first masses were over, there was a pause in which the <i>mixtum</i>
+was taken—bread and wine or beer—standing in the refectory, after a
+short prayer that the Giver of all good gifts might bless the food and
+drink of His servants, and was closed again by another prayer said
+privately for all benefactors. Meanwhile the bell was ringing for the
+Lady mass, to remind the monks that the interval was only as it were a
+parenthetical concession; and after Terce and the Lady Mass followed the
+Chapter, in which faults were confessed and penances inflicted, and the
+living instruments of God’s work were examined and scoured for use. The
+martyrology was read at this time, as well as some morning prayers, to
+keep before the monks’ minds the remembrance of those great vessels of
+God’s household called to so high an employment. It was then, too, that
+other business of the house was done, and the seal affixed to any
+necessary documents. Christopher had an opportunity once of examining
+this seal when it had been given him to clean, and he looked with awe on
+the figures of his four new patrons, St. Peter, St. Pancras, St. Paul
+and Our Lady, set in niches above a cliff with the running water of the
+Ouse beneath, and read the petition that ran round the circle—</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Dulcis agonista tibi convertit domus ista Pancrati memorum precibus
+memor esto tuorum.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>When the chapter was over, and the deaths of any brethren of the order
+had been announced, and their souls prayed for, there was a pause for
+recreation in the cloister and the finishing of further business before
+they assembled again in time to go into church for the high mass, at
+which the work and prayers of the day were gathered up and consecrated
+in a supreme offering. Even the dinner that followed was a religious
+ceremony; it began by a salutation of the Christ in glory that was on
+the wall over the Prior’s table, and then a long grace was sung before
+they took their seats. The reader in the stone-pulpit on the south wall
+of the refectory began his business on the sounding of a bell; and at a
+second stroke there was a hum and clash of dishes from the kitchen end,
+and the aproned servers entered in line bearing the dishes. Immediately
+the meal was begun the drink destined for the poor at the gate was set
+aside, and a little later a representative of them was brought into the
+refectory to receive his portion; at the close again what was left over
+was collected for charity; while the community after singing part of the
+grace after meat went to finish it in the church.</p>
+
+<p>Chris learned to love the quiet religious graciousness of the refectory.
+The taking of food here was a consecrated action; it seemed a
+sacramental thing. He loved the restraint and preciseness of it, ensured
+by the solemn crucifix over the door with its pathetic inscription
+“SITIO,” the polished oak tables, solid and narrow, the shining pewter
+dishes, the folded napkins, the cleanly-served plentiful food, to each
+man his portion, the indescribable dignity of the prior’s little table,
+the bowing of the servers before it, the mellow grace ringing out in its
+monotone that broke into minor thirds and octaves of melody, like a
+grave line of woodwork on the panelling bursting into a stiff leaf or
+two at its ends. There was a strange and wonderful romance it about on
+early autumn evenings as the light died out behind the stained windows
+and the reader’s face glowed homely and strong between his two candles
+on the pulpit. And surely these tales of saints, the extract from the
+Rule, these portions of Scripture sung with long pauses and on a
+monotone for fear that the reader’s personality should obscure the
+message of what he read—surely this was a better accompaniment to the
+taking of food, in itself so gross a thing, than the feverish chatter of
+a secular hall and the bustling and officiousness of paid servants.</p>
+
+<p>After a general washing of hands the monks dispersed to their work, and
+the novices to bowls or other games; the Prior first distributing the
+garden instruments, and then beginning the labour with a commendation of
+it to God; and after finishing the manual work and a short time of
+study, they re-assembled in the cloister to go to Vespers. This, like
+the high mass, was performed with the ceremonial proper to the day, and
+was followed by supper, at which the same kind of ceremonies were
+observed as at dinner. When this was over, after a further short
+interval the evening reading or Collation took place in the
+chapter-house, after which the monks were at liberty to go and warm
+themselves at the one great fire kept up for the purpose in the
+calefactory; and then compline was sung, followed by Our Lady’s Anthem.</p>
+
+<p>This for Chris was one of the climaxes of the day’s emotions. He was
+always tired out by now with the day’s work, and longing for bed, and
+this approach to the great Mother of Monks soothed and quieted him. It
+was sung in almost complete darkness, except for a light or two in the
+long nave where a dark figure or two would be kneeling, and the pleasant
+familiar melody, accompanied softly by the organ overhead after the bare
+singing of Compline, seemed like a kind of good-night kiss. The
+infinite pathos of the words never failed to touch him, the cry of the
+banished children of Eve, weeping and mourning in this vale of tears to
+Mary whose obedience had restored what Eve’s self-will had ruined, and
+the last threefold sob of endearment to the “kindly, loving, sweet,
+Virgin Mary.” After the high agonisings and aspirations of the day’s
+prayer, the awfulness of the holy Sacrifice, the tramping monotony of
+the Psalter, the sting of the discipline, the aches and sweats of the
+manual labour, the intent strain of the illuminating, this song to Mary
+was a running into Mother’s arms and finding compensation there for all
+toils and burdens.</p>
+
+<p>Finally in complete silence the monks passed along the dark cloister,
+sprinkled with holy water as they left the church, up to the dormitory
+which ran over the whole length of the chapter house, the bridges and
+other offices, to sleep till midnight.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The effect of this life, unbroken by external distractions, was to make
+Chris’s soul alert and perceptive to the inner world, and careless or
+even contemptuous of the ordinary world of men. This spiritual realm
+began for the first time to disclose its details to him, and to show
+itself to some extent a replica of nature. It too had its varying
+climate, its long summer of warmth and light, its winter of dark
+discontent, its strange and bewildering sunrises of Christ upon the
+soul, when He rose and went about His garden with perfume and music, or
+stayed and greeted His creature with the message of His eyes. Chris
+began to learn that these spiritual changes were in a sense independent
+of him, that they were not in his soul, but rather that his soul was in
+them. He could be happy and content when the winds of God were cold and
+His light darkened, or sad and comfortless when the flowers of grace
+were apparent and the river of life bright and shining.</p>
+
+<p>And meanwhile the ordinary world went on, but far away and dimly heard
+and seen; as when one looks down from a castle-garden on to humming
+streets five hundred feet below; and the old life at Overfield, and
+Ralph’s doings in London seemed unreal and fantastic activities,
+purposeless and empty.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little, however, as the point of view shifted, Chris began to
+find that the external world could not be banished, and that the
+annoyances from the clash of characters discordant with his own were as
+positive as those which had distressed him before. Dom Anselm Bowden’s
+way of walking and the patch of grease at the shoulder of his cowl,
+never removed, and visible as he went before him into the church was as
+distractingly irritating as Ralph’s contempt; the buzz in the voice of a
+cantor who seemed always to sing on great days was as distressing as his
+own dog’s perversity at Overfield, or the snapping of a bow-string.</p>
+
+<p>When <i>accidie</i> fell upon Chris it seemed as if this particular house was
+entirely ruined by such incidents; the Prior was finikin, the
+junior-master tyrannical, the paints for illumination inferior in
+quality, the straw of his bed peculiarly sharp, the chapter-house
+unnecessarily draughty. And until he learnt from his confessor that this
+spiritual ailment was a perfectly familiar one, and that its symptoms
+and effects had been diagnosed centuries before, and had taken him at
+his word and practised the remedies he enjoined, Chris suffered
+considerably from discontent and despair alternately. At times others
+were intolerable, at times he was intolerable to himself, reproaching
+himself for having attempted so high a life, criticising his fellows
+for so lowering it to a poor standard.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The first time that he was accused in chapter of a fault against the
+Rule was a very great and shocking humiliation.</p>
+
+<p>He had accused himself as usual on his knees of his own remissions, of
+making an unnecessarily loud noise in drinking, of intoning a wrong
+antiphon as cantor, of spilling crumbs in the refectory; and then leaned
+back on his heels well content with the insignificance of his list, to
+listen with a discreet complacency to old Dom Adrian, who had overslept
+himself once, spilled his beer twice, criticised his superior, and
+talked aloud to himself four times during the Greater Silence, and who
+now mumbled out his crimes hastily and unconcernedly.</p>
+
+<p>When the self-accusations were done, the others began, and to his horror
+Chris heard his own name spoken.</p>
+
+<p>“I accuse Dom Christopher Torridon of not keeping the guard of the eyes
+at Terce this morning.”</p>
+
+<p>It was perfectly true; Chris had been so much absorbed in noticing an
+effect of shade thrown by a corbel, and in plans for incorporating it
+into his illumination that he had let a verse pass as far as the star
+that marked the pause. He felt his heart leap with resentment. Then a
+flash of retort came to him, and he waited his turn.</p>
+
+<p>“I accuse Dom Bernard Parr of not keeping the guard of the eyes at Terce
+this morning. He was observing me.”</p>
+
+<p>Just the faintest ripple passed round the line; and then the Prior spoke
+with a tinge of sharpness, inflicting the penances, and giving Chris a
+heavy sentence of twenty strokes with the discipline.</p>
+
+<p>When Chris’s turn came he threw back his habit petulantly, and
+administered his own punishment as the custom was, with angry fervour.</p>
+
+<p>As he was going out the Prior made him a sign, and took him through into
+his own cell.</p>
+
+<p>“Counter-accusations are contrary to the Rule,” he said. “It must not
+happen again,” and dismissed him sternly.</p>
+
+<p>And then Chris for a couple of days had a fierce struggle against
+uncharitableness, asking himself whether he had not eyed Dom Bernard
+with resentment, and then eyeing him again. It seemed too as if a fiend
+suggested bitter sentences of reproach, that he rehearsed to himself,
+and then repented. But on the third morning there came one of those
+strange breezes of grace that he was beginning to experience more and
+more frequently, and his sore soul grew warm and peaceful again.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was in those kinds of temptation now that he found his warfare to
+lie; internal assaults so fierce that it was terribly difficult to know
+whether he had yielded or not, sudden images of pride and anger and lust
+that presented themselves so vividly and attractively that it seemed he
+must have willed them; it was not often that he was tempted to sin in
+word or deed—such, when they came, rushed on him suddenly; but in the
+realm of thought and imagination and motive he would often find himself,
+as it were, entering a swarm of such things, that hovered round him,
+impeding his prayer, blinding his insight, and seeking to sting the very
+heart of his spiritual life. Then once more he would fight himself free
+by despising and rejecting them, or would emerge without conscious will
+of his own into clearness and serenity.</p>
+
+<p>But as he looked back he regretted nothing. It was true that the
+warfare was more subtle and internal, but it was more honourable too;
+for to conquer a motive or tame an imagination was at once more arduous
+and more far-reaching in its effects than a victory in merely outward
+matters, and he seldom failed to thank God half-a-dozen times a day for
+having given him the vocation of a monk.</p>
+
+<p>There was one danger, however, that he did not realise, and his
+confessor failed to point it out to him; and that was the danger of the
+wrong kind of detachment. As has been already seen the theory of the
+Religious Life was that men sought it not merely for the salvation of
+their own souls, but for that of the world. A monastery was a place
+where in a special sense the spiritual commerce of the world was carried
+on: as a workman’s shed is the place deputed and used by the world for
+the manufacture of certain articles. It was the manufactory of grace
+where skilled persons were at work, busy at a task of prayer and
+sacrament which was to be at other men’s service. If the father of a
+family had a piece of spiritual work to be done, he went to the
+monastery and arranged for it, and paid a fee for the sustenance of
+those he employed, as he might go to a merchant’s to order a cargo and
+settle for its delivery.</p>
+
+<p>Since this was so then, it was necessary that the spiritual workmen
+should be in a certain touch with those for whom they worked. It was
+true that they must be out of the world, undominated by its principles
+and out of love with its spirit; but in another sense they must live in
+its heart. To use another analogy they were as windmills, lifted up from
+the earth into the high airs of grace, but their base must be on the
+ground or their labour would be ill-spent. They must be mystically one
+with the world that they had resigned.</p>
+
+<p>Chris forgot this; and laboured, and to a large extent succeeded, in
+detaching himself wholly; and symptoms of this mistake showed themselves
+in such things as tending to despise secular life, feeling impatient
+with the poor to whom he had to minister, in sneering in his heart at
+least at anxious fussy men who came to arrange for masses, at
+troublesome women who haunted the sacristy door in a passion of
+elaborateness, and at comfortable families who stamped into high mass
+and filled a seat and a half, but who had yet their spiritual burdens
+and their claims to honour.</p>
+
+<p>But he was to be brought rudely down to facts again. He was beginning to
+forget that England was about him and stirring in her agony; and he was
+reminded of it with some force in the winter after his profession.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He was going out to the gate-house one day on an errand from the
+junior-master when he became aware of an unusual stir in the court.
+There were a couple of palfreys there, and half-a-dozen mules behind,
+whilst three or four strange monks with a servant or two stood at their
+bridles.</p>
+
+<p>Chris stopped to consider, for he had no business with guests; and as he
+hesitated the door of the guest-house opened, and two prelates came out
+with Dom Anthony behind them—tall, stately men in monks’ habits with
+furred cloaks and crosses. Chris slipped back at once into the cloister
+from which he had just come out, and watched them go past to the Prior’s
+lodging.</p>
+
+<p>They appeared at Vespers that afternoon again, sitting in the first
+returned stalls near the Prior, and Chris recognised one of them as the
+great Abbot of Colchester. He looked at him now and again during Vespers
+with a reverential awe, for the Abbot was a great man, a spiritual peer
+of immense influence and reputation, and watched that fatherly face,
+his dignified bows and stately movements, and the great sapphire that
+shone on his hand as he turned the leaves of his illuminated book.</p>
+
+<p>The two prelates were at supper, sitting on either side of the Prior on
+the dais; and afterwards the monks were called earlier than usual from
+recreation into the chapter-house.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior made them a little speech saying that the Abbot had something
+to say to them, and then sat down; his troubled eyes ran over the faces
+of his subjects, and his fingers twitched and fidgetted on his knees.</p>
+
+<p>The Abbot did not make them a long discourse; but told them briefly that
+there was trouble coming; he spoke in veiled terms of the Act of
+Supremacy, and the serious prayer that was needed; he said that a time
+of testing was close at hand, and that every man must scrutinise his own
+conscience and examine his motives; and that the unlearned had better
+follow the advice and example of their superiors.</p>
+
+<p>It was all very vague and unsatisfactory; but Chris became aware of
+three things. First, that the world was very much alive and could not be
+dismissed by a pious aspiration or two; second, that the world was about
+to make some demand that would have to be seriously dealt with, and
+third, that there was nothing really to fear so long as their souls were
+clean and courageous. The Abbot was a melting speaker, full at once of a
+fatherly tenderness and vehemence, and as Chris looked at him he felt
+that indeed there was nothing to fear so long as monks had such
+representatives and protectors as these, and that the world had better
+look to itself for fear it should dash itself to ruin against such rocks
+of faith and holiness.</p>
+
+<p>But as the spring drew on, an air of suspense and anxiety made itself
+evident in the house. News came down that More and Fisher were still in
+prison, that the oath was being administered right and left, that the
+King had thrown aside all restraints, and that the civil breach with
+Rome seemed in no prospect of healing. As for the spiritual breach the
+monks did not seriously consider it yet; they regarded themselves as
+still in union with the Holy See whatever their rulers might say or do,
+and only prayed for the time when things might be as before and there
+should be no longer any doubt or hesitation in the minds of weak
+brethren.</p>
+
+<p>But the Prior’s face grew more white and troubled, and his temper
+uncertain.</p>
+
+<p>Now and again he would make them speeches assuring them fiercely that
+all was well, and that all they had to do was to be quiet and obedient;
+and now he would give way to a kind of angry despair, tell them that all
+was lost, that every man would have to save himself; and then for days
+after such an exhibition he would be silent and morose, rapping his
+fingers softly as he sat at his little raised table in the refectory,
+walking with downcast eyes up and down the cloister muttering and
+staring.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of April he sent abruptly for Chris, told him that he
+had news from London that made his presence there necessary, and ordered
+him to be ready to ride with him in a week or two.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X<br><span class="small">THE ARENA</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p>It was in the evening of a warm May day that the Prior and Chris arrived
+at the hostelry in Southwark, which belonged to Lewes Priory.</p>
+
+<p>It was on the south side of Kater Lane, opposite St. Olave’s church, a
+great house built of stone with arched gates, with a large porch opening
+straight into the hall, which was high and vaulted with a frieze of
+grotesque animals and foliage running round it. There were a few
+servants there, and one or two friends of the Prior waiting at the porch
+as they arrived; and one of them, a monk himself from the cell at
+Farley, stepped up to the Prior’s stirrup and whispered to him.</p>
+
+<p>Chris heard an exclamation and a sharp indrawing of breath, but was too
+well trained to ask; so he too dismounted and followed the others into
+the hall, leaving his beast in the hands of a servant.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior was already standing by the monk at the upper end, questioning
+him closely, and glancing nervously this way and that.</p>
+
+<p>“To-day?” he asked sharply, and looked at the other horrified.</p>
+
+<p>The monk nodded, pale-faced and anxious, his lower lip sucked in.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior turned to Chris.</p>
+
+<p>“They have suffered to-day,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>News had reached Lewes nearly a week before that the Carthusians had
+been condemned, for refusing to acknowledge the King as head of the
+English Church, but it had been scarcely possible to believe that the
+sentence would be carried out, and Chris felt the blood beat in his
+temples and his lips turn suddenly dry as he heard the news.</p>
+
+<p>“I was there, my Lord Prior,” said the monk.</p>
+
+<p>He was a middle-aged man, genial and plump, but his face was white and
+anxious now, and his mouth worked. “They were hanged in their habits,”
+he went on. “Prior Houghton was the first despatched;” and he added a
+terrible detail or two.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you see the place, my Lord Prior?” he said, “You can ride there.
+Your palfrey is still at the door.”</p>
+
+<p>Prior Robert Crowham looked at him a moment with pursed lips; and then
+shook his head violently.</p>
+
+<p>“No, no,” he said. “I—I must see to the house.” The monk looked at
+Chris.</p>
+
+<p>“May I go, my Lord Prior?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior stared at him a moment, in a desperate effort to fix his
+attention; then nodded sharply and wheeled round to the door that led to
+the upper rooms.</p>
+
+<p>“Mother of God!” he said. “Mother of God!” and went out.</p>
+
+<p>Chris went through with the strange priest, down the hall and out into
+the porch again. The others were standing there, fearful and whispering,
+and opened out to let the two monks pass through.</p>
+
+<p>Chris had been tired and hot when he arrived, but he was conscious now
+of no sensation but of an overmastering desire to see the place; he
+passed straight by his horse that still stood with a servant at his
+head, and turned up instinctively toward the river.</p>
+
+<p>The monk called after him.</p>
+
+<p>“There, there,” he cried, “not so fast—we have plenty of time.”</p>
+
+<p>They took a wherry at the stairs and pushed out with the stream. The
+waterman was a merry-looking man who spoke no word but whistled to
+himself cheerfully as he laid himself to the oars, and the boat began to
+move slantingly across the flowing tide. He looked at the monks now and
+again; but Chris was seated, staring out with eyes that saw nothing down
+the broad stream away to where the cathedral rose gigantic and graceful
+on the other side. It was the first time he had been in London since a
+couple of years before his profession, but the splendour and strength of
+the city was nothing to him now. It only had one significance to his
+mind, and that that it had been this day the scene of a martyrdom. His
+mind that had so long lived in the inner world, moving among
+supernatural things, was struggling desperately to adjust itself.</p>
+
+<p>Once or twice his lips moved, and his hands clenched themselves under
+his scapular; but he saw and heard nothing; and did not even turn his
+head when a barge swept past them, and a richly dressed man leaned from
+the stern and shouted something mockingly. The other monk looked
+nervously and deprecatingly up, for he heard the taunting threat across
+the water that the Carthusians were a good riddance, and that there
+would be more to follow.</p>
+
+<p>They landed at the Blackfriars stairs, paid the man, who was still
+whistling as he took the money, and passed up by the little stream that
+flowed into the river, striking off to the left presently, and leaving
+the city behind them. They were soon out again on the long straight road
+that led to Tyburn, for Chris walked desperately fast, paying little
+heed to his companion except at the corners when he had to wait to know
+the way; and presently Tyburn-gate began to raise its head high against
+the sky.</p>
+
+<p>Once the strange monk, whose name Chris had not even troubled to ask,
+plucked him by his hanging sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>“The hurdles came along here,” he said; and Chris looked at him vacantly
+as if he did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>Then they were under Tyburn-gate, and the clump of elms stood before
+them.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was a wide open space, dusty now and trampled.</p>
+
+<p>What grass there had been in patches by the two little streams that
+flowed together here, was crushed and flat under foot. The elms cast
+long shadows from the west, and birds were chirping in the branches;
+there was a group or two of people here and there looking curiously
+about them. A man’s voice came across the open space, explaining; and
+his arm rose and wheeled and pointed and paused—three or four children
+hung together, frightened and interested.</p>
+
+<p>But Chris saw little of all this. He had no eyes for the passing
+details; they were fixed on the low mound that rose fifty yards away,
+and the three tall posts, placed in a triangle and united by
+cross-beams, that stood on it, gaunt against the sky.</p>
+
+<p>As he came nearer to it, walking as one in a dream across the dusty
+ground and trampled grass, and paying no heed to the priest behind him
+who whispered with an angry nervousness, he was aware of the ends of
+three or four ropes that hung motionless from the beams in the still
+evening air; and with his eyes fixed on these in exaltation and terror
+he stumbled up the sloping ground and came beneath them.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great peace round him as he stood there, stroking one of
+the uprights with a kind of mechanical tenderness; the men were silent
+as they saw the two monks there, and watched to see what they would do.</p>
+
+<p>The towers of Tyburn-gate rose a hundred yards away, empty now, but
+crowded this morning; and behind them the long road with the fields and
+great mansions on this side and that, leading down to the city in front
+and Westminster on the right, those two dens of the tiger that had
+snarled so fiercely a few hours before, as she licked her lips red with
+martyrs’ blood. It was indescribably peaceful now; there was no sound
+but the birds overhead, and the soft breeze in the young leaves, and the
+trickle of the streams defiled to-day, but running clean and guiltless
+now; and the level sunlight lay across the wide flat ground and threw
+the shadow of the mound and gallows nearly to the foot of the gate.</p>
+
+<p>But to Chris the place was alive with phantoms; the empty space had
+vanished, and a sea of faces seemed turned up to him; he fancied that
+there were figures about him, watching him too, brushing his sleeve,
+faces looking into his eyes, waiting for some action or word from him.
+For a moment his sense of identity was lost; the violence of the
+associations, and perhaps even the power of the emotions that had been
+wrought there that day, crushed out his personality; it was surely he
+who was here to suffer; all else was a dream and an illusion. From his
+very effort of living in eternity, a habit had been formed that now
+asserted itself; the laws of time and space and circumstance for the
+moment ceased to exist; and he found himself for an eternal instant
+facing his own agony and death.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Then with a rush facts re-asserted themselves, and he started and
+looked round as the monk touched him on the arm.</p>
+
+<p>“You have seen it,” he said in a sharp undertone, “it is enough. We
+shall be attacked.” Chris paid him no heed beyond a look, and turned
+once more.</p>
+
+<p>It was here that they had suffered, these gallant knights of God; they
+had stood below these beams, their feet on the cart that was their
+chariot of glory, their necks in the rope that would be their heavenly
+badge; they had looked out where he was looking as they made their
+little speeches, over the faces to Tyburn-gate, with the same sun that
+was now behind him, shining into their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>He still stroked the rough beam; and as the details came home, and he
+remembered that it was this that had borne their weight, he leaned and
+kissed it; and a flood of tears blinded him.</p>
+
+<p>Again the priest pulled his sleeve sharply.</p>
+
+<p>“For God’s sake, brother!” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Chris turned to him.</p>
+
+<p>“The cauldron,” he said; “where was that?”</p>
+
+<p>The priest made an impatient movement, but pointed to one side, away
+from where the men were standing still watching them; and Chris saw
+below, by the side of one of the streams a great blackened patch of
+ground, and a heap of ashes.</p>
+
+<p>The two went down there, for the other monk was thankful to get to any
+less conspicuous place; and Chris presently found himself standing on
+the edge of the black patch, with the trampled mud and grass beyond it
+beside the stream. The grey wood ashes had drifted by now far across the
+ground, but the heavy logs still lay there, charred and smoked, that had
+blazed beneath the cauldron where the limbs of the monks had been
+seethed; and he stared down at them, numbed and fascinated by the
+horror of the thought. His mind, now in a violent reaction, seemed
+unable to cope with its own knowledge, crushed beneath its weight; and
+his friend heard him repeating with a low monotonous insistence—</p>
+
+<p>“Here it was,” he said, “here; here was the cauldron; it was here.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned and looked into his friend’s eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“It was here,” he said; “are you sure it was here?”</p>
+
+<p>The other made an impatient sound.</p>
+
+<p>“Where else?” he said sharply. “Come, brother, you have seen enough.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He told him more details as they walked home; as to what each had said,
+and how each had borne himself. Father Reynolds, the Syon monk, had
+looked gaily about him, it seemed, as he walked up from the hurdle; the
+secular priest had turned pale and shut his eyes more than once; the
+three Carthusian priors had been unmoved throughout, showing neither
+carelessness nor fear; Prior Houghton’s arm had been taken off to the
+London Charterhouse as a terror to the others; their heads, he had
+heard, were on London Bridge.</p>
+
+<p>Chris walked slowly as he listened, holding tight under his scapular the
+scrap of rough white cloth he had picked up near the cauldron, drinking
+in every detail, and painting it into the mental picture that was
+forming in his mind; but there was much more in the picture than the
+other guessed.</p>
+
+<p>The priest was a plain man, with a talent for the practical, and knew
+nothing of the vision that the young monk beside him was seeing—of the
+air about the gallows crowded with the angels of the Agony and Passion,
+waiting to bear off the straggling souls in their tender experienced
+hands; of the celestial faces looking down, the scarred and glorious
+arms stretched out in welcome; of Mary with her mother’s eyes, and her
+virgins about her—all ring above ring in deepening splendour up to the
+white blinding light above, where the Everlasting Trinity lay poised in
+love and glory to receive and crown the stalwart soldiers of God.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI<br><span class="small">A CLOSING-IN</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p>Ralph kept his resolution to pretend to try and save Sir Thomas More,
+and salved his own conscience by protesting to Beatrice that his efforts
+were bound to fail, and that he had no influence such as she imagined.
+He did certainly more than once remark to Cromwell that Sir Thomas was a
+pleasant and learned man, and had treated him kindly, and once had gone
+so far as to say that he did not see that any good would be served by
+his death; but he had been sharply rebuked, and told to mind his own
+business; then, softening, Cromwell had explained that there was no
+question of death for the present; but that More’s persistent refusal to
+yield to the pressure of events was a standing peril to the King’s
+policy.</p>
+
+<p>This policy had now shaped itself more clearly. In the autumn of ’34 the
+bill for the King’s supremacy over the Church of England began to take
+form; and Ralph had several sights of the documents as all business of
+this kind now flowed through Cromwell’s hands, and he was filled with
+admiration and at the same time with perplexity at the adroitness of the
+wording. It was very short, and affected to assume rather than to enact
+its object.</p>
+
+<p>“Albeit the King’s Majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be,” it
+began, “the supreme head of the Church of England, and so is recognised
+by the clergy of this realm in their Convocations, yet, nevertheless,
+for corroboration and confirmation thereof ... and to repress and extirp
+all errors, heresies and other enormities ... be it enacted by authority
+of this present Parliament that the King our sovereign lord ... shall be
+taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the
+Church of England, called <i>Anglicans Ecclesia</i>.” The bill then proceeded
+to confer on him a plenitude of authority over both temporal and
+spiritual causes.</p>
+
+<p>There was here considerable skill in the manner of its drawing up, which
+it owed chiefly to Cromwell; for it professed only to re-state a matter
+that had slipped out of notice, and appealed to the authority of
+Convocation which had, truly, under Warham allowed a resolution to the
+same effect, though qualified by the clause, “as far as God’s law
+permits,” to pass in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was puzzled by it: he was led to believe that it could contain no
+very radical change from the old belief, since the clergy had in a sense
+already submitted to it; and, on the other hand, the word “the only
+supreme head in earth” seemed not only to assert the Crown’s civil
+authority over the temporalities of the Church, but to exclude
+definitely all jurisdiction on the part of the Pope.</p>
+
+<p>“It is the assertion of a principle,” Cromwell said to him when he asked
+one day for an explanation; “a principle that has always been held in
+England; it is not intended to be precise or detailed: that will follow
+later.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was no theologian, and did not greatly care what the bill did or
+did not involve. He was, too, in that temper of inchoate agnosticism
+that was sweeping England at the time, and any scruples that he had in
+his more superstitious moments were lulled by the knowledge that the
+clergy had acquiesced. What appeared more important to him than any
+hair-splittings on the exact provinces of the various authorities in
+question, was the necessity of some step towards the crippling of the
+spiritual empire whose hands were so heavy, and whose demands so
+imperious. He felt, as an Englishman, resentful of the leading strings
+in which, so it seemed to him, Rome wished to fetter his country.</p>
+
+<p>The bill passed through parliament on November the eighteenth.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ralph lost no opportunity of impressing upon Beatrice how much he had
+risked for the sake of her friend in the Tower, and drew very moving
+sketches of his own peril.</p>
+
+<p>The two were sitting together in the hall at Chelsea one winters evening
+soon after Christmas. The high panelling was relieved by lines of
+greenery, with red berries here and there; a bunch of mistletoe leaned
+forward over the sloping mantelpiece, and there was an acrid smell of
+holly and laurel in the air. It was a little piteous, Ralph thought,
+under the circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Another stage had been passed in More’s journey towards death, in the
+previous month, when he had been attainted of misprision of treason by
+an act designed to make good the illegality of his former conviction,
+and the end was beginning to loom clear.</p>
+
+<p>“I said it would be no use, Mistress Beatrice, and it is none—Master
+Cromwell will not hear a word.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice looked up at Ralph, and down again, as her manner was. Her
+hands were lying on her lap perfectly still as she sat upright in her
+tall chair.</p>
+
+<p>“You have done what you could, I know,” she said, softly.</p>
+
+<p>“Master Cromwell did not take it very well,” went on Ralph with an
+appearance of resolute composure, “but that was to be expected.”</p>
+
+<p>Again she looked up, and Ralph once more was seized with the desire to
+precipitate matters and tell her what was in his heart, but he repressed
+it, knowing it was useless to speak yet.</p>
+
+<p>It was a very stately and slow wooing, like the movement of a minuet;
+each postured to each, not from any insincerity, except perhaps a little
+now and then on Ralph’s side, but because for both it was a natural mode
+of self-expression. It was an age of dignity abruptly broken here and
+there by violence. There were slow and gorgeous pageants followed by
+brutal and bestial scenes, like the life of a peacock who paces
+composedly in the sun and then scuttles and screams in the evening. But
+with these two at present there was no occasion for abruptness, and
+Ralph, at any rate, contemplated with complacency his own graciousness
+and grandeur, and the skilfully posed tableaux in which he took such a
+sedate part.</p>
+
+<p>As the spring drew on and the crocuses began to star the grass along the
+river and the sun to wheel wider and wider, the chill and the darkness
+began to fall more heavily on the household at Chelsea. They were
+growing very poor by now; most of Sir Thomas’s possessions elsewhere had
+been confiscated by the King, though by his clemency Chelsea was still
+left to Mrs. Alice for the present; and one by one the precious things
+began to disappear from the house as they were sold to obtain
+necessaries. All the private fortune of Mrs. More had gone by the end of
+the winter, and her son still owed great sums to the Government on
+behalf of his father.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of May she told Ralph that she was making another
+appeal to Cromwell for help, and begged him to forward her petition.</p>
+
+<p>“My silks are all gone,” she said, “and the little gold chain and cross
+that you may remember, Mr. Torridon, went last month, too—I cannot tell
+what we shall do. Mr. More is so obstinate”—and her eyes filled with
+tears—“and we have to pay fifteen shillings every week for him and John
+a’ Wood.”</p>
+
+<p>She looked so helpless and feeble as she sat in the window seat,
+stripped now of its tapestry cushions, with the roofs of the New
+Building rising among its trees at the back, where her husband had
+walked a year ago with such delight, that Ralph felt a touch of
+compunction, and promised to do his best.</p>
+
+<p>He said a word to Cromwell that evening as he supped with him at
+Hackney, and his master looked at him curiously, sitting forward in the
+carved chair he had had from Wolsey, in his satin gown, twisting the
+stem of his German glass in his ringed fingers.</p>
+
+<p>“And what do you wish me to do, sir?” he asked Ralph with a kind of
+pungent irony.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph explained that he scarcely knew himself; perhaps a word to his
+Grace—</p>
+
+<p>“I will tell you what it is, Mr. Torridon,” broke in his master, “you
+have made another mistake. I did not intend you to be their friend, but
+to seem so.”</p>
+
+<p>“I can scarcely seem so,” said Ralph quietly, but with a certain
+indignation at his heart, “unless I do them little favours sometimes.”</p>
+
+<p>“You need not seem so any longer,” said Cromwell drily, “the time is
+past.”</p>
+
+<p>And he set his glass down and sat back.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Ralph’s respect and admiration for his master became no less. He had
+the attractiveness of extreme and unscrupulous capability. It gave Ralph
+the same joy to watch him as he found in looking on at an expert fencer;
+he was so adroit and strong and ready; mighty and patient in defence,
+watchful for opportunities of attack and merciless when they came. His
+admirers scarcely gave a thought to the piteousness of the adversary;
+they were absorbed in the scheme and proud to be included in it; and men
+of heart and sensibility were as hard as their master when they carried
+out his plans.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The fate of the Carthusians would have touched Ralph if he had been a
+mere onlooker, as it touched so many others, but he had to play his part
+in the tragedy, and was astonished at the quick perceptions of Cromwell
+and his determined brutality towards these peaceful contemplatives whom
+he recognised as a danger-centre against the King’s policy.</p>
+
+<p>He was present first in Cromwell’s house when the three Carthusian
+priors of Beauvale, Axholme and London called upon him of their own
+accord to put their questions on the meaning of the King’s supremacy:
+but their first question, as to how was it possible for a layman to hold
+the keys of the kingdom of heaven was enough, and without any further
+evidence they were sent to the Tower.</p>
+
+<p>Then, again, he was present in the Court of the Rolls a few days later
+when Dom Laurence, of Beauvale, and Dom Webster, of Axholme, were
+examined once more. There were seven or eight others present, laymen and
+ecclesiastics, and the priors were once more sent back to the Tower.</p>
+
+<p>And so examination after examination went on, and no answer could be got
+out of the monks, but that they could never reconcile it with their
+conscience to accept the King to be what the Act of Supremacy declared
+that he was.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph’s curiosity took him down to the Charterhouse one day shortly
+before the execution of the priors; he had with him an order from
+Cromwell that carried him everywhere he wished to go; but he did not
+penetrate too deeply. He was astonished at the impression that the place
+made on him.</p>
+
+<p>As he passed up the Great Cloister there was no sound but from a bird or
+two singing in the afternoon sunlight of the garth; each cell-door, with
+its hatch for the passage of food, was closed and silent; and Ralph felt
+a curious quickening of his heart as he thought of the human life passed
+in the little houses, each with its tiny garden, its workshop, its two
+rooms, and its paved ambulatory, in which each solitary lived. How
+strangely apart this place was from the buzz of business from which he
+had come! And yet he knew very well that the whole was as good as
+condemned already.</p>
+
+<p>He wondered to himself how they had taken the news of the tragedy that
+was beginning—those white, demure men with shaved heads and faces, and
+downcast eyes. He reflected what the effect of that news must be; as it
+penetrated each day, like a stone dropped softly into a pool, leaving no
+ripple. There, behind each brown door, he fancied to himself, a strange
+alchemy was proceeding, in which each new terror and threat from outside
+was received into the crucible of a beating heart and transmuted by
+prayer and welcome into some wonderful jewel of glory—at least so these
+poor men believed; and Ralph indignantly told himself it was nonsense;
+they were idlers and dreamers. He reminded himself of a sneer he had
+heard against the barrels of Spanish wine that were taken in week by
+week at the monastery door; if these men ate no flesh too, at least they
+had excellent omelettes.</p>
+
+<p>But as he passed at last through the lay-brothers’ choir and stood
+looking through the gates of the Fathers’ choir up to the rich altar
+with its hangings and its posts on either side crowned with gilded
+angels bearing candles, to the splendid window overhead, against which,
+as in a glory, hung the motionless silk-draped pyx, the awe fell on him
+again.</p>
+
+<p>This was the place where they met, these strange, silent men; every
+panel and stone was saturated with the prayers of experts, offered three
+times a day—in the night-office of two or three hours when the world
+was asleep; at the chapter-mass; and at Vespers in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>His heart again stirred a little, superstitiously he angrily told
+himself, at the memory of the stories that were whispered about in town.</p>
+
+<p>Two years ago, men said, a comet had been seen shining over the house.
+As the monks went back from matins, each with his lantern in his hand,
+along the dark cloister, a ray had shot out from the comet, had glowed
+upon the church and bell-tower, and died again into darkness. Again, a
+little later, two monks, one in his cell-garden and the other in the
+cemetery, had seen a blood-red globe, high and menacing, hanging in the
+air over the house.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, at Pentecost, at the mass of the Holy Ghost, offered at the end
+of a triduum with the intention of winning grace to meet any sacrifice
+that might be demanded, not one nor two, but the whole community,
+including the lay-brothers outside the Fathers’ Choir, had perceived a
+soft whisper of music of inexpressible sweetness that came and went
+overhead at the Elevation. The celebrant bowed forward in silence over
+the altar, unable to continue the mass, the monks remained petrified
+with joy and awe in their stalls.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph stared once more at the altar as he remembered this tale; at the
+row of stalls on either side, the dark roof overhead, the glowing glass
+on either side and in front—and asked himself whether it was true,
+whether God had spoken, whether a chink of the heavenly gate had been
+opened here to let the music escape.</p>
+
+<p>It was not true, he told himself; it was the dream of a man mad with
+sleeplessness, foolish with fasting and discipline and vigils: one had
+dreamed it and babbled of it to the rest and none had liked to be less
+spiritual or perceptive of divine manifestations.</p>
+
+<p>A brown figure was by the altar now to light the candles for Vespers; a
+taper was in his hand, and the spot of light at the end moved like a
+star against the gilding and carving. Ralph turned and went out.</p>
+
+<p>Then on the fourth of May he was present at the execution of the three
+priors and the two other priests at Tyburn. There was an immense crowd
+there, nearly the whole Court being present; and it was reported here
+and there afterwards that the King himself was there in a group of five
+horsemen, who came in the accoutrements of Borderers, vizored and armed,
+and took up their position close to the scaffold. There fell a terrible
+silence as the monks were dragged up on the hurdles, in their habits,
+all three together behind one horse. They were cut down almost at once,
+and the butchery was performed on them while they were still alive.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph went home in a glow of resolution against them. A tragedy such as
+that which he had seen was of necessity a violent motive one way or the
+other, and it found him determined that the sufferers were in the wrong,
+and left him confirmed in his determination. Their very passivity
+enraged him.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, he had of course heard nothing of his brother’s presence in
+London, and it was with something of a shock that on the next afternoon
+he heard the news from Mr. Morris that Mr. Christopher was below and
+waiting for him in the parlour.</p>
+
+<p>As he went down he wondered what Chris was doing in London, and what he
+himself could say to him. He was expecting Beatrice, too, to call upon
+him presently with her maid to give him a message and a bundle of
+letters which he had promised to convey to Sir Thomas More. But he was
+determined to be kind to his brother.</p>
+
+<p>Chris was standing in his black monk’s habit on the other side of the
+walnut table, beside the fire-place, and made no movement as Ralph came
+forward smiling and composed. His face was thinner than his brother
+remembered it, clean-shaven now, with hollows in the cheeks, and his
+eyes were strangely light.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Chris!” said Ralph, and stopped, astonished at the other’s
+motionlessness.</p>
+
+<p>Then Chris came round the table with a couple of swift steps, his hands
+raised a little from the wide, drooping sleeves.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! brother,” he said, “I have come to bring you away: this is a wicked
+place.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was so amazed that he fell back a step.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you mad?” he said coldly enough, but he felt a twitch of
+superstitious fear at his heart.</p>
+
+<p>Chris seized the rich silk sleeve in both his hands, and Ralph felt them
+trembling and nervous.</p>
+
+<p>“You must come away,” he said, “for Jesu’s sake, brother! You must not
+lose your soul.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph felt the old contempt surge up and drown his fear. The familiarity
+of his brother’s presence weighed down the religious suggestion of his
+habit and office. This is what he had feared and almost expected;—that
+the cloister would make a fanatic of this fantastic brother of his.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced round at the door that he had left open, but the house was
+silent. Then he turned again.</p>
+
+<p>“Sit down, Chris,” he said, with a strong effort at self-command, and he
+pulled his sleeve away, went back and shut the door, and then came
+forward past where his brother was standing, to the chair that stood
+with its back to the window.</p>
+
+<p>“You must not be fond and wild,” he said decidedly. “Sit down, Chris.”</p>
+
+<p>The monk came past him to the other side of the hearth, and faced him
+again, but did not sit down. He remained standing by the fire-place,
+looking down at Ralph, who was in his chair with crossed legs.</p>
+
+<p>“What is this folly?” said Ralph again.</p>
+
+<p>Chris stared down at him a moment in silence.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, why—” he began, and ceased.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph felt himself the master of the situation, and determined to be
+paternal.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear lad,” he said, “you have dreamed yourself mad at Lewes. When
+did you come to London?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yesterday,” said Chris, still with that strange stare.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, then—” began Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—you think I was too late, but I saw it,” said Chris; “I was there
+in the evening and saw it all again.”</p>
+
+<p>All his nervous tension seemed relaxed by the warm common-sense
+atmosphere of this trim little room, and his brother’s composure. His
+lips were beginning to tremble, and he half turned and gripped the
+mantel-shelf with his right hand. Ralph noticed with a kind of
+contemptuous pity how the heavy girded folds of the frock seemed to
+contain nothing, and that the wrist from which the sleeve had fallen
+back was slender as a reed. Ralph felt himself so infinitely his
+brother’s superior that he could afford to be generous and kindly.</p>
+
+<p>“Dear Chris,” he said, smiling, “you look starved and miserable. Shall I
+tell Morris to bring you something? I thought you monks fared better
+than that.”</p>
+
+<p>In a moment Chris was on his knees on the rushes; his hands gripped his
+brother’s arms, and his wild eyes were staring up with a fanatical fire
+of entreaty in them. His words broke out like a torrent.</p>
+
+<p>“Ralph,” he said, “dear brother! for Jesu’s sake, come away! I have
+heard everything. I know that these streets are red with blood, and that
+your hands have been dipped in it. You must not lose your soul. I know
+everything; you must come away. For Jesu’s sake!”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph tore himself free and stood up, pushing back his chair.</p>
+
+<p>“Godbody!” he said, “I have a fool for a brother. Stand up, sir. I will
+have no mumming in my house.”</p>
+
+<p>He rapped his foot fiercely on the floor, staring down at Chris who had
+thrown himself back on his heels.</p>
+
+<p>“Stand up, sir,” he said again.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you hear me, brother?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>“I will hear you if you will talk reason. I think you are mad.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris got up again. He was trembling violently, and his hands twitched
+and clenched by his sides.</p>
+
+<p>“Then you shall hear me,” he said, and his voice shook as he spoke. “It
+is this—”</p>
+
+<p>“You must sit down,” interrupted Ralph, and he pointed to the chair
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>Chris went to it and sat down. Ralph took a step across to the door and
+opened it.</p>
+
+<p>“Morris,” he called, and came back to his chair.</p>
+
+<p>There was silence a moment or two, till the servant’s step sounded in
+the hall, and the door opened. Mr. Morris’s discreet face looked
+steadily and composedly at his master.</p>
+
+<p>“Bring the pasty,” said Ralph, “and the wine.”</p>
+
+<p>He gave the servant a sharp look, seemed to glance out across the hall
+for a moment and back again. There was no answering look on Mr. Morris’s
+face, but he slipped out softly, leaving the door just ajar.</p>
+
+<p>Then Ralph turned to Chris again.</p>
+
+<p>Chris had had time to recover himself by now, and was sitting very pale
+and composed after his dramatic outburst, his hands hidden under his
+scapular, and his fingers gripped together.</p>
+
+<p>“Now tell me,” said Ralph, with his former kindly contempt. He had begun
+to understand now what his brother had come about, and was determined to
+be at once fatherly and decisive. This young fool must be taught his
+place.</p>
+
+<p>“It is this,” said Chris, still in a trembling voice, but it grew
+steadier as he went on. “God’s people are being persecuted—there is no
+longer any doubt. They were saints who died yesterday, and Master
+Cromwell is behind it all; and—and you serve him.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph jerked his head to speak, but his brother went on.</p>
+
+<p>“I know you think me a fool, and I daresay you are right. But this I
+know, I would sooner be a fool than—than—”</p>
+
+<p>—“than a knave” ended Ralph. “I thank you for your good opinion, my
+brother. However, let that pass. You have come to teach me my business,
+then?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have come to save your soul,” said Chris, grasping the arms of his
+chair, and eyeing him steadily.</p>
+
+<p>“You are very good to me,” said Ralph bitterly. “Now, I do not want any
+more play-acting—” He broke off suddenly as the door opened. “And here
+is the food. Chris, you are not yourself”—he gave a swift look at his
+servant again—“and I suppose you have had no food to-day.”</p>
+
+<p>Again he glanced out through the open door as Mr. Morris turned to go.</p>
+
+<p>Chris paid no sort of attention to the food. He seemed not to have seen
+the servant’s entrance and departure.</p>
+
+<p>“I tell you,” he said again steadily, with his wide bright eyes fixed on
+his brother, “I tell you, you are persecuting God’s people, and I am
+come, not as your brother only, but as a monk, to warn you.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph waved his hand, smiling, towards the dish and the bottle. It
+seemed to sting Chris with a kind of fury, for his eyes blazed and his
+mouth tightened as he stood up abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>“I tell you that if I were starving I would not break bread in this
+house: it is the house of God’s enemy.”</p>
+
+<p>He dashed out his left hand nervously, and struck the bottle spinning
+across the table; it crashed over on to the floor, and the red wine
+poured on to the boards.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, there is blood before your eyes,” he screamed, mad with hunger and
+sleeplessness, and the horrors he had seen; “the ground cries out.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph had sprung up as the bottle fell, and stood trembling and glaring
+across at the monk; the door opened softly, and Mr. Morris stood alert
+and discreet on the threshold, but neither saw him.</p>
+
+<p>“And if you were ten times my brother,” cried Chris, “I would not touch
+your hand.”</p>
+
+<p>There came a knocking at the door, and the servant disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>“Let him come, if it be the King himself,” shouted the monk, “and hear
+the truth for once.”</p>
+
+<p>The servant was pushed aside protesting, and Beatrice came straight
+forward into the room.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII<br><span class="small">A RECOVERY</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p>There was a moment of intense silence, only emphasized by the settling
+rustle of the girl’s dress. The door had closed softly, and Mr. Morris
+stood within, in the shadow by the window, ready to give help if it were
+needed. Beatrice remained a yard inside the room, very upright and
+dignified, a little pale, looking from one to the other of the two
+brothers, who stared back at her as at a ghost.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph spoke first, swallowing once or twice in his throat before
+speaking, and trying to smile.</p>
+
+<p>“It is you then,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice moved a step nearer, looking at Chris, who stood white and
+tense, his eyes wide and burning.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Torridon,” said Beatrice softly, “I have brought the bundle. My
+woman has it.”</p>
+
+<p>Still she looked, as she spoke, questioningly at Chris.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! this is my brother, the monk,” snapped Ralph bitterly, glancing at
+him. “Indeed, he is.”</p>
+
+<p>Then Chris lost his self-control again.</p>
+
+<p>“And this is my brother, the murderer; indeed, he is.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice’s lips parted, and her eyes winced. She put out her hand
+hesitatingly towards Ralph, and dropped it again as he moved a little
+towards her.</p>
+
+<p>“You hear him?” said Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not understand,” said the girl, “your brother—”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I am his brother, God help me,” snarled Chris.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice’s lips closed again, and a look of contempt came into her
+face.</p>
+
+<p>“I have heard enough, Mr. Torridon. Will you come with me?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris moved forward a step.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not know who you are, madam,” he said, “but do you understand what
+this gentleman is? Do you know that he is a creature of Master
+Cromwell’s?”</p>
+
+<p>“I know everything,” said Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>“And you were at Tyburn, too?” questioned Chris bitterly, “perhaps with
+this brother of mine?”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice faced him defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>“What have you to say against him, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph made a movement to speak, but the girl checked him.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish to hear it. What have you to say?”</p>
+
+<p>“He is a creature of Cromwell’s who plotted the death of God’s saints.
+This brother of mine was at the examinations, I hear, and at the
+scaffold. Is that enough?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris had himself under control again by now, but his words seemed to
+burn with vitriol. His lips writhed as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“Well?” said Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, if that is not enough; how of More and my Lord of Rochester?”</p>
+
+<p>“He has been a good friend to Mr. More,” said Beatrice, “that I know.”</p>
+
+<p>“He will get him the martyr’s crown, surely,” sneered Chris.</p>
+
+<p>“And you have no more to say?” asked the girl quietly.</p>
+
+<p>A shudder ran over the monk’s body; his mouth opened and closed, and the
+fire in his eyes flared up and died; his clenched hands rose and fell.
+Then he spoke quietly.</p>
+
+<p>“I have no more to say, madam.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice moved across to Ralph, and put her hand on his arm, looking
+steadily at Chris. Ralph laid his other hand on hers a moment, then
+raised it, and made an abrupt motion towards the door.</p>
+
+<p>Chris went round the table; Mr. Morris opened the door with an impassive
+face, and followed him out, leaving Beatrice and Ralph alone.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Chris had come back the previous evening from Tyburn distracted almost
+to madness. He had sat heavily all the evening by himself, brooding and
+miserable, and had not slept all night, but waking visions had moved
+continually before his eyes, as he turned to and fro on his narrow bed
+in the unfamiliar room. Again and again Tyburn was before him, peopled
+with phantoms; he had seen the thick ropes, and heard their creaking,
+and the murmur of the multitude; had smelt the pungent wood-smoke and
+the thick drifting vapour from the cauldron. Once it seemed to him that
+the very room was full of figures, white-clad and silent, who watched
+him with impassive pale faces, remote and unconcerned. He had flung
+himself on his knees again and again, had lashed himself with the
+discipline that he, too, might taste of pain; but all the serenity of
+divine things was gone. There was no heaven, no Saviour, no love. He was
+bound down here, crushed and stifled in this apostate city whose sounds
+and cries came up into his cell. He had lost the fiery vision of the
+conqueror’s welcome; it was like a tale heard long ago. Now he was
+beaten down by physical facts, by the gross details of the tragedy, the
+strangling, the blood, the smoke, the acrid smell of the crowd, and
+heaven was darkened by the vapour.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the next day, as he sat with the Prior and a stranger
+or two, and heard the tale once more, and the predictions about More and
+Fisher, that the significance of Ralph’s position appeared to him
+clearly. He knew no more than before, but he suddenly understood what he
+knew.</p>
+
+<p>A monk had said a word of Cromwell’s share in the matters, and the Prior
+had glanced moodily at Chris for a moment, turning his eyes only as he
+sat with his chin in his hand; and in a moment Chris understood.</p>
+
+<p>This was the work that his brother was doing. He sat now more distracted
+than ever: mental pictures moved before him of strange council-rooms
+with great men in silk on raised seats, and Ralph was among them. He
+seemed to hear his bitter questions that pierced to the root of the
+faith of the accused, and exposed it to the world, of their adherence to
+the Vicar of Christ, their uncompromising convictions.</p>
+
+<p>He had sat through dinner with burning eyes, but the Prior noticed
+nothing, for he himself was in a passion of absorption, and gave Chris a
+hasty leave as he rose from table to go and see his brother if he
+wished.</p>
+
+<p>Chris had walked up and down his room that afternoon, framing sentences
+of appeal and pity and terror, but it was useless: he could not fix his
+mind; and he had gone off at last to Westminster at once terrified for
+Ralph’s soul, and blazing with indignation against him.</p>
+
+<p>And now he was walking down to the river again, in the cool of the
+evening, knowing that he had ruined his own cause and his right to speak
+by his intemperate fury.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was another strange evening that he passed in the Prior’s chamber
+after supper. The same monk, Dom Odo, who had taken him to Tyburn the
+day before, was there again; and Chris sat in a corner, with the
+reaction of his fury on him, spent and feverish, now rehearsing the
+scene he had gone through with Ralph, and framing new sentences that he
+might have used, now listening to the talk, and vaguely gathering its
+meaning.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed that the tale of blood was only begun.</p>
+
+<p>Bedale, the Archdeacon of Cornwall, had gone that day to the
+Charterhouse; he had been seen driving there, and getting out at the
+door with a bundle of books under his arm, and he had passed in through
+the gate over which Prior Houghton’s arm had been hung on the previous
+evening. It was expected that some more arrests would be made
+immediately.</p>
+
+<p>“As for my Lord of Rochester,” said the monk, who seemed to revel in the
+business of bearing bad news, “and Master More, I make no doubt they
+will be cast. They are utterly fixed in their opinions. I hear that my
+lord is very sick, and I pray that God may take him to Himself. He is
+made Cardinal in Rome, I hear; but his Grace has sworn that he shall
+have no head to wear the hat upon.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he went off into talk upon the bishop, describing his sufferings in
+the Tower, for he was over eighty years old, and had scarcely sufficient
+clothes to cover him.</p>
+
+<p>Now and again Chris looked across at his Superior. The Prior sat there
+in his great chair, his head on his hand, silent and absorbed; it was
+only when Dom Odo stopped for a moment that he glanced up impatiently
+and nodded for him to go on. It seemed as if he could not hear enough,
+and yet Chris saw him wince, and heard him breathe sharply as each new
+detail came out.</p>
+
+<p>The monk told them, too, of Prior Houghton’s speech upon the cart.</p>
+
+<p>“They asked him whether even then he would submit to the King’s laws,
+and he called God to witness that it was not for obstinacy or perversity
+that he refused, but that the King and the Parliament had decreed
+otherwise than our Holy Mother enjoins; and that for himself he would
+sooner suffer every kind of pain than deny a doctrine of the Church. And
+when he had prayed from the thirtieth Psalm, he was turned off.”</p>
+
+<p>The Prior stared almost vacantly at the monk who told his story with a
+kind of terrified gusto, and once or twice his lips moved to speak; but
+he was silent, and dropped his chin upon his hand again when the other
+had done.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Chris scarcely knew how the days passed away that followed his arrival
+in London. He spent them for the most part within doors, writing for the
+Prior in the mornings, or keeping watch over the door as his Superior
+talked with prelates and churchmen within, for ecclesiastical London was
+as busy as a broken ant-hill, and men came and went continually—scared,
+furtive monks, who looked this way and that, an abbot or two up for the
+House of Lords, priors and procurators on business. There were continual
+communications going to and fro among the religious houses, for the
+prince of them, the contemplative Carthusian, had been struck at, and no
+one knew where the assault would end.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Chris had heard no further news from Ralph. He thought of
+writing to him, and even of visiting him again, but his heart sickened
+at the thought of it. It was impossible, he told himself, that any
+communication should pass between them until his brother had forsaken
+his horrible business; the first sign of regret must come from the one
+who had sinned. He wondered sometimes who the girl was, and, as a
+hot-headed monk, suspected the worst. A man who could live as Ralph was
+living could have no morals left. She had been so friendly with him, so
+ready to defend him, so impatient, Chris thought, of any possibility of
+wrong. No doubt she, too, was one of the corrupt band, one of the great
+ladies that buzzed round the Court, and sucked the blood of God’s
+people.</p>
+
+<p>His own interior life, however, so roughly broken by his new
+experiences, began to mend slowly as the days went on.</p>
+
+<p>He had begun, like a cat in a new house, to make himself slowly at home
+in the hostel, and to set up that relation between outward objects and
+his own self that is so necessary to interior souls not yet living in
+detachment. He arranged his little room next the Prior’s to be as much
+as possible like his cell, got rid of one or two pieces of furniture
+that distracted him, set his bed in another corner, and hung up his
+beads in the same position that they used to occupy at Lewes. Each
+morning he served the Prior’s mass in the tiny chapel attached to the
+house, and did his best both then and at his meditation to draw in the
+torn fibres of his spirit. At moments of worship the supernatural world
+began to appear again, like points of living rock emerging through sand,
+detached and half stifled by external details, but real and abiding.
+Little by little his serenity came back, and the old atmosphere
+reasserted itself. After all, God was here as there; grace, penance, the
+guardianship of the angels and the sacrament of the altar was the same
+at Southwark as at Lewes. These things remained; while all else was
+accidental—the different height of his room, the unfamiliar angles in
+the passages, the new noises of London, the street cries, the clash of
+music, the disordered routine of daily life.</p>
+
+<p>Half-way through June, after a long morning’s conversation with a
+stranger, the Prior sent for him.</p>
+
+<p>He was standing by the tall carved fire-place with his back to the door,
+his head and one hand leaning against the stone, and he turned round
+despondently as Chris came in. Chris could see he was deadly pale and
+that his lips twitched with nervousness.</p>
+
+<p>“Brother,” he said, “I have a perilous matter to go through, and you
+must come with me.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris felt his heart begin to labour with heavy sick beats.</p>
+
+<p>“I am to see my Lord of Rochester. A friend hath obtained the order. We
+are to go at five o’clock. See that you be ready. We shall take boat at
+the stairs.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris waited, with his eyes deferentially cast down.</p>
+
+<p>“He is to be tried again on Thursday,” went on the Prior, “and my
+friends wish me to see him, God knows—”</p>
+
+<p>He stopped abruptly, made a sign with his hand, and as Chris left the
+room he saw that he was leaning once more against the stone-work, and
+that his head was buried in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>Three more Carthusians had been condemned in the previous week, but the
+Bishop’s trial, though his name was in the first indictment, was
+postponed a few days.</p>
+
+<p>He too, like Sir Thomas More, had been over a year in the Tower; he had
+been deprived of his see by an Act of Parliament, his palace had been
+broken into and spoiled, and he himself, it was reported, was being
+treated with the greatest rigour in the Tower.</p>
+
+<p>Chris was overcome with excitement at the thought that he was to see
+this man. He had heard of his learning, his holiness, and his
+austerities on all hands since his coming to London. When the bishop had
+left Rochester at his summons to London a year before there had been a
+wonderful scene of farewell, of which the story was still told in town.
+The streets had been thronged with a vast crowd weeping and praying, as
+he rode among them bare-headed, giving his blessing as he went. He had
+checked his horse by the city-gate, and with a loud voice had bidden
+them all stand by the old religion, and let no man take it from them.
+And now here he lay himself in prison for the Faith, a Cardinal of the
+Holy Roman Church, with scarcely clothes to cover him or food to eat. At
+the sacking of his palace, too, as the men ran from room to room tearing
+down the tapestries, and piling the plate together, a monk had found a
+great iron box hidden in a corner. They cried to one another that it
+held gold “for the bloody Pope”; and burst it open to find a hair shirt,
+and a pair of disciplines.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was a long row down to the Tower from Southwark against the
+in-flowing tide. As they passed beneath the bridge Chris stared up at
+the crowding houses, the great gates at either end, and the faces
+craning down; and he caught one glimpse as they shot through the narrow
+passage between the piers, of the tall wall above the gate, the poles
+rising from it, and the severed heads that crowned them. Somewhere among
+that forest of grim stems the Carthusian priors looked down.</p>
+
+<p>As he turned in his seat he saw the boatman grinning to himself, and
+following his eyes observed the Prior beside him with a white fixed face
+looking steadily downwards towards his feet.</p>
+
+<p>They found no difficulty when they landed at the stairs, and showed the
+order at the gate. The warder called to a man within the guard-room who
+came out and went before them along the walled way that led to the
+inner ward. They turned up to the left presently and found themselves in
+the great court that surrounded the White Tower.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior walked heavily with his face downcast as if he wished to avoid
+notice, and Chris saw that he paid no attention to the men-at-arms and
+other persons here and there who saluted his prelate’s insignia. There
+were plenty of people going about in the evening sunshine, soldiers and
+attendants, and here and there at the foot of a tower stood a halberdier
+in his buff jacket leaning on his weapon. There were many distinguished
+persons in the Tower now, both ecclesiastics and laymen who had refused
+to take one or both of the oaths, and Chris eyed the windows
+wonderingly, picturing to himself where each lay, and with what courage.</p>
+
+<p>But more and more as he went he wondered why the Prior and he were here,
+and who had obtained the order of admittance, for he had not had a sight
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the foot of the prison-tower the warder said a word to
+the sentry, and took the two monks straight past, preceding them up the
+narrow stairs that wound into darkness. There were windows here and
+there, slits in the heavy masonry, through which Chris caught glimpses,
+now of the moat on the west, now of the inner ward with the White Tower
+huge and massive on the east.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior, who went behind the warder and in front of Chris, stopped
+suddenly, and Chris could hear him whispering to himself; and at the
+same time there sounded the creaking of a key in front.</p>
+
+<p>As the young monk stood there waiting, grasping the stone-work on his
+right, again the excitement surged up; and with it was mingled something
+of terror. It had been a formidable experience even to walk those few
+hundred yards from the outer gate, and the obvious apprehensiveness of
+the Prior who had spoken no audible word since they had landed, was far
+from reassuring.</p>
+
+<p>Here he stood now for the first time in his life within those terrible
+walls; he had seen the low Traitor’s Gate on his way that was for so
+many the gate of death. Even now as he gripped the stone he could see
+out to the left through the narrow slit a streak of open land beyond the
+moat and the wall, and somewhere there he knew lay the little rising
+ground, that reddened week after week in an ooze of blood and slime. And
+now he was at the door of one who without doubt would die there soon for
+the Faith that they both professed.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior turned sharply round.</p>
+
+<p>“You!” he said, “I had forgotten: you must wait here till I call you
+in.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a sounding of an opening door above; the Prior went up and
+forward, leaving him standing there; the door closed, but not before
+Chris had caught a glimpse of a vaulted roof; and then the warder stood
+by him again, waiting with his keys in his hand.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII<br><span class="small">PRISONER AND PRINCE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p>The sun sank lower and had begun to throw long shadows before the door
+opened again and the Prior beckoned. As Chris had stood there staring
+out of the window at the green water of the moat and the shadowed wall
+beyond, with the warder standing a few steps below, now sighing at the
+delay, now humming a line or two, he had heard voices now and again from
+the room above, but it had been no more than a murmur that died once
+more into silence.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Chris was aware of a dusty room as he stepped over the threshold, bare
+walls, one or two solid pieces of furniture, and of the Prior’s figure
+very upright in the light from the tiny window at one side; and then he
+forgot everything as he looked at the man that was standing smiling by
+the table.</p>
+
+<p>It was a very tall slender figure, dressed in a ragged black gown
+turning green with age; a little bent now, but still dignified; the face
+was incredibly lean, with great brown eyes surrounded by wrinkles, and a
+little white hair, ragged, too, and long, hung down under the old
+flapped cap. The hand that Chris kissed seemed a bundle of reeds bound
+with parchment, and above the wrist bones the arm grew thinner still
+under the loose, torn sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>Then the monk stood up and saw those kindly proud eyes looking into his
+own.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior made a deferential movement and said a word or two, and the
+bishop answered him.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes, my Lord Prior; I understand—God bless you, my son.”</p>
+
+<p>The bishop moved across to the chair, and sat down, panting a little,
+for he was torn by sickness and deprivation, and laid his long hands
+together.</p>
+
+<p>“Sit down, brother,” he said, “and you too, my Lord Prior.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris saw the Prior move across to an old broken stool, but he himself
+remained standing, awed and almost terrified at that worn face in which
+the eyes alone seemed living; so thin that the cheekbones stood out
+hideously, and the line of the square jaw. But the voice was wonderfully
+sweet and penetrating.</p>
+
+<p>“My Lord Prior and I have been talking of the times, and what is best to
+be done, and how we must all be faithful. You will be faithful,
+brother?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris made an effort against the absorbing fascination of that face and
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>“I will, my lord.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is good; you must follow your prior and be obedient to him. You
+will find him wise and courageous.”</p>
+
+<p>The bishop nodded gently towards the Prior, and Chris heard a sobbing
+indrawn breath from the corner where the broken stool stood.</p>
+
+<p>“It is a time of great moment,” went on the bishop; “much hangs on how
+we carry ourselves. His Grace has evil counsellors about him.”</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for a moment or two; Chris could not take his eyes
+from the bishop’s face. The frightful framework of skin and bones seemed
+luminous from within, and there was an extraordinary sweetness on those
+tightly drawn lips, and in the large bright eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“His Grace has been to the Tower lately, I hear, and once to the
+Marshalsea, to see Dom Sebastian Newdegate, who, as you know, was at
+Court for many years till he entered the Charterhouse; but I have had no
+visit from him, nor yet, I should think, Master More—you must not judge
+his Grace too hardly, my son; he was a good lad, as I knew very well—a
+very gallant and brave lad. A Frenchman said that he seemed to have come
+down from heaven. And he has always had a great faith and devotion, and
+a very strange and delicate conscience that has cost him much pain. But
+he has been counselled evilly.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris remembered as in a dream that the bishop had been the King’s tutor
+years before.</p>
+
+<p>“He is a good theologian too,” went on the bishop, “and that is his
+misfortune now, though I never thought to say such a thing. Perhaps he
+will become a better one still, if God has mercy on him, and he will
+come back to his first faith. But we must be good Catholics ourselves,
+and be ready to die for our Religion, before we can teach him.”</p>
+
+<p>Again, after another silence, he went on.</p>
+
+<p>“You are to be a priest, I hear, my son, and to take Christ’s yoke more
+closely upon you. It is no easy one in these days, though love will make
+it so, as Himself said. I suppose it will be soon now?”</p>
+
+<p>“We are to get a dispensation, my lord, for the interstices,” said the
+Prior.</p>
+
+<p>Chris had heard that this would be done, before he left Lewes, and he
+was astonished now, not at the news, but at the strange softness of the
+Prior’s voice.</p>
+
+<p>“That is very well,” went on the bishop. “We want all the faithful
+priests possible. There is a great darkness in the land, and we need
+lights to lighten it. You have a brother in Master Cromwell’s service,
+sir, I hear?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris was silent.</p>
+
+<p>“You must not grieve too much. God Almighty can set all right. It may be
+he thinks he is serving Him. We are not here to judge, but to give our
+own account.”</p>
+
+<p>The bishop went on presently to ask a few questions and to talk of
+Master More, saying that he had managed to correspond with him for a
+while, but that now all the means for doing so had been taken away from
+them both, as well as his own books.</p>
+
+<p>“It is a great grief to me that I cannot say my office, nor say nor hear
+mass: I must trust now to the Holy Sacrifice offered by others.”</p>
+
+<p>He spoke so tenderly and tranquilly that Chris was hardly able to keep
+back his tears. It seemed that the soul still kept its serene poise in
+that wasted body, and was independent of it. There was no weakness nor
+peevishness anywhere. The very room with its rough walls, its cobwebbed
+roof, its uneven flooring, its dreadful chill and gloom, seemed alive
+with a warm, redolent, spiritual atmosphere generated by this keen, pure
+soul. Chris had never been near so real a sanctity before.</p>
+
+<p>“You have seen nothing of my Rochester folk, I suppose?” went on the
+bishop to the Prior.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>“I am very downcast about them sometimes; I saw many of them at the
+court the other day. I forget that the Good Shepherd can guard His own
+sheep. And they were so faithful to me that I know they will be faithful
+to Him.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>There came a sound of a key being knocked upon the door outside, and the
+bishop stood up, slowly and painfully.</p>
+
+<p>“That will be Mr. Giles,” he said, “hungry for supper.”</p>
+
+<p>The two monks sank down on their knees, and as Chris closed his eyes he
+heard a soft murmur of blessing over his head.</p>
+
+<p>Then each kissed his hand and Chris went to the door, half blind with
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>He heard a whisper from the bishop to the Prior, who still lingered a
+moment, and a half sob—</p>
+
+<p>“God helping me!”—said the Prior.</p>
+
+<p>There was no more spoken, and the two went down the stairs together into
+the golden sunshine with the warder behind them.</p>
+
+<p>Chris dared not look at the other. He had had a glimpse of his face as
+he stood aside on the stairs to let him pass, and what he saw there told
+him enough.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>There were plenty of boats rocking on the tide at the foot of the river
+stairs outside the Tower, and they stepped into one, telling the man to
+row to Southwark.</p>
+
+<p>It was a glorious summer evening now. The river lay bathed in the level
+sunshine that turned it to molten gold, and it was covered with boats
+plying in all directions. There were single wherries going to and from
+the stairs that led down on all sides into the water, and barges here
+and there, of the great merchants or nobles going home to supper, with a
+line of oars on each side, and a glow of colour gilding in the stem and
+prow, were moving up stream towards the City. London Bridge stood out
+before them presently, like a palace in a fairy-tale, blue and romantic
+against the western glow, and above it and beyond rose up the tall spire
+of the Cathedral. On the other side a fringe of houses began a little to
+the east of the bridge, and ran up to the spires of Southwark on the
+other side, and on them lay a glory of sunset with deep shadows barring
+them where the alleys ran down to the water’s edge. Here and there
+behind rose up the heavy masses of the June foliage. A troop of swans,
+white patches on the splendour, were breasting up against the
+out-flowing tide.</p>
+
+<p>The air was full of sound; the rattle and dash of oars, men’s voices
+coming clear and minute across the water; and as they got out near
+mid-stream the bell of St. Paul’s boomed indescribably
+solemn and melodious; another church took it up, and a chorus of mellow
+voices tolled out the Angelus.</p>
+
+<p>Chris was half through saying it to himself, when across the soft murmur
+sounded the clash of brass far away beyond the bridge.</p>
+
+<p>The boatman paused at his oars, turned round a moment, grasping them in
+one hand, and stared up-stream under the other. Chris could see a
+movement among the boats higher up, and there seemed to break out a
+commotion at the foot of the houses on London Bridge, and then far away
+came the sound of cheering.</p>
+
+<p>“What is it?” asked the Prior sharply, lifting his head, as the boatman
+gave an exclamation and laid furiously to his oars again.</p>
+
+<p>The man jerked his head backwards.</p>
+
+<p>“The King’s Grace,” he said.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>For a minute or two nothing more was to be seen. A boat or two near them
+was seen making off to the side from mid-stream, to leave a clear
+passage, and there were cries from the direction of the bridge where
+someone seemed to be in difficulties with the strong stream and the
+piers. A wherry that was directly between them and the bridge moved
+off, and the shining water-way was left for the King’s Grace to come
+down.</p>
+
+<p>Then, again, the brass horns sounded nearer.</p>
+
+<p>Chris was conscious of an immense excitement. The dramatic contrast of
+the scene he had just left with that which he was witnessing overpowered
+him. He had seen one end of the chain of life, the dying bishop in the
+Tower, in his rags; now he was to see the other end, the Sovereign at
+whose will he was there, in all the magnificence of a pageant. The Prior
+was sitting bolt upright on the seat beside him; one hand lay on his
+knee, the knuckles white with clenching, the other gripped the side of
+the boat.</p>
+
+<p>Then, again, the fierce music sounded, and the first boat appeared under
+one of the wider spans of the bridge, a couple of hundred yards away.</p>
+
+<p>The stream was running out strongly by now, and the boatman tugged to
+get out of it into the quieter water at the side, and as he pulled an
+oar snapped. The Prior half started up as the man burst out into an
+exclamation, and began to paddle furiously with the other oar, but the
+boat revolved helplessly, and he was forced to change it to the opposite
+side.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the boats were beginning to stream under the bridge, and
+Chris, seeing that the boat in which he sat was sufficiently out of the
+way to allow a clear passage in mid-stream even if not far enough
+removed for proper deference, gave himself up to watching the splendid
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>The sun had now dropped behind the high houses by the bridge, and a
+shadow lay across the water, but nearer at hand the way was clear, and
+in a moment more the leading boat had entered the sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>There was no possibility of mistake as to whether this were the royal
+barge or no. It was a great craft, seventy feet from prow to stem at
+the very least, and magnificent with colour. As it burst out into the
+sun, it blazed blindingly with gold; the prow shone with blue and
+crimson; the stern, roofed in with a crimson canopy with flying tassels,
+trailed brilliant coarse tapestries on either side; and the Royal
+Standard streamed out behind.</p>
+
+<p>Chris tried to count the oars, as they swept into the water with a
+rhythmical throb and out again, flashing a fringe of drops and showing a
+coat painted on each blade. There seemed to be eight or ten a side. A
+couple of trumpeters stood in the bows, behind the gilded carved
+figurehead, their trumpets held out symmetrically with the square
+hangings flapping as they came.</p>
+
+<p>He could see now the heads of the watermen who rowed, with the caps of
+the royal livery moving together like clockwork at the swing of the
+oars.</p>
+
+<p>Behind followed the other boats, some half dozen in all; and as each
+pair burst out into the level sunlight with a splendour of gold and
+colour, and the roar from London Bridge swelled louder and louder, for a
+moment the young monk forgot the bitter underlying tragedy of all that
+he had seen and knew—forgot oozy Tower-hill and trampled Tyburn and the
+loaded gallows—forgot even the grim heads that stared out with dead
+tortured eyes from the sheaves of pikes rising high above him at this
+moment against the rosy sky—forgot the monks of the Charterhouse and
+their mourning hearts; the insulted queen, repudiated and declared a
+concubine—forgot all that made life so hard to live and understand at
+this time—as this splendid vision of the lust of the eyes broke out in
+pulsating sound and colour before him.</p>
+
+<p>But it was only for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>There was a group of half-a-dozen persons under the canopy of the
+seat-of-state of the leading boat; the splendid centre of the splendid
+show, brilliant in crimson and gold and jewels.</p>
+
+<p>On the further side sat two men. Chris did not know their faces, but as
+his eyes rested on them a moment he noticed that one was burly and
+clean-shaven, and wore some insignia across his shoulders. At the near
+side were the backs of two ladies, silken clad and slashed with crimson,
+their white jewelled necks visible under their coiled hair and tight
+square cut caps. And in the centre sat a pair, a man and a woman; and on
+these he fixed his eyes as the boat swept up not twenty yards away, for
+he knew who they must be.</p>
+
+<p>The man was leaning back, looking gigantic in his puffed sleeves and
+wide mantle; one great arm was flung along the back of the tapestried
+seat, and his large head, capped with purple and feathers, was bending
+towards the woman who sat beyond. Chris could make out a fringe of
+reddish hair beneath his ear and at the back of the flat head between
+the high collar and the cap. He caught a glimpse, too, of a sedate face
+beyond, set on a slender neck, with downcast eyes and red lips. And then
+as the boat came opposite, and the trumpeters sent out a brazen crash
+from the trumpets at their lips, the man turned his head and stared
+straight at the boat.</p>
+
+<p>It was an immensely wide face, fringed with reddish hair, scanty about
+the lips and more full below; and it looked the wider from the narrow
+drooping eyes set near together and the small pursed mouth. Below, his
+chin swelled down fold after fold into his collar, and the cheeks were
+wide and heavy on either side.</p>
+
+<p>It was the most powerful face that Chris had ever seen or dreamed
+of—the animal brooded in every line and curve of it—it would have
+been brutish but for the steady pale stare of the eyes and the tight
+little lips. It fascinated and terrified him.</p>
+
+<p>The flourish ended, the roar of the rowlocks sounded out again like the
+beating of a furious heart; the King turned his head again and said
+something, and the boat swept past.</p>
+
+<p>Chris found that he had started to his feet, and sat down again,
+breathing quickly and heavily, with a kind of indignant loathing that
+was new to him.</p>
+
+<p>This then was the master of England, the heart of all their
+troubles—that gorgeous fat man with the broad pulpy face, in his
+crimson and jewels; and that was his concubine who sat demure beside
+him, with her white folded ringed hands on her lap, her beautiful eyes
+cast down, and her lord’s hot breath in her ear! It was these that were
+purifying the Church of God of such men as the Cardinal-bishop in the
+Tower, and the witty holy lawyer! It was by the will of such as these
+that the heads of the Carthusian Fathers, bound brow and chin with
+linen, stared up and down with dead eyes from the pikes overhead.</p>
+
+<p>He sat panting and unseeing as the other boats swept past, full of the
+King’s friends all going down to Greenwich.</p>
+
+<p>There broke out a roar from the Tower behind, and he started and turned
+round to see the white smoke eddying up from the edge of the wall beside
+the Traitor’s gate; a shrill cheer or two, far away and thin, sounded
+from the figures on the wharf and the boatmen about the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>The wherryman sat down again and put on his cap.</p>
+
+<p>“Body of God!” he said, “there was but just time.”</p>
+
+<p>And he began to pull again with his single oar towards the shore.</p>
+
+<p>Chris looked at the Prior a moment and down again. He was sitting with
+tight lips, and hands clasped in his lap, and his eyes were wild and
+piteous.</p>
+
+<p>They borrowed an oar presently from another boat, and went on up towards
+Southwark. The wherryman pawed once to spit on his hands as they neared
+the rush of the current below the bridge.</p>
+
+<p>“That was Master Cromwell with His Grace,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Chris looked at him questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>“Him with the gold collar,” he added, “and that was Audley by him.”</p>
+
+<p>The Prior had glanced at Chris as Cromwell’s name was mentioned; but
+said nothing for the present. And Chris himself was lost again in
+musing. That was Ralph’s master then, the King’s right-hand man, feared
+next in England after the King himself—and Chancellor Audley, too, and
+Anne, all in one wooden boat. How easy for God to put out His hand and
+finish them! And then he was ashamed at his own thought, so faithless
+and timid; and he remembered Fisher once more and his gallant spirit in
+that broken body.</p>
+
+<p>A minute or two later they had landed at the stairs, and were making
+their way up to the hostel.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior put out his hand and checked him as he stepped ahead to knock.</p>
+
+<p>“Wait,” he said. “Do you know who signed the order we used at the
+Tower?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>“Master Cromwell,” said the Prior. “And do you know by whose hand it
+came?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris stared in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>“It was by your brother,” he said.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV<br><span class="small">THE SACRED PURPLE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p>It was a bright morning a few days later when the Bishop of Rochester
+suffered on Tower Hill.</p>
+
+<p>Chris was there early, and took up his position at the outskirts of the
+little crowd, facing towards the Tower itself; and for a couple of hours
+watched the shadows creep round the piles of masonry, and the light
+deepen and mellow between him and the great mass of the White Tower a
+few hundred yards away. There was a large crowd there a good while
+before nine o’clock, and Chris found himself at the hour no longer on
+the outskirts but in the centre of the people.</p>
+
+<p>He had served the Prior’s mass at six o’clock, and had obtained leave
+from him the night before to be present at the execution; but the Prior
+himself had given no suggestion of coming. Chris had begun to see that
+his superior was going through a conflict, and that he wished to spare
+himself any further motives of terror; he began too to understand that
+the visit to the bishop had had the effect of strengthening the Prior’s
+courage, whatever had been the intention on the part of the authorities
+in allowing him to go. He was still wondering why Ralph had lent himself
+to the scheme; but had not dared to press his superior further.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The bishop had made a magnificent speech at his trial, and had
+protested with an extraordinary pathos, that called out a demonstration
+from the crowd in court, against Master Rich’s betrayal of his
+confidence. Under promise of the King that nothing that he said to his
+friend should be used against him, the bishop had shown his mind in a
+private conversation on the subject of the Supremacy Act, and now this
+had been brought against him by Rich himself at the trial.</p>
+
+<p>“Seeing it pleased the King’s Highness,” said the bishop, “to send to me
+thus secretly to know my poor advice and opinion, which I most gladly
+was, and ever will be, ready to offer to him when so commanded, methinks
+it very hard to allow the same as sufficient testimony against me, to
+prove me guilty of high treason.”</p>
+
+<p>Rich excused himself by affirming that he said or did nothing more than
+what the King commanded him to do; and the trial ended by the bishop’s
+condemnation.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>As Chris waited by the scaffold he prayed almost incessantly. There was
+sufficient spur for prayer in the menacing fortress before him with its
+hundred tiny windows, and the new scaffold, some five or six feet high,
+that stood in the foreground. He wondered how the bishop was passing his
+time and thought he knew. The long grey wall beyond the moat, and the
+towers that rose above it, were suggestive in their silent strength.
+From where he stood too he could catch a glimpse of the shining reaches
+of the river with the green slopes on the further side; and the freedom
+and beauty of the sight, the delicate haze that hung over the water, the
+birds winging their way across, the boats plying to and fro, struck a
+vivid contrast to the grim fatality of the prison and the scaffold.</p>
+
+<p>A bell sounded out somewhere from the Tower, and a ripple ran through
+the crowd. There was an immensely tall man a few yards from Chris, and
+Chris could see his face turn suddenly towards the lower ground by the
+river where the gateway rose up dark against the bright water. The man’s
+face suddenly lighted with interest, and Chris saw his lips move and his
+eyes become intent. Then a surging movement began, and the monk was
+swept away to the left by the packed crowd round him. There were faces
+lining the wall and opposite, and all were turned one way. A great
+murmur began to swell up, and a woman beside him turned white and began
+to sob quietly.</p>
+
+<p>His eyes caught a bright point of light that died again, flashed out,
+and resolved itself into a gleaming line of halberds, moving on towards
+the right above the heads, up the slope to the scaffold. He saw a horse
+toss his head; and then a feathered cap or two swaying behind.</p>
+
+<p>Then for one instant between the shifting heads in front he caught sight
+of a lean face framed in a flapped cap swaying rhythmically as if borne
+on a chair. It vanished again.</p>
+
+<p>The flashing line of halberds elongated itself, divided, and came
+between the scaffold and him; and the murmur of the crowd died to a
+heart-shaking silence. A solemn bell clanged out again from the interior
+of the prison, and Chris, his wet hands knit together, began to count
+the strokes mechanically, staring at the narrow rail of the scaffold,
+and waiting for the sight that he knew would come. Then again he was
+swept along a yard or two to the right, and when he had recovered his
+feet a man was on the scaffold, bending forwards and gesticulating.
+Another head rose into the line of vision, and this man too turned
+towards the steps up which he had come, and stood, one hand
+outstretched.</p>
+
+<p>Again a murmur and movement began; Chris had to look to his foothold,
+and when he raised his head again a solemn low roar was rising up and
+swelling, of pity and excitement, for, silhouetted against the sunlit
+Tower behind, stood the man for whose sake all were there.</p>
+
+<p>He was in a black gown and tippet, and carried his two hands clasped to
+his breast; and in them was a book and a crucifix. His cap was on his
+head, and the white face, incredibly thin, looked out over the heads of
+the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>Chris hardly noticed that the scaffold was filling with people, until a
+figure came forward, in black, with a masked face, and bowed
+deferentially to the bishop; and in an instant silence fell again.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the bishop turn and bow slightly in return, and in the stillness
+that wonderful voice sounded out, with the clear minuteness of words
+spoken in the open air, clear and penetrating over the whole ground.</p>
+
+<p>“I forgive you very heartily; and I hope you will see me overcome this
+storm lustily.”</p>
+
+<p>The black figure fell back, and the bishop stood hesitating, looking
+this way and that as if for direction.</p>
+
+<p>The Lieutenant of the Tower came forward; but Chris could only see his
+lips move, as a murmur had broken out again at the bishop’s answer; but
+he signed with his hand and stepped behind the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>The bishop nodded, lifted his hand and took off his cap; and his white
+hair appeared; then he fumbled at his throat, holding the book and
+crucifix in his other hand; and, with the Lieutenant’s help, slipped off
+his tippet and loose gown; and as he freed himself, and stood in his
+doublet and hose, a great sobbing cry of horror and compassion rose from
+the straining faces, for he seemed scarcely to be a living man, so
+dreadful was his emaciation. Above that lean figure of death looked out
+the worn old face, serene and confident. He was again holding the book
+and crucifix clasped to his breast, as he stepped to the edge of the
+scaffold.</p>
+
+<p>The cry died to a murmur and ceased abruptly as he began his speech,
+every word of which was audible.</p>
+
+<p>“Christian people,” he began, “I am come hither to die for the faith of
+Christ’s holy Catholic Church.” He raised his voice a little, and it
+rang out confidently. “And I thank God that hitherto my stomach hath
+served me very well thereunto, so that yet I have not feared death.
+Wherefore I desire you all to help and assist with your prayers, that at
+the very point and instant of death’s stroke I may in that very moment
+stand steadfast, without fainting in any one point of the Catholic
+Faith, free from any fear.”</p>
+
+<p>He paused again; his hands closed one on the other. He glanced up.</p>
+
+<p>“And I beseech the Almighty God of His infinite goodness and mercy, to
+save the King and this realm; and that it may please Him to hold His
+hand over it, and send the King’s Highness good counsel.”</p>
+
+<p>He ceased abruptly; and dropped his head.</p>
+
+<p>A gentle groan ran through the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>Chris felt his throat contract, and a mist blinded his eyes for a
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>Then he saw the bishop slip the crucifix into his other hand, and open
+the book, apparently at random. His lean finger dropped upon the page;
+and he read aloud softly, as if to himself.</p>
+
+<p>“This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the one true God, and
+Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the earth; I
+have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.”</p>
+
+<p>Again there was silence, for it seemed as if he was going to make a
+sermon, but he looked down at the book a moment or two. Then he closed
+it gently.</p>
+
+<p>“Here is learning enough for me,” he said, “to my life’s end.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a movement among the silent figures at the back of the
+scaffold; and the Lieutenant stepped forward once more. The bishop
+turned to meet him and nodded; handing him the book; and then with the
+crucifix still in his hands, and with the officer’s help, sank on to his
+knees.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It seemed to Chris as if he waited an eternity; but he could not take
+his eyes off him. Round about was the breathing mass of the crowd,
+overhead the clear summer sky; up from the river came the sounds of
+cries and the pulse of oars, and from the Tower now and again the call
+of a horn and the stroke of a bell; but all this was external, and
+seemed to have no effect upon the intense silence of the heart that
+radiated from the scaffold, and in which the monk felt himself
+enveloped. The space between himself and the bishop seemed annihilated;
+and Chris found himself in company with a thousand others close beside
+the man’s soul that was to leave the world so soon. He could not pray;
+but he had the sensation of gripping that imploring spirit, pulsating
+with it, furthering with his own strained will that stream of effort
+that he knew was going forth.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile his eyes stared at him; and saw without seeing how the old man
+now leaned back with closed eyes and moving lips; now he bent forward,
+and looked at the crucified figure that he held between his hands, now
+lifted it and lingeringly kissed the pierced feet. Behind stood the
+stiff line of officers, and in front below the rail rose the glitter of
+the halberds.</p>
+
+<p>The minutes went by and there was no change. The world seemed to have
+grown rigid with expectancy; it was as if time stood still. There fell
+upon the monk’s soul, not suddenly but imperceptibly, something of that
+sense of the unseen that he had experienced at Tyburn. For a certain
+space all sorrow and terror left him; he knew tangibly now that to which
+at other times his mere faith assented; he knew that the world of spirit
+was the real one; that the Tower, the axe, the imminent shadow of death,
+were little more than illusions; they were part of the staging,
+significant and necessary, but with no substance of reality. The eternal
+world in which God was all, alone was a fact. He felt no longer pity or
+regret. Nothing but the sheer existence of a Being of which all persons
+there were sharers, poised in an eternal instant, remained with him.</p>
+
+<p>This strange sensation was scarcely disturbed by the rising of the lean
+black figure from its knees; Chris watched him as he might have watched
+the inevitable movement of an actor performing his pre-arranged part.
+The bishop turned eastward, to where the sun was now high above the
+Tower gate, and spoke once more.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Accedite ad eum, et illuminamini; et facies vestræ non confundentur</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>Then once more in the deathly stillness he turned round; and his eyes
+ran over the countless faces turned up to his own. But there was a
+certain tranquil severity in his face—the severity of one who has taken
+a bitter cup firmly into his hand; his lips were tightly compressed, and
+his eyes were deep and steady.</p>
+
+<p>Then very slowly he lifted his right hand, touched his forehead, and
+enveloped himself in a great sign of the cross, still looking out
+unwaveringly over the faces; and immediately, without any hesitation,
+sank down on his knees, put his hands before him on to the scaffold, and
+stretched himself flat.</p>
+
+<p>He was now invisible to Chris; for the low block on which he had laid
+his neck was only a few inches high.</p>
+
+<p>There was again a surge and a murmur as the headsman stepped forward
+with the huge-headed axe over his shoulder, and stood waiting.</p>
+
+<p>Then again the moments began to pass.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Chris lost all consciousness of his own being; he was aware of nothing
+but the objective presence of the scaffold, of an overpowering
+expectancy. It seemed as if something were stretched taut in his brain,
+at breaking point; as if some vast thing were on the point of
+revelation. All else had vanished,—the scene round him, the sense of
+the invisible; there was but the point of space left, waiting for an
+explosion.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sense of wrenching torture as the headsman lifted the axe,
+bringing it high round behind him; the motion seemed shockingly slow,
+and to wring the strained nerves to agony....</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Then in a blinding climax the axe fell.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV<br><span class="small">THE KING’S FRIEND</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p>Overfield Court was mildly stirred at the news that Master Christopher
+would stay there a few days on his way back from London to Lewes. It was
+not so exciting as when Master Ralph was to come, as the latter made
+more demands than a mere monk; for the one the horses must be in the
+pink of condition, the game neither too wild nor too tame, his rooms
+must be speckless, neither too full nor too empty of furniture; for the
+other it did not matter so much, for he was now not only a younger
+brother, but a monk, and therefore accustomed to contradiction and
+desirous to acquiesce in arrangements.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon indeed took no steps at all when she heard that Chris was
+coming, beyond expressing a desire that she might not be called upon to
+discuss the ecclesiastical situation at every meal; and when Chris
+finally arrived a week after Bishop Fisher’s execution, having parted
+with the Prior at Cuckfield, she was walking in her private garden
+beyond the moat.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James was in a very different state. He had caused two rooms to be
+prepared, that his son might take his choice, one next to Mr. Carleton’s
+and therefore close to the chapel, and the other the old chamber that
+Chris had occupied before he went to Lewes; and when the monk at last
+rode up on alone on his tired mule with his little bag strapped to the
+crupper, an hour before sunset, his father was out at the gatehouse to
+meet him, and walked up beside him to the house, with his hand laid on
+his son’s knee.</p>
+
+<p>They hardly spoke a word as they went; Sir James had looked up at
+Chris’s white strained face, and had put one question; and the other had
+nodded; and the hearts of both were full as they went together to the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>The father and son supped together alone that night in the private
+parlour, for no one had dared to ask Lady Torridon to postpone her usual
+supper hour; and as soon as that was over and Chris had told what he had
+seen, with many silences, they went into the oak-room where Lady
+Torridon and Mr. Carleton were awaiting them by the hearth with the
+Flemish tiles.</p>
+
+<p>The mother was sitting as usual in her tall chair, with her beautiful
+hands on her lap, and smiled with a genial contempt as she ran her eyes
+up and down her son’s figure.</p>
+
+<p>“The habit suits you very well, my son—in every way,” she added,
+looking at him curiously.</p>
+
+<p>Chris had greeted her an hour before at his arrival, so there was no
+ceremony of salute to be gone through now. He sat down by his father.</p>
+
+<p>“You have seen Ralph, I hear,” observed Lady Torridon.</p>
+
+<p>Chris did not know how much she knew, and simply assented. He had told
+his father everything.</p>
+
+<p>“I have some news,” she went on in an unusually talkative mood, “for you
+both. Ralph is to marry Beatrice Atherton—the girl you saw in his
+rooms, Christopher.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James gave an exclamation and leant forward; and Chris tightened his
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>“She is a friend of Mr. More’s,” went on Lady Torridon, apparently
+unconscious of the sensation she was making, “but that is Ralph’s
+business, I suppose.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why did Ralph not write to me?” asked his father, with a touch of
+sternness.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon answered him by a short pregnant silence, and then went
+on—</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose he wished me to break it to you. It will not be for two or
+three years. She says she cannot leave Mrs. More for the present.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris’s brain was confused by the news, and yet it all seemed external
+to him. As he had ridden up to the house in the evening he had
+recognised for the first time how he no longer belonged to the place;
+his two years at Lewes had done their work, and he came to his home now
+not as a son but as a guest. He had even begun to perceive the
+difference after his quarrel with Ralph, for he had not been conscious
+of the same personal sting at his brother’s sins that he would have felt
+five years ago. And now this news, while it affected him, did not
+penetrate to the still sanctuary that he had hewn out of his heart
+during those months of discipline.</p>
+
+<p>But his father was roused.</p>
+
+<p>“He should have written to me,” he said sternly. “And, my wife, I will
+beg you to remember that I have a right to my son’s business.”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon did not move or answer. He leaned back again, and passed
+his hand tenderly through Chris’s arm.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was very strange to the younger son to find himself a few minutes
+later up again in the west gallery of the chapel, where he had knelt two
+years before; and for a few moments he almost felt himself at home. But
+the mechanical shifting of his scapular aside as he sat down for the
+psalms, recalled facts. Then he had been in his silk suit, his hands had
+been rough with his cross-bow, his beard had been soft on his chin, and
+the blood hot in his cheeks. Now he was in his habit, smooth-faced and
+shaven, tired and oppressed, still weak from the pangs of soul-birth. He
+was further from human love, but nearer the Divine, he thought.</p>
+
+<p>He sat with his father a few minutes after compline; and Sir James spoke
+more frankly of the news that they had heard.</p>
+
+<p>“If she is really a friend of Mr. More’s,” he said, “she may be his
+salvation. I am sorely disappointed in him. I did not know Master
+Cromwell when I sent him to him, as I do now. Is it my fault, Chris?”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Chris told his father presently of what the Prior had said as to Ralph’s
+assistance in the matter of the visit that the two monks had paid to the
+Tower; and asked an interpretation.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James sat quiet a minute or two, stroking his pointed grey beard
+softly, and looking into the hearth.</p>
+
+<p>“God forgive me if I am wrong, my son,” he said at last, “but I wonder
+whether they let the my Lord Prior go to the Tower in order to shake the
+confidence of both. Do you think so, Chris?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris too was silent a moment; he knew he must not speak evil of
+dignities.</p>
+
+<p>“It may be so. I know that my Lord Prior—”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, my son?”</p>
+
+<p>“My Lord Prior has been very anxious—”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James patted his son on the knee, and reassured him.</p>
+
+<p>“Prior Crowham is a very holy man, I think; but—but somewhat delicate.
+However their designs have come to nothing. The bishop is in glory; and
+the other more courageous than he was.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris also had a few words with Mr. Carleton before he went to bed,
+sitting where he had sat in the moonlight two years before.</p>
+
+<p>“If they have done so much,” said the priest, “they will do more. When a
+man has slipped over a precipice he cannot save his fall. Master More
+will be the next to go; I make no doubt of that. You are to be a priest
+soon, Chris?”</p>
+
+<p>“They have applied for leave,” said the monk shortly. “In two years I
+shall be a priest, no doubt, if God wills.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are happy?” asked the other.</p>
+
+<p>Chris made a little gesture.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not know what that means,” he said, “but I know I have done right.
+I feel nothing. God’s ways and His world are too strange.”</p>
+
+<p>The priest looked at him oddly, without speaking.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, father?” asked Chris, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>“You are right,” said the chaplain brusquely. “You have done well. You
+have crossed the border.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris felt the blood surge in his temples.</p>
+
+<p>“The border?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“The border of dreams. They surround the Religious Life; and you have
+passed through them.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris still looked at him with parted lips. This praise was sweet, after
+the bitterness of his failure with Ralph. The priest seemed to know what
+was passing in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! you will fail sometimes,” he said, “but not finally. You are a
+monk, my son, and a man.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Lady Torridon retired into her impregnable silence again after her
+sallies of speech on the previous evening; but as the few days went on
+that Chris had been allowed to spend with his parents he was none the
+less aware that her attitude towards him was one of contempt. She
+showed it in a hundred ways—by not appearing to see him, by refusing to
+modify her habits in the smallest particular for his convenience, by a
+rigid silence on the subject that was in the hearts of both him and his
+father. She performed her duties as punctually and efficiently as ever,
+dealt dispassionately and justly with an old servant who had been
+troublesome, and with regard to whom her husband was both afraid and
+tender; but never asked for confidences or manifested the minutest
+detail of her own accord.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>On the fourth day after Chris’s arrival news came that Sir Thomas More
+had been condemned, but it roused no more excitement than the fall of a
+threatening rod. It had been known to be inevitable. And then on Chris’s
+last evening at home came the last details.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Sir James and Chris had been out for a long ride up the estate, talking
+but little, for each knew what was in the heart of the other; and they
+were just dismounting at the terrace-steps when there was a sound of
+furious galloping; and a couple of riders burst through the gateway a
+hundred yards away.</p>
+
+<p>Chris felt his heart leap and hammer in his throat, but stood passively
+awaiting what he knew was coming; and a few seconds later, Nicholas
+Maxwell checked his horse passionately at the steps.</p>
+
+<p>“God damn them!” he cried, with a crimson quivering face.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James stepped up at once and took him by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>“Nick,” he said, and glanced at the staring grooms.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas showed his teeth like a dog.</p>
+
+<p>“God damn them!” he said again.</p>
+
+<p>The other rider had come up by now; he was dusty and seemed spent. He
+was a stranger to the father and son who waited on the steps; but he
+looked like a groom, and slipped off his horse deftly and took Sir
+Nicholas’s bridle.</p>
+
+<p>“Come in Nick,” said Sir James. “We can talk in the house.”</p>
+
+<p>As the three went up together, with the strange rider at a respectful
+distance behind, Nicholas broke out again in one sentence.</p>
+
+<p>“They have done it,” he said, “he is dead. Mother of God!”</p>
+
+<p>His whip twitched in his clenching hand. He turned and jerked his head
+beckoningly to the man who followed; and the four went on together,
+through the hall and into Sir James’s parlour. Sir James shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell us, Nick.”</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas stood at the hearth, glaring and shifting.</p>
+
+<p>“This fellow knows—he saw it; tell them, Dick.”</p>
+
+<p>The man gave his account. He was one of the servants of Sir Nicholas’
+younger brother, who lived in town, and had been sent down to Great
+Keynes immediately after the execution that had taken place that
+morning. He was a man of tolerable education, and told his story well.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James sat as he listened, with his hand shading his eyes; Nicholas
+was fidgetting at the hearth, interrupting the servant now and again
+with questions and reminders; and Chris leaned in the dark corner by the
+window. There floated vividly before his mind as he listened the setting
+of the scene that he had looked upon a few days ago, though there were
+new actors in it now.</p>
+
+<p>“It was this morning, sir, on Tower Hill. There was a great company
+there long before the time. He came out bravely enough, walking with
+the Lieutenant that was his friend, and with a red cross in his hand.”</p>
+
+<p>“You were close by,” put in Nicholas</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir; I was beside the stairs. They shook as he went up; they were
+crazy steps, and he told the Lieutenant to have a care to him.”</p>
+
+<p>“The words, man, the words!”</p>
+
+<p>“I am not sure, sir; but they were after this fashion: ‘See me safe up,
+Master Lieutenant; I will shift for myself at the coming down.’ So he
+got up safe, and stamped once or twice merrily to see if all were firm.
+Then he made a speech, sir, and begged all there to pray for him. He
+told them that he was to die for the faith of the Catholic Church, as my
+Lord of Rochester did.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you heard of my lord’s head being taken to Nan Boleyn?” put in
+Nicholas fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James looked up.</p>
+
+<p>“Presently, Nick,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The man went on.</p>
+
+<p>“Master More kneeled down presently at his prayers; and all the folk
+kept very quiet. There was not one that cried against him. Then he stood
+up again, put off his gown, so that his neck was bare; and passed his
+hand over it smiling. Then he told the headsman that it was but a short
+one, and bade him be brave and strike straight, lest his good name
+should suffer. Then he laid himself down to the block, and put his neck
+on it; but he moved again before he gave the sign, and put his beard out
+in front—for he had grown one in prison”—</p>
+
+<p>“Give us the words,” snarled Nicholas.</p>
+
+<p>“He said, sir, that his beard had done no treason, and need not
+therefore suffer as he had to do. And then he thrust out his hand for a
+sign—and ’twas done at a stroke.”</p>
+
+<p>“God damn them!” hissed Nicholas again as a kind of Amen, turning
+swiftly to the fire-place so that his face could not be seen.</p>
+
+<p>There was complete silence for a few seconds. The groom had his eyes
+cast down, and stood there—then again he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“As to my Lord of Rochester’s head, that was taken off to the—the
+Queen, they say, in a white bag, and she struck it on the mouth.”</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas dropped his head against his hand that rested on the wood-work.</p>
+
+<p>“And the body rested naked all day on the scaffold, with the halberd-men
+drinking round about; and ’twas tumbled into a hole in Barking
+Churchyard that night.”</p>
+
+<p>“At whose orders?”</p>
+
+<p>“At Master Cromwell’s, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>Again there was silence; and again the groom broke it.</p>
+
+<p>“There was more said, sir—” and hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>The old man signed to him to go on.</p>
+
+<p>“They say that my lord’s head shone with light each night on the
+bridge,” said the man reverently; “there was a great press there, I
+know, all day, so that the streets were blocked, and none could come or
+go. And so they tumbled that into the river at last; at least ’tis
+supposed so—for ’twas gone when I looked.”</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas turned round; and his eyes were bright and his face fiery and
+discoloured.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James stood up, and his voice was broken as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, my man. You have told your story well.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>As the groom turned to go out, Sir Nicholas wheeled round swiftly to the
+hearth, and buried his face on his arm; and Chris saw a great heaving
+begin to shake his broad shoulders.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_KINGS_TRIUMPH-BOOK_II">THE KING’S TRIUMPH—BOOK II</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_I-THE_SMALLER_HOUSES">PART I—THE SMALLER HOUSES</h3>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_2I">CHAPTER I<br><span class="small">AN ACT OF FAITH</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>Towards the end of August Beatrice Atherton was walking up the north
+bank of the river from Charing to Westminster to announce to Ralph her
+arrival in town on the previous night.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>She had gone through horrors since the June day on which she had seen
+the two brothers together. With Margaret beside her she had watched
+Master More in court, in his frieze gown, leaning on his stick, bent and
+grey with imprisonment, had heard his clear answers, his searching
+questions, and his merry conclusion after sentence had been pronounced;
+she had stayed at home with the stricken family on the morning of the
+sixth of July, kneeling with them at her prayers in the chapel of the
+New Building, during the hours until Mr. Roper looked in grey-faced and
+trembling, and they knew that all was over. She went with them to the
+burial in St. Peter’s Chapel in the Tower; and last, which was the most
+dreadful ordeal of all, she had stood in the summer darkness by the
+wicket-gate, had heard the cautious stroke of oars, and the footsteps
+coming up the path, and had let Margaret in bearing her precious burden
+robbed from the spike on London Bridge.</p>
+
+<p>Then for a while she had gone down to the country with Mrs. More and
+her daughters; and now she was back once more, in a kind of psychical
+convalescence, at her aunt’s new house on the river-bank at Charing.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Her face was a little paler than it used to be, but there was a
+quickening brightness in her eyes as she swept along in her blue mantle,
+with her maid beside her, in the rear of the liveried servant, who
+carried a silver-headed wand a few yards in front.</p>
+
+<p>She was rehearsing to herself the scene in which Ralph had asked her to
+be his wife.</p>
+
+<p>Where Chris had left the room the two had remained perfectly still until
+the street-door had closed; and then Ralph had turned to her with a
+question in his steady eyes.</p>
+
+<p>She had told him then that she did not believe one word of what the monk
+had insinuated; but she had been conscious even at the time that she was
+making what theologians call an act of faith. It was not that there were
+not difficulties to her in Ralph’s position—there were plenty—but she
+had determined by a final and swift decision to disregard them and
+believe in him. It was a last step in a process that continued ever
+since she had become interested by this strong brusque man; and it had
+been precipitated by the fanatical attack to which she had just been a
+witness. The discord, as she thought it, of Ralph’s character and
+actions had not been resolved; yet she had decided in that moment that
+it need not be; that her data as concerned those actions were
+insufficient; and that if she could not explain, at least she could
+trust.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph had been very honest, she told herself now. He had reminded her
+that he was a servant of Cromwell’s whom many believed to be an enemy
+of Church and State. She had nodded back to him steadily and silently,
+knowing what would follow from the paleness of his face, and his bright
+eyes beneath their wide lids. She had felt her own breast rise and fall
+and a pulse begin to hammer at the spring of her throat. Even now as she
+thought of it her heart quickened, and her hands clenched themselves.</p>
+
+<p>And then in one swift moment it had come. She had found her hands caught
+fiercely, and her eyes imprisoned by his; and then all was over, and she
+had given him an answer in a word.</p>
+
+<p>It had not been easy even after that. Cecily had questioned her more
+than once. Mrs. More had said a few indiscreet things that had been hard
+to bear; her own aunt had received the news in silence.</p>
+
+<p>But that was over now. The necessary consent on both sides had been
+given; and here she was once more walking up the road to Westminster
+with Ralph’s image before her eyes, and Ralph himself a hundred yards
+away.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>She turned the last corner from the alley, passed up the little street,
+and turned again across the little cobbled yard that lay before the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morris was at the door as she came up, and he now stood aside. He
+seemed doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Torridon has gentlemen with him, madam.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then I will wait,” said Beatrice serenely, and made a motion to come
+in. The servant still half-hesitating opened the door wider; and
+Beatrice and her maid went through into the little parlour on the right.</p>
+
+<p>As she passed in she heard voices from the other door. Mr. Morris’s
+footsteps went down the passage.</p>
+
+<p>She had not very long to wait. There was the sound of a carriage
+driving up to the door presently, and her maid who sat in view of the
+window glanced out. Her face grew solemn.</p>
+
+<p>“It is Master Cromwell’s carriage,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice was conscious of a vague discomfort; Master Cromwell, in spite
+of her efforts, was the shadowed side of Ralph’s life.</p>
+
+<p>“Is he coming in?” she said.</p>
+
+<p>The maid peeped again.</p>
+
+<p>“No, madam.”</p>
+
+<p>The door of the room they were in was not quite shut, and there was
+still a faint murmur of voices from across the hall; but almost
+immediately there was the sound of a lifted latch, and then Ralph’s
+voice clear and distinct.</p>
+
+<p>“I will see to it, my lord.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice stood up, feeling a little uneasy. She fancied that perhaps she
+ought not to be here; she remembered now the servant’s slight air of
+unwillingness to let her in. There was a footfall in the hall, and the
+sound of talking; and as Mr. Morris’s hasty step came up the passage,
+the door was pushed abruptly open, and Ralph was looking into the room,
+with one or two others beyond him.</p>
+
+<p>“I did not know,” he began, and flushed a little, smiling and making as
+if to close the door. But Cromwell’s face, with its long upper lip and
+close-set grey eyes, appeared over his shoulder, and Ralph turned round,
+almost deprecatingly.</p>
+
+<p>“I beg your pardon, sir; this is Mistress Atherton, and her woman.”</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell came forward into the room, with a kind of keen smile, in his
+rich dress and chain.</p>
+
+<p>“Mistress Beatrice Atherton?” he said with a questioning deference; and
+Ralph introduced them to one another. Beatrice was conscious of a good
+deal of awkwardness. It was uncomfortable to be caught here, as if she
+had come to spy out something. She felt herself flushing as she
+explained that she had had no idea who was there.</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell looked at her very pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>“There is nothing to ask pardon for, Mistress,” he said. “I knew you
+were a friend of Mr. Torridon. He has told me everything.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph seemed strangely ill-at-ease, Beatrice thought, as Cromwell
+congratulated them both with a very kindly air, and then turned towards
+the hall again.</p>
+
+<p>“My lord,” he called, “my lord—”</p>
+
+<p>Then Beatrice saw a tall ecclesiastic, clean-shaven, with a strangely
+insignificant but kindly face, with square drooping lip and narrow hazel
+eyes, come forward in his prelate’s dress; and at the sight of him her
+eyes grew hard and her lips tight.</p>
+
+<p>“My lord,” said Cromwell, “this is Mistress Beatrice Torridon.”</p>
+
+<p>The prelate put out his hand, smiling faintly, with the ring uppermost
+to be kissed. Beatrice stood perfectly still. She could see Ralph at an
+angle looking at her imploringly.</p>
+
+<p>“You know my Lord of Canterbury,” said Cromwell, in an explanatory
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>“I know my Lord of Canterbury,” said Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>There was a dead silence for a moment, and then a faint whimper from the
+maid.</p>
+
+<p>Cranmer dropped his hand, but still smiled, turning to Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“We must be gone, Mr. Torridon. Master Cromwell has very kindly—”</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell, who had stood amazed for a moment, turned round at his name.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he said to Ralph, “my lord is to come with me. And you will be
+at my house to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>He said good-day to the girl, looking at her with an amused interest
+that made her flush; and as Dr. Cranmer passed out of the street-door to
+the carriage with Ralph bare-headed beside him, he spoke very softly.</p>
+
+<p>“You are like the others, mistress,” he said; and shook his heavy head
+at her like an indulgent father. Then he too turned and went out.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Beatrice went across at once to the other room, leaving her maid behind,
+and stood by the hearth as Ralph came in. She heard the door close and
+his footstep come across the floor beside her.</p>
+
+<p>“Beatrice,” said Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>She turned round and looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>“You must not scold me,” she said with great serenity. “You must leave
+me my conscience.” Ralph’s face cleared instantly.</p>
+
+<p>“No, no,” he said. “I feared it would be the other way.”</p>
+
+<p>“A married priest, they say!” remarked the girl, but without bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>“I daresay, my darling,—but—but I have more tenderness for marriage
+than I had.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice’s black eyes just flickered with amusement.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; but priests!” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—even priests—” said Ralph, smiling back.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice turned to a chair and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose I must not ask any questions,” she said, glancing up for a
+moment at Ralph’s steady eyes. She thought he looked a little uneasy
+still.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! I scarcely know,” said Ralph; and he took a turn across the room
+and came back. She waited, knowing that she had already put her
+question, and secretly pleased that he knew it, and was perplexed by it.</p>
+
+<p>“I scarcely know,” he said again, standing opposite her.
+“Well,—yes—all will know it soon.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! I can wait till then,” said Beatrice quickly, not sure whether she
+were annoyed or not by being told a secret of such a common nature.
+Ralph glanced at her, not sure either.</p>
+
+<p>“I am afraid—” he began.</p>
+
+<p>“No—no,” she said, ashamed of her doubt. “I do not wish to know; I can
+wait.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will tell you,” said Ralph. He went and sat down in the chair
+opposite, crossing his legs.</p>
+
+<p>“It is about the Visitation of the Religious Houses. I am to go with the
+Visitors in September.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice felt a sudden and rather distressed interest; but she showed no
+sign of it.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, yes!” she said softly, “and what will be your work?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was reassured by her tone.</p>
+
+<p>“We are to go to the southern province. I am with Dr. Layton’s party. We
+shall make enquiries of the state of Religion, how it is observed and so
+forth; and report to Master Cromwell.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice looked down in a slightly side-long way.</p>
+
+<p>“I know what you are thinking,” said Ralph, his tone a mixture of
+amusement and pride. She looked up silently.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes I knew it was so,” he went on, smiling straight at her. “You are
+wondering what in the world I know about Religious Houses. But I have a
+brother—”</p>
+
+<p>A shadow went over her face; Ralph saw she did not like the allusion.</p>
+
+<p>“Besides,” he went on again, “they need intelligent men, not
+ecclesiastics, for this business.”</p>
+
+<p>“But Dr. Layton?” questioned Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you might call him an ecclesiastic; but you would scarcely guess
+it from himself. And no man could call him a partisan on that side.”</p>
+
+<p>“He would do better in one of his rectories, I should think,” said
+Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, that is not my business,” observed Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“And what is your business?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, to ride round the country; examine the Religious, and make
+enquiries of the country folk.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice began to tap her foot very softly. Ralph glanced down at the
+bright buckle and smiled in spite of himself.</p>
+
+<p>The girl went on.</p>
+
+<p>“And by whose authority?”</p>
+
+<p>“By his Grace’s authority.”</p>
+
+<p>“And Dr. Cranmer’s?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, yes; so far as he has any.”</p>
+
+<p>“I see,” said Beatrice; and cast her eyes down again.</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for a moment or two.</p>
+
+<p>“You see too that I cannot withdraw,” explained Ralph, a little
+distressed at her air. “It is part of my duty.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! I understand that,” said Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>“And so long as I act justly, there is no harm done.”</p>
+
+<p>The girl was silent.</p>
+
+<p>“You understand that?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose I do,” said Beatrice slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph made a slight impatient movement.</p>
+
+<p>“No—wait,” said the girl, “I do understand. If I cannot trust you, I
+had better never have known you. I do understand that I can trust you;
+though I cannot understand how you can do such work.”</p>
+
+<p>She raised her eyes slowly to his; and Ralph as he looked into them saw
+that she was perfectly sincere, and speaking without bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>“Sweetheart,” he said. “I could not have taken that from any but you;
+but I know that you are true, and mean no more nor less than your words.
+You do trust me?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes,” said the girl; and smiled at him as he took her in his arms.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>When she had gone again Ralph had a difficult quarter of an hour.</p>
+
+<p>He knew that she trusted him, but was it not simply because she did not
+know? He sat and pondered the talk he had had with Cromwell and the
+Archbishop. Neither had expressly said that what was wanted was adverse
+testimony against the Religious Houses; but that, Ralph knew very well,
+was what was asked of him. They had talked a great deal about the
+corruptions that the Visitors would no doubt find, and Cranmer had told
+a story or two, with an appearance of great distress, of scandalous
+cases that had come under his own notice. Cromwell too had pointed out
+that such corruptions did incalculable evil; and that an immoral monk
+did far more harm in a countryside than his holy brethren could do of
+good. Both had said a word too about the luxury and riches to be found
+in the houses of those who professed poverty, and of the injury done to
+Christ’s holy religion by such insincere pretences.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph knew too, from previous meetings with the other Visitors, the kind
+of work for which such men would be likely to be selected.</p>
+
+<p>There was Dr. Richard Layton first, whom Ralph was to join in Sussex at
+the end of September, a priest who had two or three preferments and
+notoriously neglected them; Ralph had taken a serious dislike to him. He
+was a coarse man who knew how to cringe effectively; and Ralph had
+listened to him talking to Cromwell, with some dismay. But he would be
+to a large extent independent of him, and only in his company at some of
+the larger houses that needed more than one Visitor. Thomas Legh, too, a
+young doctor of civil law, was scarcely more attractive. He was a man of
+an extraordinary arrogance, carrying his head high, and looking about
+him with insolently drooping eyes. Ralph had been at once amused and
+angry to see him go out into the street after his interview with
+Cromwell, where his horse and half-a-dozen footmen awaited him, and to
+watch him ride off with the airs of a vulgar prince. The Welshman Ap
+Rice too, and the red-faced bully, Dr. London, were hardly persons whom
+he desired as associates, and the others were not much better; and Ralph
+found himself feeling a little thankful that none of these men had been
+in his house just now, when Cromwell and the Archbishop had called in
+the former’s carriage, and when Beatrice had met them there.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ralph had a moment, ten minutes after Beatrice had left, when he was
+inclined to snatch up his hat and go after Cromwell to tell him to do
+his own dirty work; but his training had told, and he had laughed at the
+folly of the thought. Why, of course, the work had to be done! England
+was rotten with dreams and superstition. Ecclesiasticism had corrupted
+genuine human life, and national sanity could not be restored except by
+a violent process. Innocent persons would no doubt suffer—innocent
+according to conscience, but guilty against the commonwealth. Every
+great movement towards good was bound to be attended by individual
+catastrophes; but it was the part of a strong man to carry out
+principles and despise details.</p>
+
+<p>The work had to be done; it was better then that there should be at
+least one respectable workman. Of course such a work needed coarse men
+to carry it out; it was bound to be accompanied by some brutality; and
+his own presence there might do something to keep the brutality within
+limits.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>And as for Beatrice—well, Beatrice did not yet understand. If she
+understood all as he did, she would sympathise, for she was strong too.
+Besides—he had held her in his arms just now, and he knew that love was
+king.</p>
+
+<p>But he sat for ten minutes more in silence, staring with unseeing eyes
+at the huddled roofs opposite and the clear sky over them; and the point
+of the quill in his fingers was split and cracked when Mr. Morris looked
+in to see if his master wanted anything.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_2II">CHAPTER II<br><span class="small">THE BEGINNING OF THE VISITATION</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>It was on a wet foggy morning in October that Ralph set out with Mr.
+Morris and a couple more servants to join Dr. Layton in the Sussex
+visitation. He rode alone in front; and considered as he went.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The Visitation itself, Cromwell had told him almost explicitly, was in
+pursuance of the King’s policy to get the Religious Houses, which were
+considered to be the strongholds of the papal power in England, under
+the authority of the Crown; and also to obtain from them reinforcements
+of the royal funds which were running sorely low. The crops were most
+disappointing this year, and the King’s tenants were wholly unable to
+pay their rents; and it had been thought wiser to make up the deficit
+from ecclesiastical wealth rather than to exasperate the Commons by a
+direct call upon their resources.</p>
+
+<p>So far, he knew very well, the attempt to get the Religious Houses into
+the King’s power had only partially succeeded. Bishop Fisher’s influence
+had availed to stave off the fulfilment of the royal intentions up to
+the present; and the oath of supremacy, in which to a large extent the
+key of the situation lay, had been by no means universally accepted.
+Now, however, the scheme was to be pushed forward; and as a preparation
+for it, it was proposed to visit every monastery and convent in the
+kingdom, and to render account first of the temporal wealth of each,
+and then of the submissiveness of its inmates; and, as Cromwell had
+hinted to Ralph, anything that could damage the character of the
+Religious would not be unacceptable evidence.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was aware that the scheme in which he was engaged was supported in
+two ways; first, by the suspension of episcopal authority during the
+course of the visitation, and secondly by the vast powers committed to
+the visitors. In one of the saddle-bags strapped on to Mr. Morris’s
+horse was a sheaf of papers, containing eighty-six articles of enquiry,
+and twenty-five injunctions, as well as certificates from the King
+endowing Ralph with what was practically papal jurisdiction. He was
+authorised to release from their vows all Religious who desired it, and
+ordered to dismiss all who had been professed under twenty years of age,
+or who were at the present date under twenty-four years old. Besides
+this he was commissioned to enforce the enclosure with the utmost
+rigour, to set porters at the doors to see that it was observed, and to
+encourage all who had any grievance against their superiors to forward
+complaints through himself to Cromwell.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph understood well enough the first object of these regulations,
+namely to make monastic life impossible. It was pretty evident that a
+rigorous confinement would breed discontent; which in its turn would be
+bound to escape through the vent-hole which the power of appeal
+provided; thus bringing about a state of anarchy within the house, and
+the tightening of the hold of the civil authority upon the Religious.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly the Visitors were authorised to seize any church furniture or
+jewels that they might judge would be better in secular custody.</p>
+
+<p>Once more, he had learned both from Cromwell, and from his own
+experience at Paul’s Cross, how the laity itself was being carefully
+prepared for the blow that was impending, by an army of selected
+preachers who could be trusted to say what they were told. Only a few
+days before Ralph had halted his horse at the outskirts of a huge crowd
+gathered round Paul’s Cross, and had listened to a torrent of
+vituperation poured out by a famous orator against the mendicant friars;
+and from the faces and exclamations of the people round him he had
+learned once more that greed was awake in England.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was a somewhat dismal ride that he had this day. The sky was heavy
+and overcast, it rained constantly, and the roads were in a more dreary
+condition even than usual. He splashed along through the mud with his
+servants behind him, wrapped in his cloak; and his own thoughts were not
+of a sufficient cheerfulness to compensate for the external discomforts.
+His political plane of thought was shot by a personal idea. He guessed
+that he would have to commit himself in a manner that he had never done
+before; and was not wholly confident that he would be able to explain
+matters satisfactorily to Beatrice. Besides, the particular district to
+which he was appointed included first Lewes, where Chris would have an
+eye on his doings, and secondly the little Benedictine house of Rusper,
+where his sister Margaret had been lately professed; and he wondered
+what exactly would be his relation with his own family when his work was
+done.</p>
+
+<p>But for the main object of his visitation he had little but sympathy. It
+was good, he thought, that a scouring should be made of these idle
+houses, and their inmates made more profitable to the commonwealth. And
+lastly, whether or no he sympathised, it would be fatal to his career
+to refuse the work offered to him.</p>
+
+<p>As he did not feel very confident at first, he had arranged to meet with
+Dr. Layton’s party at the Premonstratension Abbey of Durford, situated
+at the borders of Sussex and Hampshire, and there learn the exact
+methods to be employed in the visitation; but it was a long ride, and he
+took two days over it, sleeping on the way at Waverly in the Cistercian
+House. This had not yet been visited, as Dr. Layton was riding up
+gradually from the west country, but the rumour of his intentions had
+already reached there, and Ralph was received with a pathetic deference
+as one of the representatives of the Royal Commission.</p>
+
+<p>The Abbot was a kindly nervous man, and welcomed Ralph with every sign
+of respect at the gate of the abbey, giving contradictory orders about
+the horses and the entertainment of the guests to his servants who
+seemed in very little awe of him.</p>
+
+<p>After mass and breakfast on the following morning the Abbot came into
+the guest-house and begged for a short interview.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He apologised first for the poorness of the entertainment, saying that
+he had done his best. Ralph answered courteously; and the other went on
+immediately, standing deferentially before the chair where Ralph was
+seated, and fingering his cross.</p>
+
+<p>“I hope, Mr. Torridon, that it will be you who will visit us; you have
+found us all unprepared, and you know that we are doing our best to keep
+our Rule. I hope you found nothing that was not to your liking.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph bowed and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>“I would sooner that it were you,” went on the Abbot, “and not another
+that visited us. Dr. Layton—”</p>
+
+<p>He stopped abruptly, embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>“You have heard something of him?” questioned Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“I know nothing against him,” said the other hastily, “except that they
+say that he is sharp with us poor monks. I fear he would find a great
+deal here not to his taste. My authority has been so much weakened of
+late; I have some discontented brethren—not more than one or two, Mr.
+Torridon—and they have learned that they will be able to appeal now to
+the King’s Grace, and get themselves set free; and they have ruined the
+discipline of the house. I do not wish to hide anything, sir, you see;
+but I am terribly afraid that Dr. Layton may be displeased.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am very sorry, my lord,” said Ralph, “but I fear I shall not be
+coming here again.”</p>
+
+<p>The Abbot’s face fell.</p>
+
+<p>“But you will speak for us, sir, to Dr. Layton? I heard you say you
+would be seeing him to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph promised to do his best, and was overwhelmed with thanks.</p>
+
+<p>He could not help realising some of the pathos of the situation as he
+rode on through the rain to Durford. It was plain that a wave of terror
+and apprehensiveness was running through the Religious Houses, and that
+it brought with it inevitable disorder. Lives that would have been
+serene and contented under other circumstances were thrown off their
+balance by the rumours of disturbance, and authority was weakened. If
+the Rule was hard of observance in tranquil times, it was infinitely
+harder when doors of escape presented themselves on all sides.</p>
+
+<p>And yet he was impatient too. Passive or wavering characters irritated
+his own strong temperament, and he felt a kind of anger against the
+Abbot and his feeble appeal. Surely men who had nothing else to do might
+manage to keep their own subjects in order, and a weak crying for pity
+was in itself an argument against their competence. And meanwhile, if he
+had known it, he would have been still more incensed, for as he rode on
+down towards the south west, the Abbot and his monks in the house he had
+left were prostrate before the high altar in the dark church, each in
+his stall, praying for mercy.</p>
+
+<p>“O God, the heathens are come into thine inheritance,” they murmured,
+“they have defiled thy holy temple.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was not until the sun was going down in the stormy west that Ralph
+rode up to Durford abbey. The rain had ceased an hour before sunset, and
+the wet roofs shone in the evening light.</p>
+
+<p>There were certain signs of stir as he came up. One or two idlers were
+standing outside the gate-house; the door was wide open, and a couple of
+horses were being led away round the corner.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the court as he rode through he saw further signs of confusion.
+Half a dozen packhorses were waiting with hanging heads outside the
+stable door, and an agitated lay brother was explaining to a canon in
+his white habit, rochet and cap, that there was no more room. He threw
+out his hands with a gesture of despair towards Ralph as he came in.</p>
+
+<p>“Mother of God!” he said, “here is another of them.”</p>
+
+<p>The priest frowned at him, and hurried up to Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, father,” said Ralph, “I am another of them.”</p>
+
+<p>The canon explained that the stable was full, that they were
+exceedingly sorry, but that they were but a poor house; and that he was
+glad to say there was an outhouse round the corner outside where the
+beasts could be lodged.</p>
+
+<p>“But as for yourself, sir,” he said, “I know not what to do. We have
+every room full. You are a friend of Dr. Layton’s, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>“I am one of the Visitors,” said Ralph. “You must make room.”</p>
+
+<p>The priest sucked his lips in.</p>
+
+<p>“I see nothing for it,” he said, “Dr. Layton and you, sir, must share a
+room.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph threw a leg over the saddle and slipped to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>“Where is he?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“He is with my Lord Abbot, sir,” he said. “Will you come with me?”</p>
+
+<p>The canon led the way across the court, his white fur tails swinging as
+he went, and took Ralph through the cloister into one of the parlours.
+There was a sound of a high scolding voice as he threw open the door.</p>
+
+<p>“What in God’s name are ye for then, if ye have not hospitality?”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Layton turned round as Ralph came in. He was flushed with passion;
+his mouth worked, and his eyes were brutal.</p>
+
+<p>“See this, Mr. Torridon,” he said. “There is neither room for man or
+beast in this damned abbey. The guest house has no more than half a
+dozen rooms, and the stable—why, it is not fit for pigs, let alone the
+horses of the King’s Visitors.”</p>
+
+<p>The Abbot, a young man with a delicate face, very pale now and
+trembling, broke in deprecatingly.</p>
+
+<p>“I am very sorry, gentlemen,” he said, looking from one to the other,
+“but it is not my fault. It is in better repair than when I came to it.
+I have done my best with my Lord Abbot of Welbeck; but we are very poor,
+and he can give me no more.”</p>
+
+<p>Layton growled at him.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t say it’s you, man; we shall know better when we have looked
+into your accounts; but I’ll have a word to say at Welbeck.”</p>
+
+<p>“We are to share a room, Dr. Layton,” put in Ralph. “At least—”</p>
+
+<p>The doctor turned round again at that, and stormed once more.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot help it, gentlemen,” retorted the Abbot desperately. “I have
+given up my own chamber already. I can but do my best.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph hastened to interpose. His mind revolted at this coarse bullying,
+in spite of his contempt at this patient tolerance on the part of the
+Abbot.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall do very well, my Lord Abbot,” he said. “I shall give no
+trouble. You may put me where you please.”</p>
+
+<p>The young prelate looked at him gratefully.</p>
+
+<p>“We will do our best, sir,” he said. “Will you come, gentlemen, and see
+your chambers?”</p>
+
+<p>Layton explained to Ralph as they went along the poor little cloister
+that he himself had only arrived an hour before.</p>
+
+<p>“I had a rare time among the monks,” he whispered, “and have some tales
+to make you laugh.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He grew impatient again presently at the poor furnishing of the rooms,
+and kicked over a broken chair.</p>
+
+<p>“I will have something better than that,” he said. “Get me one from the
+church.”</p>
+
+<p>The young Abbot faced him.</p>
+
+<p>“What do you want of us, Dr. Layton? Is it riches or poverty? Which
+think you that Religious ought to have?”</p>
+
+<p>The priest gave a bark of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>“You have me there, my lord,” he said; and nudged Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>They sat down to supper presently in the parlour downstairs, a couple of
+dishes of meat, and a bottle of Spanish wine. Dr. Layton grew voluble.</p>
+
+<p>“I have a deal to tell you, Mr. Torridon,” he said, “and not a few
+things to show you,—silver crosses and such like; but those we will
+look at to-morrow. I doubt whether we shall add much to it here, though
+there is a relic-case that would look well on Master Cromwell’s table;
+it is all set with agates. But the tales you shall have now. My servant
+will be here directly with the papers.”</p>
+
+<p>A man came in presently with a bag of documents, and Layton seized them
+eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>“See here, Mr. Torridon,” he said, shaking the papers on to the table,
+“here is a story-box for the ladies. Draw your chair to the fire.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph felt an increasing repugnance for the man; but he said nothing;
+and brought up his seat to the wide hearth on which the logs burned
+pleasantly in the cold little room.</p>
+
+<p>The priest lifted the bundle on to his lap, crossed his legs
+comfortably, with a glass of wine at his elbow, and began to read.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>For a while Ralph wondered how the man could have the effrontery to call
+his notes by the name of evidence. They consisted of a string of obscene
+guesses, founded upon circumstances that were certainly compatible with
+guilt, but no less compatible with innocence. There was a quantity of
+gossip gathered from country-people and coloured by the most flagrant
+animus, and even so the witnesses did not agree. Such sentences as “It
+is reported in the country round that the prior is a lewd man” were
+frequent in the course of the reading, and were often the chief evidence
+offered in a case.</p>
+
+<p>In one of the most categorical stories, Ralph leaned forward and
+interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>“Forgive me, Master Layton,” he said, “but who is Master What’s-his-name
+who says all this?”</p>
+
+<p>The priest waved the paper in the air.</p>
+
+<p>“A monk himself,” he said, “a monk himself! That is the cream of it.”</p>
+
+<p>“A monk!” exclaimed Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“He was one till last year,” explained the priest.</p>
+
+<p>“And then?” said the other.</p>
+
+<p>“He was expelled the monastery. He knew too much, you see.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph leaned back.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Half an hour later there was a change in his attitude: his doubts were
+almost gone; the flood of detail was too vast to be dismissed as wholly
+irrelevant; his imagination was affected by the evidence from without
+and his will from within, and he listened without hostility, telling
+himself that he desired only truth and justice.</p>
+
+<p>There were at least half a dozen stories in the mass of filthy suspicion
+that the priest exultingly poured out which appeared convincing;
+particularly one about which Ralph put a number of questions.</p>
+
+<p>In this there was first a quantity of vague evidence gathered from the
+country-folk, who were, unless Layton lied quite unrestrainedly,
+convinced of the immoral life of a certain monk. The report of his sin
+had penetrated ten miles from the house where he lived. There was
+besides definite testimony from one of his fellows, precise and
+detailed; and there was lastly a half admission from the culprit
+himself. All this was worked up with great skill—suggestive epithets
+were plastered over the weak spots in the evidence; clever theories put
+forward to account for certain incompatibilities; and to Ralph at least
+it was convincing.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself growing hot with anger at the thought of the hypocrisy
+of this monk’s life. Here the fellow had been living in gross sin month
+after month, and all the while standing at the altar morning by morning,
+and going about in the habit of a professed servant of Jesus Christ!</p>
+
+<p>“But I have kept the cream till the last,” put in Dr. Layton. And he
+read out a few more hideous sentences, that set Ralph’s heart heaving
+with disgust.</p>
+
+<p>He began now to feel the beginnings of that fury against white-washed
+vice with which worldly souls are so quick to burn. He would have said
+that he himself professed no holiness beyond the average, and would have
+acknowledged privately at least that he was at any rate uncertain of the
+whole dogmatic scheme of religion; but that he could not tolerate a man
+whose whole life was on the outside confessedly devoted to both sides of
+religion, faith and morals, and who claimed the world’s reverence for
+himself on the score of it. He knit his forehead in a righteous fury,
+and his fingers began to drum softly on his chair-arms.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Layton now began to recur to some of the first stories he had told,
+and to build up their weak places; and now that Ralph was roused his
+critical faculty subsided. They appeared more convincing than before in
+the light of this later evidence. <i>Ex pede Herculem</i>—from the fellow
+who had confessed he interpreted the guilt of those who had not. The
+seed of suspicion sprang quickly in the soil that hungered for it.</p>
+
+<p>This then was the fair religious system that was dispersed over England;
+and this the interior life of those holy looking roofs and buildings
+surmounted by the sign of the Crucified, visible in every town to point
+men to God. When he saw a serene monk’s face again he would know what
+kind of soul it covered; he would understand as never before how vice
+could wear a mask of virtue.</p>
+
+<p>The whole of that flimsy evidence that he had heard before took a new
+colour; those hints and suspicions and guesses grew from shadow to
+substance. Those dark spots were not casual filth dropped from above,
+they were the symptoms of a deep internal infection.</p>
+
+<p>As Dr. Layton went on with his tales, gathered and garnered with
+devilish adroitness, and presented as convincingly as a clever brain
+could do it, the black certainty fell deeper and deeper on Ralph’s soul,
+and by the time that the priest chuckled for the last time that evening,
+and gathered up his papers from the boards where they had fallen one by
+one, he had done his work in another soul.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_2III">CHAPTER III<br><span class="small">A HOUSE OF LADIES</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>They parted the next day, Dr. Layton to Waverly, where he proposed to
+sleep on Saturday night, and Ralph to the convent at Rusper.</p>
+
+<p>He had learnt now how the work was to be done; and he had been equipped
+for it in a way that not even Dr. Layton himself suspected; for he had
+been set aflame with that filth-fed fire with which so many hearts were
+burning at this time. He had all the saint’s passion for purity, without
+the charity of his holiness.</p>
+
+<p>He had learnt too the technical details of his work—those rough methods
+by which men might be coerced, and the high-sounding phrases with which
+to gild the coercion. All that morning he had sat side by side with Dr.
+Layton in the chapter-house, inspecting the books, comparing the
+possessions of the monastery with the inventories of them, examining
+witnesses as to the credibility of the lists offered, and making
+searching enquiries as to whether any land or plate had been sold. After
+that, when a silver relic-case had been added to Dr. Layton’s
+collection, the Religious and servants and all else who cared to offer
+evidence on other matters, were questioned one by one and their answers
+entered in a book. Lastly, when the fees for the Visitation had been
+collected, arrangements had been made, which in the Visitors’ opinion,
+would be most serviceable to the carrying out of the injunctions; fresh
+officials were appointed to various posts, and the Abbot himself
+ordered to go up to London and present himself to Master Cromwell; but
+he was furnished with a letter commending his zeal and discretion, for
+the Visitors had found that he had done his duty to the buildings and
+lands; and stated that they had nothing to complain of except the
+poverty of the house.</p>
+
+<p>“And so much for Durford,” said Layton genially, as he closed the last
+book just before dinner-time, “though it had been better called
+Dirtyford.” And he chuckled at his humour.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner he had gone out with Ralph to see him mount; had thanked
+him for his assistance, and had reminded him that they would meet again
+at Lewes in the course of a month or so.</p>
+
+<p>“God speed you!” he cried as the party rode off.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ralph’s fury had died to a glow, but it was red within him; the reading
+last night had done its work well, driven home by the shrewd conviction
+of a man of the world, experienced in the ways of vice. It had not died
+with the dark. He could not say that he was attracted to Dr. Layton; the
+priest’s shocking familiarity with the more revolting forms of sin, as
+well as his under-breeding and brutality, made him a disagreeable
+character; but Ralph had very little doubt now that his judgment on the
+religious houses was a right one. Even the nunneries, it seemed, were
+not free from taint; there had been one or two terrible tales on the
+previous evening; and Ralph was determined to spare them nothing, and at
+any rate to remove his sister from their power. He remembered with
+satisfaction that she was below the age specified, and that he would
+have authority to dismiss her from the home.</p>
+
+<p>He knew very little of Margaret; and had scarcely seen her once in two
+years. He had been already out in the world before she had ceased to be
+a child, and from what little he had seen of her he had thought of her
+but as little more than a milk-and-water creature, very delicate and
+shy, always at her prayers, or trailing about after nuns with a pale
+radiant face. She had been sent to Rusper for her education, and he
+never saw her except now and then when they chanced to be at home
+together for a few days. She used to look at him, he remembered, with
+awe-stricken eyes and parted lips, hardly daring to speak when he was in
+the room, continually to be met with going from or to the tall quiet
+chapel.</p>
+
+<p>He had always supposed that she would be a nun, and had acquiesced in it
+in a cynical sort of way; but he was going to acquiesce no longer now.
+Of course she would sob, but equally of course she would not dare to
+resist.</p>
+
+<p>He called Morris up to him presently as they emerged from one of the
+bridle paths on to a kind of lane where two could ride abreast. The
+servant had seemed oddly silent that morning.</p>
+
+<p>“We are going to Rusper,” said Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mistress Margaret is there.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“She will come away with us. I may have to send you on to Overfield with
+her. You must find a horse for her somehow.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>There was silence between the two for a minute or two. Mr. Morris had
+answered with as much composure as if he had been told to brush a coat.
+Ralph began to wonder what he really felt.</p>
+
+<p>“What do you think of all this, Morris?” he asked in a moment or two.</p>
+
+<p>The servant was silent, till Ralph glanced at him impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>“It is not for me to have an opinion, sir,” said Mr. Morris.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph gave a very short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>“You haven’t heard what I have,” he said, “or you would soon have an
+opinion.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir,” said Morris as impassively as before.</p>
+
+<p>“I tell you—” and then Ralph broke off, and rode on silent and moody.
+Mr. Morris gradually let his horse fall back behind his master.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>They began to come towards Rusper as the evening drew in, by a bridle
+path that led from the west, and on arriving at the village found that
+they had overshot their mark, and ought to have turned sooner. The
+nunnery, a man told them, was a mile away to the south-west. Ralph made
+a few enquiries, and learnt that it was a smallish house, and that it
+was scarcely likely that room could be found for his party of four; so
+he left Morris to make enquiries for lodgings in the village, and
+himself rode on alone to the nunnery, past the church and the
+timberhouses.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bad road, and his tired horse had to pick his way very slowly,
+so that it was nearly dark before he came to his destination, and the
+pointed roofs rose before him against the faintly luminous western sky.
+There were lights in one or two windows as he came up that looked warm
+and homely in the chill darkness; and as he sat on his horse listening
+to the jangle of the bell within, just a breath of doubtfulness touched
+his heart for a moment as he thought of the peaceful home-life that lay
+packed within those walls, and of the errand on which he had come.</p>
+
+<p>But the memory of the tales he had heard, haunted him still; and he
+spoke in a harsh voice as the shutter slid back, and a little
+criss-crossed square of light appeared in the black doorway.</p>
+
+<p>“I am one of the King’s Visitors,” he said. “Let my Lady Abbess know I
+am here. I must speak with her.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a stifled sound behind the grating; and Ralph caught a glimpse
+of a pair of eyes looking at him. Then the square grew dark again. It
+was a minute or two before anything further happened, and Ralph as he
+sat cold and hungry on his horse, began to grow impatient. His hand was
+on the twisted iron handle to ring again fiercely, when there was a step
+within, and a light once more shone out.</p>
+
+<p>“Who is it?” said an old woman’s voice, with a note of anxiety in it.</p>
+
+<p>“I have sent word in,” said Ralph peevishly, “that I am one of the
+King’s Visitors. I should be obliged if I might not be kept here all
+night.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment’s silence; the horse sighed sonorously.</p>
+
+<p>“How am I to know, sir?” said the voice again.</p>
+
+<p>“Because I tell you so,” snapped Ralph. “And if more is wanted, my name
+is Torridon. You have a sister of mine in there.”</p>
+
+<p>There was an exclamation from within; and the sound of whispering; and
+then hasty footsteps went softly across the paved court inside.</p>
+
+<p>The voice spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>“I ask your pardon, sir; but have you any paper—or—”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph snatched out a document of identification, and leaned forward
+from his horse to pass it through the opening. He felt trembling fingers
+take it from him; and a moment later heard returning footsteps.</p>
+
+<p>There was a rustle of paper, and then a whisper within.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, my dear?”</p>
+
+<p>Something shifted in the bright square, and it grew gloomy as a face
+pressed up against the bars. Then again it shifted and the light shone
+out, and a flutter of whispers followed.</p>
+
+<p>“Really, madam—” began Ralph; but there was the jingle of keys, and the
+sound of panting, and almost immediately a bolt shot back, followed by
+the noise of a key turning. A chorus of whispers broke out and a scurry
+of footsteps, and then the door opened inwards and a little old woman
+stood there in a black habit, her face swathed in white above and below.
+The others had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>“I am very sorry, Mr. Torridon, to have kept you at the door; but we
+have to be very careful. Will you bring your horse in, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was a little abashed by the sudden development of the situation,
+and explained that he had only come to announce his arrival; he had
+supposed that there would not be room at the nunnery.</p>
+
+<p>“But we have a little guest-house here,” announced the old lady with a
+dignified air, “and room for your horse.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph hesitated; but he was tired and hungry.</p>
+
+<p>“Come in, Mr. Torridon. You had better dismount and lead your horse in.
+Sister Anne will see to it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, if you are sure—” began Ralph again, slipping a foot out of the
+stirrup.</p>
+
+<p>“I am sure,” said the Abbess; and stood aside for him and his beast to
+pass.</p>
+
+<p>There was a little court, lighted by a single lamp burning within a
+window, with the nunnery itself on one side, and a small cottage on the
+other. Beyond the latter rose the roofs of an outhouse.</p>
+
+<p>As Ralph came in, the door from the nunnery opened again, and a lay
+sister came out hastily; she moved straight across and took the horse by
+the bridle.</p>
+
+<p>“Give him a good meal, sister,” said the Abbess; and went past Ralph to
+the door of the guest-house.</p>
+
+<p>“Come in, Mr. Torridon; there will be lights immediately.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>In half an hour Ralph found himself at supper in the guest-parlour; a
+bright fire crackled on the hearth, a couple of candles burned on the
+table, and a pair of old darned green curtains hung across the low
+window.</p>
+
+<p>The Abbess came in when he had finished, dismissed the lay-sister who
+had waited on him, and sat down herself.</p>
+
+<p>“You shall see your sister to-morrow, Mr. Torridon,” she said, “it is a
+little late now. I have sent the boy up to the village for your servant;
+he can sleep in this room if you wish. I fear we have no room for more.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph watched her as she talked. She was very old, with hanging cheeks,
+and solemn little short-sighted eyes, for she peered at him now and
+again across the candles. Her upper lip was covered with a slight growth
+of dark hair. She seemed strangely harmless; and Ralph had another prick
+of compunction as he thought of the news he had to give her on the
+morrow. He wondered how much she knew.</p>
+
+<p>“We are so glad it is you, Mr. Torridon, that have come to visit us. We
+feared it might be Dr. Layton; we have heard sad stories of him.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph hardened his heart.</p>
+
+<p>“He has only done his duty, Reverend Mother,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! but you cannot have heard,” exclaimed the old lady. “He has robbed
+several of our houses we hear—even the altar itself. And he has turned
+away some of our nuns.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was silent; he thought he would at least leave the old lady in
+peace for this last night. She seemed to want no answer; but went on
+expatiating on the horrors that were happening round them, the wicked
+accusations brought against the Religious, and the Divine vengeance that
+would surely fall on those who were responsible.</p>
+
+<p>Finally she turned and questioned him, with a mingling of deference and
+dignity.</p>
+
+<p>“What do you wish from us, Mr. Torridon? You must tell me, that I may
+see that everything is in order.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was secretly amused by her air of innocent assurance.</p>
+
+<p>“That is my business, Reverend Mother. I must ask for all the books of
+the house, with the account of any sales you may have effected, properly
+recorded. I must have a list of the inmates of the house, with a
+statement of any corrodies attached; and the names and ages and dates of
+profession of all the Religious.”</p>
+
+<p>The Abbess blinked for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Mr. Torridon. You will allow me of course to see all your papers
+to-morrow; it is necessary for me to be certified that all your part is
+in order.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph smiled a little grimly.</p>
+
+<p>“You shall see all that,” he said. “And then there is more that I must
+ask; but that will do for a beginning. When I have shown you my papers
+you will see what it is that I want.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a peal at the bell outside; the Abbess turned her head and
+waited till there was a noise of bolts and unlocking.</p>
+
+<p>“That will be your man, sir. Will you have him in now, Mr. Torridon?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph assented.</p>
+
+<p>“And then he must look at the horses to see that all is as you wish.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morris came in a moment later, and bowed with great deference to the
+little old lady, who enquired his name.</p>
+
+<p>“When you have finished with your man, Mr. Torridon, perhaps you will
+allow him to ring for me at the door opposite. I will go with him to see
+the horses.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morris had brought with him the mass of his master’s papers, and
+when he had set these out and prepared the bedroom that opened out of
+the guest-parlour, he asked leave to go across and fetch the Abbess.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph busied himself for half-an-hour or so in running over the Articles
+and Injunctions once more, and satisfying himself that he was perfect in
+his business; and he was just beginning to wonder why his servant had
+not reappeared when the door opened once more, and Mr. Morris slipped
+in.</p>
+
+<p>“My horse is a little lame, sir,” he said. “I have been putting on a
+poultice.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph glanced up.</p>
+
+<p>“He will be fit to travel, I suppose?”</p>
+
+<p>“In a day or two, Mr. Ralph.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well; that will do. We shall be here till Monday at least.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ralph could not sleep very well that night. The thought of his business
+troubled him a little. It would have been easier if the Abbess had been
+either more submissive or more defiant; but her air of mingled courtesy
+and dignity affected him. Her innocence too had something touching in
+it, and her apparent ignorance of what his visit meant. He had supped
+excellently at her expense, waited on by a cheerful sister, and well
+served from the kitchen and cellar; and the Reverend Mother herself had
+come in and talked sensibly and bravely. He pictured to himself what
+life must be like through the nunnery wall opposite—how brisk and
+punctual it must be, and at the same time homely and caressing.</p>
+
+<p>And it was his hand that was to pull down the first prop. There would no
+doubt be three or four nuns below age who must be dismissed, and
+probably there would be a few treasures to be carried off, a
+processional crucifix perhaps, such as he had seen in Dr. Layton’s
+collection, and a rich chalice or two, used on great days. His own
+sister too must be one of those who must go. How would the little old
+Abbess behave herself then? What would she say? Yet he comforted
+himself, as he lay there in the clean, low-ceilinged room, staring at
+the tiny crockery stoup gleaming against the door-post, by recollecting
+the principle on which he had come. Possibly a few innocents would have
+to suffer, a few old hearts be broken; but it was for a man to take such
+things in his day’s work.</p>
+
+<p>And then as he remembered Dr. Layton’s tales, his heart grew hot and
+hard again.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_2IV">CHAPTER IV<br><span class="small">AN UNEXPECTED MEETING</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>The enquiry was to be made in the guest-parlour on the next morning.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ralph went to mass first at nine o’clock, which was said by a priest
+from the parish church who acted as chaplain to the convent; and had a
+chair set for him outside the nuns’ choir from which he could see the
+altar and the tall pointed window; and then, after some refreshment in
+the guest-parlour, spread out his papers, and sat enthroned behind a
+couple of tables, as at a tribunal. Mr. Morris stood deferentially by
+his chair as the examination was conducted.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was a little taken aback by the bearing of the Abbess. In the
+course of the enquiry, when he was perplexed by one or two of the
+records, she rose from her chair before the table, and came round to his
+side, drawing up a seat as she did so; Ralph could hardly tell her to go
+back, but his magisterial air was a little affected by having one whom
+he almost considered as a culprit sitting judicially beside him.</p>
+
+<p>“It is better for me to be here,” she said. “I can explain more easily
+so.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>There was a little orchard that the nuns had sold in the previous year;
+and Ralph asked for an explanation.</p>
+
+<p>“It came from the Kingsford family,” she said serenely; “it was useless
+to us.”</p>
+
+<p>“But—” began the inquisitor.</p>
+
+<p>“We needed some new vestments,” she went on. “You will understand, Mr.
+Torridon, that it was necessary for us to sell it. We are not rich
+at all.”</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing else that called for comment; except the manner in
+which the books were kept. Ralph suggested some other method.</p>
+
+<p>“Dame Agnes has her own ways,” said the old lady. “We must not disturb
+her.”</p>
+
+<p>And Dame Agnes assumed a profound and financial air on the other side of
+the table.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Ralph put a mark in the inventory against a “cope of gold
+bawdekin,” and requested that it might be brought.</p>
+
+<p>The sister-sacristan rose at a word from the Abbess and went out,
+returning presently with the vestment. She unfolded the coverings and
+spread it out on the table before Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>It was a magnificent piece of work, of shimmering gold, with orphreys
+embroidered with arms; and she stroked out its folds with obvious pride.</p>
+
+<p>“These are Warham’s arms,” observed the Abbess. “You know them, Mr.
+Torridon? We worked these the month before his death.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph nodded briskly.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you kindly leave it here, Reverend Mother,” he said. “I wish to
+see it again presently.”</p>
+
+<p>The Abbess gave no hint of discomposure, but signed to the sacristan to
+place it over a chair at one side.</p>
+
+<p>There were a couple of other things that Ralph presently caused to be
+fetched and laid aside—a precious mitre with a couple of cameos in
+front, and bordered with emeralds, and a censer with silver filigree
+work.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a more difficult business.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish to see the nuns one by one, Reverend Mother,” he said. “I must
+ask you to withdraw.”</p>
+
+<p>The Abbess gave him a quick look, and then rose.</p>
+
+<p>“Very well, sir, I will send them in.” And she went out with Mr. Morris
+behind her.</p>
+
+<p>They came in one by one, and sat down before the table, with downcast
+eyes, and hands hidden beneath their scapulars; and all told the same
+tale, except one. They had nothing to complain of; they were happy; the
+Rule was carefully observed; there were no scandals to be revealed; they
+asked nothing but to be left in peace. But there was one who came in
+nervously and anxiously towards the end, a woman with quick black eyes,
+who glanced up and down and at the door as she sat down. Ralph put the
+usual questions.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish to be released, sir,” she said. “I am weary of the life, and
+the—” she stopped and glanced swiftly up again at the commissioner.</p>
+
+<p>“Well?” said Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“The papistical ways,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph felt a sudden distrust of the woman; but he hardened his heart. He
+set a mark opposite her name; she had been professed ten years, he saw
+by the list.</p>
+
+<p>“Very well,” he said; “I will tell my Lady Abbess.” She still hesitated
+a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“There will be a provision for me?” she asked</p>
+
+<p>“There will be a provision,” said Ralph a little grimly. He was
+authorised to offer in such cases a secular dress and a sum of five
+shillings.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly came in Margaret herself.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph hardly knew her. He had been unable to distinguish her at mass,
+and even now as she faced him in her black habit and white head-dress it
+was hard to be certain of her identity. But memory and sight were
+gradually reconciled; he remembered her delicate eyebrows and thin
+straight lips; and when she spoke he knew her voice.</p>
+
+<p>They talked a minute or two about their home; but Ralph did not dare to
+say too much, considering what he had yet to say.</p>
+
+<p>“I must ask you the questions,” he said at last, smiling at her.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up at him nervously, and dropped her eyes once more.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded or shook her head in silence at each enquiry, until at last
+one bearing upon the morals of the house came up; then she looked
+swiftly up once more, and Ralph saw that her grey eyes were terrified.</p>
+
+<p>“You must tell me,” he said; and put the question again.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not know what you mean,” she answered, staring at him bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph went on immediately to the next.</p>
+
+<p>At last he reached the crisis.</p>
+
+<p>“Margaret,” he said, “I have something to tell you.” He stopped and
+began to play with his pen. He had seldom felt so embarrassed as now in
+the presence of this shy sister of his of whom he knew so little. He
+could not look at her.</p>
+
+<p>“Margaret, you know, you—you are under age. The King’s Grace has
+ordered that all under twenty years of age are to leave their convents.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a dead silence.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was enraged with his own weakness. He had begun the morning’s work
+with such determination; but the strange sweet atmosphere of the house,
+the file of women coming in one by one with their air of innocence and
+defencelessness had affected him. In spite of himself his religious side
+had asserted itself, and he found himself almost tremulous now.</p>
+
+<p>He made a great effort at self-repression, and looked up with hard
+bright eyes at his sister.</p>
+
+<p>“There must be no crying or rebellion,” he said. “You must come with me
+to-morrow. I shall send you to Overfield.”</p>
+
+<p>Still Margaret said nothing. She was staring at him now, white-faced
+with parted lips.</p>
+
+<p>“You are the last?” he said with a touch of harshness, standing up with
+his hands on the table. “Tell the Reverend Mother I have done.”</p>
+
+<p>Then she rose too.</p>
+
+<p>“Ralph,” she cried, “my brother! For Jesu’s sake—”</p>
+
+<p>“Tell the Reverend Mother,” he said again, his eyes hard with decision.</p>
+
+<p>She turned and went out without a word.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ralph found the interview with the Abbess even more difficult than he
+had expected.</p>
+
+<p>Once her face twitched with tears; but she drove them back bravely and
+faced him again.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Torridon, that you intend to take your
+sister away?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph bowed.</p>
+
+<p>“And that Dame Martha has asked to be released?”</p>
+
+<p>Again he bowed.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you not afraid, sir, to do such work?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph smiled bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>“I am not, Reverend Mother,” he said. “I know too much.”</p>
+
+<p>“From whom?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! not from your nuns,” he said sharply, “they of course know nothing,
+or at least will tell me nothing. It was from Dr. Layton.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what did Dr. Layton tell you?”</p>
+
+<p>“I can hardly tell you that, Reverend Mother; it is not fit for your
+ears.”</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him steadily.</p>
+
+<p>“And you believe it?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph smiled.</p>
+
+<p>“That makes no difference,” he said. “I am acting by his Grace’s
+orders.”</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Then may our Lord have mercy on you!” she said.</p>
+
+<p>She turned to where the gold cope gleamed over the chair, with the mitre
+and censer lying on its folds.</p>
+
+<p>“And those too?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Those too,” said Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>She turned towards the door without a word.</p>
+
+<p>“There are the fees as well,” remarked Ralph. “We can arrange those this
+evening, Reverend Mother.”</p>
+
+<p>The little stiff figure turned and waited at the door. “And at what time
+will you dine, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>“Immediately,” said Ralph.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He was served at dinner with the same courtesy as before; but the lay
+sister’s eyes were red, and her hands shook as she shifted the plates.
+Neither spoke a word till towards the end of the meal.</p>
+
+<p>“Where is my man?” asked Ralph, who had not seen him since he had gone
+out with the Abbess a couple of hours before.</p>
+
+<p>The sister shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>“Where is the Reverend Mother?”</p>
+
+<p>Again she shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph enquired the hour of Vespers, and when he had learnt it, took his
+cap and went out to look for Mr. Morris. He went first to the little
+dark outhouse, and peered in over the bottom half of the door, but there
+was no sign of him there. He could see a horse standing in a stall
+opposite, and tried to make out the second horse that he knew was there;
+but it was too dark, and he turned away.</p>
+
+<p>It was a warm October afternoon as he went out through the gatehouse,
+still and bright, with the mellow smell of dying leaves in the air; the
+fields stretched away beyond the road into the blue distance as he went
+along, and were backed by the thinning woods, still ruddy with the last
+flames of autumn. Overhead the blue sky, washed with recent rains,
+arched itself in a great transparent vault, and a stream of birds
+crossed it from east to west.</p>
+
+<p>He went round the corner of the convent buildings and turned up into a
+meadow beside a thick privet hedge that divided it from the garden, and
+as he moved along he heard a low humming noise sounding from the other
+side.</p>
+
+<p>There was a door in the hedge at the point, and at either side the
+growth was a little thin, and he could look through without being
+himself seen.</p>
+
+<p>The grass was trim and smooth inside; there was a mass of autumn
+flowers, grown no doubt for the altar, running in a broad bed across the
+nearer side of the garden, and beyond it rose a grey dial, round which
+sat a circle of nuns.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph pressed his face to the hedge and watched.</p>
+
+<p>There they were, each with her wheel before her, spinning in silence.
+The Abbess sat in the centre, immediately below the dial, with a book in
+her hand, and was turning the pages.</p>
+
+<p>He could see a nun’s face steadily bent on her wheel—that was Dame
+Agnes who had fetched the cope for him in the morning. She seemed
+perfectly quiet and unaffected, watching her thread, and putting out a
+deft hand now and again to the machinery. Beside her sat another, whose
+face he remembered well; she had stammered a little as she gave her
+answers in the morning, and even as he looked the face twitched
+suddenly, and broke into tears. He saw the Abbess turn from her book and
+lay her hand, with a kind of tender decision on the nun’s arm, and saw
+her lips move, but the hum and rattle of the spinning-wheels was too
+loud to let him hear what she said; he saw now the other nun lift her
+face again from her hands, and wink away her tears as she laid hold of
+the thread once more.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ralph had a strange struggle with himself that afternoon as he walked on
+in the pleasant autumn weather through meadow and copse. The sight of
+the patient women had touched him profoundly. Surely it was almost too
+much to ask him to turn away his own sister from the place she loved! If
+he relented, it was certain that no other Visitor would come that way
+for the present; she might at least have another year or two of peace.
+Was it too late?</p>
+
+<p>He reminded himself again how such things were bound to happen; how
+every change, however beneficial, must bring sorrow with it, and that to
+turn back on such work because a few women suffered was not worthy of a
+man. It was long before he could come to any decision, and the evening
+was drawing on, and the time for Vespers come and gone before he turned
+at last into the village to enquire for his servant.</p>
+
+<p>The other men had seen nothing of Mr. Morris that day; he had not been
+back to the village.</p>
+
+<p>A group or two stared awefully at the fine gentleman with the strong
+face and steady intolerant eyes, as he strode down the tiny street in
+his rich dress, swinging his long silver-headed cane. They had learnt
+who he was now, but were so overcome by seeing the King’s Commissioner
+that they forgot to salute him. As he turned the corner again he looked
+round once more, and there they were still watching him. A few women had
+come to the doors as well, and dropped their arched hands hastily and
+disappeared as he turned.</p>
+
+<p>The convent seemed all as he had left it earlier in the afternoon, as he
+came in sight of it again. The high chapel roof rose clear against the
+reddening sky, with the bell framed in its turret distinct as if carved
+out of cardboard against the splendour.</p>
+
+<p>He was admitted instantly when he rang on the bell, but the portress
+seemed to look at him with a strange air of expectancy, and stood
+looking after him as he went across the paved court to the door of the
+guest-house.</p>
+
+<p>There was a murmur of voices in the parlour as he paused in the entry,
+and he wondered who was within, but as his foot rang out the sound
+ceased.</p>
+
+<p>He opened the door and went in; and then stopped bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>In the dim light that passed through the window stood his father and
+Mary Maxwell, his sister.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_2V">CHAPTER V<br><span class="small">FATHER AND SON</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>None of the three spoke for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>Then Mary drew her breath sharply as she saw Ralph’s face, for it had
+hardened during that moment into a kind of blind obstinacy which she had
+only seen once or twice in her life before.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood there he seemed to stiffen into resistance. His eyelids
+drooped, and little lines showed themselves suddenly at either side of
+his thin mouth. His father saw it too, for the hand that he had lifted
+entreatingly sank again, and his voice was tremulous as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“Ralph—Ralph, my son!” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Still the man said nothing; but stood frozen, his face half-turned to
+the windows.</p>
+
+<p>“Ralph, my son,” said the other again, “you know why we have come.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have come to hinder my business.”</p>
+
+<p>His voice was thin and metallic, as rigid as steel.</p>
+
+<p>“We have come to hinder a great sin against God,” said Sir James.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph opened his eyes wide with a sort of fury, and thrust his chin out.</p>
+
+<p>“She should pack a thousand times more now than before,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The father’s face too deepened into strength now, and he drew himself
+up.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you know what you are doing?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“I do, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>There was an extraordinary insolence in his voice, and Mary took a step
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! Ralph,” she said, “at least do it like a gentleman!”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph turned on her sharply, and the obstinacy vanished in anger.</p>
+
+<p>“I will not be pushed like this,” he snarled. “What right is it of yours
+to come between me and my work?”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James made a quick imperious gesture, and his air of entreaty fell
+from him like a cloak.</p>
+
+<p>“Sit down, sir,” he said, and his voice rang strongly. “We have a right
+in Margaret’s affairs. We will say what we wish.”</p>
+
+<p>Mary glanced at him: she had never seen her father like this before as
+he stood in three quarter profile, rigid with decision. When she looked
+at Ralph again, his face had tightened once more into obstinacy. He
+answered Sir James with a kind of silky deference.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, I will sit down, sir, and you shall say what you will.”</p>
+
+<p>He went across the room and drew out a couple of chairs before the cold
+hearth where the white ashes and logs of last night’s fire still rested.
+Sir James sat down with his back to the window so that Mary could not
+see his face, and Ralph stood by the other chair a moment, facing her.</p>
+
+<p>“Sit down, Mary,” he said. “Wait, I will have candles.”</p>
+
+<p>He stepped back to the door and called to the portress, and then
+returned, and seated himself deliberately, setting his cane in the
+corner beside him.</p>
+
+<p>None of the three spoke again until the nun had come in with a couple of
+candles that she set in the stands and lighted; then she went out
+without glancing at anyone. Mary was sitting in the window seat, so the
+curtains remained undrawn, and there was a mystical compound of twilight
+and candle-light in the room.</p>
+
+<p>She had a flash of metaphor, and saw in it the meeting of the old and
+new religions; the type of these two men, of whom the light of one was
+fading, and the other waxing. The candlelight fell full on Ralph’s face
+that stood out against the whitewashed wall behind.</p>
+
+<p>Then she listened and watched with an intent interest.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>“It is this,” said Sir James, “we heard you were here—”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph smiled with one side of his mouth, so that his father could see
+it.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not wish to do anything I should not,” went on the old man, “or to
+meddle in his Grace’s matters—”</p>
+
+<p>“And you wish me not to meddle either, sir,” put in Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said his father. “I am very willing to receive you and your wife
+at home; to make any suitable provision; to give you half the house if
+you wish for it; if you will only give up this accursed work.”</p>
+
+<p>He was speaking with a tranquil deliberation; all the emotion and
+passion seemed to have left his voice; but Mary, from behind, could see
+his right hand clenched like a vice upon the knob of his chair-arm. It
+seemed to her as if the two men had suddenly frozen into
+self-repression. Their air was one of two acquaintances talking, not of
+father and son.</p>
+
+<p>“And if not, sir?” asked Ralph with the same courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>“Wait,” said his father, and he lifted his hand a moment and dropped it
+again. He was speaking in short, sharp sentences. “I know that you have
+great things before you, and that I am asking much from you. I do not
+wish you to think that I am ignorant of that. If nothing else will do I
+am willing to give up the house altogether to you and your wife. I do
+not know about your mother.”</p>
+
+<p>Mary drew her breath hard. The words were like an explosion in her soul,
+and opened up unsuspected gulfs. Things must be desperate if her father
+could speak like that. He had not hinted a word of this during that
+silent strenuous ride they had had together when he had called for her
+suddenly at Great Keynes earlier in the afternoon. She saw Ralph give a
+quick stare at his father, and drop his eyes again.</p>
+
+<p>“You are very generous, sir,” he said almost immediately, “but I do not
+ask for a bribe.”</p>
+
+<p>“You—you are unlike your master in that, then,” said Sir James by an
+irresistible impulse.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph’s face stiffened yet more.</p>
+
+<p>“Then that is all, sir?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“I beg your pardon for saying that,” added his father courteously. “It
+should not have been said. It is not a bribe, however; it is an offer to
+compensate for any loss you may incur.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you finished, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>“That is all I have to say on that point,” said Sir James, “except—”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>“Except that I do not know how Mistress Atherton will take this story.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph’s face grew a shade paler yet. But his lips snapped together,
+though his eyes flinched.</p>
+
+<p>“That is a threat, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is as you please.”</p>
+
+<p>A little pulse beat sharply in Ralph’s cheek. He was looking with a
+kind of steady fury at his father. But Mary thought she saw indecision
+too in his eye-lids, which were quivering almost imperceptibly.</p>
+
+<p>“You have offered me a bribe and a threat, sir. Two insults. Have you a
+third ready?”</p>
+
+<p>Mary heard a swift-drawn breath from her father, but he spoke quietly.</p>
+
+<p>“I have no more to say on that point,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“Then I must refuse,” said Ralph instantly. “I see no reason to give up
+my work. I have very hearty sympathy with it.”</p>
+
+<p>The old man’s hand twitched uncontrollably on his chair-arm for a
+moment; he half lifted his hand, but he dropped it again.</p>
+
+<p>“Then as to Margaret,” he went on in a moment. “I understand you had
+intended to dismiss her from the convent?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph bowed.</p>
+
+<p>“And where do you suggest that she should go?”</p>
+
+<p>“She must go home,” said Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“To Overfield?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph assented.</p>
+
+<p>“Then I will not receive her,” said Sir James.</p>
+
+<p>Mary started up.</p>
+
+<p>“Nor will Mary receive her,” he added, half turning towards her.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Maxwell sat back at once. She thought she understood what he meant
+now.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph stared at his father a moment before he too understood. Then he
+saw the point, and riposted deftly. He shrugged his shoulders
+ostentatiously as if to shake off responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, then, that is not my business; I shall give her a gown and five
+shillings to-morrow, with the other one.”</p>
+
+<p>The extraordinary brutality of the words struck Mary like a whip, but
+Sir James met it.</p>
+
+<p>“That is for you to settle then,” he said. “Only you need not send her
+to Overfield or Great Keynes, for she will be sent back here at once.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph smiled with an air of tolerant incredulity. Sir James rose
+briskly.</p>
+
+<p>“Come, Mary,” he said, and turned his back abruptly on Ralph, “we must
+find lodgings for to-night. The good nuns will not have room.”</p>
+
+<p>As Mary looked at his face in the candlelight she was astonished by its
+decision; there was not the smallest hint of yielding. It was very pale
+but absolutely determined, and for the last time in her life she noticed
+how like it was to Ralph’s. The line of the lips was identical, and his
+eyelids drooped now like his son’s.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph too rose and then on a sudden she saw the resolute obstinacy fade
+from his eyes and mouth. It was as if the spirit of one man had passed
+into the other.</p>
+
+<p>“Father—” he said.</p>
+
+<p>She expected a rush of emotion into the old man’s face, but there was
+not a ripple. He paused a moment, but Ralph was silent.</p>
+
+<p>“I have no more to say to you, sir. And I beg that you will not come
+home again.”</p>
+
+<p>As they passed out into the entrance passage she turned again and saw
+Ralph dazed and trembling at the table. Then they were out in the road
+through the open gate and a long moan broke from her father.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! God forgive me,” he said, “have I failed?”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_2VI">CHAPTER VI<br><span class="small">A NUN’S DEFIANCE</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>It was a very strange evening that Mary and her father passed in the
+little upstairs room looking on to the street at Rusper.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James had hardly spoken, and after supper had sat near the window,
+with a curious alertness in his face. Mary knew that Chris was expected,
+and that Mr. Morris had ridden on to fetch him after he had called at
+Overfield, but from her short interview with Margaret she had seen that
+his presence would not be required. The young nun, though bewildered and
+stunned by the news that she must go, had not wavered for a moment as
+regards her intention to follow out her Religious vocation in some
+manner; and it was to confirm her in it, in case she hesitated, that Sir
+James had sent on the servant to fetch Chris.</p>
+
+<p>It was all like a dreadful dream to Mary.</p>
+
+<p>She had gone out from dinner at her own house into the pleasant October
+sunshine with her cheerful husband beside her, when her father had come
+out through the house with his riding-whip in his hand; and in a few
+seconds she had found herself plunged into new and passionate relations,
+first with him, for she had never seen him so stirred, and then with her
+brothers and sister. Ralph, that dignified man of affairs, suddenly
+stepped into her mind as a formidable enemy of God and man; Chris
+appeared as a spiritual power, and the quiet Margaret as the very centre
+of the sudden storm.</p>
+
+<p>She sat here now by the fire, shading her face with her hand and
+watching that familiar face set in hard and undreamed lines of passion
+and resolution and expectancy.</p>
+
+<p>Once as footsteps came up the street he had started up and sat down
+trembling.</p>
+
+<p>She waited till the steps went past, and then spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“Chris will be riding, father.”</p>
+
+<p>He nodded abruptly, and she saw by his manner that it was not Chris he
+was expecting. She understood then that he still had hopes of his other
+son, but they sat on into the night in the deep stillness, till the fire
+burned low and red, and the stars she had seen at the horizon wheeled up
+and out of sight above the window-frame.</p>
+
+<p>Then he suddenly turned to her.</p>
+
+<p>“You must go to bed, Mary,” he said. “I will wait for Chris.”</p>
+
+<p>She lay long awake in the tiny cupboard-room that the labourer and his
+wife had given up to her, hearing the horses stamp in the cold shed at
+the back of the house, and the faces moved and turned like the colours
+of a kaleidoscope. Now her father’s eyes and mouth hung like a mask
+before her, with that terrible look that had been on them as he faced
+Ralph at the end; now Ralph’s own face, defiant, icy, melting in turns;
+now Margaret’s with wide terrified eyes, as she had seen it in the
+parlour that afternoon; now her own husband’s. And the sweet autumn
+woods and meadows lay before her as she had seen them during that silent
+ride; the convent, the village, her own home with its square windows and
+yew hedge—a hundred images.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>There was a talking when she awoke for the last time and through the
+crazy door glimmered a crack of grey dawn, and as she listened she knew
+that Chris was come.</p>
+
+<p>It was a strange meeting when she came out a few minutes later. There
+was the monk, unshaven and pale under the eyes, with his thinned face
+that gave no smile as she came in; her father desperately white and
+resolved; Mr. Morris, spruce and grave as usual sitting with his hat
+between his knees behind the others;—he rose deferentially as she came
+in and remained standing.</p>
+
+<p>Her father began abruptly as she appeared.</p>
+
+<p>“He can do nothing,” he said, “he can but turn her on to the road. And I
+do not think he will dare.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! Beatrice Atherton?” questioned Mary, who had a clearer view of the
+situation now.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—Beatrice Atherton. He fears that we shall tell her. He cannot send
+Margaret to Overfield or Great Keynes now.”</p>
+
+<p>“And if he turns her out after all?”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James looked at her keenly.</p>
+
+<p>“We must leave the rest to God,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The village was well awake by the time that they had finished their talk
+and had had something to eat. The drama at the convent had leaked out
+through the boy who served the altar there, and a little group was
+assembled opposite the windows of the cottage to which the monk had been
+seen to ride up an hour or two before. It seemed strange that no priest
+had been near them, but it was fairly evident that the terror was too
+great.</p>
+
+<p>As the four came out on to the road, a clerical cap peeped for a moment
+from the churchyard wall and disappeared again.</p>
+
+<p>They went down towards the convent along the grey road, in the pale
+autumn morning air. Mary still seemed to herself to walk in a dream,
+with her father and brother on either side masquerading in strange
+character; the familiar atmosphere had been swept from them, the
+background of association was gone, and they moved now in a new scene
+with new parts to play that were bringing out powers which she had never
+suspected in them. It seemed as if their essential souls had been laid
+bare by a catastrophe, and that she had never known them before.</p>
+
+<p>For herself, she felt helpless and dazed; her own independence seemed
+gone, and she was aware that her soul was leaning on those of the two
+who walked beside her, and who were masculine and capable beyond all her
+previous knowledge of them.</p>
+
+<p>Behind she heard a murmur of voices and footsteps of three or four
+villagers who followed to see what would happen.</p>
+
+<p>She had no idea of what her father meant to do; it was incredible that
+he should leave Margaret in the road with her gown and five shillings;
+but it was yet more incredible that all his threats should be idle. Only
+one thing emerged clearly, that he had thrown a heavier responsibility
+upon Ralph than the latter had foreseen. Perhaps the rest must indeed be
+left to God. She did not even know what he meant to do now, whether to
+make one last effort with Ralph, or to leave him to himself; and she had
+not dared to ask.</p>
+
+<p>They passed straight down together in silence to the convent-gate; and
+were admitted immediately by the portress whose face was convulsed and
+swollen.</p>
+
+<p>“They are to go,” she sobbed.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James made a gesture, and passed in to the tiny lodge on the left
+where the portress usually sat; Chris and Mary followed him in, and Mr.
+Morris went across to the guest-house.</p>
+
+<p>The bell sounded out overhead for mass as they sat there in the dim
+morning light, twenty or thirty strokes, and ceased; but there was no
+movement from the little door of the guest-house across the court. The
+portress had disappeared through the second door that led from the tiny
+room in which they sat, into the precincts of the convent itself.</p>
+
+<p>Mary looked distractedly round her; at the little hatch that gave on to
+the entrance gate, and the chain hanging by it that communicated with
+one of the bolts, at the little crucifix that hung beside it, the
+devotional book that lay on the shelf, the door into the convent with
+the title “<i>Clausura</i>” inscribed above it. She glanced at her father and
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James was sitting with his grey head in his hands, motionless and
+soundless; Chris was standing upright and rigid, staring steadily out
+through the window into the court.</p>
+
+<p>Then through the window she too saw Mr. Morris come out from the
+guest-house and pass along to the stable.</p>
+
+<p>Again there was silence.</p>
+
+<p>The minutes went by, and the Saunce bell sounded three strokes from the
+turret. Chris sank on to his knees, and a moment later Mary and her
+father followed his example, and so the three remained in the dark
+silent lodge, with no sound but their breathing, and once a sharp
+whispered word of prayer from the old man.</p>
+
+<p>As the sacring bell sounded there was a sudden noise in the court, and
+Mary lifted her head.</p>
+
+<p>From where she knelt she could see the two doors across the court, those
+of the guest-house and the stable beyond, and simultaneously, out of the
+one came Ralph, gloved and booted, with his cap on his head, and Mr.
+Morris leading his horse out of the other.</p>
+
+<p>The servant lifted his cap at the sound of the bell, and dropped on to
+his knees, still holding the bridle; his master stood as he was, and
+looked at him. Mary could only see the latter’s profile, but even that
+was scornful and hard.</p>
+
+<p>Again the bell sounded; the mystery was done; and the servant stood up.</p>
+
+<p>As her father and Chris rose, Mary rose with them; and the three
+remained in complete silence, watching the little scene in the court.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph made a sign; and the servant attached the bridle of the horse to a
+ring beside the stable-door, and went past his master into the
+guest-house with a deferential stoop of the shoulders. Ralph stood a
+moment longer, and then followed him in.</p>
+
+<p>Then again the minutes went by.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sound of horse-hoofs on the road presently, and of talking
+that grew louder. The hoofs ceased; there was a sharp peal on the bell;
+and the talking began again.</p>
+
+<p>Chris glanced across at his father; but the old man shook his head; and
+the three remained as they were, watching and listening. As the bell
+rang out again impatiently, the door behind opened, and the portress
+came swiftly through, followed by the Abbess.</p>
+
+<p>“Come quickly,” the old lady whispered. “Sister Susan is going to let
+them in.”</p>
+
+<p>She stood aside, and made a motion to them to come through, and a moment
+late the four were in the convent, and the door was shut behind them.</p>
+
+<p>“They are Mr. Torridon’s men,” whispered the Abbess, her eyes round with
+excitement; “they are come to pack the things.”</p>
+
+<p>She led them on through the narrow passage, up a stone flight of stairs
+to the corridor that ran over the little cloister, and pushed open the
+door of a cell.</p>
+
+<p>“Wait here,” she said. “You can do no more. I will go down to them. You
+are in the enclosure, but I cannot help it.”</p>
+
+<p>And she had whisked out again, with an air of extraordinary composure,
+shutting the door behind her.</p>
+
+<p>The three went across to the window, still speaking no word, and looked
+down.</p>
+
+<p>The tiny court seemed half full of people now. There were three horses
+there, besides Ralph’s own marked by its rich saddle, and still attached
+to the ring by the stable door, and a couple of men were busy loading
+one of them with bundles. From one of these, which was badly packed, a
+shimmering corner of gold cloth projected.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was standing by the door of the guest-house watching, and making a
+sign now and again with his whip. They could not see his face as he
+stood so directly below them, only his rich cap and feather, and his
+strong figure beneath. Mr. Morris was waiting now by his master’s horse;
+the portress was by her door.</p>
+
+<p>As they looked the little black and white figure of the Abbess came out
+beneath them, and stood by the portress.</p>
+
+<p>The packing went on in silence. It was terrible to Mary to stand there
+and watch the dumb-show tragedy, the wrecking and robbing of this
+peaceful house; and yet there was nothing to be done. She knew that the
+issues were in stronger hands than hers; she glanced piteously at her
+father and brother on either side, but their faces were set and white,
+and they did not turn at her movement.</p>
+
+<p>There was the sound of an opening door, and two women came out from the
+convent at one side and stood waiting. One was in secular dress; the
+other was still in her habit, but carried a long dark mantle across her
+arm, and Mary caught her breath and bit her lip fiercely as she
+recognised the second to be her sister.</p>
+
+<p>She felt she must cry out, and denounce the sacrilege, and made an
+instinctive movement nearer the window, but in a moment her father’s
+hand was on her arm.</p>
+
+<p>“Be still, Mary: it is all well.”</p>
+
+<p>One of the horses was being led away by now through the open door; and
+the two others followed almost immediately; but the principal actors
+were still in their places; the Abbess and the portress together on this
+side; Ralph on that; and the two other women, a little apart from one
+another, at the further end of the court.</p>
+
+<p>Then Ralph beckoned abruptly with his whip, and Mary saw her sister move
+out towards the gate; she caught a glance of her face, and saw that her
+lips were white and trembling, and her eyes full of agony. The other
+woman followed briskly, and the two disappeared through to the road
+outside.</p>
+
+<p>Again Ralph beckoned, and Mr. Morris brought up the horse that he had
+now detached from the ring, and stood by its head, holding the
+off-stirrup for his master to mount. Ralph gathered the reins into his
+left hand, and for a moment they saw his face across the back of the
+horse fierce and white; then he was up, and settling his right foot into
+the stirrup.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morris let go, and stood back; and simultaneously Ralph struck him
+with his riding-whip across the face, a furious back-handed slash.</p>
+
+<p>Mary cried out uncontrollably and shrank back; and a moment later her
+father was leaning from the window, and she beside him.</p>
+
+<p>“You damned coward!” he shouted. “Morris, you are my servant now.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph did not turn his head an inch, and a moment later disappeared on
+horse-back through the gate, and the portress had closed it behind him.</p>
+
+<p>The little court was silent now, and empty except for the Abbess’
+motionless figure behind, with Mr. Morris beside her, and the lay sister
+by the gate, her hand still on the key that she had turned, and her eyes
+intent and expectant fixed on her superior. Mr. Morris lifted a
+handkerchief now and again gently to his face, and Mary as she leaned
+half sobbing from above saw that there were spots of crimson on the
+white.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! Morris!” she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>The servant looked up, with a great weal across one cheek, and bowed a
+little, but he could not speak yet. Outside they could hear the jingle
+of bridle-chains; and then a voice begin; but they could not distinguish
+the words.</p>
+
+<p>It was Ralph speaking; but they could only guess what it was that he was
+saying. Overhead the autumn sky was a vault of pale blue; and a bird or
+two chirped briskly from the roof opposite.</p>
+
+<p>The voice outside grew louder, and ceased, and the noise of horse hoofs
+broke out.</p>
+
+<p>Still there was no movement from any within. The Abbess was standing now
+with one hand uplifted as if for silence, and Mary heard the hoofs sound
+fainter up the road; they grew louder again as they reached higher
+ground; and then ceased altogether.</p>
+
+<p>The old man touched Mary on the arm, and the three went out along the
+little corridor, and down the stone stairs.</p>
+
+<p>As they passed through the lodge and came into the court Mary saw that
+the Abbess had moved from her place, and was standing with the portress
+close by the gate; her face was towards them, a little on one side, and
+she seemed to be listening intently, her ear against the door, her lower
+lip sucked in, and her eyes bright and vacant; she still held one hand
+up for silence.</p>
+
+<p>Then there came a tiny tapping on the wood-work, and she instantly
+turned and snatched at the key, and a moment later the door was wide.</p>
+
+<p>“Come in, my poor child,” she said.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_2VII">CHAPTER VII<br><span class="small">ST PANCRAS PRIORY</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>It was a little more than a month later that Ralph met his
+fellow-Visitor at Lewes Priory.</p>
+
+<p>He had left Rusper in a storm of angry obstinacy, compelled by sheer
+pride to do what he had not intended. The arrival of his father and Mary
+there had had exactly the opposite effect to that which they hoped, and
+Ralph had turned Margaret out of the convent simply because he could not
+bear that they should think that he could be frightened from his
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p>As he had ridden off on that October morning, leaving Margaret standing
+outside with her cloak over her arm he had had a very sharp suspicion
+that she would be received back again; but he had not felt himself
+strong enough to take any further steps; so he contented himself with
+sending in his report to Dr. Layton, knowing well that heavy punishment
+would fall on the convent if it was discovered that the Abbess had
+disobeyed the Visitors’ injunctions.</p>
+
+<p>Then for a month or so he had ridden about the county, carrying off
+spoils, appointing new officials, and doing the other duties assigned to
+him; he was offered bribes again and again by superiors of Religious
+Houses, but unlike his fellow-Visitors always refused them, and fell the
+more hardly on those that offered them; he turned out numbers of young
+Religious and released elder ones who desired it, and by the time that
+he reached Lewes was fairly practised in the duties of his position.</p>
+
+<p>But the thought of the consequences of his action with regard to his
+future seldom left him. He had alienated his family, and perhaps
+Beatrice. As he rode once through Cuckfield, and caught a glimpse of the
+woods above Overfield, glorious in their autumn livery, he wondered
+whether he would ever find himself at home there again. It was a good
+deal to give up; but he comforted himself with the thought of his own
+career, and with the pleasant prospect of possessing some such house in
+his own right when the work that he now understood had been
+accomplished, and the monastic buildings were empty of occupants.</p>
+
+<p>He had received one letter, to his surprise, from his mother; that was
+brought to him by a messenger in one of the houses where he stayed. It
+informed him that he had the writer’s approval, and that she was
+thankful to have one son at least who was a man, and described further
+how his father and Mary had come back, and without Margaret, and that
+she supposed that the Abbess of Rusper had taken her back.</p>
+
+<p>“Go on, my son,” she ended, “it will be all well. You cannot come home,
+I know, while your father is in his present mind; but it is a dull place
+and you lose nothing. When you are married it will be different. Mr.
+Carleton is very tiresome, but it does not matter.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph smiled to himself as he thought of the life that must now be
+proceeding at his home.</p>
+
+<p>He had written once to Beatrice, in a rather tentative tone, assuring
+her that he was doing his best to be just and merciful, and professing
+to take it for granted that she knew how to discount any exaggerated
+stories of the Visitors’ doings that might come to her ears. But he had
+received no answer, and indeed had told her that he did not expect one,
+for he was continually on the move and could give no fixed address.</p>
+
+<p>As he came up over the downs above Lewes he was conscious of a keen
+excitement; this would be the biggest work he had undertaken, and it had
+the additional zest of being a means of annoying his brother who had
+provoked him so often. Since his quarrel with Chris in his own rooms in
+the summer he had retained an angry contempt towards him. Chris had been
+insolent and theatrical, he told himself, and had thrown off all claims
+to tenderness, and Ralph’s feelings towards him were not improved by the
+information given him by one of his men that his brother had been
+present at the scene at Rusper, no doubt summoned there by Morris, who
+had proved such a desperate traitor to his master by slipping off to
+Overfield on the morning of the Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was very much puzzled at first by Morris’s behaviour; the man had
+always been respectful and obedient, but it was now evident to him that
+he had been half-hearted all along, and still retained a superstitious
+reverence for ecclesiastical things and persons; and although it was
+very inconvenient and tiresome to lose him, yet it was better to be
+inadequately than treacherously served.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Lewes Priory was a magnificent sight as Ralph came up on to the top of
+the last shoulder below Mount Harry. The town lay below him in the deep,
+cup-like hollow, piled house above house along the sides. Beyond it in
+the evening light, against the rich autumn fields and the gleam of
+water, towered up the tall church with the monastic buildings nestling
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>The thought crossed his mind that it would do very well for himself;
+the town was conveniently placed between London and the sea, within a
+day’s ride from either; there would be shops and company there, and the
+priory itself would be a dignified and suitable house, when it had been
+properly re-arranged. The only drawback would be Beatrice’s
+scrupulousness; but he had little doubt that ultimately that could be
+overcome. It would be ridiculous for a single girl to set herself up
+against the conviction of a country, and refuse to avail herself of the
+advantages of a reform that was so sorely needed. She trusted him
+already; and it would not need much persuasion he thought to convince
+her mind as well as her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Lewes Priory would be a great prize, and there would be many
+applicants for it, and he realized that more than ever as he came up to
+its splendid gateway and saw the high tower overhead, and the long tiled
+roofs to the right; but his own relations with Cromwell were of the
+best, and he decided that at least no harm could result from asking.</p>
+
+<p>It was with considerable excitement that he dismounted in the court, and
+saw the throng of Dr. Layton’s men going to and fro. As at Durford, so
+here, his superior had arrived before him, and the place was already
+astir. The riding-horses had been bestowed in the stables, and the
+baggage-beasts were being now unloaded before the door of the
+guest-house; there were servants going to and fro in Dr. Layton’s
+livery, with an anxious-faced monk or two here and there among them, and
+a buzz and clatter rose on all sides. One of Dr. Layton’s secretaries
+who had been at Durford, recognised Ralph and came up immediately,
+saluting him deferentially.</p>
+
+<p>“The doctor is with the Sub-Prior, sir,” he said. “He gave orders that
+you were to be brought to him as soon as you arrived, Mr. Torridon.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph followed him into the guest-house, and up the stairs up which
+Chris had come at his first arrival, and was shown into the parlour.
+There was a sound of voices as they approached the door, and as Ralph
+entered he saw at once that Dr. Layton was busy at his work.</p>
+
+<p>“Come in, sir,” he cried cheerfully from behind the table at which he
+sat. “Here is desperate work for you and me. No less than rank treason,
+Mr. Torridon.”</p>
+
+<p>A monk was standing before the table, who turned nervously as Ralph came
+in; he was a middle-aged man, grey-haired and brown-faced like a
+foreigner, but his eyes were full of terror now, and his lips trembling
+piteously.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph greeted Dr. Layton shortly, and sat down beside him.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, sir,” went on the other, “your only hope is to submit yourself to
+the King’s clemency. You have confessed yourself to treason in your
+preaching, and even if you did not, it would not signify, for I have the
+accusation from the young man at Farley in my bag. You tell me you did
+not know it was treason; but are you ready, sir, to tell the King’s
+Grace that?”</p>
+
+<p>The monk’s eyes glanced from one to the other anxiously. Ralph could see
+that he was desperately afraid.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me that, sir,” cried the doctor again, rapping the table with his
+open hand.</p>
+
+<p>“I—I—what shall I do, sir?” stammered the monk.</p>
+
+<p>“You must throw yourself on the King’s mercy, reverend father. And as a
+beginning you must throw yourself on mine and Mr. Torridon’s here. Now,
+listen to this.”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Layton lifted one of the papers that lay before him and read it
+aloud, looking severely at the monk over the top of it between the
+sentences. It was in the form of a confession, and declared that on such
+a date in the Priory Church of St Pancras at Lewes the undersigned had
+preached treason, although ignorant that it was so, in the presence of
+the Prior and community; and that the Prior, although he knew what was
+to be said, and had heard the sermon in question, had neither forbidden
+it beforehand nor denounced it afterwards, and that the undersigned
+entreated the King’s clemency for the fault and submitted himself
+entirely to his Grace’s judgment.</p>
+
+<p>“I—I dare not accuse my superior,” stammered the monk.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Layton glared at him, laying the paper down.</p>
+
+<p>“The question is,” he cried, “which would you sooner offend—your Prior,
+who will be prior no longer presently, or the King’s Grace, who will
+remain the King’s Grace for many years yet, by the favour of God, and
+who has moreover supreme rights of life and death. That is your choice,
+reverend father.”—He lifted the paper by the corners.—“You have only
+to say the word, sir, and I tear up this paper, and write my own report
+of the matter.”</p>
+
+<p>The monk again glanced helplessly at the two men. Ralph had a touch of
+contentment at the thought that this was Christopher’s superior, ranged
+like a naughty boy at the table, and looked at him coldly. Dr. Layton
+made a swift gesture as if to tear the paper, and the Sub-Prior threw
+out his hands.</p>
+
+<p>“I will sign it, sir,” he said, “I will sign it.”</p>
+
+<p>When the monk had left the room, leaving his signed confession behind
+him, Dr. Layton turned beaming to Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“Thank God!” he said piously. “I do not know what we should have done if
+he had refused; but now we hold him and his prior too. How have you
+fared, Mr. Torridon?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph told him a little of his experiences since his last report, of a
+nunnery where all but three had been either dismissed or released; of a
+monastery where he had actually caught a drunken cellarer unconscious by
+a barrel, and of another where he had reason to fear even worse crimes.</p>
+
+<p>“Write it all down, Mr. Torridon,” cried the priest, “and do not spare
+the adjectives. I have some fine tales for you myself. But we must
+despatch this place first. We shall have grand sport in the
+chapter-house to-morrow. This prior is a poor timid fellow, and we can
+do what we will with him. Concealed treason is a sharp sword to threaten
+him with.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph remarked presently that he had a brother a monk here.</p>
+
+<p>“But you can do what you like to him,” he said. “I have no love for him.
+He is an insolent fellow.”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Layton smiled pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>“We will see what can be done,” he said.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ralph slept that night in the guest-house, in the same room that Chris
+had occupied on his first coming. He awoke once at the sound of the
+great bell from the tower calling the monks to the night-office, and
+smiled at the fantastic folly of it all. His work during the last month
+had erased the last remnants of superstitious fear, and to him now more
+than ever the Religious Houses were but noisy rookeries, clamant with
+bells and chanting, and foul with the refuse of idleness. The sooner
+they were silenced and purged the better.</p>
+
+<p>He did not trouble to go to mass in the morning, but lay awake in the
+white-washed room, hearing footsteps and voices below, and watching the
+morning light brighten on the wall. He found himself wondering once or
+twice what Chris was doing, and how he felt; he did not rise till one of
+his men looked in to tell him that Dr. Layton would be ready for him in
+half-an-hour, if he pleased.</p>
+
+<p>The chapter-house was a strange sight as he entered it from the
+cloister. It was a high oblong chamber some fifty feet long, with arched
+roof like a chapel, and a paved floor. On a dozen stones or so were cut
+inscriptions recording the presence of bodies entombed below, among them
+those of Earl William de Warenne and Gundrada, his wife, founders of the
+priory five centuries ago. Ralph caught sight of the names as he strode
+through the silent monks at the door and entered the chamber, talking
+loudly with his fellow-Visitor. The tall vaulted room looked bare and
+severe; the seats ran round it, raised on a step, and before the Prior’s
+chair beneath the crucifix stood a large table covered with papers.
+Beneath it, and emerging on to the floor lay a great heap of vestments
+and precious things which Dr. Layton had ordered to be piled there for
+his inspection, and on the table itself for greater dignity burned two
+tapers in massive silver candlesticks.</p>
+
+<p>“Sit here, Mr. Torridon,” said the priest, himself taking the Prior’s
+chair, “we represent the supreme head of the Church of England now, you
+must remember.”</p>
+
+<p>And he smiled at the other with a solemn joy.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced over his papers, settled himself judicially, and then signed
+to one of his men to call the monks in. His two secretaries seated
+themselves at either end of the table that stood before their master.</p>
+
+<p>Then the two lines began to file in, in reverse order, as the doctor had
+commanded; black silent figures with bowed heads buried in their hoods,
+and their hands invisible in the great sleeves of their cowls.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph ran his eyes over them; there were men of all ages there, old
+wrinkled faces, and smooth ones; but it was not until they were all
+standing in their places that he recognised Chris.</p>
+
+<p>There stood the young man, at a stall near the door, his eyes bent down,
+and his face deadly pale, his figure thin and rigid against the pale oak
+panelling that rose up some eight feet from the floor. Ralph’s heart
+quickened with triumph. Ah! it was good to be here as judge, with that
+brother of his as culprit!</p>
+
+<p>The Prior and Sub-prior, whose places were occupied, stood together in
+the centre of the room, as the doctor had ordered. It was their case
+that was to come first.</p>
+
+<p>There was an impressive silence; the two Visitors sat motionless,
+looking severely round them; the secretaries had their clean paper
+before them, and their pens, ready dipped, poised in their fingers.</p>
+
+<p>Then Dr. Layton began.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was an inexpressibly painful task, he said, that he had before him;
+the monks were not to think that he gloried in it, or loved to find
+fault and impose punishments; and, in fact, nothing but the knowledge
+that he was there as the representative of the supreme authority in
+Church and State could have supplied to him the fortitude necessary for
+the performance of so sad a task.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph marvelled at him as he listened. There was a solemn sound in the
+man’s face and voice, and dignity in his few and impressive gestures. It
+could hardly be believed that he was not in earnest; and yet Ralph
+remembered too the relish with which the man had dispersed his foul
+tales the evening before, and the cackling laughter with which their
+recital was accompanied. But it was all very wholesome for Chris, he
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>“And now,” said Dr. Layton, “I must lay before you this grievous matter.
+It is one of whose end I dare not think, if it should come before the
+King’s Grace; and yet so it must come. It is no less a matter than
+treason.”</p>
+
+<p>His voice rang out with a melancholy triumph, and Ralph, looking at the
+two monks who stood in the centre of the room, saw that they were both
+as white as paper. The lips of the Prior were moving in a kind of
+agonised entreaty, and his eyes rolled round.</p>
+
+<p>“You, sir,” cried the doctor, glaring at the Sub-Prior, who dropped his
+beseeching eyes at the fierce look, “you, sir, have committed the
+crime—in ignorance, you tell me—but at least the crime of preaching in
+this priory-church in the presence of his Grace’s faithful subjects a
+sermon attacking the King’s most certain prerogatives. I can make
+perhaps allowances for this—though I do not know whether his Grace will
+do so—but I can make allowances for one so foolish as yourself carried
+away by the drunkenness of words; but I can make none—none—” he
+shouted, crashing his hand upon the table, “none for your superior who
+stands beside you, and who forebore either to protest at the treason at
+the time or to rebuke it afterwards.”</p>
+
+<p>The Prior’s hands rose and clasped themselves convulsively, but he made
+no answer.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Layton proceeded to read out the confession that he had wrung from
+the monk the night before, down to the signature; then he called upon
+him to come up.</p>
+
+<p>“Is this your name, sir?” he asked slowly.</p>
+
+<p>The Sub-Prior took the paper in his trembling hands.</p>
+
+<p>“It is sir,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“You hear it,” cried the doctor, staring fiercely round the faces, “he
+tells you he has subscribed it himself. Go back to your place, reverend
+father, and thank our Lord that you had courage to do so.</p>
+
+<p>“And now, you, sir, Master Prior, what have you to say?”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Layton dropped his voice as he spoke, and laid his fat hands
+together on the table. The Prior looked up with the same dreadful
+entreaty as before; his lips moved, but no sound came from them. The
+monks round were deadly still; Ralph saw a swift glance or two exchanged
+beneath the shrouding hoods, but no one moved.</p>
+
+<p>“I am waiting, my Lord Prior,” cried Layton in a loud terrible voice.</p>
+
+<p>Again the Prior writhed his lips to speak.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Layton rose abruptly and made a violent gesture.</p>
+
+<p>“Down on your knees, Master Prior, if you need mercy.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a quick murmur and ripple along the two lines as the Prior
+dropped suddenly on to his knees and covered his face with his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Layton threw out his hand with a passionate gesture and began to
+speak—.</p>
+
+<p>“There, reverend fathers and brethren,” he cried, “you see how low sin
+brings a man. This fellow who calls himself prior was bold enough, I
+daresay, in the church when treason was preached; and, I doubt not, has
+been bold enough in private too when he thought none heard him but his
+friends. But you see how treachery,—heinous treachery,—plucks the
+spirit from him, and how lowly he carries himself when he knows that
+true men are sitting in judgment over him. Take example from that, you
+who have served him in the past; you need never fear him more now.”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Layton dropped his hand and sat down. For one moment Ralph saw the
+kneeling man lift that white face again, but the doctor was at him
+instantly.</p>
+
+<p>“Do not dare to rise, sir, till I give you leave,” he roared. “You had
+best be a penitent. Now tell me, sir, what you have to say. It shall not
+be said that we condemned a man unheard. Eh! Mr. Torridon?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph nodded sharply, and glanced at Chris; but his brother was staring
+at the Prior.</p>
+
+<p>“Now then, sir,” cried the doctor again.</p>
+
+<p>“I entreat you, Master Layton—”</p>
+
+<p>The Prior’s voice was convulsed with terror as he cried this with
+outstretched hands.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir, I will hear you.”</p>
+
+<p>“I entreat you, sir, not to tell his Grace. Indeed I am innocent,”—his
+voice rose thin and high in his panic—“indeed, I did not know it was
+treason that was preached.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did not know?” sneered the doctor, leaning forward over the table.
+“Why, you know your Faith, man—”</p>
+
+<p>“Master Layton, Master Layton; there be so many changes in these days—”</p>
+
+<p>“Changes!” shouted the priest; “there be no changes, except of such
+knaves as you, Master-Prior; it is the old Faith now as ever. Do you
+dare to call his Grace a heretic? Must that too go down in the charges?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, no, Master Layton,” screamed the Prior, with his hands strained
+forward and twitching fingers. “I did not mean that—Christ is my
+witness!”</p>
+
+<p>“Is it not the same Faith, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Master Layton—yes—indeed, it is. But I did not know—how could I
+know?”</p>
+
+<p>“Then why are you Prior,” cried the doctor with a dramatic gesture, “if
+it is not to keep your subjects true and obedient? Do you mean to tell
+me—?”</p>
+
+<p>“I entreat you, sir, for the love of Mary, not to tell his Grace—”</p>
+
+<p>“Bah!” shouted Dr. Layton, “you may keep your breath till you tell his
+Grace that himself. There is enough of this.” Again he rose, and swept
+his eyes round the white-faced monks. “I am weary of this work. The
+fellow has not a word to say—”</p>
+
+<p>“Master Layton, Master Layton,” cried the kneeling man once more,
+lifting his hands on one of which gleamed the prelatical ring.</p>
+
+<p>“Silence, sir,” roared the doctor. “It is I who am speaking now. We have
+had enough of this work. It seems that there be no true men left, except
+in the world; these houses are rotten with crime. Is it not so, Master
+Torridon?—rotten with crime! But of all the knaves that I did ever
+meet, and they are many and strong ones, I do believe Master Prior, that
+you are the worst. Here is my sentence, and see that it be carried out.
+You, Master Prior, and you Master Sub-Prior, are to appear before Master
+Cromwell in his court on All-Hallows’ Eve, and tell your tales to him.
+You shall see if he be so soft as I; it may be that he will send you
+before the King’s Grace—that I know not—but at least he will know how
+to get the truth out of you, if I cannot—”</p>
+
+<p>Once more the Prior broke in, in an agony of terror; but the doctor
+silenced him in a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Have I not given my sentence, sir? How dare you speak?”</p>
+
+<p>A murmur again ran round the room, and he lifted his hand furiously.</p>
+
+<p>“Silence,” he shouted, “not one word from a mother’s son of you. I have
+had enough of sedition already. Clear the room, officer, and let not one
+shaveling monk put his nose within again, until I send for him. I am
+weary of them all—weary and broken-hearted.”</p>
+
+<p>The doctor dropped back into his seat, with a face of profound disgust,
+and passed his hand over his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>The monks turned at the signal from the door, and Ralph watched the
+black lines once more file out.</p>
+
+<p>“There, Mr. Torridon,” whispered the doctor behind his hand. “Did I not
+tell you so? Master Cromwell will be able to do what he will with him.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_2VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br><span class="small">RALPH’S RETURN</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>The Visitation of Lewes Priory occupied a couple of days, as the estates
+were so vast, and the account-books so numerous.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon following the scene in the chapter-house, Dr. Layton
+and Ralph rode out to inspect some of the farms that were at hand,
+leaving orders that the stock was to be driven up into the court the
+next day, and did not return till dusk. The excitement in the town was
+tremendous as they rode back through the ill-lighted streets, and as the
+rumour ran along who the great gentlemen were that went along so gaily
+with their servants behind them; and by the time that they reached the
+priory-gate there was a considerable mob following in their train,
+singing and shouting, in the highest spirits at the thought of the
+plunder that would probably fall into their hands.</p>
+
+<p>Layton turned in his saddle at the door, and made them a little speech,
+telling them how he was there with the authority of the King’s Grace,
+and would soon make a sweep of the place.</p>
+
+<p>“And there will be pickings,” he cried, “pickings for us all! The widow
+and the orphan have been robbed long enough; it is time to spoil the
+fathers.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a roar of amusement from the mob; and a shout or two was
+raised for the King’s Grace.</p>
+
+<p>“You must be patient,” cried Dr. Layton, “and then no more taxes. You
+can trust us, gentlemen, to do the King’s work as it should be done.”</p>
+
+<p>As he passed in through the lamp-lit entrance he turned to Ralph again.</p>
+
+<p>“You see, Mr. Torridon, we have the country behind us.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was that evening that Ralph for the first time since the quarrel met
+his brother face to face.</p>
+
+<p>He was passing through the cloister on his way to Dr. Layton’s room, and
+came past the refectory door just as the monks were gathering for
+supper. He glanced in as he went, and had a glimpse of the clean solemn
+hall, lighted with candles along the panelling, the long bare tables
+laid ready, the Prior’s chair and table at the further end and the great
+fresco over it. A lay brother or two in aprons were going about their
+business silently, and three or four black figures, who had already
+entered, stood motionless along the raised dais on which the tables
+stood.</p>
+
+<p>The monks had all stopped instantly as Ralph came among them, and had
+lowered their hoods with their accustomed courtly deference to a guest;
+and as he turned from his momentary pause at the refectory door in the
+full blaze of light that shone from it, he met Chris face to face.</p>
+
+<p>The young monk had come up that instant, not noticing who was there, and
+his hood was still over his head. There was a second’s pause, and then
+he lifted his hand and threw the hood back in salutation; and as Ralph
+bowed and passed on he had a moment’s sight of that thin face and the
+large grey eyes in which there was not the faintest sign of recognition.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph’s heart was hot with mingled emotion as he went up the cloister.
+He was more disturbed by the sudden meeting, the act of courtesy, and
+the cold steady eyes of this young fool of a brother than he cared to
+recognise.</p>
+
+<p>He saw no more of him, except in the distance among his fellows; and he
+left the house the next day when the business was done.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Matters in the rest of England were going forward with the same
+promptitude as in Sussex. Dr. Layton himself had visited the West
+earlier in the autumn, and the other Visitors were busy in other parts
+of the country. The report was current now that the resources of all the
+Religious Houses were to be certainly confiscated, and that those of the
+inmates who still persisted in their vocation would have to do so under
+the most rigorous conditions imaginable. The results were to be seen in
+the enormous increase of beggars, deprived now of the hospitality they
+were accustomed to receive; and the roads everywhere were thronged with
+those who had been holders of corrodies, or daily sustenance in the
+houses; as well as with the evicted Religious, some of whom, dismissed
+against their will, were on their way to the universities, where, in
+spite of the Visitation, it was thought that support was still to be
+had; and others, less reputable, who preferred freedom to monastic
+discipline. Yet others were to be met with, though not many in number,
+who were on their way to London to lay complaints of various kinds
+against their superiors.</p>
+
+<p>From these and like events the whole country was astir. Men gathered in
+groups outside the village inns and discussed the situation, and feeling
+ran high on the movements of the day. What chiefly encouraged the
+malcontents was the fact that the benefits to be gained by the
+dissolution of the monasteries were evident and present, while the
+ill-results lay in the future. The great Religious Houses, their farms
+and stock, the jewels of the treasury, were visible objects; men
+actually laid eyes on them as they went to and from their work or knelt
+at mass on Sundays; it was all so much wealth that did not belong to
+them, and that might do so, while the corrodies, the daily hospitality,
+the employment of labour, and such things, lay either out of sight, or
+affected only certain individuals. Characters too that were chiefly
+stirred by such arguments, were those of the noisy and self-assertive
+faction; while those who saw a little deeper into things, and understood
+the enormous charities of the Religious Houses and the manner in which
+extreme poverty was kept in check by them,—even more, those who valued
+the spiritual benefits that flowed from the fact of their existence, and
+saw how life was kindled and inspired by these vast homes of
+prayer—such, then as always, were those who would not voluntarily put
+themselves forward in debate, or be able, when they did so, to use
+arguments that would appeal to the village gatherings. Their natural
+leaders too, the country clergy, who alone might have pointed out
+effectively the considerations that lay beneath the surface had been
+skilfully and peremptorily silenced by the episcopal withdrawing of all
+preaching licenses.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>In the course of Ralph’s travels he came across, more than once, a hot
+scene in the village inn, and was able to use his own personality and
+prestige as a King’s Visitor in the direction that he wished.</p>
+
+<p>He came for example one Saturday night to the little village of
+Maresfield, near Fletching, and after seeing his horses and servants
+bestowed, came into the parlour, where the magnates were assembled.
+There were half a dozen there, sitting round the fire, who rose
+respectfully as the great gentleman strode in, and eyed him with a
+sudden awe as they realised from the landlord’s winks and whispers that
+he was of a very considerable importance.</p>
+
+<p>From the nature of his training Ralph had learnt how to deal with all
+conditions of men; and by the time that he had finished supper, and
+drawn his chair to the fire, they were talking freely again, as indeed
+he had encouraged them to do, for they did not of course, any more than
+the landlord, guess at his identity or his business there.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph soon brought the talk round again to the old subject, and asked
+the opinions of the company as to the King’s policy in the visitation of
+the Religious Houses There was a general silence when he first opened
+the debate, for they were dangerous times; but the gentleman’s own
+imperturbable air, his evident importance, and his friendliness,
+conspired with the strong beer to open their mouths, and in five minutes
+they were at it.</p>
+
+<p>One, a little old man in the corner who sat with crossed legs, nursing
+his mug, declared that to his mind the whole thing was sacrilege; the
+houses, he said, had been endowed to God’s glory and service, and that
+to turn them to other uses must bring a curse on the country. He went on
+to remark—for Ralph deftly silenced the chorus of protest—that his own
+people had been buried in the church of the Dominican friars at Arundel
+for three generations, and that he was sorry for the man who laid hands
+on the tomb of his grandfather—known as Uncle John—for the old man had
+been a desperate churchman in his day, and would undoubtedly revenge
+himself for any indignity offered to his bones.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph pointed out, with a considerate self-repression, that the
+illustration was scarcely to the point, for the King’s Grace had no
+intention, he believed, of disturbing any one’s bones; the question at
+issue rather regarded flesh and blood. Then a chorus broke out, and the
+hunt was up.</p>
+
+<p>One, the butcher, with many blessings invoked on King Harry’s head,
+declared that the country was being sucked dry by these rapacious
+ecclesiastics; that the monks encroached every year on the common land,
+absorbed the little farms, paid inadequate wages, and—which appeared
+his principal grievance—killed their own meat.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph, with praiseworthy tolerance, pushed this last argument aside, but
+appeared to reflect on the others as if they were new to him, though he
+had heard them a hundred times, and used them fifty; and while he
+weighed them, another took up the tale; told a scandalous story or two,
+and asked how men who lived such lives as these which he related, could
+be examples of chastity.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the little old man burst into the fray, and waving his pot in
+an access of religious enthusiasm, rebuked the last speaker for his
+readiness to pick up dirt, and himself instanced five or six Religious
+known to him, whose lives were no less spotless than his own.</p>
+
+<p>Again Ralph interposed in his slow voice, and told them that that too
+was not the point at issue. The question was not as to whether here and
+there monks lived good lives or bad, for no one was compelled to imitate
+either, but as to whether on the whole the existence of the Religious
+Houses was profitable in such practical matters as agriculture, trade,
+and the relief of the destitute.</p>
+
+<p>And so it went on, and Ralph began to grow weary of the inconsequence of
+the debaters, and their entire inability to hold to the salient points;
+but he still kept his hand on the rudder of the discussion, avoided the
+fogs of the supernatural and religious on the one side towards which the
+little old man persisted in pushing, and, on the other, the blunt views
+of the butcher and the man who had told the foul stories; and contented
+himself with watching and learning the opinion of the company rather
+than contributing his own.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of the evening he observed two of his men, who had
+slipped in and were sitting at the back of the little stifling room,
+hugely enjoying the irony of the situation, and determined on ending the
+discussion with an announcement of his own identity.</p>
+
+<p>Presently an opportunity occurred. The little old man had shown a
+dangerous tendency to discourse on the suffering souls in purgatory, and
+on the miseries inflicted on them by the cessation of masses and
+suffrages for their welfare; and an uncomfortable awe-stricken silence
+had fallen on the others.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph stood up abruptly, and began to speak, his bright tired eyes
+shining down on the solemn faces, and his mouth set and precise.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “your talk has pleased me very much. I have
+learned a great deal, and I hope shall profit by it. Some of you have
+talked a quantity of nonsense; and you, Mr. Miggers, have talked the
+most, about your uncle John’s soul and bones.”</p>
+
+<p>A deadly silence fell as these startling words were pronounced; for his
+manner up to now had been conciliatory and almost apologetic. But he
+went on imperturbably.</p>
+
+<p>“I am quite sure that Almighty God knows His business better than you or
+I, Mr. Miggers; and if He cannot take care of Uncle John without the aid
+of masses or dirges sung by fat-bellied monks—”</p>
+
+<p>He stopped abruptly, and a squirt of laughter burst from the butcher.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, this is my opinion,” went on Ralph, “if you wish to know it. I
+do not think, or suspect, as some of you do—but I <i>know</i>—as you will
+allow presently that I do, when I tell you who I am—I <i>know</i> that these
+houses of which we have been speaking, are nothing better than
+wasps’-nests. The fellows look holy enough in their liveries, they make
+a deal of buzz, they go to and fro as if on business; but they make no
+honey that is worth your while or mine to take. There is but one thing
+that they have in their holes that is worth anything: and that is their
+jewels and their gold, and the lead on their churches and the bells in
+their towers. And all that, by the Grace of God we will soon have out of
+them.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a faint murmur of mingled applause and dissent. Mr. Miggers
+stared vacant-faced at this preposterous stranger, and set his mug
+resolutely down as a preparation for addressing him, but he had no
+opportunity. Ralph was warmed now by his own eloquence, and swept on.</p>
+
+<p>“You think I do not know of what I am speaking? Well, I have a brother a
+monk at Lewes, and a sister a nun at Rusper; and I have been brought up
+in this religion until I am weary of it. My sister—well, she is like
+other maidens of her kind—not a word to speak of any matter but our
+Lady and the Saints and how many candles Saint Christopher likes. And my
+brother!—Well, we can leave that.</p>
+
+<p>“I know these houses as none of you know them; I know how much wine they
+drink, how much they charge for their masses, how much treasonable
+chatter they carry on in private—I know their lives as I know my own;
+and I know that they are rotten and useless altogether. They may give a
+plateful or two in charity and a mug of beer; they gorge ten dishes
+themselves, and swill a hogshead. They give a penny to the poor man, and
+keep twenty nobles for themselves. They take field after field, house
+after house; turn the farmer into the beggar, and the beggar into their
+bedesman. And, by God! I say that the sooner King Henry gets rid of the
+crew, the better for you and me!”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph snapped out the last words, and stared insolently down on the
+gaping faces. Then he finished, standing by the door as he did so, with
+his hand on the latch.</p>
+
+<p>“If you would know how I know all this, I will tell you. My name is
+Torridon, of Overfield; and I am one of the King’s Visitors. Good-night,
+gentlemen.”</p>
+
+<p>There was the silence of the grave within, as Ralph went upstairs
+smiling to himself.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ralph had intended returning home a week or two after the Lewes
+visitation, but there was a good deal to be done, and Layton had pointed
+out to him that even if some houses were visited twice over it would do
+no harm to the rich monks to pay double fees; so it was not till
+Christmas was a week away that he rode at last up to his house-door at
+Westminster.</p>
+
+<p>His train had swelled to near a dozen men and horses by now, for he had
+accumulated a good deal of treasure beside that which he had left in
+Layton’s hands, and it would not have been safe to travel with a smaller
+escort; so it was a gay and imposing cavalcade that clattered through
+the narrow streets. Ralph himself rode in front, in solitary dignity,
+his weapon jingling at his stirrup, his feather spruce and bright above
+his spare keen face; a couple of servants rode behind, fully armed and
+formidable looking, and then the train came behind—beasts piled with
+bundles that rustled and clinked suggestively, and the men who guarded
+them gay with scraps of embroidery and a cheap jewel or two here and
+there in their dress.</p>
+
+<p>But Ralph did not feel so gallant as he looked. During these long
+country rides he had had too much time to think, and the thought of
+Beatrice and of what she would say seldom left him. The very harshness
+of his experiences, the rough faces round him, the dialect of the stable
+and the inn, the coarse conversation—all served to make her image the
+more gracious and alluring. It was a kind of worship, shot with passion,
+that he felt for her. Her grave silences coincided with his own, her
+tenderness yielded deliciously to his strength.</p>
+
+<p>As he sat over his fire with his men whispering behind him, planning as
+they thought new assaults on the rich nests that they all hated and
+coveted together, again and again it was Beatrice’s face, and not that
+of a shrewd or anxious monk, that burned in the red heart of the hearth.
+He had seen it with downcast eyes, with the long lashes lying on the
+cheek, and the curved red lips discreetly shut beneath; the masses of
+black hair shadowed the forehead and darkened the secret that he wished
+to read. Or he had watched her, like a jewel in a pig-sty, looking
+across the foul-littered farm where he had had to sleep more than once
+with his men about him; her black eyes looking into his own with tender
+gravity, and her mouth trembling with speech. Or best of all, as he rode
+along the bitter cold lanes at the fall of the day, the crowding yews
+above him had parted and let her stand there, with her long skirts
+rustling in the dry leaves, her slender figure blending with the
+darkness, and her sweet face trusting and loving him out of the gloom.</p>
+
+<p>And then again, like the prick of a wound, the question had touched him,
+how would she receive him when he came back with the monastic spoils on
+his beasts’ shoulders, and the wail of the nuns shrilling like the wind
+behind?</p>
+
+<p>But by the time that he came back to London he had thought out his
+method of meeting her. Probably she had had news of the doings of the
+Visitors, perhaps of his own in particular; it was hardly possible that
+his father had not written; she would ask for an explanation, and she
+should have instead an appeal to her confidence. He would tell her that
+sad things had indeed happened, that he had been forced to be present at
+and even to carry out incidents which he deplored; but that he had done
+his utmost to be merciful. It was rough work, he would say; but it was
+work that had to be done; and since that was so—and this was Cromwell’s
+teaching—it was better that honourable gentlemen should do it. He had
+not been able always to restrain the violence of his men—and for that
+he needed forgiveness from her dear lips; and it would be easy enough to
+tell stories against him that it would be hard to disprove; but if she
+loved and trusted him, and he knew that she did, let her take his word
+for it that no injustice had been deliberately done, that on the other
+hand he had been the means under God of restraining many such acts, and
+that his conscience was clear.</p>
+
+<p>It was a moving appeal, Ralph thought, and it almost convinced himself.
+He was not conscious of any gross insincerity in the defence; of course
+it was shaded artistically, and the more brutal details kept out of
+sight, but in the main it was surely true. And, as he rehearsed its
+points to himself once more in the streets of Westminster, he felt that
+though there might be a painful moment or two, yet it would do his work.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He had sent a message home that he was coming, and the door of his home
+was wide as he dismounted, and the pleasant light of candles shone out,
+for the evening was smouldering to dark in the west.</p>
+
+<p>A crowd had collected as he went along; from every window faces were
+leaning; and as he stood on the steps directing the removal of the
+treasure into the house, he saw that the mob filled the tiny street, and
+the cobbled space, from side to side. They were chiefly of the idling
+class, folks who had little to do but to follow up excitements and
+shout; and there were a good many cries raised for the King’s Grace and
+his Visitors, for such people as these were greedy for any movement that
+might bring them gain, and the Religious Houses were beginning to be
+more unpopular in town than ever.</p>
+
+<p>One of the bundles slipped as it was shifted, the cord came off, and in
+a moment the little space beyond the mule before the door was covered
+with gleaming stuff and jewels.</p>
+
+<p>There was a fierce scuffle and a cry, and Ralph was in a moment beyond
+the mule with his sword out. He said nothing but stood there fierce and
+alert as the crowd sucked back, and the servant gathered up the things.
+There was no more trouble, for it had only been a spasmodic snatch at
+the wealth, and a cheer or two was raised again among the grimy faces
+that stared at the fine gentleman and the shining treasure.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph thought it better, however, to say a conciliatory word when the
+things had been bestowed in the house, and the mules led away; and he
+stood on the steps a moment alone before entering himself.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd listened complacently enough to the statements which they had
+begun to believe from the fact of the incessant dinning of them into
+their ears by the selected preachers at Paul’s Cross and elsewhere; and
+there was loud groan at the Pope’s name.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was ending with an incise peroration that he had delivered more
+than once before.</p>
+
+<p>“You know all this, good people; and you shall know it better when the
+work is done. Instead of the rich friars and monks we will have godly
+citizens, each with his house and land. The King’s Grace has promised
+it, and you know that he keeps his word. We have had enough of the
+jackdaws and their stolen goods; we will have honest birds instead. Only
+be patient a little longer—”</p>
+
+<p>The listening silence was broken by a loud cry—</p>
+
+<p>“You damned plundering hound—”</p>
+
+<p>A stone suddenly out of the gloom whizzed past Ralph and crashed through
+the window behind. A great roaring rose in a moment, and the crowd
+swayed and turned.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph felt his heart suddenly quicken, and his hand flew to his hilt
+again, but there was no need for him to act. There were terrible screams
+already rising from the seething twilight in front, as the stone-thrower
+was seized and trampled. He stayed a moment longer, dropped his hilt and
+went into the house.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_2IX">CHAPTER IX<br><span class="small">RALPH’S WELCOME</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>“You will show Mistress Atherton into the room below,” said Ralph to his
+man, “as soon as she comes.”</p>
+
+<p>He was sitting on the morning following his arrival in his own chamber
+upstairs. His table was a mass of papers, account-books, reckonings,
+reports bearing on his Visitation journey, and he had been working at
+them ever since he was dressed; for he had to present himself before
+Cromwell in the course of a day or two, and the labour would be
+enormous.</p>
+
+<p>The room below, opposite that in which he intended to see Beatrice and
+where she had waited herself a few months before while he talked with
+Cromwell and the Archbishop, was now occupied by his collection of plate
+and vestments, and the key was in his own pocket.</p>
+
+<p>He had heard from his housekeeper on the previous evening that Beatrice
+had called at the house during the afternoon, and had seemed surprised
+to hear that he was to return that night; but she had said very little,
+it appeared, and had only begged the woman to inform her master that she
+would present herself at his house the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>And now Ralph was waiting for her.</p>
+
+<p>He was more ill-at-ease than he had expected to be. The events of the
+evening before had given him a curious shock; and he cursed the whole
+business—the snapping of the cord round the bundle, his own action and
+words, the outrage that followed, and the death of the fellow that had
+thrown the stone—for the body had been rescued by the watch a few
+minutes later, a tattered crushed thing, beaten out of all likeness to a
+man. One of the watch had stepped in to see Ralph as he sat at supper,
+and had gone again saying the dog deserved it for daring to lift his
+voice against the King and his will.</p>
+
+<p>But above all Ralph repented of his own words. There was no harm in
+saying such things in the country; but it was foolish and rash to do so
+in town. Cromwell’s men should be silent and discreet, he knew, not
+street-orators; and if he had had time to think he would not have
+spoken. However the crowd was with him; there was plainly no one of any
+importance there; it was unlikely that Cromwell himself would hear of
+the incident; and perhaps after all no harm was done.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile there was Beatrice to reckon with, and Ralph laid down his pen
+a dozen times that morning and rehearsed once more what he would have to
+say to her.</p>
+
+<p>He was shrewd enough to know that it was his personality and not his
+virtues or his views that had laid hold of this girl’s soul. As it was
+with him, so it was with her; each was far enough apart from the other
+in all external matters; such things had been left behind a year ago; it
+was not an affair of consonant tastes, but of passion. From each there
+had looked deep inner eyes; there had been on either side a steady and
+fearless scrutiny, and then the two souls had leapt together in a bright
+flame of desire, knowing that each was made for the other. There had
+been so little love-making, so few speeches after the first meeting or
+two, so few letters exchanged, and fewer embraces. The last veils had
+fallen at the fury of Chris’s intervention, and they had known then what
+had been inevitable all along.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph smiled to himself as he remembered how little he had said or she
+had answered; there had been no need to say anything. And then his eyes
+grew wide and passionate, and his hands gripped one another fiercely, as
+the memory died, and the burning flame of desire flared within him again
+from the deep well he bore in his heart. The world of affairs and
+explanations and evasions faded into twilight, and there was but one
+thing left, his love and hers. It was to that that he would appeal.</p>
+
+<p>He sat so a moment longer, and then took up his pen again, though it
+shook in his hand, and went on with his reckonings.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He was perfectly composed half an hour later as he went downstairs to
+meet her. He had finished his line of figures sedately when the man
+looked in to say that she was below; and had sat yet a moment longer,
+trying to remember mechanically what it was he had determined to tell
+her. Bah! it was trifling and unimportant; words did not affect the
+question; all the wrecked convents in the world could not touch the one
+fact that lay in fire at his heart. He would say nothing; she would
+understand.</p>
+
+<p>In the tiny entrance hall there was a whiff of fragrance where she had
+passed through; and his heart stirred in answer. Then he opened the
+door, stepped through and closed it behind him.</p>
+
+<p>She was standing upright by the hearth, and faced him as he entered. He
+was aware of her blue mantle, her white, jewelled head-dress, one hand
+gripping the mantel-shelf, her pale steady face and bright eyes. Behind
+there was the warm rich panelling, and the leaping glow of the wood
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>She made no movement.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the lane was filled with street noises, the cries of children,
+the voices of men who went by talking, the rumble of a waggon coming
+with the crack of whips and jingle of bells from the river. The wheels
+came up and went past into silence again before either spoke or moved.</p>
+
+<p>Then Ralph lifted his hands a little and let them drop, as he stared at
+her face. From her eyes looked out her will, tense as steel; and his own
+shook to meet it.</p>
+
+<p>“Well?” she said at last; and her voice was perfectly steady.</p>
+
+<p>“Beatrice,” cried Ralph; and the agony of it tore his heart.</p>
+
+<p>She dropped her hand to her side and still looked at him without
+flinching.</p>
+
+<p>“Beatrice,” cried Ralph once more.</p>
+
+<p>“Then you have no more to say—after last night?”</p>
+
+<p>A torrent of thoughts broke loose in his brain, and he tried to snatch
+one as they fled past—to say one word. His excuses went by him like
+phantoms; they bewildered and dazed him. Why, there were a thousand
+things to say, and each was convincing if he could but say it. The cloud
+passed and there were her eyes watching him still.</p>
+
+<p>“Then that is all?” she said.</p>
+
+<p>Again the cloud fell on him; little scenes piteously clear rose before
+him, of the road by Rusper convent, Layton’s leering face, a stripped
+altar; and for each there was a tale if he could but tell it. And still
+the bright eyes never flinched.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to him as if she was watching him curiously; her lips were
+parted, and her head was a little on one side; her face interested and
+impersonal.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, Beatrice—” he cried again.</p>
+
+<p>Then her love shook her like a storm; he had never dreamed she could
+look like that; her mouth shook; he could see her white teeth clenched;
+and a shiver went over her. He took one step forward, but stopped again,
+for the black eyes shone through the passion that swayed her, as keen
+and remorseless as ever.</p>
+
+<p>He dropped on to his knees at the table and buried his face in his
+hands. He knew nothing now but that he had lost her.</p>
+
+<p>That was her voice speaking now, as steady as her eyes; but he did not
+hear a word she said. Words were nothing; they were not so much as those
+cries from the street, that shrill boy’s voice over the way; not so much
+as the sighing crackle from the hearth where he had caused a fire to be
+lighted lest she should feel cold.</p>
+
+<p>She was still speaking, but her voice had moved; she was no longer by
+the fire. He could feel the warmth of the fire now on his hands. But he
+dared not move nor look up; there was but one thing left for him—that
+he had lost her!</p>
+
+<p>That was her hand on the latch; a breath of cold air stirred his hair;
+and still she was speaking. He understood a little more now; she knew it
+all—his doings—what he had said last night—and there was not one word
+to say in answer. Her short lashing sentences fell on his defenceless
+soul, but all sense was dead, and he watched with a dazed impersonalness
+how each stroke went home, and yet he felt no pain or shame.</p>
+
+<p>She was going now; a picture stirred on the wall by the fire as the wind
+rushed in through the open street door.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Then the door closed.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="PART_II">PART II<br><span class="small">THE FALL OF LEWES</span></h3></div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_3I">CHAPTER I<br><span class="small">INTERNAL DISSENSION</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>The peace was gone from Lewes Priory. A wave had broken in through the
+high wall from the world outside with the coming of the Visitors, and
+had left wreckage behind, and swept out security as it went. The monks
+knew now that their old privileges were gone with the treasures that
+Layton had taken with him, and that although the wave had recoiled, it
+would return again and sweep them all away.</p>
+
+<p>Upon none of them had the blow fallen more fiercely than on Chris; he
+had tried to find peace, and instead was in the midst of storm. The high
+barriers had gone, and with them the security of his own soul, and the
+world that he thought he had left was grinning at the breach.</p>
+
+<p>It was piteous to him to see the Prior—that delicate, quiet prelate who
+had held himself aloof in his dignities—now humbled by the shame of his
+exposure in the chapter-house. The courage that Bishop Fisher had
+restored to him in some measure was gone again; and it was miserable to
+look at that white downcast face in the church and refectory, and to
+recognise that all self-respect was gone. After his return from his
+appearance before Cromwell he was more wretched than ever; it was known
+that he had been sent back in contemptuous disgrace; but it was not
+known how much he had promised in his terror for life.</p>
+
+<p>The house had lost too some half-dozen of its inmates. Two had
+petitioned for release; three professed monks had been dismissed, and a
+recent novice had been sent back to his home. Their places in the
+stately choir were empty, and eloquent with warning; and in their stead
+was a fantastic secular priest, appointed by the Visitors’ authority,
+who seldom said mass, and never attended choir; but was regular in the
+refectory, and the chapter-house where he thundered St. Paul’s epistles
+at the monks, and commentaries of his own, in the hopes of turning them
+from papistry to a purer faith.</p>
+
+<p>The news from outside echoed their own misery. Week after week the tales
+poured in, of young and old dismissed back to the world whose ways they
+had forgotten, of the rape of treasures priceless not only for their
+intrinsic worth but for the love that had given and consecrated them
+through years of devout service. There was not a house that had not lost
+something; the King himself had sanctioned the work by taking precious
+horns and a jewelled cross from Winchester. And worse than all that had
+gone was the terror of what was yet to come. The world, which had been
+creeping nearer, pausing and creeping on again, had at last passed the
+boundaries and leapt to sacrilege.</p>
+
+<p>It was this terror that poisoned life. The sacristan who polished the
+jewels that were left, handled them doubtfully now; the monk who
+superintended the farm sickened as he made his plans for another year;
+the scribe who sat in the carrel lost enthusiasm for his work; for the
+jewels in a few months might be on royal fingers, the beasts in
+strangers’ sheds, and the illuminated leaves blowing over the cobbled
+court, or wrapped round grocers’ stores.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony preached a sermon on patience one day in Christmastide,
+telling his fellows that a man’s life, and still less a monk’s,
+consisted not in the abundance of things that he possessed; and that
+corporate, as well as individual, poverty, had been the ideal of the
+monastic houses in earlier days. He was no great preacher, but the
+people loved to hear his homely remarks, and there was a murmur of
+sympathy as he pointed with a clumsy gesture to the lighted Crib that
+had been erected at the foot of one of the great pillars in the nave.</p>
+
+<p>“Our Lady wore no cloth of gold,” he said, “nor Saint Joseph a precious
+mitre; and the blessed Redeemer Himself who made all things had but
+straw to His bed. And if our new cope is gone, we can make our
+processions in the old one, and please God no less. Nay, we may please
+Him more perhaps, for He knows that it is by no will of ours that we do
+so.”</p>
+
+<p>But there had been a dismal scene at the chapter next morning. The Prior
+had made them a speech, with a passionate white face and hands that
+shook, and declared that the sermon would be their ruin yet if the
+King’s Grace heard of it.</p>
+
+<p>“There was a fellow that went out half-way through,” he cried in panic,
+“how do we know whether he is not talking with his Grace even now? I
+will not have such sermons; and you shall be my witnesses that I said
+so.”</p>
+
+<p>The monks eyed one another miserably. How could they prosper under such
+a prior as this?</p>
+
+<p>But worse was to follow, though it did not directly affect this house.
+The bill, so long threatened, dissolving the smaller houses, was passed
+in February by a Parliament carefully packed to carry out the King’s
+wishes, and from which the spiritual peers were excluded by his
+“permission to them to absent themselves.” Lewes Priory, of course,
+exceeded the limit of revenue under which other houses were suppressed,
+and even received one monk who had obtained permission to go there when
+his community fell; but in spite of the apparent encouragement from the
+preamble of the bill which stated that “in the great solemn monasteries
+... religion was right well kept,” it was felt that this act was but the
+herald of another which should make an end of Religious Houses
+altogether.</p>
+
+<p>But there was a breath of better news later on, when tidings came in the
+early summer that Anne was in disgrace. It was well known that it was
+her influence that egged the King on, and that there was none so fierce
+against the old ways. Was it not possible that Henry might even yet
+repent himself, if she were out of the way?</p>
+
+<p>Then the tidings were confirmed, and for a while there was hope.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Sir Nicholas Maxwell rode over to see Chris, and was admitted into one
+of the parlours to talk with him.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed furiously excited, and hardly saluted his brother-in-law.</p>
+
+<p>“Chris,” he said, “I have come straight from London with great news. The
+King’s harlot is fallen.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris stared.</p>
+
+<p>“Dead?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“Dead in a day or two, thank God!”</p>
+
+<p>He spat furiously.</p>
+
+<p>“God strike her!” he cried. “She has wrought all the mischief, I
+believe. They told me so a year back, but I did not believe it.”</p>
+
+<p>“And where is she?”</p>
+
+<p>Then Nicholas told his story, his ruddy comely face bright with
+exultation, for he had no room for pity left. The rumours that had come
+to Lewes were true. Anne had been arrested suddenly at Greenwich during
+the sports, and had been sent straight to the Tower. The King was weary
+of her, though she had borne him a child; and did not scruple to bring
+the most odious charges against her. She had denied, and denied; but it
+was useless. She had wept and laughed in prison, and called on God to
+vindicate her; but the process went on none the less. The marriage had
+been declared null and void by Dr. Cranmer who had blessed it; and now
+she was condemned for sinning against it.</p>
+
+<p>“But she is either his wife,” said Chris amazed, “or else she is not
+guilty of adultery.”</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>“God save us, Chris; do you think Henry can’t manage it?”</p>
+
+<p>Then he grew white with passion, and beat the table and damned the King
+and Anne and Cranmer to hell together.</p>
+
+<p>Chris glanced up, drumming his fingers softly on the table.</p>
+
+<p>“Nick,” he said, “there is no use in that. When is she to die?”</p>
+
+<p>The knight’s face flushed again with pleasure, and he showed his teeth
+set together.</p>
+
+<p>“Two days,” he said, “please God, or three at the most. And she will not
+meet those she has sent before her, or John Fisher whose head she had
+brought to her—the bloody Herodias!”</p>
+
+<p>“Pray God that she will!” said Chris softly. “They will pray for her at
+least.”</p>
+
+<p>“Pah!” shouted Nicholas, “an eye for an eye for me!”</p>
+
+<p>Chris said nothing. He was thinking of all that this might mean. Who
+could know what might not happen? Nicholas broke in again presently.</p>
+
+<p>“I heard a fine tale,” he said, “do you know that the woman is in the
+very room where she slept the night before the crowning? Last time it
+was for the crown to be put on; now it is for the head to be taken off.
+And it is true that she weeps and laughs. They can hear her laugh two
+storeys away, I hear.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nick,” said Chris suddenly, “I am weary of that. Let her alone. Pray
+God she may turn!”</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas stared astonished, and a little awed too. Chris used not to be
+like this; he seemed quieter and stronger; he had never dared to speak
+so before.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; I am weary of this,” said Chris again. “I stormed once at Ralph,
+and gained nothing. We do not win by those weapons. Where is Ralph?”</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas knit his lips to keep in the fury that urged him.</p>
+
+<p>“He is with Cromwell still,” he said venomously, “and very busy, I hear.
+They will be making him a lord soon—but there will be no lady.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris had heard of Beatrice’s rejection of Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“He is still busy?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes; he worked long at this bill, I hear.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris asked a few more questions, and learned that Ralph seemed fiercer
+than ever since the Visitation. He was well-known at Court; had been
+seen riding with the King; and it was supposed that he was rising
+rapidly in favour every day.</p>
+
+<p>“God help him!” sighed Chris.</p>
+
+<p>The change that had come over Chris was very much marked. Neither a life
+in the world would have done it, nor one in the peace of the cloister;
+but an alternation of the two. He had been melted by the fire of the
+inner life, and braced by the external bitterness of adversity. Ralph’s
+visit to the priory, culminating in the passionless salutation of him in
+the cloister as being a guest and therefore a representative of Christ,
+had ended that stage in the development of the monk’s character. Chris
+was disappointed in his brother, fearful for him and stern in his
+attitude towards him; but he was not resentful. He was sincere when he
+prayed God to help him.</p>
+
+<p>When Nicholas had eaten and gone, carrying messages to Mary, Chris told
+the others, and there was a revival of hope in the house.</p>
+
+<p>Then a few days later came the news of Anne’s death and of the marriage
+of the King with Jane Seymour on the following day. At least Jane was a
+lawful wife and queen in the Catholics’ eyes, for Katharine too was
+dead.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Chris had now passed through the minor orders, the sub-diaconate and the
+diaconate, and was looking forward to priesthood. It had been thought
+advisable by his superiors, in view of the troubled state of the times,
+to apply for the necessary dispensations, and they had been granted
+without difficulty. So many monks who were not priests had been turned
+into the world resourceless, since they could not be appointed to
+benefices, that it was thought only fair to one who was already bound by
+vows of religion and sacred orders not to hold him back from an
+opportunity to make his living, should affairs be pushed further in the
+direction of dissolution.</p>
+
+<p>He was looking forward with an extraordinary zeal to the crown of
+priesthood. It seemed to him a possession that would compensate for all
+other losses. If he could but make the Body of the Lord, lift It before
+the Throne, and hold It in his hands, all else was trifling.</p>
+
+<p>There were waves of ecstatic peace again breaking over his soul as he
+thought of it; as he moved behind the celebrant at high mass, lifted the
+pall of the chalice, and sang the exultant <i>Ite missa est</i> when all was
+done. What a power would be his on that day! He would have his finger
+then on the huge engine of grace, and could turn it whither he would,
+spraying infinite force on this and that soul, on Ralph stubbornly
+fighting against God in London, on his mother silent and bitter at home,
+on his father anxious and courageous, waiting for disaster, on Margaret
+trembling in Rusper nunnery as she contemplated the defiance she had
+flung in the King’s face.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior had given him but little encouragement; he had sent for him
+one day, and told him that he might prepare himself for priesthood by
+Michaelmas, for a foreign bishop was coming to them, and leave would be
+obtained for him to administer the rite. But he had not said a word of
+counsel or congratulation; but had nodded to the young monk, and turned
+his sickly face to the papers again on his table.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony, the pleasant stout guest-master, who had preached the
+sermon in Christmastide, said a word of comfort, as they walked in the
+cloister together.</p>
+
+<p>“You must not take it amiss, brother,” he said, “my Lord Prior is beside
+himself with terror. He does not know how to act.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris asked whether there were any new reason for alarm.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, no!” said the monk, “but the people are getting cold towards us
+here. You have seen how few come to mass here now, or to confession.
+They are going to the secular priests instead.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris remembered one or two other instances of this growing coldness.
+The poor folks who came for food complained of its quality two or three
+times; and one fellow, an old pensioner of the house, who had lost a
+leg, threw his portion down on the doorstep.</p>
+
+<p>“I will have better than that some day,” he had said, as he limped off.
+Chris had gathered up the cold lentils patiently and carried them back
+to the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>On another day a farmer had flatly refused a favour to the monk who
+superintended the priory-farm.</p>
+
+<p>“I will not have your beasts in my orchard,” he had said roughly. “You
+are not my masters.”</p>
+
+<p>The congregations too were visibly declining, as the guest-master had
+said. The great nave beyond the screen looked desolate in the
+summer-mornings, as the sunlight lay in coloured patches on the wide
+empty pavement between the few faithful gathered in front, and the half
+dozen loungers who leaned in the shadow of the west wall—men who
+fulfilled their obligation of hearing mass, with a determination to do
+so with the least inconvenience to themselves, and who scuffled out
+before the blessing.</p>
+
+<p>It was evident that the tide of faith and reverence was beginning to ebb
+even in the quiet country towns.</p>
+
+<p>As the summer drew on the wider world too had its storms. A fierce
+sermon was preached at the opening of Convocation, by Dr. Latimer, now
+Bishop of Worcester, at the express desire of the Archbishop, that
+scourged not only the regular but the secular clergy as well. The sermon
+too was more furiously Protestant than any previously preached on such
+an occasion; pilgrimages, the stipends for masses, image-worship, and
+the use of an unknown tongue in divine service, were alike denounced as
+contrary to the “pure gospel.” The phrases of Luther were abundantly
+used in the discourse; and it was evident, from the fact that no public
+censure fell upon the preacher, that Henry’s own religious views had
+developed since the day that he had published his attack on the foreign
+reformers.</p>
+
+<p>The proceedings of Convocation confirmed the suspicion that the sermon
+aroused. With an astonishing compliance the clergy first ratified the
+decree of nullity in the matter of Anne’s marriage with the King,
+disclaimed obedience to Rome, and presented a list of matters for which
+they requested reform. In answer to this last point the King, assisted
+by a couple of bishops, sent down to the houses, a month later, a paper
+of articles to which the clergy instantly agreed. These articles
+proceeded in the direction of Protestantism through omission rather than
+affirmation. Baptism, Penance and the Sacrament of the Altar were spoken
+of in Catholic terms; the other four sacraments were omitted altogether;
+on the other hand, again, devotion to saints, image-worship, and prayers
+for the departed were enjoined with important qualifications.</p>
+
+<p>Finally it was agreed to support the King in his refusal to be
+represented at the proposed General Council at Mantua.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The tidings of all this, filtering in to the house at Lewes by priests
+and Religious who stayed there from time to time, did not tend to
+reassure those who looked for peace. The assault was not going to stop
+at matters of discipline; it was dogma that was aimed at, and, worse
+even than that, the foundation on which dogma rested. It was not an
+affair of Religious Houses, or even of morality; there was concerned the
+very Rock itself on which Christendom based all faith and morals. If it
+was once admitted that a National Church, apart from the See of Rome,
+could in the smallest degree adjudicate on a point of doctrine, the
+unity of the Catholic Church as understood by every monk in the house,
+was immediately ruptured.</p>
+
+<p>Again and again in chapter there were terrible scenes. The Prior raved
+weakly, crying that it was not the part of a good Catholic to resist his
+prince, that the Apostle himself enjoined obedience to those in
+authority; that the new light of learning had illuminated perplexing
+problems; and that in the uncertainty it was safer to follow the certain
+duty of civil obedience. Dom Anthony answered that a greater than St.
+Paul had bidden His followers to render to God the things that were
+God’s; that St. Peter was crucified sooner than obey Nero—and the Prior
+cried out for silence; and that he could not hear his Christian King
+likened to the heathen emperor. Monk after monk would rise; one
+following his Prior, and disclaiming personal learning and
+responsibility; another with ironic deference saying that a man’s soul
+was his own, and that not even a Religious Superior could release from
+the biddings of conscience; another would balance himself between the
+parties, declaring that the distinction of duties was insoluble; that in
+such a case as this it was impossible to know what was due to God and
+what to man. Yet another voice would rise from time to time declaring
+that the tales that they heard were incredible; that it was impossible
+that the King should intend such evil against the Church; he still heard
+his three masses a day as he had always done; there was no more ardent
+defender of the Sacrament of the Altar.</p>
+
+<p>Chris used to steady himself in this storm of words as well as he could,
+by reflecting that he probably would not have to make a decision, for it
+would be done for him, at least as regarded his life in the convent or
+out, by his superiors. Or again he would fix his mind resolutely on his
+approaching priesthood; while the Prior sat gnawing his lips, playing
+with his cross and rapping his foot, before bursting out again and
+bidding them all be silent, for they knew not what they were meddling
+with.</p>
+
+<p>The misery rose to its climax when the Injunctions arrived; and the
+chapter sat far into the morning, meeting again after dinner to consider
+them.</p>
+
+<p>These were directions, issued to the clergy throughout the country, by
+the authority of the King alone; and this very fact was significant of
+what the Royal Supremacy meant. Some of them did not touch the
+Religious, and were intended only for parish-priests; but others were
+bitterly hard to receive.</p>
+
+<p>The community was informed that in future, once in every quarter, a
+sermon was to be preached against the Bishop of Rome’s usurped power;
+the Ten Articles, previously issued, were to be brought before the
+notice of the congregation; and careful instructions were to be given as
+regards superstition in the matter of praying to the saints. It was the
+first of these that caused the most strife.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony, who was becoming more and more the leader of the
+conservative party, pointed out that the See of Peter was to every
+Catholic the root of authority and unity, and that Christianity itself
+was imperilled if this rock were touched.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior angrily retorted that it was not the Holy See that was to be
+assaulted, but the erection falsely raised upon it; it was the abuse of
+power, not the use of it that had to be denounced.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony requested the Prior to inform him where the line of
+distinction lay; and the Prior in answer burst into angry explanations,
+instancing the pecuniary demands of the Pope, the appointment of
+foreigners to English benefices, and all the rest of the accusations
+that were playing such a part now in the religious controversy of the
+country.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony replied that those were not the matters principally aimed at
+by the Injunction; it concerned rather the whole constitution of
+Christ’s Church, and was a question of the Pope’s or the King’s
+supremacy over that part of it that lay in England.</p>
+
+<p>Finally the debate was ended by the Prior’s declaration that he could
+trust no one to preach the enjoined sermon but himself, and that he
+would see to it on his own responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>It was scarcely an inspiring atmosphere for one who was preparing to
+take on him the burden of priesthood in the Catholic Church.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_3II">CHAPTER II<br><span class="small">SACERDOS IN AETERNUM</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>It was a day of wonderful autumn peace when Chris first sang mass in the
+presence of the Community.</p>
+
+<p>The previous day he had received priesthood from the hands of the little
+old French bishop in the priory church; one by one strange mystical
+ceremonies had been performed; the stole had been shifted and crossed on
+the breast, the token of Christ’s yoke; the chasuble had been placed
+over his head, looped behind; then the rolling cry to the Spirit of God
+who alone seals to salvation and office had pealed round the high roof
+and down the long nave that stretched away westwards in sunlit gloom;
+while across the outstretched hands of the monk had been streaked the
+sacred oil, giving him the power to bless the things of God. The hands
+were bound up, as if to heal the indelible wound of love that had been
+inflicted on them; and, before they were unbound, into the hampered
+fingers were slid the sacred vessels of the altar, occupied now by the
+elements of bread and wine; while the awful power to offer sacrifice for
+the quick and the dead was committed to him in one tremendous phrase.</p>
+
+<p>Then the mass went on; and the new priest, kneeling with Dom Anthony at
+a little bench set at the foot of the altar steps, repeated aloud with
+the bishop the words of the liturgy from the great painted missal lying
+before him.</p>
+
+<p>How strange it had been too when all was over! He stood by a pillar in
+the nave, beneath St. Pancras’s image, while all came to receive his
+blessing. First, the Prior, pale and sullen, as always now; then the
+Community, some smiling and looking into his eyes before they knelt,
+some perfunctory, some solemn and sedate with downcast faces; each
+kissed the fragrant hands, and stood aside, while the laity came up; and
+first among them his father and Mary.</p>
+
+<p>His place too in the refectory had a flower or two laid beside it; and
+the day had gone by in a bewildering dream. He had walked with his
+father and sister a little, and had found himself smiling and silent in
+their company.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening he had once more gone through the ceremonies of mass, Dom
+Anthony stood by, and watched and reminded and criticised. And now the
+morning was come, and he stood at the altar.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The little wind had dropped last night, and the hills round Lewes stood
+in mellow sunlight; the atmosphere was full of light and warmth, that
+tender glow that falls on autumn days; the trees in the court outside
+stood, poised on the brink of sleep, with a yellow pallor tinging their
+leaves; the thousand pigeons exulted and wheeled in the intoxicating
+air.</p>
+
+<p>The shadowy church was alight with sunshine that streamed through the
+clerestory windows on to the heavy pillars, the unevenly paved floor,
+and crept down the recumbent figures of noble and bishop from head to
+foot. There were a few people present beyond the screen, Sir James and
+his daughter in front, watching with a tender reverence the harvesting
+of the new priest, as he prepared to gather under his hands the mystical
+wheat and grapes of God.</p>
+
+<p>Chris was perfectly practised in his ceremonies; and there was no
+anxiety to dissipate the overpowering awe that lay on his soul. He felt
+at once natural and unreal; it was supremely natural that he should be
+here; he could not conceive being other than a priest; there was in him
+a sense of a relaxed rather than an intensified strain; and yet the
+whole matter was strange and intangible, as he felt the supernatural
+forces gathering round, and surging through his soul.</p>
+
+<p>He was aware of a dusky sunlit space about him, of the glimmer of the
+high candles; and nearer of the white cloth, the shining vessels, the
+gorgeous missal, and the rustle of the ministers’ vestments. But the
+whole was shot with an inner life, each detail was significant and
+sacramental; and he wondered sometimes at the inaudible vibration that
+stirred the silent air round him, as he spoke the familiar words to
+which he had listened so often.</p>
+
+<p>He kept his eyes resolutely down as he turned from time to time,
+spreading his hands to the people, and was only partly conscious of the
+faces watching him from the dark stalls in front and the sunlit nave
+beyond. Even the sacred ministers, Dom Anthony and another, seemed to be
+little more than crimson impersonal figures that moved and went about
+their stately business with deft and gracious hands.</p>
+
+<p>As he began to penetrate more nearly to the heart of the mystery, and
+the angels’ song before the throne rolled up from the choir, there was
+an experience of a yet further retirement from the things of sense. Even
+the glittering halpas, and the gleams of light above it where the five
+chapels branched behind—even these things became shrouded; there was
+just a sheet of white beneath him, the glow of a chalice, and the pale
+disc of the sacrificial bread.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as he paused, with hands together—“<i>famulorum famularumque
+tuarum</i>”—there opened out the world where his spirit was bending its
+intention. Figure after figure came up and passed before his closed
+eyes, and on each he turned the beam of God’s grace. First Ralph,
+sneering and aloof in his rich dress, intent on some Satanic
+business;—Chris seized as it were the power of God, and enveloped and
+penetrated him with it. Then Margaret, waiting terrified on the divine
+will; his mother in her complacent bitterness; Mary; his father—and as
+he thought of him it seemed as if all God’s blessings were not too
+great; Nicholas; his own brethren in religion, his Prior, contracted and
+paralysed with terror; Dom Anthony, with his pathetic geniality....</p>
+
+<p>Ah! how short was the time; and yet so long that the Prior looked up
+sharply, and the deacon shifted in his rustling silk.</p>
+
+<p>Then again the hands opened, and the stately flood of petition poured
+on, as through open gates to the boundless sea that awaited it, where
+the very heart of God was to absorb it into Itself.</p>
+
+<p>The great names began to flit past, like palaces on a river-brink, their
+bases washed by the pouring liturgy—Peter and Paul, Simon and Thaddeus,
+Cosmas and Damian—vast pleasure houses alight with God, while near at
+hand now gleamed the line of the infinite ocean.</p>
+
+<p>The hands came together, arched in blessing; and it marked the first
+sting of the healing water, as the Divine Essence pushed forward to meet
+man’s need.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Hanc igitur oblationem ...</i>”</p>
+
+<p>Then followed the swift silent signs, as if the pilot were ordering
+sails out to meet the breeze.</p>
+
+<p>The muttering voice sank to a deliberate whisper, the ripples ceased to
+leap as the river widened, and Chris was delicately fingering the white
+linen before taking the Host into his hands.</p>
+
+<p>There was a swift glance up, as to the great Sun that burned overhead,
+one more noiseless sign, and he sank forward in unutterable awe, with
+his arms on the altar, and the white disc, hovering on the brink of
+non-existence, beneath his eyes.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The faintest whisper rose from behind as the people shifted their
+constrained attitudes. Sir James glanced up, his eyes full of tears, at
+the distant crimson figure beneath the steady row of lights, motionless
+with outspread hands, poised over the bosom of God’s Love.</p>
+
+<p>The first murmured words broke the silence; as if next to the Infinite
+Pity rose up the infinite need of man—<i>Nobis quoque peccatoribus</i>—and
+sank to silence again.</p>
+
+<p>Then loud and clear rang out <i>Per omnia saecula saeculorum;</i> and the
+choir of monks sang <i>Amen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>So the great mystery moved on, but upborne now by the very Presence
+itself that sustained all things. From the limitless sea of mercy, the
+children cried through the priest’s lips to their Father who was in
+heaven, and entreated the Lamb of God who takes away sin to have mercy
+on them and give them peace.</p>
+
+<p>Then from far beyond the screen Mary could see how the priest leaning a
+little forward towards That which he bore in his hands, looked on what
+he bore in them; and she whispered softly with him the words that he was
+speaking. <i>Ave in aeternum sanctissima caro Christi</i> ...</p>
+
+<p>Again she hid her face; and when she raised it once, all was over, and
+the Lord had entered and sanctified the body and soul of the man at
+whose words He had entered the creature of bread.</p>
+
+<p>The father and daughter stood together silently in the sunshine outside
+the west end of the church, waiting for Chris. He had promised to come
+to them there for a moment when his thanksgiving was done.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the wall, and the guest-house where the Visitors had lived those
+two disastrous days, rose up the far sunlit downs, shadowed here and
+there with cup-like hollows, standing like the walls about Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p>As they turned, on the right above the red roofs of the town, rose the
+downs again, vast slopes and shoulders, over which Chris had ridden so
+short a while ago bearded and brown with hunting. It was over there that
+Ralph had come, through that dip, which seemed against the skyline a
+breach in a high wall.</p>
+
+<p>Ah! surely God would spare this place; so stately and quiet, so
+graciously sheltered by the defences that He Himself had raised! If all
+England tottered and fell, this at least might stand, this vast home of
+prayer that stirred day and night with the praises of the Eternal and
+the petitions of the mortal—this glorious house where a priest so dear
+to them had brought forth from his mystical paternity the very Son of
+God!</p>
+
+<p>The door opened behind them, and Chris came out pale and smiling with a
+little anxious-eyed monk beside him. His eyes lightened as he saw them
+standing there; but he turned again for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—father,” he said. “What was it?”</p>
+
+<p>“You stayed too long,” said the other, “at the <i>famularumque tuarum</i>;
+the rubric says <i>nullus nimis immoretur</i>, you know;—<i>nimis immoretur</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said Chris.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_3III">CHAPTER III<br><span class="small">THE NORTHERN RISING</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>A few of the smaller Religious houses had surrendered themselves to the
+King before the passing of the bill in the early spring; and the rest of
+them were gradually yielded up after its enactment during the summer of
+the same year; and among them was Rusper. Chris heard that his sister
+Margaret had returned to Overfield, and would stay there for the
+present.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the whole of England there were the same scenes to be
+witnessed. A troop of men, headed by a Commissioner, would ride up one
+evening to some village where a little convent stood, demand entrance at
+the gate, pass through, and disappear from the eyes of the watching
+crowd. Then the next day the work would begin; the lead would be
+stripped from the church and buildings; the treasures corded in bundles;
+the woodwork of the interior put up to auction on the village green; and
+a few days later the troop would disappear again, heavily laden, leaving
+behind roofless walls, and bewildered Religious in their new secular
+dress with a few shillings in their pockets, staring after the rich
+cavalcade and wondering what was best to do.</p>
+
+<p>It had been hoped that the King would stay his hand at the death of
+Anne, and even yet return to the obedience of the Holy See. The Pope was
+encouraged to think so by the authorities on the continent, and in
+England itself there prevailed even confidence that a return to the old
+ways would be effected. But Henry had gone too far; he had drunk too
+deeply of the wealth that lay waiting for him in the treasuries of the
+Religious houses, and after a pause of expectation he set his hand to
+the cup again. It was but natural too, and for more noble motives, to
+such a character as his. As he had aimed in his youth at nothing less
+than supremacy in tennis, hunting and tourney, and later in
+architecture, music and theological reputation; as, for the same reason
+Wolsey had fallen, when the King looked away from girls and sports to
+the fiercer game of politics; so now it was intolerable to Henry that
+there should be even the shadow of a spiritual independence within his
+domain.</p>
+
+<p>A glow of resentful disappointment swept through the North of England at
+the news. It burst out into flame in Lincolnshire, and was not finally
+quenched until the early summer of the following year.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The news that reached Lewes from time to time during the winter and
+spring sent the hearts of all that heard it through the whole gamut of
+emotions. At one time fierce hope, then despair, then rising confidence,
+then again blank hopelessness—each in turn tore the souls of the monks;
+and misery reached its climax in the summer at the news of the execution
+at Tyburn of the Abbots of Jervaulx and Fountains, with other monks and
+gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p>The final recital of the whole tragedy was delivered to them at the
+mouth of a Religious from the Benedictine cell at Middlesborough who had
+been released by the Visitors at his own request, but who had afterwards
+repented and joined the rising soon after the outset; he had been
+through most of the incidents, and then when failure was assured had
+fled south in terror for his life, and was now on his way to the
+Continent to take up his monastic vocation once more.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior was away on one of the journeys that he so frequently
+undertook at this time, no man knew whither, or the ex-monk and rebel
+would have been refused admittance; but the sub-Prior was persuaded to
+take him in for a night, and he sat long in one of the parlours that
+evening telling his story.</p>
+
+<p>Chris leaned against the wall and watched him as he talked with the
+candle-light on his face. He was a stout middle-aged man in layman’s
+dress, for he was not yet out of peril; he sat forward in his chair,
+making preacher’s gestures as he spoke, and using well-chosen vivid
+words.</p>
+
+<p>“They were gathered already when I joined them on their way to York;
+there were nearly ten thousand of them on the road, with Aske at their
+head. I have never set eyes on such a company! There was a troop of
+gentlemen and their sons riding with Aske in front, all in armour; and
+then the rabble behind with gentlemen again to their officers. The
+common folk had pikes and hooks only; and some were in leather harness,
+and some without; but they marched well and kept good order. They were
+of all sorts: hairy men and boys; and miners from the North. There were
+monks, too, and friars, I know not how many, that went with the army to
+encourage them; and everywhere we went the women ran out of their homes
+with food and drink, and prayed God to bless us; and the bells were rung
+in the village churches. We slept as we could, some in houses, some in
+churchyards and by the wayside, and as many of us as could get into the
+churches heard mass each day. As many too as could make them, wore the
+Five Wounds on a piece of stuff sewn on the arm. You would have said
+that none could stand against us, so eager we were and full of faith.”</p>
+
+<p>“There was a song, was there not?” began one of the monks.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, father. We sang it as we went.</p>
+
+<p class="poetry">
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">“Christ crucified!</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For thy wounds wide</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Us commons guide</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Which pilgrims be!</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Through God his grace</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For to purchase</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Old wealth and peace</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of the spiritualty!</span><br>
+</p>
+
+<p>“You could hear it up and down the lines, sung with weeping and
+shouting.”</p>
+
+<p>He described how they came to York, and how the Mayor was forced to
+admit them. They stayed there a couple of days; and Aske published his
+directions for all the ejected Religious to return to their houses.</p>
+
+<p>“I went to a little cell near by—I forget its name—to help some canons
+to settle in again, whose friendship I had made. I had told them then
+that my mind was to enter Religion once more, and they took me very
+willingly. We got there at night. The roof was gone from the dormitory,
+but we slept there for all that—such of us as could sleep—for I heard
+one of them sobbing for joy as he lay there in his old corner under the
+stars; and we sang mass in the morning, as well as we could. The priest
+had an old tattered vestment that hardly hung on his shoulders; and
+there was no cross but one that came from a pair of beads, and that we
+hung over the altar. When I left them again, they were at their office
+as before, and busy roofing the house with old timbers; for my lord
+Cromwell had all the lead. And all their garden was trampled; but they
+said they would do very well. The village-folk were their good friends,
+and would bring them what they needed.”</p>
+
+<p>He described his journey to Doncaster; the furious excitement of the
+villages he passed through, and the news that reached him hour after
+hour as to the growing vastness of Aske’s forces.</p>
+
+<p>“There were thirty thousand, I heard, on the banks of the Don on one
+side; for my lords Nevill and Lumley and others had ridden in with St.
+Cuthbert his banner and arms, and five thousand men, besides those that
+came in from all the country. And on the further side was my Lord
+Shrewsbury for the King, with the Duke and his men. Master Aske had all
+he could do to keep his men back from being at them. Some of the young
+sparks were as terriers at a rat-hole. There was a parley held on the
+bridge, for Norfolk knew well that he must gain time; and Aske sent his
+demands to his Grace, and that was the mistake—”</p>
+
+<p>The man beat one hand into the other and looked round with a kindling
+force—</p>
+
+<p>“That was the mistake! He was too loyal for such work, and did not guess
+at their craft. Well, while we waited there, our men began to make off;
+their farms were wanting them, and their wives and the rest, and we
+melted. Master Aske had to be everywhere at once, it was no fault of
+his. My Lord Derby was marching up upon the houses again, and seeking to
+drive the monks out once more. But there was not an act of violence done
+by our men; not a penny-piece taken or a house burned. They were
+peaceable folk, and asked no more than that their old religion should be
+given back to them, and that they might worship God as they had always
+done.”</p>
+
+<p>He went on to explain how the time had been wasted in those fruitless
+negotiations, and how the force dwindled day by day. Various answers
+were attempted by the King, containing both threats and promises, and in
+these, as in all else the hand of Cromwell was evident. Finally, towards
+the end of November, the insurgents gathered again for another meeting
+with the King’s representatives at Doncaster, summoned by beacons on the
+top of the high Yorkshire moors, and by the reversed pealing of the
+church bells.</p>
+
+<p>“We had a parley among ourselves at Pomfret first, and had a great
+to-do, though I saw little of it; and drew up our demands; and then set
+out for Doncaster again. The duke was there, with the King’s pardon in
+his hand, in the Whitefriars; and a promise that all should be as we
+asked. So we went back to Pomfret, well-pleased, and the next day on St.
+Thomas’ hill the herald read the pardon to us all; and we, poor fools,
+thought that his Grace meant to keep his word—”</p>
+
+<p>The monk looked bitterly round, sneering with his white strong teeth set
+together like a savage dog’s; and there was silence for a moment. The
+Sub-Prior looked nervously round the faces of his subjects, for this was
+treasonable talk to hear.</p>
+
+<p>Then the man went on. He himself it seemed had retired again to the
+little cell where he had seen the canons settled in a few weeks
+previously; and heard nothing of what was going forward; except that the
+heralds were going about the country, publishing the King’s pardon to
+all who had taken part in the Rebellion, and affixing it to the
+market-cross in each town and village, with touching messages from the
+King relating to the grief which he had felt on hearing that his dear
+children believed such tales about him.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little, however, the discontent began to smoulder once more,
+for the King’s pledges of restoration were not fulfilled; and Cromwell,
+who was now recognised to be the inspirer of all the evil done against
+Religion, remained as high as ever in the royal favour. Aske, who had
+been to the King in person, and given him an account of all that had
+taken place, now wrote to him that there was a danger of a further
+rising if the delay continued, for there were no signs yet of the
+promised free parliament being called at York.</p>
+
+<p>Then again disturbances had broken out.</p>
+
+<p>“I was at Hull,” said the monk, “with Sir Francis Bygod in January; but
+we did nothing, and only lost our leader, and all the while Norfolk was
+creeping up with his army. It was piteous to think what might not have
+been done if we had not trusted his Grace; but ’twas no good, and I was
+back again in the dales here and there, hiding for my life by April.
+Everywhere ’twas the same; the monks were haled out again from their
+houses, and men were hanged by the score. I cut down four myself near
+Meux, and gave them Christian burial at night. One was a monk, and
+hanged in his habit. But the worst of all was at York.”</p>
+
+<p>The man’s face twitched with emotion, and he passed his hand over his
+mouth once or twice before continuing.</p>
+
+<p>“I did not dare to go into the court for fear I should be known; but I
+stood outside in the crowd and watched them go in. There was a fellow
+riding with Norfolk—a false knave of a man whom we had all learnt to
+hate at Doncaster—for he was always jeering at us secretly and making
+mischief when he could. I saw him with the duke before, when we went
+into the Whitefriars for the pardon; and he stood there behind with the
+look of a devil on his face; and now here he was again—”</p>
+
+<p>“His name, sir?” put in Dom Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>“Torridon, father, Torridon! He was a—”</p>
+
+<p>There was a sharp movement in the room, so that the monk stopped and
+looked round him amazed. Chris felt the blood ebb from his heart and din
+in his ears, and he swayed a little as he leaned against the wall. He
+saw Dom Anthony lean forward and whisper to the stranger; and through
+the haze that was before his eyes saw the other look at him sharply,
+with a fallen jaw.</p>
+
+<p>Then the monk rose and made a little stiff inclination to Chris,
+deferential and courteous, but with a kind of determined dignity in it
+too.</p>
+
+<p>When Chris had recovered himself, the monk was deep in his story, but
+Ralph had fallen out of it.</p>
+
+<p>“You would not believe it,” he was saying, “but on the very jury that
+was to try Master Aske and Constable, there were empanelled their own
+blood-relations; and that by the express intention of Norfolk. John Aske
+was one of them, and some others who had to wives the sons of my Lord
+Darcy and Sir Robert Constable. You see how it would be. If the
+prisoners were found guilty, men would say that it must be so, for that
+their own kin had condemned them; and if they were to be acquitted, then
+these men themselves would be cast.”</p>
+
+<p>There again broke out a murmur from the listening faces, as the man
+paused.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, they were cast, as you know, for not taking the King to be the
+supreme head of the Church, and for endeavouring to force the King to
+hold a parliament that he willed not. And I was at York again when
+Master Aske was brought back from London to be hanged, and I saw it!”</p>
+
+<p>Again an uncontrollable emotion shook him; and he propped his face on
+his hand as he ended his tale.</p>
+
+<p>“There were many of his friends there in the crowd, and scarcely one
+dared to cry out, God save you, sir.... I dared not....”</p>
+
+<p>He gave one rending sob, and Chris felt his eyes prick with tears at the
+sight of so much sorrow. It was piteous to see a brave man thinking
+himself a coward.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony leaned forward.</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, father,” he said, though his voice was a little husky, “and
+thank God that he died well. You have touched all our hearts.”</p>
+
+<p>“I was a hound,” sobbed the man, “a hound, that I did not cry out to him
+and tell him that I loved him.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, no, father,” said the other tenderly, “you must not think so. You
+must serve God well now, and pray for his soul.”</p>
+
+<p>The bell sounded out for Compline as he spoke, and the monks rose.</p>
+
+<p>“You will come into choir, father,” said the Sub-Prior.</p>
+
+<p>The man nodded, stood up, and followed him out.</p>
+
+<p>Chris was in a strange ferment as he stood in his stall that night. It
+had been sad enough to hear of that gallant attempt to win back the old
+liberties and the old Faith—that attempt that had been a success except
+for the insurgents’ trust in their King—and of the death of the
+leaders.</p>
+
+<p>But across the misery had pierced a more poignant grief, as he had
+learnt how Ralph’s hand was in this too and had taken once more the
+wrong side in God’s quarrel. But still he had no resentment; the
+conflict had passed out of the personal plane into an higher, and he
+thought of his brother as God’s enemy rather than his own. Would his
+prayers then never prevail—the prayers that he speeded up in the smoke
+of the great Sacrifice morning by morning for that zealous mistaken
+soul? Or was it perhaps that that brother of his must go deeper yet,
+before coming out to knowledge and pardon?</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_3IV">CHAPTER IV<br><span class="small">THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SEAL</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>The autumn drew in swiftly. The wet south-west wind blew over the downs
+that lay between Lewes and the sea, and beat down the loose browning
+leaves of the trees about the Priory. The grass in the cloister-garth
+grew rank and dark with the constant rain that drove and dropped over
+the high roofs.</p>
+
+<p>And meanwhile the tidings grew heavier still.</p>
+
+<p>After Michaelmas the King set to work in earnest. He had been checked by
+the northern risings, and still paused to see whether the embers had
+been wholly quenched; and then when it was evident that the North was as
+submissive as the South, began again his business of gathering in the
+wealth that was waiting.</p>
+
+<p>He started first in the North, under show of inflicting punishment for
+the encouragement that the Religious had given to the late rebellions;
+and one by one the great abbeys were tottering. Furness and Sawley had
+already fallen, with Jervaulx and the other houses, and Holme Cultram
+was placed under the care of a superior who could be trusted to hand
+over his charge when called upon.</p>
+
+<p>But up to the present not many great houses had actually fallen, except
+those which were supposed to have taken a share in the revolt; and owing
+to the pains taken by the Visitors to contradict the report that the
+King intended to lay his hands on the whole monastic property of
+England, it was even hoped by a few sanguine souls that the large
+houses might yet survive.</p>
+
+<p>There were hot discussions in the chapter at Lewes from time to time
+during the year. The “Bishops’ Book,” issued by a committee of divines
+and approved by the King, and containing a digest of the new Faith that
+was being promulgated, arrived during the summer and was fiercely
+debated; but so high ran the feeling that the Prior dropped the matter,
+and the book was put away with other papers of the kind on an honourable
+but little-used shelf.</p>
+
+<p>The acrimony in domestic affairs began to reach its climax in October,
+when the prospects of the Priory’s own policy came up for discussion.</p>
+
+<p>Some maintained that they were safe, and that quietness and confidence
+were their best security, and these had the support of the Prior; others
+declared that the best hope lay in selling the possessions of the house
+at a low price to some trustworthy man who would undertake to sell them
+back again at only a small profit to himself when the storm was passed.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior rose in wrath when this suggestion was made.</p>
+
+<p>“Would you have me betray my King?” he cried. “I tell you I will have
+none of it. It is not worthy of a monk to have such thoughts.”</p>
+
+<p>And he sat down and would hear no more, nor speak.</p>
+
+<p>There were whispered conferences after that among the others, as to what
+his words meant. Surely there was nothing dishonourable in the device;
+they only sought to save what was their own! And how would the King be
+“betrayed” by such an action?</p>
+
+<p>They had an answer a fortnight later; and it took them wholly by
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p>During the second week in November the Prior had held himself more
+aloof than ever; only three or four of the monks, with the Sub-Prior
+among them, were admitted to his cell, and they were there at all hours.
+Two or three strangers too arrived on horseback, and were entertained by
+the Prior in a private parlour. And then on the morning of the
+fourteenth the explanation came.</p>
+
+<p>When the usual business of the chapter was done, the faults confessed
+and penances given, and one or two small matters settled, the Prior,
+instead of rising to give the signal to go, remained in his chair, his
+head bent on to his hand.</p>
+
+<p>It was a dark morning, heavy and lowering; and from where Chris sat at
+the lower end of the great chamber he could scarcely make out the
+features of those who sat under the high window at the east; but as soon
+as the Prior lifted his face and spoke, he knew by that tense strain of
+the voice that something impended.</p>
+
+<p>“There is another matter,” said the Prior; and paused again.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment there was complete silence. The Sub-Prior leant a little
+forward and was on the point of speaking, when his superior lifted his
+head again and straightened himself in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>“It is this,” he said, and his voice rang hard and defiant, “it is this.
+It is useless to think we can save ourselves. We are under suspicion,
+and worse than suspicion. I have hoped, and prayed, and striven to know
+God’s will; and I have talked with my Lord Cromwell not once or twice,
+but often. And it is useless to resist any further.”</p>
+
+<p>His voice cracked with misery; but Chris saw him grip the bosses of his
+chair-arms in an effort for self-control. His own heart began to sicken;
+this was not frightened raving such as he had listened to before; it was
+the speech of one who had been driven into decision, as a rat into a
+corner.</p>
+
+<p>“I have talked with the Sub-Prior, and others; and they think with me in
+this. I have kept it back from the rest, that they might serve God in
+peace so long as was possible. But now I must tell you all, my sons,
+that we must leave this place.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a hush of terrible tension. The monks had known that they were
+threatened; they could not think otherwise with the news that came from
+all parts, but they had not known that catastrophe was so imminent. An
+old monk opposite Chris began to moan and mutter; but the Prior went on
+immediately.</p>
+
+<p>“At least I think that we must leave. It may be otherwise, if God has
+pity on us; I do not know; but we must be ready to leave, if it be His
+will, and,—and to say so.”</p>
+
+<p>He was speaking in abrupt sentences, with pauses between, in which he
+appeared to summon his resolution to speak again, and force out his
+tale. There was plainly more behind too; and his ill-ease seemed to
+deepen on him.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish no one to speak now,” he said. “Instead of the Lady-mass
+to-morrow we shall sing mass of the Holy Ghost, and afterwards I shall
+have more to say to you again. I do not desire any to hold speech with
+any other, but to look into their own hearts and seek counsel of God
+there.”</p>
+
+<p>He still sat a moment silent, then rose and gave the signal.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was a strange day for Chris. He did not know what to think, but he
+was certain that they had not yet been told all. The Prior’s silences
+had been as pregnant as his words. There was something very close now
+that would be revealed immediately, and meanwhile he must think out how
+to meet it.</p>
+
+<p>The atmosphere seemed charged all day; the very buildings wore a strange
+air, unfamiliar and menacing. The intimate bond between his soul and
+them, knit by associations of prayer and effort, appeared unreal and
+flimsy. He was tormented by doubtfulness; he could not understand on the
+one side how it was possible to yield to the King, on the other how it
+was possible to resist. No final decision could be made by him until he
+had heard the minds of his fellows; and fortunately they would all speak
+before him. He busied himself then with disentangling the strands of
+motive, desire, fear and hope, and waited for the shaking loose of the
+knot until he knew more.</p>
+
+<p>Mass of the Holy Ghost was sung next morning by the Prior himself in red
+vestments; and Chris waited with expectant awe, remembering how the
+Carthusians under like circumstances had been visited by God; but the
+Host was uplifted and the bell rang; and there was nothing but the
+candle-lit gloom of the choir about the altar, and the sigh of the wind
+in the chapels behind.</p>
+
+<p>Then in the chapter-meeting the Prior told them all.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He reminded them how they had prayed that morning for guidance, and that
+they must be fearless now in following it out. It was easy to be
+reckless and call it faith, but prudence and reasonable common-sense
+were attributes of the Christian no less than trust in God. They had not
+to consider now what they would wish for themselves, but what God
+intended for them so far as they could read it in the signs of the
+times.</p>
+
+<p>“For myself,” he cried,—and Chris almost thought him sincere as he
+spoke, so kindled was his face—“for myself I should ask no more than
+to live and die in this place, as I had hoped. Every stone here is as
+dear to me as to you, and I think more dear, for I have been in a
+special sense the lord of it all; but I dare not think of that. We must
+be ready to leave all willingly if God wills. We thought that we had
+yielded all to follow Christ when we first set our necks here under His
+sweet yoke; but I think He asks of us even more now; and that we should
+go out from here even as we went out from our homes ten or twenty years
+ago. We shall be no further from our God outside this place; and we may
+be even nearer if we go out according to His will.”</p>
+
+<p>He seemed on fire with zeal and truth. His timid peevish air was gone,
+and his delicate scholarly face was flushed as he spoke. Chris was
+astonished, and more perplexed than ever. Was it then possible that
+God’s will might lie in the direction he feared?</p>
+
+<p>“Now this is the matter which we have to consider,” went on the Prior
+more quietly. “His Grace has sent to ask, through a private messenger
+from my Lord Cromwell, whether we will yield up the priory. There is no
+compulsion in the matter—” he paused significantly—“and his Grace
+desires each to act according to his judgment and conscience, of—of his
+own free will.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a dead silence.</p>
+
+<p>The news was almost expected by now. Through the months of anxiety each
+monk had faced the probability of such tidings coming to him sooner or
+later; and the last few days had brought expectation to its climax. Yet
+it was hard to see the enemy face to face, and to know that there was no
+possibility of resisting him finally.</p>
+
+<p>The Sub-Prior rose to his feet and began to speak, glancing as if for
+corroboration to his superior from time to time. His mouth worked a
+little at the close of each sentence.</p>
+
+<p>“My Lord Prior has shown us his own mind, and I am with him in the
+matter. His Grace treats us like his own children; he wishes us to be
+loving and obedient. But, as a father too, he has authority behind to
+compel us to his will if we will not submit. And, as my Lord Prior said
+yesterday, we do not know whether or no his Grace will not permit us to
+remain here after all, if we are docile; or perhaps refound the priory
+out of his own bounty. There is talk of the Chertsey monks going to the
+London Charterhouse from Bisham where the King set them last year. But
+we may be sure he will not do so with us if we resist his will now. I on
+my part then am in favour of yielding up the house willingly, and
+trusting ourselves to his Grace’s clemency.”</p>
+
+<p>There was again silence as he sat down; and a pause of a minute or two
+before Dom Anthony rose. His ruddy face was troubled and perplexed; but
+he spoke resolutely enough.</p>
+
+<p>He said that he could not understand why the matter had not been laid
+before them earlier, that they might have had time to consider it. The
+question was an extremely difficult one to the consciences of some of
+them. On the one hand there was the peril of acquiescing in
+sacrilege—the Prior twisted in his seat as he heard this—and on the
+other of wilfully and petulantly throwing away their only opportunity of
+saving their priory. He asked for time.</p>
+
+<p>Several more made speeches, some in favour of the proposal, and some
+asking, as Dom Anthony had done, for further time for consideration.
+They had no precedents, they said, on which to decide such a question,
+for they understood that it was not on account of treason that they
+were required to surrender the house and property.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior rose with a white face.</p>
+
+<p>“No, no,” he cried. “God forbid! That is over and done with. I—we have
+made our peace with my Lord Cromwell in that affair.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then why,” asked Dom Anthony, “are we required to yield it?”</p>
+
+<p>The Prior glanced helplessly at him.</p>
+
+<p>“I—it is as a sign that the King is temporal lord of the land.”</p>
+
+<p>“We do not deny that,” said the other.</p>
+
+<p>“Some do,” said the Prior feebly.</p>
+
+<p>There was a little more discussion. Dom Anthony remarked that it was not
+a matter of temporal but spiritual headship that was in question. To
+meddle with the Religious Orders was to meddle with the Vicar of Christ
+under whose special protection they were; and it seemed to him at least
+a probable opinion, so far as he had had time to consider it, that to
+yield, even in the hopes of saving their property ultimately, was to
+acquiesce in the repudiation of the authority of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>And so it went on for an hour; and then as it grew late, the Prior rose
+once more, and asked if any one had a word to say who had not yet
+spoken.</p>
+
+<p>Chris had intended to speak, but all that he wished to ask had already
+been stated by others; and he sat now silent, staring up at the Prior,
+and down at the smooth boarded floor at his feet. He had not an idea
+what to do. He was no theologian.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Prior unmasked his last gun.</p>
+
+<p>“As regards the matter of time for consideration, that is now passed. In
+spite of what some have said we have had sufficient warning. All here
+must have known that the choice would be laid before them, for months
+past; it is now an answer that is required of us.”</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment longer. His lips began to tremble, but he made a
+strong effort and finished.</p>
+
+<p>“Master Petre will be here to-night, as my lord Cromwell’s
+representative, and will sit in the chapter-house to-morrow to receive
+the surrender.”</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony started to his feet. The Prior made a violent gesture for
+silence, and then gave the signal to break up.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Again the bewildering day went past. The very discipline of the house
+was a weakness in the defence of the surprised party. It was impossible
+for them to meet and discuss the situation as they wished; and even the
+small times of leisure seemed unusually occupied. Dom Anthony was busy
+at the guest-house; one of the others who had spoken against the
+proposal was sent off on a message by the Prior, and another was ordered
+to assist the sacristan to clean the treasures in view of the Visitor’s
+coming.</p>
+
+<p>Chris was not able to ask a word of advice from any of those whom he
+thought to be in sympathy with him.</p>
+
+<p>He sat all day over his antiphonary, in the little carrel off the
+cloister, and as he worked his mind toiled like a mill.</p>
+
+<p>He had progressed a long way with the work now, and was engaged on the
+pages that contained the antiphons for Lent. The design was soberer
+here; the angels that had rested among the green branches and early
+roses of Septuagesima, thrusting here a trumpet and there a harp among
+the leaves, had taken flight, and grave menacing creatures were in their
+place. A jackal looked from behind the leafless trunk, a lion lifted
+his toothed mouth to roar from a thicket of thorns, as they had lurked
+and bellowed in the bleak wilderness above the Jordan fifteen hundred
+years ago. They were gravely significant now, he thought; and scarcely
+knowing what he did he set narrow human eyes in the lion’s face (for he
+knew no better) and broadened the hanging jaws with a delicate line or
+two.</p>
+
+<p>Then with a fierce impulse he crowned him, and surmounted the crown with
+a cross.</p>
+
+<p>And all the while his mind toiled at the problem. There were three
+things open to him on the morrow. Either he might refuse to sign the
+surrender, and take whatever consequences might follow; or he might sign
+it; and there were two processes of thought by which he might take that
+action. By the first he would simply make an act of faith in his
+superiors, and do what they did because they did it; by the second he
+would sign it of his own responsibility because he decided to think that
+by doing so he would be taking the best action for securing his own
+monastic life.</p>
+
+<p>He considered these three. To refuse to sign almost inevitably involved
+his ruin, and that not only, and not necessarily, in the worldly
+sense; about that he sincerely believed he did not care; but it would
+mean his exclusion from any concession that the King might afterwards
+make. He certainly would not be allowed, under any circumstances,
+to remain in the home of his profession; and if the community was
+shifted he would not be allowed to go with them. As regards the second
+alternative he wondered whether it was possible to shift responsibility
+in that manner; as regards the third, he knew that he had very little
+capability in any case of foreseeing the course that events would take.</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned it all over again, and considered the arguments for
+each course. His superiors were set over him by God; it was rash to
+set himself against them except in matters of the plainest conscience.
+Again it was cowardly to shelter himself behind this plea and so avoid
+responsibility. Lastly, he was bound to judge for himself.</p>
+
+<p>The arguments twisted and turned as bewilderingly as the twining
+branches of his design; and behind each by which he might climb to
+decision lurked a beast. He felt helpless and dazed by the storm of
+conflicting motives.</p>
+
+<p>As he bent over his work he prayed for light, but the question seemed
+more tangled than before; the hours were creeping in; by to-morrow he
+must decide.</p>
+
+<p>Then the memory of the Prior’s advice to him once before came back to
+his mind; this was the kind of thing, he told himself, that he must
+leave to God, his own judgment was too coarse an instrument; he must
+wait for a clear supernatural impulse; and as he thought of it he laid
+his pencil down, dropped on to his knees, and commended it all to God,
+to the Mother of God, St. Pancras, St. Peter and St. Paul. Even as he
+did it, the burden lifted and he knew that he would know, when the time
+came.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Dr. Petre came that night, but Chris saw no more of him than his back as
+he went up the cloister with Dom Anthony to the Prior’s chamber. The
+Prior was not at supper, and his seat was empty in the dim refectory.</p>
+
+<p>Neither was he at Compline; and it was with the knowledge that
+Cromwell’s man and their own Superior were together in conference, that
+the monks went up the dormitory stairs that night.</p>
+
+<p>But he was in his place at the chapter-mass next morning, though he
+spoke to no one, and disappeared immediately afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>Then at the appointed time the monks assembled in the chapter-house.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>As Chris came in he lifted his eyes, and saw that the room was arrayed
+much as it had been at the visit of Dr. Layton and Ralph. A great table,
+heaped with books and papers, stood at the upper end immediately below
+the dais, and a couple of secretaries were there, sharp-looking men,
+seated at either end and busy with documents.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior was in his place in the shadow and was leaning over and
+talking to a man who sat beside him. Chris could make out little of the
+latter except that he seemed to be a sort of lawyer or clerk, and was
+dressed in a dark gown and cap. He was turning over the leaves of a book
+as the Prior talked, and nodded his head assentingly from time to time.</p>
+
+<p>When all the monks were seated, there was still a pause. It was
+strangely unlike the scene of a tragedy, there in that dark grave room
+with the quiet faces downcast round the walls, and the hands hidden in
+the cowl-sleeves. And even on the deeper plane it all seemed very
+correct and legal. There was the representative of the King, a capable
+learned man, with all the indications of law and order round him, and
+his two secretaries to endorse or check his actions. There too was the
+Community, gathered to do business in the manner prescribed by the Rule,
+with the deeds of foundation before their eyes, and the great brass
+convent seal on the table. There was not a hint of bullying or
+compulsion; these monks were asked merely to sign a paper if they so
+desired it. Each was to act for himself; there was to be no over-riding
+of individual privileges, or signing away another’s conscience.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could have been arranged more peaceably.</p>
+
+<p>And yet to every man’s mind that was present the sedate room was black
+with horror. The majesty and terror of the King’s will brooded in the
+air; nameless dangers looked in at the high windows and into every man’s
+face; the quiet lawyer-like men were ministers of fearful vengeance; the
+very pens, ink and paper that lay there so innocently were sacraments of
+death or life.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior ceased his whispering presently, glanced round to see if all
+were in their places, and then stood up.</p>
+
+<p>His voice was perfectly natural as he told them that this was Dr. Petre,
+come down from Lord Cromwell to offer them an opportunity of showing
+their trust and love towards their King by surrendering to his
+discretion the buildings and property that they held. No man was to be
+compelled to sign; it must be perfectly voluntary on their part; his
+Grace wished to force no conscience to do that which it repudiated. For
+his own part, he said, he was going to sign with a glad heart. The King
+had shown his clemency in a hundred ways, and to that clemency he
+trusted.</p>
+
+<p>Then he sat down; and Chris marvelled at his self-control.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Petre stood up, and looked round for a moment before opening his
+mouth; then he put his two hands on the table before him, dropped his
+eyes and began his speech.</p>
+
+<p>He endorsed first what the Prior had said, and congratulated all there
+on possessing such a superior. It was a great happiness, he said, to
+deal with men who showed themselves so reasonable and so loyal. Some he
+had had to do with had not been so—and—and of course their
+stubbornness had brought its own penalty. But of that he did not wish
+to speak. On the other hand those who had shown themselves true
+subjects of his Grace had already found their reward. He had great
+pleasure in announcing to them that what the Prior had said to them a
+day or two before was true; and that their brethren in religion of
+Chertsey Abbey, who had been moved to Bisham last year, were to go to
+the London Charterhouse in less than a month. The papers were made out;
+he had assisted in their drawing up.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke in a quiet restrained voice, and with an appearance of great
+deference; there was not the shadow of a bluster even when he referred
+to the penalties of stubbornness; it was very unlike the hot bullying
+arrogance of Dr. Layton. Then he ended—</p>
+
+<p>“And so, reverend fathers, the choice is in your hands. His Grace will
+use no compulsion. You will hear presently that the terms of surrender
+are explicit in that point. He will not force one man to sign who is not
+convinced that he can best serve his King and himself by doing so. It
+would go sorely against his heart if he thought that he had been the
+means of making the lowest of his subjects to act contrary to the
+conscience that God has given him. My Lord Prior, I will beg of you to
+read the terms of surrender.”</p>
+
+<p>The paper was read, and it was as it had been described. Again and again
+it was repeated in various phrases that the property was yielded of
+free-will. It was impossible to find in it even the hint of a threat.
+The properties in question were enumerated in the minutest manner, and
+the list included all the rights of the priory over the Cluniac cell of
+Castleacre.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior laid the paper down, and looked at Dr. Petre.</p>
+
+<p>The Commissioner rose from his seat, taking the paper as he did so, and
+so stood a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“You see, reverend fathers, that it is as I told you. I understand that
+you have already considered the matter, so that there is no more to be
+said.”</p>
+
+<p>He stepped down from the dais and passed round to the further side of
+the table. One of the secretaries pushed an ink-horn and a couple of
+quills across to him.</p>
+
+<p>“My Lord Prior,” said Dr. Petre, with a slight bow. “If you are willing
+to sign this, I will beg of you to do so; and after that to call up your
+subjects.”</p>
+
+<p>He laid the paper down. The Prior stepped briskly out of his seat, and
+passed round the table.</p>
+
+<p>Chris watched his back, the thin lawyer beside him indicating the place
+for the name; and listened as in a dream to the scratching of the pen.
+He himself still did not know what he would do. If all signed—?</p>
+
+<p>The Prior stepped back, and Chris caught a glimpse of a white face that
+smiled terribly.</p>
+
+<p>The Sub-Prior stepped down at a sign from his Superior; and then one by
+one the monks came out.</p>
+
+<p>Chris’s heart sickened as he watched; and then stood still on a sudden
+in desperate hope, for opposite to him Dom Anthony sat steady, his head
+on his hand, and made no movement when it was his turn to come out.
+Chris saw the Prior look at the monk, and a spasm of emotion went over
+his face.</p>
+
+<p>“Dom Anthony,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The monk lifted his face, and it was smiling too.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot sign, My Lord Prior.”</p>
+
+<p>Then the veils fell, and decision flashed on Chris’ soul.</p>
+
+<p>He heard the pulse drumming in his ears, and his wet hands slipped one
+in the other as he gripped them together, but he made no sign till all
+the others had gone up. Then he looked up at the Prior.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed an eternity before the Prior looked at him and nodded; and he
+could make no answering sign.</p>
+
+<p>Then he heard his name called, and with a great effort he answered; his
+voice seemed not his own in his ears. He repeated Dom Anthony’s words.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot sign, My Lord Prior.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he sat back with closed eyes and waited.</p>
+
+<p>He heard movements about him, steps, the crackle of parchment, and at
+last Dr. Petre’s voice; but he scarcely understood what was said. There
+was but one thought dinning in his brain, and that was that he had
+refused, and thrown his defiance down before the King—that terrible man
+whom he had seen in his barge on the river, with the narrow eyes, the
+pursed mouth and the great jowl, as he sat by the woman he called his
+wife—that woman who now—</p>
+
+<p>Chris shivered, opened his eyes, and sense came back.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Petre was just ending his speech. He was congratulating the
+Community on their reasonableness and loyalty. By an overwhelming
+majority they had decided to trust the King, and they would not find his
+grace unmindful of that. As for those who had not signed he could say
+nothing but that they had used the liberty that his Grace had given
+them. Whether they had used it rightly was no business of his.</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned to the Prior.</p>
+
+<p>“The seal then, My Lord Prior. I think that is the next matter.”</p>
+
+<p>The Prior rose and lifted it from the table. Chris caught the gleam of
+the brass and silver of the ponderous precious thing in his hand—the
+symbol of their corporate existence—engraved, as he knew, with the four
+patrons of the house, the cliff, the running water of the Ouse, and the
+rhyming prayer to St. Pancras.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior handed it to the Commissioner, who took it, and stood there a
+moment weighing it in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>“A hammer,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>One of the secretaries rose, and drew from beneath the table a sheet of
+metal and a sharp hammer; he handed both to Dr. Petre.</p>
+
+<p>Chris watched, fascinated with something very like terror, his throat
+contracted in a sudden spasm, as he saw the Commissioner place the metal
+in the solid table before him, and then, holding the seal sideways, lift
+the hammer in his right hand.</p>
+
+<p>Then blow after blow began to echo in the rafters overhead.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_3V">CHAPTER V<br><span class="small">THE SINKING SHIP</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>Dr. Petre had come and gone, and to all appearance the priory was as
+before. He had not taken a jewel or a fragment of stuff; he had
+congratulated the sacristan on the beauty and order of his treasures,
+and had bidden him guard them carefully, for that there were knaves
+abroad who professed themselves as authorised by the King to seize
+monastic possessions, which they sold for their own profit. The offices
+continued to be sung day and night, and the masses every morning; and
+the poor were fed regularly at the gate.</p>
+
+<p>But across the corporate life had passed a subtle change, analogous to
+that which comes to the body of a man. Legal death had taken place
+already; the unity of life and consciousness existed no more; the seal
+was defaced; they could no longer sign a document except as individuals.
+Now the <i>rigor mortis</i> would set in little by little until somatic death
+too had been consummated, and the units which had made up the organism
+had ceased to bear any relation one to the other.</p>
+
+<p>But until after Christmas there was no further development; and the
+Feast was observed as usual, and with the full complement of monks. At
+the midnight mass there was a larger congregation than for many months,
+and the confessions and communions also slightly increased. It was a
+symptom, as Chris very plainly perceived, of the manner in which the
+shadow of the King reached even to the remotest details of the life of
+the country. The priory was now, as it were, enveloped in the royal
+protection, and the people responded accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>There had come no hint from headquarters as to the ultimate fate of the
+house; and some even began to hope that the half-promise of a
+re-foundation would be fulfilled. Neither had any mark of disapproval
+arrived as to the refusal to sign on the part of the two monks; but
+although nothing further was said in conversation or at chapter, there
+was a consciousness in the minds of both Dom Anthony and Chris that a
+wall had arisen between them and the rest. Talk in the cloister was apt
+to flag when either approached; and the Prior never spoke a word to them
+beyond what was absolutely necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Then, about the middle of January the last process began to be enacted.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>One morning the Prior’s place in church was empty.</p>
+
+<p>He was accustomed to disappear silently, and no astonishment was caused
+on this occasion; but at Compline the same night the Sub-Prior too was
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>This was an unheard-of state of things, but all except the guest-master
+and Chris seemed to take it as a matter of course; and no word was
+spoken.</p>
+
+<p>After the chapter on the next morning Dom Anthony made a sign to Chris
+as he passed him in the cloister, and the two went out together into the
+clear morning-sunshine of the outer court.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony glanced behind him to see that no one was following, and
+then turned to the other.</p>
+
+<p>“They are both gone,” he said, “and others are going. Dom Bernard is
+getting his things together. I saw them under his bed last night.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris stared at him, mute and terrified.</p>
+
+<p>“What are we to do, Dom Anthony?”</p>
+
+<p>“We can do nothing. We must stay. Remember that we are the only two who
+have any rights here now, before God.”</p>
+
+<p>There was silence a moment. Chris glanced at the other, and was
+reassured by the steady look on his ruddy face.</p>
+
+<p>“I will stay, Dom Anthony,” he said softly.</p>
+
+<p>The other looked at him tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>“God bless you, brother!” he said.</p>
+
+<p>That night Dom Bernard and another were gone. And still the others made
+no sign or comment; and it was not until yet another pair had gone that
+Dom Anthony spoke plainly.</p>
+
+<p>He was now the senior monk in the house; and it was his place to direct
+the business of the chapter. When the formal proceedings were over he
+stood up fearlessly.</p>
+
+<p>“You cannot hide it longer,” he said. “I have known for some while what
+was impending.” He glanced round at the empty stalls, and his face
+flushed with sudden anger: “For God’s sake, get you gone, you who mean
+to go; and let us who are steadfast serve our Lord in peace.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris looked along the few faces that were left; but they were downcast
+and sedate, and showed no sign of emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony waited a moment longer, and then gave the signal to depart.
+By a week later the two were left alone.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was very strange to be there, in the vast house and church, and to
+live the old life now stripped of three-fourths of its meaning; but they
+did not allow one detail to suffer that it was possible to preserve. The
+<i>opus Dei</i> was punctually done, and God was served in psalmody. At the
+proper hours the two priests met in the cloister, cowled and in their
+choir-shoes, and walked through to the empty stalls; and there, one on
+either side, each answered the other, bowed together at the <i>Gloria</i>,
+confessed and absolved alternately. Two masses were said each day in the
+huge lonely church, one at the high altar and the other at our Lady’s,
+and each monk served the other. In the refectory one read from the
+pulpit as the other sat at the table; and the usual forms were observed
+with the minutest care. In the chapter each morning they met for mutual
+confession and accusation; and in the times between the exercises and
+meals each worked feverishly at the details that alone made the life
+possible.</p>
+
+<p>They were assisted in this by two paid servants, who were sent to them
+by Chris’s father, for both the lay-brothers and the servants had gone
+with the rest; and the treasurer had disappeared with the money.</p>
+
+<p>Chris had written to Sir James the day that the last monk had gone,
+telling him the state of affairs, and how the larder was almost empty;
+and by the next evening the servants had arrived with money and
+provisions; and a letter from Sir James written from a sick-bed, saying
+that he was unable to come for the present, for he had taken the fever,
+and that Morris would not leave him, but expressing a hope that he would
+come soon in person, and that Morris should be sent in a few days. The
+latter ended with passionate approval of his son’s action.</p>
+
+<p>“God bless and reward you, dear lad!” he had written. “I cannot tell you
+the joy that it is to my heart to know that you are faithful. It cannot
+be for long; but whether it is for long and short, you shall have my
+prayers and blessings; and please God, my poor presence too after a few
+days. May our Lady and your holy patron intercede for you both who are
+so worthy of their protection!”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>At the end of the second week in March Mr. Morris arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Chris was taking the air in the court shortly before sunset, after a
+hard day’s work in church. The land was beginning to stir with the
+resurrection-life of spring; and the hills set round the town had that
+faint flush of indescribable colour that tinges slopes of grass as the
+sleeping sap begins to stir. The elm-trees in the court were hazy with
+growth as the buds fattened at the end of every twig, and a group of
+daffodils here and there were beginning to burst their sheaths of gold.
+There on the little lawn before the guest-house were half a dozen white
+and lavender patches of colour that showed where the crocuses would star
+the grass presently; and from the high west front of the immense church,
+and from beneath the eaves of the offices to the right the birds were
+practising the snatches of song that would break out with full melody a
+month or two later.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of all that threatened, Chris was in an ecstasy of happiness.
+It rushed down on him, overwhelmed and enveloped him; for he knew now
+that he had been faithful. The flood of praise in the church had
+dwindled to a thread; but it was still the <i>opus Dei</i>, though it flowed
+but from two hearts; and the pulse of the heavenly sacrifice still
+throbbed morning by morning, and the Divine Presence still burned as
+unceasingly as the lamp that beaconed it, in the church that was now all
+but empty of its ministers. There were times when the joy that was in
+his heart trembled into tears, as when last night he and his friend had
+sung the song to Mary; and the contrast between the two poor voices,
+and the roar of petition that had filled the great vaulting a year
+before, had suddenly torn his heart in two.</p>
+
+<p>But now the poignant sorrow had gone again; and as he walked here alone
+on this March evening, with the steady hills about him and the flushing
+sky overhead, and the sweet life quickening in the grass at his feet, an
+extraordinary peace flooded his soul.</p>
+
+<p>There came a knocking at the gate, and the jangle of a bell; and he went
+across quickly and unbarred the door.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morris was there on horseback, a couple of saddlebags strapped to
+his beast; and a little group of loungers stood behind.</p>
+
+<p>Chris smiled with delight, and threw the door wide.</p>
+
+<p>The servant saluted him and then turned to the group behind.</p>
+
+<p>“You have no authority,” he said, “as to my going in.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he rode through; and Chris barred the gate behind him, glancing as
+he did so at the curious faces that stared silently.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morris said nothing till he had led his horse into the stable. Then
+he explained.</p>
+
+<p>“One of the fellows told me, sir, that this was the King’s house now;
+and that I had no business here.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris smiled again.</p>
+
+<p>“I know we are watched,” he said, “the servants are questioned each time
+they set foot outside.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morris pursed his lips.</p>
+
+<p>“How long shall you be here, sir?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Until we are turned out,” said Chris.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was true, as he had said, that the house was watched. Ever since the
+last monk had left there had been a man or two at the gate, another
+outside the church-door that opened towards the town; and another yet
+again beyond the stream to the south of the priory-buildings. Dom
+Anthony had told him what it meant. It was that the authorities had no
+objection to the two monks keeping the place until it could be dealt
+with, but were determined that nothing should pass out. It had not been
+worthwhile to send in a caretaker, for all the valuables had been
+removed either by the Visitors or by the Prior when he went at night.
+There were only two sets of second-best altar vessels left, and a few
+other comparatively worthless utensils for the use of the church and
+kitchen. The great relics and the jewelled treasures had gone long
+before. Chris had wondered a little at the house being disregarded for
+so long; but the other monk had reminded him that such things as lead
+and brass and bells were beyond the power of two men to move, and could
+keep very well until other more pressing business had been despatched
+elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morris gave him news of his father. It had not been the true fever
+after all, and he would soon be here; in at any rate a week or two. As
+regarded other news, there was no tidings of Mr. Ralph except that he
+was very busy. Mistress Margaret was at home; no notice seemed to have
+been taken of her when she had been turned out with the rest at the
+dissolution of her convent.</p>
+
+<p>It was very pleasant to see that familiar face about the cloister and
+refectory; or now and again, when work was done, looking up from beyond
+the screen as the monks came in by the sacristy door. Once or twice on
+dark evenings when terror began to push through the rampart of the will
+that Chris had raised up, it was reassuring too to know that Morris was
+there, for he bore with him, as old servants do, an atmosphere of home
+and security, and he carried himself as well with a wonderful
+naturalness, as if the relief of beleaguered monks were as ordinary a
+duty as the cleaning of plate.</p>
+
+<p>March was half over now; and still no sign had come from the world
+outside. There were no guests either to bring tidings, for the priory
+was a marked place and it was well not to show or receive kindliness in
+its regard.</p>
+
+<p>Within, the tension of nerves grew acute. Chris was conscious of a
+deepening exaltation, but it was backed by horror. He found himself now
+smiling with an irrepressible internal joy, now twitching with
+apprehension, starting at sudden noises, and terrified at loneliness.
+Dom Anthony too grew graver still; and would take his arm sometimes and
+walk with him, and tell him tales, and watch him with tender eyes. But
+in him, as in the younger monk, the strain tightened every day.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>They were singing Compline together one evening with tired, overstrained
+voices, for they had determined not to relax any of the chant until it
+was necessary. Mr. Morris was behind them at a chair set beyond the
+screen; and there were no others present in church.</p>
+
+<p>The choir was perfectly dark (for they knew the office by heart) except
+for a glimmer from the sacristy door where a lamp burned within to light
+them to bed. Chris’s thoughts had fled back to that summer evening long
+ago when he had knelt far down in the nave and watched the serried line
+of the black-hooded soldiers of God, and listened to the tramp of the
+psalmody, and longed to be of their company. Now the gallant regiment
+had dwindled to two, of which he was one, and the guest-master that had
+received him and encouraged him, the other.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony was the officiant this evening, and had just sung lustily
+out in the dark that God was about them with His shield, that they need
+fear no nightly terror.</p>
+
+<p>The movement flagged for a moment, for Chris was not attending; Mr.
+Morris’s voice began alone, <i>A sagitta volante</i>—and then stopped
+abruptly as he realised that he was singing by himself; and
+simultaneously came a sharp little crash from the dark altar that rose
+up in the gloom in front.</p>
+
+<p>A sort of sobbing breath broke from Chris at the sudden noise, and he
+gripped his hands together.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment Dom Anthony had taken up the verse.</p>
+
+<p><i>A sagitta volante</i>—“From the arrow that flieth by day, from the thing
+that walketh in darkness—” Chris recovered himself; and the office
+passed on.</p>
+
+<p>As the two passed out together towards the door, Dom Anthony went
+forward up the steps; and Chris waited, and watched him stoop and pass
+his hands over the floor. Then he straightened himself, came down the
+steps and went before Chris into the sacristy.</p>
+
+<p>Under the lamp he stopped, and lifted what he carried to the light. It
+was the little ivory crucifix that he had hung there a few weeks ago
+when the last cross of precious metal had disappeared with the
+Sub-Prior. It was cracked across the body of the figure now, and one of
+the arms was detached at the shoulder and swung free on the nail through
+the hand.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony looked at it, turned and looked at Chris; and without a word
+the two passed out into the cloister and turned up the dormitory stairs.
+To both of them it was a sign that the end was at hand.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>On the following afternoon Mr. Morris ran in to Chris’s carrel, and
+found him putting the antiphonary and his implements up into a parcel.</p>
+
+<p>“Master Christopher,” he said, “Sir James and Sir Nicholas are come.”</p>
+
+<p>As he hurried out of the cloister he saw the horses standing there,
+spent with fast travelling, and the two riders at their heads, with the
+dust on their boots, and their clothes disordered. They remained
+motionless as the monk came towards them; but he saw that his father’s
+face was working and that his eyes were wide and anxious.</p>
+
+<p>“Thank God,” said the old man softly. “I am in time. They are coming
+to-night, Chris.” But there was a questioning look on his face.</p>
+
+<p>Chris looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you take the horses?” said his father again. “Nick and I are
+safe.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris still stared bewildered. Then he understood; and with
+understanding came decision.</p>
+
+<p>“No, father,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The old man’s face broke up into lines of emotion.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sure, my son?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris nodded steadily.</p>
+
+<p>“Then we will all be together,” said Sir James; and he turned to lead
+his horse to the stable.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>There was a little council held in the guest-house a few minutes later.
+Dom Anthony hurried to it, his habit splashed with whitewash, for he had
+been cleaning the dormitory, and the four sat down together.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed that Nicholas had ridden over from Great Keynes to Overfield
+earlier in the afternoon, and had brought the news that a company of men
+had passed through the village an hour before, and that one of them had
+asked which turn to take to Lewes. Sir Nicholas had ridden after them
+and enquired their business, and had gathered that they were bound for
+the priory, and he then turned his horse and made off to Overfield. His
+horse was spent when he arrived there; but he had changed horses and
+came on immediately with Sir James, to warn the monks of the approach of
+the men, and to give them an opportunity of making their escape if they
+thought it necessary.</p>
+
+<p>“Who were the leaders?” asked the elder monk.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>“They were in front; I dared not ride up.”</p>
+
+<p>But his sturdy face looked troubled as he answered, and Chris saw his
+father’s lips tighten. Dom Anthony drummed softly on the table.</p>
+
+<p>“There is nothing to be done,” he said. “We wait till we are cast out.”</p>
+
+<p>“You cannot refuse admittance?” questioned Sir James.</p>
+
+<p>“But we shall do so,” said the other tranquilly; “at least we shall not
+open.”</p>
+
+<p>“But they will batter the door down.”</p>
+
+<p>“Certainly,” said the monk.</p>
+
+<p>“And then?”</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose they will put us out.”</p>
+
+<p>There was absolutely nothing to be done. It was absurd to dream of more
+than formal resistance. Up in the North in more than one abbey the
+inmates had armed themselves, and faced the spoilers grimly on the
+village green; but that was where the whole country side was with them,
+and here it was otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>They talked a few minutes longer, and decided that they would neither
+open nor resist. The two monks were determined to remain there until
+they were actually cast out; and then the responsibility would rest on
+other shoulders than theirs.</p>
+
+<p>It was certain of course that by this time to-morrow at the latest they
+would have been expelled; and it was arranged that the two monks should
+ride back to Overfield, if they were personally unmolested, and remain
+there until further plans were decided upon.</p>
+
+<p>The four knew of course that there was a grave risk in provoking the
+authorities any further, but it was a risk that the two Religious were
+determined to run.</p>
+
+<p>They broke up presently; Mr. Morris came upstairs to tell them that food
+was ready in one of the parlours off the cloister; and the two laymen
+went off with him, while the monks went to sing vespers for the last
+time.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>An hour or two later the two were in the refectory at supper. The
+evening was drawing in, and the light in the tall windows was fading.
+Opposite where Chris sat (for Dom Anthony was reading aloud from the
+pulpit), a row of coats burned in the glass, and he ran his eyes over
+them. They had been set there, he remembered, soon after his own coming
+to the place; the records had been searched, and the arms of every prior
+copied and emblazoned in the panes. There they all were; from Lanzo of
+five centuries ago, whose arms were conjectural, down to Robert Crowham,
+who had forsaken his trust; telling the long tale of prelates and
+monastic life, from the beginning to the close. He looked round beyond
+the circle of light cast by his own candle, and the place seemed full of
+ghosts and presences to his fancy. The pale oak panelling glimmered
+along the walls above the empty seats, from the Prior’s to the left,
+over which the dusky fresco of the Majesty of Christ grew darker still
+as the light faded, down to the pulpit opposite where Dom Anthony’s
+grave ruddy face with downcast eyes stood out vivid in the candlelight.
+Ah! surely there was a cloud of witnesses now, a host of faces looking
+down from the black rafters overhead, and through the glimmering
+panes,—the faces of those who had eaten here with the same sacramental
+dignity and graciousness that these two survivors used. It was
+impossible to feel lonely in this stately house, saturated with holy
+life; and with a thrill at his heart he remembered how Dom Anthony had
+once whispered to him at the beginning of the troubles, that if others
+held their peace the very stones should cry out; and that God was able
+of those stones to raise up children to His praise....</p>
+
+<p>There was a sound of brisk, hurrying footsteps in the cloister outside,
+Dom Anthony ceased his reading with his finger on the place, and the
+eyes of the two monks met.</p>
+
+<p>The door was opened abruptly, and Morris stood there.</p>
+
+<p>“My master has sent me, sir,” he said. “They are coming.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_3VI">CHAPTER VI<br><span class="small">THE LAST STAND</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>The court outside had deepened into shadows as they came out; but
+overhead the sky still glowed faintly luminous in a tender translucent
+green. The evening star shone out clear and tranquil opposite them in
+the west.</p>
+
+<p>There were three figures standing at the foot of the steps that led down
+from the cloister; one of the servants with the two gentlemen; and as
+Chris pushed forward quickly his father turned and lifted his finger for
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>The town lay away to the right; and over the wall that joined the west
+end of the church to the gatehouse, there were a few lights
+visible—windows here and there just illuminated.</p>
+
+<p>For the first moment Chris thought there had been a mistake; he had
+expected a clamour at the gate, a jangling of the bell. Then as he
+listened he knew that it was no false alarm.</p>
+
+<p>Across the wall, from the direction of the hills that showed dimly
+against the evening sky, there came a murmur, growing as he listened.
+The roads were hard from lack of rain, and he could distinguish the
+sound of horses, a great company; but rising above this was a dull roar
+of voices. Every moment it waxed, died once or twice, then sounded out
+nearer and louder. There was a barking of dogs, the cries of children,
+and now and again the snatch of a song or a shouted word or two.</p>
+
+<p>Of the group on the steps within not one stirred, except when Sir James
+slowly lowered his upraised hand; and so they waited.</p>
+
+<p>The company was drawing nearer now; and Chris calculated that they must
+be coming down the steep road that led from the town; and even as he
+thought it he heard the sound of hoofs on the bridge that crossed the
+Winterbourne.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony pushed by him.</p>
+
+<p>“To the gate,” he said, and went down the step and across the court
+followed by the others. As they went the clamour grew loud and near in
+the road outside; and a ruddy light shone on the projecting turret of
+the gateway.</p>
+
+<p>Chris was conscious of extraordinary coolness now that the peril was on
+him; and he stared up at the studded oak doors, at the wicket cut in one
+of the leaves, and the sliding panel that covered the grill, with little
+thought but that of conjecture as to how long the destruction of the
+gate would take. The others, too, though he was scarcely aware of their
+presence, were silent and rigid at his side, as Dom Anthony stepped up
+to the closed grill and waited there for the summons.</p>
+
+<p>It came almost immediately.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great crescendo of sound as the party turned the corner, and
+a flare of light shone under the gate; then the sound of loud talking, a
+silence of the hoofs; and a sudden jangle on the bell overhead.</p>
+
+<p>The monk turned from the grill and lifted his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Then again the talking grew loud, as the mob swept round the corner
+after the horses.</p>
+
+<p>Still all was silent within. Chris felt his father’s hand seek his own a
+moment, and grip it; and then above the gabbling clamour a voice spoke
+distinctly outside.</p>
+
+<p>“Have the rats run, then?”</p>
+
+<p>The bell danced again over their heads; and there was a clatter of raps
+on the huge door.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony slid back the shutter.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>For a moment it was not noticed outside, for the entry was dark. Chris
+could catch a glimpse on either side of the monk’s head of a flare of
+light, but no more.</p>
+
+<p>Then the same voice spoke again, and with something of a foreign accent.</p>
+
+<p>“You are there, then; make haste and open.”</p>
+
+<p>Another voice shouted authoritatively for silence; and the clamour of
+tongues died.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony waited until all was quiet, and then answered steadily.</p>
+
+<p>“Who are you?”</p>
+
+<p>There was an oath; the tumult began again, but hushed immediately, as
+the same voice that had called for admittance shouted aloud—</p>
+
+<p>“Open, I tell you, you bloody monk! We come from the King.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why do you come?”</p>
+
+<p>A gabble of fierce tongues broke out; Chris pressed up to Dom Anthony’s
+back, and looked out. The space was very narrow, and he could not see
+much more than a man’s leg across a saddle, the brown shoulder of a
+horse in front, and a smoky haze beyond and over the horse’s back. The
+leg shifted a little as he watched, as if the rider turned; and then
+again the voice pealed out above the tumult.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you open, sir, for the last time?”</p>
+
+<p>“I will not,” shouted the monk through the grill. “You are nothing
+but—” then he dashed the shutter into its place as a stick struck
+fiercely at the bars.</p>
+
+<p>“Back to the cloister,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The roar outside was tremendous as the six went back across the empty
+court; but it fell to a sinister silence as an order or two was shouted
+outside; and then again swelled with an excited note in it, as the first
+crash sounded on the panels.</p>
+
+<p>Chris looked at his father as they stood again on the steps fifty yards
+away. The old man was standing rigid, his hands at his sides, staring
+out towards the arch of the gateway that now thundered like a drum; and
+his lips were moving. Once he caught his breath as a voice shouted above
+the din outside, and half turned to his son, his hand uplifted as if for
+silence. Then again the voice pealed, and Sir James faced round and
+stared into Chris’s eyes. But neither spoke a word.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony, who was standing a yard or two in front, turned presently
+as the sound of splintering began to be mingled with the reverberations,
+and came towards them. His square, full face was steady and alert, and
+he spoke with a sharp decision.</p>
+
+<p>“You and Sir Nicholas, sir, had best be within. My place will be here;
+they will be in immediately.”</p>
+
+<p>His words were perfectly distinct here in the open air in spite of the
+uproar from the gate.</p>
+
+<p>There was an indignant burst from the young squire.</p>
+
+<p>“No, no, father; I shall not stir from here.”</p>
+
+<p>The monk looked at him; but said no more and turned round.</p>
+
+<p>A sedate voice spoke from the dark doorway behind.</p>
+
+<p>“John and I have fetched out a table or two, father; we can brace this
+door—”</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony turned again.</p>
+
+<p>“We shall not resist further,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Then they were silent, for they were helpless. There was nothing to be
+done but to stand there and listen to the din, to the crash that
+splintered more every moment in the cracked woodwork, and to watch the
+high wall and turret solemn and strong against the stars, and bright
+here and there at the edges with the light from the torches beneath. The
+guest-house opposite them was dark, except for one window in the upper
+floor that glowed and faded with the light of the fire that had been
+kindled within an hour or two before.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James took his son suddenly by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>“And you, Chris—” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall stay here, father.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a rending thunder from the gate; the wicket reeled in and
+fell, and in a moment through the flimsy opening had sprung the figure
+of a man. They could see him plainly as he stood there in the light of
+the torches, a tall upright figure, a feathered hat on his head, and a
+riding cane in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>The noise was indescribable outside as men fought to get through; there
+was one scream of pain, the plunging of a horse, and then a loud steady
+roar drowning all else.</p>
+
+<p>The oblong patch of light was darkened immediately, as another man
+sprang through, and then another and another; then a pause—then the
+bright flare of a torch shone in the opening; and a moment later a
+fellow carrying a flambeau had made his way through.</p>
+
+<p>The whole space under the arch was now illuminated. Overhead the plain
+mouldings shone out and faded as the torch swayed; every brick of the
+walls was visible, and the studs and bars of the huge doors.</p>
+
+<p>Chris had sprung forward by an uncontrollable impulse as the wicket fell
+in; and the two monks were now standing motionless on the floor of the
+court, side by side, in their black habits and scapulars, hooded and
+girded, with the two gentlemen and the servants on the steps behind.</p>
+
+<p>Chris saw the leaders come together under the arch, as the whole gate
+began to groan and bulge under the pressure of the crowd; and a moment
+later he caught the flash of steel as the long rapiers whisked out.</p>
+
+<p>Then above the baying he heard a fierce authoritative voice scream out
+an order, and saw that one of the gentlemen in front was at the door,
+his rapier protruded before him; and understood the manœuvre. It was
+necessary that the mad crowd should be kept back.</p>
+
+<p>The tumult died and became a murmur; and then one by one a file of
+figures came through. In the hand of each was an instrument of some
+kind, a pick or a bludgeon; and it was evident that it was these who had
+broken in the gate.</p>
+
+<p>Chris counted them mechanically as they streamed through. There seemed
+to be a dozen or so.</p>
+
+<p>Then again the man who had guarded the door as they came through slipped
+back through the opening; and they heard his voice beginning to harangue
+the mob.</p>
+
+<p>But a moment later they had ceased to regard him; for from the archway,
+with the torch-bearer beside him, advanced the tall man with the
+riding-cane who had been the first to enter; and as he emerged into the
+court Chris recognised his brother.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He was in a plain rich riding-suit with great boots and plumed hat. He
+walked with an easy air as if certain of himself, and neither quickened
+nor decreased his pace as he saw the monks and the gentlemen standing
+there.</p>
+
+<p>He halted a couple of yards from them, and Chris saw that his face was
+as assured as his gait. His thin lips were tight and firm, and his eyes
+with a kind of insolent irony looked up and down the figures of the
+monks. There was not the faintest sign of recognition in them.</p>
+
+<p>“You have given us a great deal of labour,” he said, “and to no purpose.
+We shall have to report it all to my Lord Cromwell. I understand that
+you were the two who refused to sign the surrender. It was the act of
+fools, like this last. I have no authority to take you, so you had best
+be gone.”</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony answered him in an equally steady voice.</p>
+
+<p>“We are ready to go now,” he said. “You understand we have yielded to
+nothing but force.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph’s lips writhed in a smile.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! if that pleases you,” he said. “Well, then—”</p>
+
+<p>He took a little step aside, and made a movement towards the gate where
+there sounded out still an angry hum beneath the shouting voice that was
+addressing them.</p>
+
+<p>Chris turned to his father behind, and the voice died in his throat, so
+dreadful was that face that was looking at Ralph. He was standing as
+before, rigid it seemed with grief or anger; and his grey eyes were
+bright with a tense emotion; his lips too were as firm as his son’s. But
+he spoke no word. Sir Nicholas was at his side, with one foot advanced,
+and in attitude as if to spring; and Morris’s face looked like a mask
+over his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, then—” said Ralph once more.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! you damned hound!” roared the young squire’s voice; and his hand
+went up with the whip in it.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph did not move a muscle. He seemed cut in steel.</p>
+
+<p>“Let us go,” said Dom Anthony again, to Chris, almost tenderly; “it is
+enough that we are turned out by force.”</p>
+
+<p>“You can go by the church, if you will,” said Ralph composedly. “In
+fact—” He stopped as the murmur howled up again from the gate—“In
+fact you had better go that way. They do not seem to be your friends out
+there.”</p>
+
+<p>“We will go whichever way you wish,” remarked the elder monk.</p>
+
+<p>“Then the church,” said Ralph, “or some other private door. I suppose
+you have one. Most of your houses have one, I believe.”</p>
+
+<p>The sneer snapped the tension.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony turned his back on him instantly.</p>
+
+<p>“Come, brother,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Chris took his father by the arm as he went up the steps.</p>
+
+<p>“Come, sir,” he said, “we are to go this way.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment’s pause. The old man still stared down at his elder
+son, who was standing below in the same position. Chris heard a deep
+breath, and thought he was on the point of speaking; but there was
+silence. Then the two turned and followed the others into the cloister.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_3VII">CHAPTER VII<br><span class="small">AXES AND HAMMERS</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>Chris sat next morning at a high window of a house near Saint Michael’s
+looking down towards the south of the town.</p>
+
+<p>They had escaped without difficulty the night before through the
+church-entrance, with a man whom Ralph sent after them to see that they
+carried nothing away, leaving the crowd roaring round the corner of the
+gate, and though people looked curiously at the monks, the five laymen
+with them protected them from assault. Mr. Morris had found a lodging a
+couple of days before, unknown to Chris, in the house of a woman who was
+favourable to the Religious, and had guided the party straight there on
+the previous evening.</p>
+
+<p>The two monks had said mass in Saint Michael’s that morning before the
+town was awake; and were now keeping within doors at Sir James’s earnest
+request, while the two gentlemen with one of the servants had gone to
+see what was being done at the priory.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>From where Chris sat in his black habit at the leaded window he could
+see straight down the opening of the steep street, across the lower
+roofs below, to where the great pile of the Priory church less than
+half-a-mile away soared up in the sunlight against the water-meadows
+where the Ouse ran to the south of the town.</p>
+
+<p>The street was very empty below him, for every human being that could
+do so had gone down to the sacking of the priory. There might be
+pickings, scraps gathered from the hoards that the monks were supposed
+to have gathered; there would probably be an auction; and there would
+certainly be plenty of excitement and pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Chris was himself almost numb to sensation. The coolness that had
+condensed round his soul last night had hardened into ice; he scarcely
+realised what was going on, or how great was the catastrophe into which
+his life was plunged. There lay the roofs before him—he ran his eye
+from the west tower past the high lantern to the delicate tracery of the
+eastern apse and chapels—in the hands of the spoilers; and here he sat
+dry-eyed and steady-mouthed looking down on it, as a man looks at a
+wound not yet begun to smart.</p>
+
+<p>It was piteously clear and still. Smoke was rising from a fire somewhere
+behind the church, a noise as of metal on stone chinked steadily, and
+the voices of men calling one to another sounded continually from the
+enclosure. Now and again the tiny figure of a workman showed clear on
+the roof, pick in hand; or leaning to call directions down to his
+fellows beneath.</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony looked in presently, breviary in hand, and knelt by Chris on
+the window-step, watching too; but he spoke no word, glanced at the
+white face and sunken eyes of the other, sighed once or twice, and went
+out again.</p>
+
+<p>The morning passed on and still Chris watched. By eleven o’clock the men
+were gone from the roof; half an hour had passed, and no further figure
+had appeared.</p>
+
+<p>There were footsteps on the stairs; and Sir James came in.</p>
+
+<p>He came straight across to his son and sat down by him. Chris looked at
+him. The old man nodded.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my son,” he said, “they are at it. Nothing is to be left, but the
+cloister and guest-house. The church is to be down in a week they say.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris looked at him dully.</p>
+
+<p>“All?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“All the church, my son.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James gave an account of what he had seen. He had made his way in
+with Nicholas and a few other persons, into the court; but had not been
+allowed to enter the cloister. There was a furnace being made ready in
+the calefactorium for the melting of the lead, he had been told by one
+of the men; and the church, as he had seen for himself, was full of
+workmen.</p>
+
+<p>“And the Blessed Sacrament?” asked Chris.</p>
+
+<p>“A priest was sent for this morning to carry It away to a church; I know
+not which.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James described the method of destruction.</p>
+
+<p>They were beginning with the apse and the chapels behind the high altar.
+The ornaments had been removed, the images piled in a great heap in the
+outer court, and the brasses had been torn up. There were half a dozen
+masons busy at undercutting the pillars and walls; and as they excavated
+the carpenters made wooden insertions to prop up the weight. The men had
+been brought down from London, as the commissioners were not certain of
+the temper of the Lewes people. Two of the four great pillars behind the
+high altar were already cut half through.</p>
+
+<p>“And Ralph?”</p>
+
+<p>The old man’s face grew tense and bitter.</p>
+
+<p>“I saw him in the roof,” he said; “he made as if he did not see me.”</p>
+
+<p>They were half-through dinner before Nicholas joined them. He was
+flushed and dusty and furious.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! the hounds!” he said, as he stood at the door, trembling. “They
+say they will have the chapels down before night. They have stripped the
+lead.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James looked up and motioned him to sit down.</p>
+
+<p>“We will go down again presently,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“But we have saved our luggage,” went on Nicholas, taking his seat; “and
+there was a parcel of yours, Chris, that I put with it. It is all to be
+sent up with the horses to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you speak with Mr. Ralph?” asked Dom Anthony.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! I did; the dog! and I told him what I thought. But he dared not
+refuse me the luggage. John is to go for it all to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>He told them during dinner another fact that he had learned.</p>
+
+<p>“You know who is to have it all?” he said fiercely, his fingers
+twitching with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>“It is Master Gregory Cromwell, and his wife, and his baby. A fine
+nursery!”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>As the evening drew on, Chris was again at the window alone. He had said
+his office earlier in the afternoon, and sat here again now, with his
+hands before him, staring down at the church.</p>
+
+<p>One of the servants had come up with a message from Sir James an hour
+before telling him not to expect them before dusk; and that they would
+send up news of any further developments. The whole town was there, said
+the man: it had been found impossible to keep them out. Dom Anthony
+presently came again and sat with Chris; and Mr. Morris, who had been
+left as a safeguard to the monks, slipped in soon after and stood behind
+the two; and so the three waited.</p>
+
+<p>The sky was beginning to glow again as it had done last night with the
+clear radiance of a cloudless sunset; and the tall west tower stood up
+bright in the glory. How infinitely far away last night seemed now,
+little and yet distinct as a landscape seen through a reversed
+telescope! How far away that silent waiting at the cloister door, the
+clamour at the gate, the forced entrance, the slipping away through the
+church!</p>
+
+<p>The smoke was rising faster than ever now from the great chimney, and
+hung in a cloud above the buildings. Perhaps even now the lead was being
+cast.</p>
+
+<p>There was a clatter at the corner of the cobbled street below, and Dom
+Anthony leaned from the window. He drew back.</p>
+
+<p>“It is the horses,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The servant presently came up to announce that the two gentlemen were
+following immediately, and that he had had orders to procure horses and
+saddle them at once. He had understood Sir James to say that they must
+leave that night.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morris hurried out to see to the packing.</p>
+
+<p>In five minutes the gentlemen themselves appeared.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James came quickly across to the two monks.</p>
+
+<p>“We must go to-night, Chris,” he said. “We had words with Portinari. You
+must not remain longer in the town.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“And the chapels will be down immediately. Oh! dear God!”</p>
+
+<p>Dom Anthony made room for the old man to sit down in the window-seat;
+and himself stood behind the two with Nicholas; and so again they
+watched.</p>
+
+<p>The light was fading fast now, and in the windows below lights were
+beginning to shine. The square western tower that dominated the whole
+priory had lost its splendour, and stood up strong and pale against the
+meadows. There was a red flare of light somewhere over the wall of the
+court, and the inner side of the gate-turret was illuminated by it.</p>
+
+<p>A tense excitement lay on the watchers; and no sound came from them but
+that of quick breathing as they waited for what they knew was imminent.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the evening was wonderfully still; they could hear two men
+talking somewhere in the street below; but from the priory came no
+sound. The chink of the picks was still, and the cries of the workmen.
+Far away beyond the castle on their left came an insistent barking of a
+dog; and once, when a horseman rode by below Chris bit his lip with
+vexation, for it seemed to him like the disturbing of a death bed. A
+star or two looked out, vanished, and peeped again from the luminous
+sky, to the south, and the downs beneath were grey and hazy.</p>
+
+<p>All the watchers now had their eyes on the eastern end of the church
+that lay in dim shadow; they could see the roof of the vault behind
+where the high altar lay beneath; the flying buttress of a chapel below;
+and, nearer, the low roof of the Lady-chapel.</p>
+
+<p>Chris kept his eyes strained on the upper vault, for there, he knew the
+first movement would show itself.</p>
+
+<p>The time seemed interminable. He moistened his dry lips from time to
+time, shifted his position a little, and moved his elbow from the sharp
+moulding of the window-frame.</p>
+
+<p>Then he caught his breath.</p>
+
+<p>From where he sat, in the direct line of his eyes, the top of a patch of
+evergreen copse was visible just beyond the roof of the vault; and as
+he looked he saw that a patch of paler green had appeared below it. All
+in a moment he saw too the flying buttress crook itself like an elbow
+and disappear. Then the vault was gone and the roof beyond; the walls
+sank with incredible slowness and vanished.</p>
+
+<p>A cloud of white dust puffed up like smoke.</p>
+
+<p>Then through the open window came the roar of the tumbling masonry; and
+shrill above it the clamour of a great crowd.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_III">BOOK III<br><span class="small">THE KING’S GRATITUDE</span></h3></div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_4I">CHAPTER I<br><span class="small">A SCHEME</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>The period that followed the destruction of Lewes Priory held very
+strange months for Chris. He had slipped out of the stream into a
+back-water, from which he could watch the swift movements of the time,
+while himself undisturbed by them; for no further notice was taken of
+his refusal to sign the surrender or of his resistance to the
+Commissioners. The hands of the authorities were so full of business
+that apparently it was not worth their while to trouble about an
+inoffensive monk of no particular notoriety, who after all had done
+little except in a negative way, and who appeared now to acquiesce in
+silence and seclusion.</p>
+
+<p>The household at Overfield was of a very mixed nature. Dom Anthony after
+a month or two had left for the Continent to take up his vocation in a
+Benedictine house; and Sir James and his wife, Chris, Margaret, and Mr.
+Carleton remained together. For the present Chris and Margaret were
+determined to wait, for a hundred things might intervene—Henry’s death,
+a changing of his mind, a foreign invasion on the part of the Catholic
+powers, an internal revolt in England, and such things—and set the
+clock back again, and, unlike Dom Anthony, they had a home where they
+could follow their Rules in tolerable comfort.</p>
+
+<p>The country was indeed very deeply stirred by the events that were
+taking place; but for the present, partly from terror and partly from
+the great forces that were brought to bear upon English convictions, it
+gave no expression to its emotion. The methods that Cromwell had
+employed with such skill in the past were still active. On the worldly
+side there was held out to the people the hope of relieved taxation, of
+the distribution of monastic wealth and lands; on the spiritual side the
+bishops under Cranmer were zealous in controverting the old principles
+and throwing doubt upon the authority of the Pope. It was impossible for
+the unlearned to know what to believe; new manifestoes were issued
+continually by the King and clergy, full of learned arguments and
+persuasive appeals; and the professors of the old religion were
+continually discredited by accusations of fraud, avarice, immorality,
+hypocrisy and the like. They were silenced, too; while active and
+eloquent preachers like Latimer raged from pulpit to pulpit, denouncing,
+expounding, convincing.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the work went on rapidly. The summer and autumn of ’38 saw
+again destruction after destruction of Religious Houses and objects of
+veneration; and the intimidation of the most influential personages on
+the Catholic side.</p>
+
+<p>In February, for example, the rood of Boxley was brought up to London
+with every indignity, and after being exhibited with shouts of laughter
+at Whitehall, and preached against at Paul’s Cross, it was tossed down
+among the zealous citizens and smashed to pieces. In the summer, among
+others, the shrine of St. Swithun at Winchester was defaced and robbed;
+and in the autumn that followed the friaries which had stood out so long
+began to fall right and left. In October the Holy Blood of Hayles, a
+relic brought from the East in the thirteenth century and preserved
+with great love and honour ever since, was taken from its resting place
+and exposed to ridicule in London. Finally in the same month, after St.
+Thomas of Canterbury had been solemnly declared a traitor to his prince,
+his name, images and pictures ordered to be erased and destroyed out of
+every book, window and wall, and he himself summoned with grotesque
+solemnity to answer the charges brought against him, his relics were
+seized and burned, and—which was more to the point in the King’s view,
+his shrine was stripped of its gold and jewels and vestments, which were
+conveyed in a string of twenty-six carts to the King’s treasury. The
+following year events were yet more terrible. The few great houses that
+survived were one by one brought within reach of the King’s hand; and
+those that did not voluntarily surrender fell under the heavier
+penalties of attainder. Abbot Whiting of Glastonbury was sent up to
+London in September, and two months later suffered on Tor hill within
+sight of the monastery he had ruled so long and so justly; and on the
+same day the Abbot of Reading suffered too outside his own gateway. Six
+weeks afterwards Abbot Marshall, of Colchester, was also put to death.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was a piteous life that devout persons led at this time; and few were
+more unhappy than the household at Overfield. It was the more miserable
+because Lady Torridon herself was so entirely out of sympathy with the
+others. While she was not often the actual bearer of ill news—for she
+had neither sufficient strenuousness nor opportunity for it—it was
+impossible to doubt that she enjoyed its arrival.</p>
+
+<p>They were all together at supper one warm summer evening when a servant
+came in to announce that a monk of St. Swithun’s was asking hospitality.
+Sir James glanced at his wife who sat with passive downcast face; and
+then ordered the priest to be brought in.</p>
+
+<p>He was a timid, tactless man who failed to grasp the situation, and when
+the wine and food had warmed his heart he began to talk a great deal too
+freely, taking it for granted that all there were in sympathy with him.
+He addressed himself chiefly to Chris, who answered courteously; and
+described the sacking of the shrine at some length.</p>
+
+<p>“He had already set aside our cross called Hierusalem,” cried the monk,
+his weak face looking infinitely pathetic with its mingled sorrow and
+anger, “and two of our gold chalices, to take them with him when he
+went; and then with his knives and hammers, as the psalmist tells us, he
+hacked off the silver plates from the shrine. There was a fellow I knew
+very well—he had been to me to confession two days before—who held a
+candle and laughed. And then when all was done; and that was not till
+three o’clock in the morning, one of the smiths tested the metal and
+cried out that there was not one piece of true gold in it all. And Mr.
+Pollard raged at us for it, and told us that our gold was as counterfeit
+as the rotten bones that we worshipped. But indeed there was plenty of
+gold; and the man lied; for it was a very rich shrine. God’s vengeance
+will fall on them for their lies and their robbery. Is it not so,
+mistress?”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon lifted her eyes and looked at him. Her husband hastened to
+interpose.</p>
+
+<p>“Have you finished your wine, father?”</p>
+
+<p>The monk seemed not to hear him; and his talk flowed on about the
+destruction of the high altar and the spoiling of the reredos, which had
+taken place on the following days; and as he talked he filled his
+Venetian glass more than once and drank it off; and his lantern face
+grew flushed and his eyes animated. Chris saw that his mother was
+watching the monk shrewdly and narrowly, and feared what might come. But
+it was unavoidable.</p>
+
+<p>“We poor monks,” the priest cried presently, “shall soon be cast out to
+beg our bread. The King’s Grace—”</p>
+
+<p>“Is not poverty one of the monastic vows?” put in Lady Torridon
+suddenly, still looking steadily at his half-drunk glass.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes, mistress; and the King’s Grace is determined to make us keep
+it, it seems.”</p>
+
+<p>He lifted his glass and finished it; and put out his hand again to the
+bottle.</p>
+
+<p>“But that is a good work, surely,” smiled the other. “It will be surely
+a safeguard against surfeiting and drunkenness.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James rose instantly.</p>
+
+<p>“Come, father,” he said to the staring monk, “you will be tired out, and
+will want your bed.”</p>
+
+<p>A slow smile shone and faded on his wife’s face as she rose and rustled
+down the long hall.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Such incidents as this made life at Overfield very difficult for them
+all; it was hard for these sore hearts to be continually on the watch
+for dangerous subjects, and only to be able to comfort one another when
+the mistress of the house was absent; but above all it was difficult for
+Margaret. She was nearly as silent as her mother, but infinitely more
+tender; and since the two were naturally together for the most part,
+except when the nun was at her long prayers, there were often very
+difficult and painful incidents.</p>
+
+<p>For the first eighteen months after her return her mother let her
+alone; but as time went on and the girl’s resolution persevered, she
+began to be subjected to a distressing form of slight persecution.</p>
+
+<p>For example: Chris and his father came in one day in the autumn from a
+walk through the priory garden that lay beyond the western moat. As they
+passed in the level sunshine along the prim box-lined paths, and had
+reached the centre where the dial stood, they heard voices in the
+summer-house that stood on the right behind a yew hedge.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James hesitated a moment; and as he waited heard Margaret’s voice
+with a thrill of passion in it.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot listen to that, mother. It is wicked to say such things.”</p>
+
+<p>The two turned instantly, passed along the path and came round the
+corner.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret was standing with one hand on the little table, half-turned to
+go. Her eyes were alight with indignation, and her lips trembled. Her
+mother sat on the other side, her silver-handled stick beside her, and
+her hands folded serenely together.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James looked from one to the other; and there fell a silence.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you coming with us, Margaret?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The girl still hesitated a moment, glancing at her mother, and then
+stepped out of the summer-house. Chris saw that bitter smile writhe and
+die on the elder woman’s face, but she said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret burst out presently when they had crossed the moat and were
+coming up to the long grey-towered house.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot bear such talk, father,” she said, with her eyes bright with
+angry tears, “she was saying such things about Rusper, and how idle we
+all were there, and how foolish.”</p>
+
+<p>“You must not mind it, my darling. Your mother does not—does not
+understand.”</p>
+
+<p>“There was never any one like Mother Abbess,” went on the girl. “I never
+saw her idle or out of humour; and—and we were all so busy and happy.”</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes overflowed a moment; her father put his arm tenderly round her
+shoulders, and they went in together.</p>
+
+<p>It was a terrible thing for Margaret to be thrown like this out of the
+one life that was a reality to her. As she looked back now it seemed as
+if the convent shone glorified and beautiful in a haze of grace. The
+discipline of the house had ordered and inspired the associations on
+which memories afterwards depend, and had excluded the discordant notes
+that spoil the harmonies of secular life. The chapel, with its delicate
+windows, its oak rails, its scent of flowers and incense, its tiled
+floor, its single row of carved woodwork and the crosier by the Abbess’s
+seat, was a place of silence instinct with a Divine Presence that
+radiated from the hanging pyx; it was these particular things, and not
+others like them, that had been the scene of her romance with God, her
+aspirations, tendernesses, tears and joys. She had walked in the tiny
+cloister with her Lover in her heart, and the glazed laurel-leaves that
+rattled in the garth had been musical with His voice; it was in her
+little white cell that she had learned to sleep in His arms and to wake
+to the brightness of His Face. And now all this was dissipated. There
+were other associations with her home, of childish sorrows and passions
+before she had known God, of hunting-parties and genial ruddy men who
+smelt of fur and blood, of her mother’s chilly steady presence—
+associations that jarred with the inner life; whereas in the convent
+there had been nothing that was not redolent with efforts and rewards of
+the soul. Even without her mother life would have been hard enough now
+at Overfield; with her it was nearly intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>Chris, however, was able to do a good deal for the girl; for he had
+suffered in the same way; and had the advantage of a man’s strength. She
+could talk to him as to no one else of the knowledge of the interior
+vocation in both of them that persevered in spite of their ejection from
+the cloister; and he was able to remind her that the essence of the
+enclosure, under these circumstances, lay in the spirit and not in
+material stones.</p>
+
+<p>It was an advantage for Chris too to have her under his protection. The
+fact that he had to teach her and remind her of facts that they both
+knew, made them more real to himself; and to him as to her there came
+gradually a kind of sorrow-shot contentment that deepened month by month
+in spite of their strange and distracting surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>But he was not wholly happy about her; she was silent and lonely
+sometimes; he began to see what an immense advantage it would be to her
+in the peculiarly difficult circumstances of the time, to have some one
+of her own sex and sympathies at hand. But he did not see how it could
+be arranged. For the present it was impossible for her to enter the
+Religious Life, except by going abroad; and so long as there was the
+faintest hope of the convents being restored in England, both she and
+her father and brother shrank from the step. And the hope was increased
+by the issue of the Six Articles in the following May, by which
+Transubstantiation was declared to be a revealed dogma, to be held on
+penalty of death by burning; and communion in one kind, the celibacy of
+the clergy, the perpetuity of the vow of chastity, private masses, and
+auricular confession were alike ratified as parts of the Faith held by
+the Church of which Henry had made himself head.</p>
+
+<p>Yet as time went on, and there were no signs of the restoration of the
+Religious Houses, Chris began to wonder again as to what was best for
+Margaret. Perhaps until matters developed it would be well for her to
+have some friend in whom she could confide, even if only to relax the
+strain for a few weeks. He went to his father one day in the autumn and
+laid his views before him.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James nodded and seemed to understand.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you think Mary would be of any service?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir, I think so—but—”</p>
+
+<p>His father looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>“It is a stranger I think that would help her more. Perhaps another
+nun—?”</p>
+
+<p>“My dear lad, I dare not ask another nun. Your mother—”</p>
+
+<p>“I know,” said Chris.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I will think of it,” said the other.</p>
+
+<p>A couple of days later Sir James took him aside after supper into his
+own private room.</p>
+
+<p>“Chris,” he said, “I have been thinking of what you said. And Mary shall
+certainly come here for Christmas, with Nick; but—but there is someone
+else too I would like to ask.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked at his son with an odd expression.</p>
+
+<p>Chris could not imagine what this meant.</p>
+
+<p>“It is Mistress Atherton,” went on the other. “You see you know her a
+little—at least you have seen her; and there is Ralph. And from all
+that I have heard of her—her friendship with Master More and the rest,
+I think she might be the very friend for poor Meg. Do you think she
+would come, Chris?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris was silent. He could not yet fully dissociate the thought of
+Beatrice from the memory of the time when she had taken Ralph’s part.
+Besides, was it possible to ask her under the circumstances?</p>
+
+<p>“Then there was one more thing that I never told you;” went on his
+father, “there was no use in it. But I went to see Mistress Atherton
+when she was betrothed to Ralph. I saw her in London; and I think I may
+say we made friends. And she has very few now; she keeps herself aloof.
+Folks are afraid of her too. I think it would be a kindness to her. I
+could not understand how she could marry Ralph; and now that is
+explained.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris was startled by this news. His father had not breathed a word of
+it before.</p>
+
+<p>“She made me promise,” went on Sir James, “to tell her if Ralph did
+anything unworthy. It was after the first news had reached her of what
+the Visitors were doing. And I told her, of course, about Rusper. I
+think we owe her something. And I think too from what I saw of her that
+she might make her way with your mother.”</p>
+
+<p>“It might succeed,” said Chris doubtfully, “but it is surely difficult
+for her to come—”</p>
+
+<p>“I know—yes—with Ralph and her betrothal. But if we can ask her,
+surely she can come. I can tell her how much we need her. I would send
+Meg to Great Keynes, if I dared, but I dare not. It is not so safe there
+as here; she had best keep quiet.”</p>
+
+<p>They talked about it a few minutes more, and Chris became more inclined
+to it. From what he remembered of Beatrice and the impression that she
+had made on him in those few fierce minutes in Ralph’s house he began to
+see that she would probably be able to hold her own; and if only
+Margaret would take to her, the elder girl might be of great service in
+establishing the younger. It was an odd and rather piquant idea, and
+gradually took hold of his imagination. It was a very extreme step to
+take, considering that she had broken off her betrothal to the eldest
+son of the house; but against that was set the fact that she would not
+meet him there; and that her presence would be really valued by at least
+four-fifths of the household.</p>
+
+<p>It was decided that Lady Torridon should be told immediately; and a day
+or two later Sir James came to Chris in the garden to tell him that she
+had consented.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not understand it at all,” said the old man, “but your mother
+seemed very willing. I wonder—”</p>
+
+<p>And then he stopped abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>The letter was sent. Chris saw it and the strong appeal it contained
+that Beatrice should come to the aid of a nun who was pining for want of
+companionship. A day or two later brought down the answer that Mistress
+Atherton would have great pleasure in coming a week before Christmas.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Margaret had a fit of shyness when the day came for her arrival. It was
+a clear frosty afternoon, with a keen turquoise sky overhead, and she
+wandered out in her habit down the slope to the moat, crossed the
+bridge, glancing at the thin ice and the sedge that pierced it, and came
+up into the private garden. She knew she could hear the sounds of wheels
+from there, and had an instinctive shrinking from being at the house
+when the stranger arrived.</p>
+
+<p>The grass walks were crisp to the foot; the plants in the deep beds
+rested in a rigid stillness with a black blossom or two drooping here
+and there; and the hollies beyond the yew hedge lifted masses of green
+lit by scarlet against the pale sky. Her breath went up like smoke as
+she walked softly up and down.</p>
+
+<p>There was no sound to disturb her. Once she heard the clink of the
+blacksmith’s forge half a mile away in the village; once a blackbird
+dashed chattering from a hedge, scudded in a long dip, and rose again
+over it; a robin followed her in brisk hops, with a kind of pathetic
+impertinence in his round eye, as he wondered whether this human
+creature’s footsteps would not break the iron armour of the ground and
+give him a chance to live.</p>
+
+<p>She wondered a thousand things as she went; what kind of a woman this
+was that was coming, how she would look, why she had not married Ralph,
+and above all, whether she understood—whether she understood!</p>
+
+<p>A kind of frost had fallen on her own soul; she could find no sustenance
+there; it was all there, she knew, all the mysterious life that had
+rioted within her like spring, in the convent, breathing its fragrances,
+bewildering in its wealth of shape and colour. But an icy breath had
+petrified it all; it had sunk down out of sight; it needed a soul like
+her own, feminine and sympathetic, a soul that had experienced the same
+things as her own, that knew the tenderness and love of the Saviour, to
+melt that frigid covering and draw out the essences and sweetness again,
+that lay there paralysed by this icy environment....</p>
+
+<p>There were wheels at last.</p>
+
+<p>She gathered up her black skirt, and ran to the edge of the low yews
+that bounded the garden on the north; and as she caught a glimpse of the
+nodding heads of the postilions, the plumes of their mounts, and the
+great carriage-roof swaying in the iron ruts, she shrank back again, in
+an agony of shyness, terrified of being seen.</p>
+
+<p>The sky had deepened to flaming orange in the west, barred by the tall
+pines, before she unlatched the garden-gate to go back to the house.</p>
+
+<p>The windows shone out bright and inviting from the parlour on the
+ground-floor and from beneath the high gable of the hall as she came up
+the slope. Mistress Atherton, she knew, would be in one of these rooms
+if she had not already gone up stairs; and with an instinct of shyness
+still strong within her the girl slipped round to the back, and passed
+in through the chapel.</p>
+
+<p>The court was lighted by a link that flared beside one of the doorways
+on the left, and a couple of great trunks lay below it. A servant came
+out as she stood there hesitating, and she called to him softly to know
+where was Mistress Atherton.</p>
+
+<p>“She is in the parlour, Mistress Margaret,” said the man.</p>
+
+<p>The girl went slowly across to the corner doorway, glancing at the
+parlour windows as she passed; but the curtains were drawn on this side,
+and she could catch no glimpse of the party within.</p>
+
+<p>The little entrance passage was dark; but she could hear a murmur of
+voices as she stood there, still hesitating. Then she opened the door
+suddenly, and went into the room.</p>
+
+<p>Her mother was speaking; and the girl heard those icy detached tones as
+she looked round the group.</p>
+
+<p>“It must be very difficult for you, Mistress Atherton, in these days.”</p>
+
+<p>Margaret saw her father standing at the window-seat, and Chris beside
+him; and in a moment saw that the faces of both were troubled and
+uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>A tall girl was in the chair opposite, her hands lying easily on the
+arms and her head thrown back almost negligently. She was well dressed,
+with furs about her throat; her buckled feet were crossed before the
+blaze, and her fingers shone with jewels. Her face was pale; her
+scarlet lips were smiling, and there was a certain keen and genial
+amusement in her black eyes.</p>
+
+<p>She looked magnificent, thought Margaret, still standing with her hand
+on the door—too magnificent.</p>
+
+<p>Her father made a movement, it seemed of relief, as his daughter came
+in; but Lady Torridon, very upright in her chair on this side, went on
+immediately.</p>
+
+<p>—“With your opinions, Mistress Atherton, I mean. I suppose all that you
+consider sacred is being insulted, in your eyes.”</p>
+
+<p>The tall girl glanced at Margaret with the amusement still in her face,
+and then answered with a deliberate incisiveness that equalled Lady
+Torridon’s own.</p>
+
+<p>“Not so difficult,” she said, “as for those who have no opinions.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a momentary pause; and then she added, as she stood up and Sir
+James came forward.</p>
+
+<p>“I am very sorry for them, Mistress Torridon.”</p>
+
+<p>Before Lady Torridon could answer, Sir James had broken in.</p>
+
+<p>“This is my daughter Margaret, Mistress Atherton.”</p>
+
+<p>The two ladies saluted one another.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_4II">CHAPTER II<br><span class="small">A DUEL</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>Margaret watched Beatrice with growing excitement that evening, in which
+was mingled something of awe and something of attraction. She had never
+seen anyone so serenely self-possessed.</p>
+
+<p>It became evident during supper, beyond the possibility of mistake, that
+Lady Torridon had planned war against the guest, who was a
+representative in her eyes of all that was narrow-minded and
+contemptible. Here was a girl, she seemed to tell herself, who had had
+every opportunity of emancipation, who had been singularly favoured in
+being noticed by Ralph, and who had audaciously thrown him over for the
+sake of some ridiculous scruples worthy only of idiots and nuns. Indeed
+to Chris it was fairly plain that his mother had consented so willingly
+to Beatrice’s visit with the express purpose of punishing her.</p>
+
+<p>But Beatrice held her own triumphantly.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>They had not sat down three minutes before Lady Torridon opened the
+assault, with grave downcast face and in her silkiest manner. She went
+abruptly back to the point where the conversation had been interrupted
+in the parlour by Margaret’s entrance.</p>
+
+<p>“Mistress Atherton,” she observed, playing delicately with her spoon, “I
+think you said that to your mind the times were difficult for those who
+had no opinions.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice looked at her pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Mistress Torridon; at least more difficult for those, than for the
+others who know their own mind.”</p>
+
+<p>The other waited a moment, expecting the girl to justify herself, but
+she was forced to go on.</p>
+
+<p>“Abbot Marshall knew his mind, but it was not easy for him.”</p>
+
+<p>(The news had just arrived of the Abbot’s execution).</p>
+
+<p>“Do you think not, mistress? I fear I still hold my opinion.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what do you mean by that?”</p>
+
+<p>“I mean that unless we have something to hold to, in these troublesome
+times, we shall drift. That is all.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! and drift whither?”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice smiled so genially as she answered, that the other had no
+excuse for taking offence.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it might be better not to answer that.”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon looked at her with an impassive face.</p>
+
+<p>“To hell, then?” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, yes: to hell,” said Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>There was a profound silence; broken by the stifled merriment of a
+servant behind the chairs, who transformed it hastily into a cough. Sir
+James glanced across in great distress at his son; but Chris’ eyes
+twinkled at him.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon was silent a moment, completely taken aback by the
+suddenness with which the battle had broken, and amazed by the girl’s
+audacity. She herself was accustomed to use brutality, but not to meet
+it. She laid her spoon carefully down.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah!” she said, “and you believe that? And for those who hold wrong
+opinions, I suppose you would believe the same?”</p>
+
+<p>“If they were wrong enough,” said Beatrice, “and through their fault.
+Surely we are taught to believe that, Mistress Torridon?”</p>
+
+<p>The elder woman said nothing at all, and went on with her soup. Her
+silence was almost more formidable than her speech, and she knew that,
+and contrived to make it offensive. Beatrice paid no sort of attention
+to it, however; and without looking at her again began to talk
+cheerfully to Sir James about her journey from town. Margaret watched
+her, fascinated; her sedate beautiful face, her lace and jewels, her
+white fingers, long and straight, that seemed to endorse the impression
+of strength that her carriage and manner of speaking suggested; as one
+might watch a swordsman between the rounds of a duel and calculate his
+chances. She knew very well that her mother would not take her first
+repulse easily; and waited in anxiety for the next clash of swords.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice seemed perfectly fearless, and was talking about the King with
+complete freedom, and yet with a certain discretion too.</p>
+
+<p>“He will have his way,” she said. “Who can doubt that?”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon saw an opening for a wound, and leapt at it.</p>
+
+<p>“As he had with Master More,” she put in.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice turned her head a little, but made no answer; and there was not
+the shadow of wincing on her steady face.</p>
+
+<p>“As he had with Master More,” said Lady Torridon a little louder.</p>
+
+<p>“We must remember that he has my Lord Cromwell to help him,” observed
+Beatrice tranquilly.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon looked at her again. Even now she could scarcely believe
+that this stranger could treat her with such a supreme indifference. And
+there was a further sting, too, in the girl’s answer, for all there
+understood the reference to Ralph; and yet again it was impossible to
+take offence.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret looked at her father, half-frightened, and saw again a look of
+anxiety in his eyes; he was crumbling his bread nervously as he answered
+Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>“My Lord Cromwell—” he began.</p>
+
+<p>“My Lord Cromwell has my son Ralph under him,” interrupted his wife.
+“Perhaps you did not know that, Mistress Atherton.”</p>
+
+<p>Margaret again looked quickly up; but there was still no sign of wincing
+on those scarlet lips, or beneath the black eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, of course, I knew it,” said Beatrice, looking straight at her with
+large, innocent eyes, “that was why—”</p>
+
+<p>She stopped; and Lady Torridon really roused now, made a false step.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes?” she said. “You did not end your sentence?”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice cast an ironically despairing look behind her at the servants.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” she said, “if you will have it: that was why I would not marry
+him. Did you not know that, Mistress?”</p>
+
+<p>It was so daring that Margaret caught her breath suddenly; and looked
+hopelessly round. Her father and brother had their eyes steadily bent on
+the table; and the priest was looking oddly at the quiet angry woman
+opposite him.</p>
+
+<p>Then Sir James slid deftly in, after a sufficient pause to let the
+lesson sink home; and began to talk of indifferent things; and Beatrice
+answered him with the same ease.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon made one more attempt just before the end of supper, when
+the servants had left the room.</p>
+
+<p>“You are living on—” she corrected herself ostentatiously—“you are
+living with any other family now, Mistress Atherton? I remember my son
+Ralph telling me you were almost one of Master More’s household.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice met her eyes with a delightful smile.</p>
+
+<p>“I am living on—with your family at this time, Mistress Torridon.”</p>
+
+<p>There was no more to be said just then. The girl had not only turned her
+hostess’ point, but had pricked her shrewdly in riposte, three times;
+and the last was the sharpest of all.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon led the way to the oak parlour in silence.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>She made no more assaults that night; but sat in dignified aloofness,
+her hands on her lap, with an air of being unconscious of the presence
+of the others. Beatrice sat with Margaret on the long oak settle; and
+talked genially to the company at large.</p>
+
+<p>When compline had been said, Sir James drew Chris aside into the
+star-lit court as the others went on in front.</p>
+
+<p>“Dear lad,” he said, “what are we to do? This cannot go on. Your
+mother—”</p>
+
+<p>Chris smiled at him, and took his arm a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, father,” he said, “what more do we want? Mistress Atherton can
+hold her own.”</p>
+
+<p>“But your mother will insult her.”</p>
+
+<p>“She will not be able,” said Chris. “Mistress Atherton will not have it.
+Did you not see how she enjoyed it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Enjoyed it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes; her eyes shone.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I must speak to her,” said Sir James, still perplexed. “Come with
+me, Chris.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carleton was just leaving the parlour as they came up to its
+outside door. Sir James drew him into the yard. There were no secrets
+between these two.</p>
+
+<p>“Father,” he said, “did you notice? Do you think Mistress Atherton will
+be able to stay here?”</p>
+
+<p>He saw to his astonishment that the priest’s melancholy face, as the
+starlight fell on it, was smiling.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes, Sir James. She is happy enough.”</p>
+
+<p>“But my wife—”</p>
+
+<p>“Sir James, I think Mistress Atherton may do her good. She—” he
+hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>“Well?” said the old man.</p>
+
+<p>“She—Lady Torridon has met her match,” said the chaplain, still
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James made a little gesture of bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, come in, Chris. I do not understand; but if you both think so—”</p>
+
+<p>He broke off and opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon was gone to her room; and the two girls were alone.
+Beatrice was standing before the hearth with her hands behind her
+back—a gallant upright figure; as they came in, she turned a cheerful
+face to them.</p>
+
+<p>“Your daughter has been apologising, Sir James,” she said; and there was
+a ripple of amusement in her voice. “She thinks I have been hardly
+treated.”</p>
+
+<p>She glanced at the bewildered Margaret, who was staring at her under her
+delicate eyebrows with wide eyes of amazement and admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James looked confused.</p>
+
+<p>“The truth is, Mistress Atherton, that I too—and my son—”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, not your son,” said Chris smiling.</p>
+
+<p>“You too!” cried Beatrice. “And how have I been hardly treated?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I thought perhaps, that what was said at supper—” began the old
+man, beginning to smile too.</p>
+
+<p>“Lady Torridon, and every one, has been all that is hospitable,” said
+Beatrice. “It is like old days at Chelsea. I love word-fencing; and
+there are so few who practise it.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James was still a little perplexed.</p>
+
+<p>“You assure me, Mistress, that you are not distressed by—by anything
+that has passed?”</p>
+
+<p>“Distressed!” she cried. “Why, it is a real happiness!”</p>
+
+<p>But he was not yet satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>“You will engage to tell me then, if you think you are improperly
+treated by—by anyone—?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes,” said the girl, smiling into his eyes. “But there is no need
+to promise that. I am really happy; and I am sure your daughter and I
+will be good friends.”</p>
+
+<p>She turned a little towards Margaret; and Chris saw a curious emotion of
+awe and astonishment and affection in his sister’s eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Come, my dear,” said Beatrice. “You said you would take me to my room.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James hastened to push open the further door that led to the stairs;
+and the two girls passed out together.</p>
+
+<p>Then he shut the door, and turned to his son. Chris had begun to laugh.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_4III">CHAPTER III<br><span class="small">A PEACE-MAKER</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>It was a very strange household that Christmas at Overfield. Mary and
+her husband came over with their child, and the entire party, with the
+exception of the duellists themselves, settled down to watch the
+conflict between Lady Torridon and Beatrice Atherton. Its prolongation
+was possible because for days together the hostess retired into a
+fortress of silence, whence she looked out cynically, shrugged her
+shoulders, smiled almost imperceptibly, and only sallied when she found
+she could not provoke an attack. Beatrice never made an assault; was
+always ready for the least hint of peace; but guarded deftly and struck
+hard when she was directly threatened. Neither would she ever take an
+insult; the bitterest dart fell innocuous on her bright shield before
+she struck back smiling; but there were some sharp moments of anxiety
+now and again as she hesitated how to guard.</p>
+
+<p>A silence would fall suddenly in the midst of the talk and clatter at
+table; there would be a momentary kindling of glances, as from the tall
+chair opposite the chaplain a psychological atmosphere of peril made
+itself felt; then the blow would be delivered; the weapons clashed; and
+once more the talk rose high and genial over the battlefield.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The moment when Beatrice’s position in the house came nearest to being
+untenable, was one morning in January, when the whole party were
+assembled on the steps to see the sportsmen off for the day.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James was down with the foresters and hounds at the further end of
+the terrace, arranging the details of the day; Margaret had not yet come
+out of chapel, and Lady Torridon, who had had a long fit of silence, was
+standing with Mary and Nicholas at the head of the central stairs that
+led down from the terrace to the gravel.</p>
+
+<p>Christopher and Beatrice came out of the house behind, talking
+cheerfully; for the two had become great friends since they had learnt
+to understand one another, and Beatrice had confessed to him frankly
+that she had been wrong and he right in the matter of Ralph. She had
+told him this a couple of days after her arrival; but there had been a
+certain constraint in her manner that forbade his saying much in answer.
+Here they came then, now, in the frosty sunshine; he in his habit and
+she in her morning house-dress of silk and lace, talking briskly.</p>
+
+<p>“I was sure you would understand, father,” she said, as they came up
+behind the group.</p>
+
+<p>Then Lady Torridon turned and delivered her point, suddenly and
+brutally.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course he will,” she said. “I suppose then you are not going out,
+Mistress Atherton.” And she glanced with an offensive contempt at the
+girl and the monk. Beatrice’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, and
+opened again.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, no, Lady Torridon.”</p>
+
+<p>“I thought not,” said the other; and again she glanced at the two—“for
+I see the priest is not.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment’s silence. Nick was looking at his wife with a face
+of dismay. Then Beatrice answered smiling.</p>
+
+<p>“Neither are you, dear Lady Torridon. Is not that enough to keep me?”</p>
+
+<p>A short yelp of laughter broke from Nicholas; and he stooped to examine
+his boot.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon opened her lips, closed them again, and turned her back on
+the girl.</p>
+
+<p>“But you are cruel,” said Beatrice’s voice from behind, “and—”</p>
+
+<p>The woman turned once more venomously.</p>
+
+<p>“You do not want me,” she said. “You have taken one son of mine, and now
+you would take the other. Is not my daughter enough?”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice instantly stepped up, and put her hand on the other’s arm.</p>
+
+<p>“Dear Mistress,” she said; and her voice broke into tenderness; “she is
+not enough—”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon jerked her arm away.</p>
+
+<p>“Come, Mary,” she said.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Matters were a little better after that. Sir James was not told of the
+incident; because his son knew very well that he would not allow
+Beatrice to stay another day after the insult; but Chris felt himself
+bound to consult those who had heard what had passed as to whether
+indeed it was possible for her to remain. Nicholas grew crimson with
+indignation and vowed it was impossible. Mary hesitated; and Chris
+himself was doubtful. He went at last to Beatrice that same evening; and
+found her alone in the oak parlour, before supper. The sportsmen had not
+yet come back; and the other ladies were upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice affected to treat it as nothing; and it was not till Chris
+threatened to tell his father, that she told him all she thought.</p>
+
+<p>“I must seem a vain fool to say so;” she said, leaning back in her
+chair, and looking up at him, “and perhaps insolent too; yet I must say
+it. It is this: I believe that Lady Torridon—Ah! how can I say it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me,” said Chris steadily, looking away from her.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice shifted a little in her seat; and then stood up.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it is this. I do not believe your mother is so—so—is what she
+sometimes seems. I think she is very sore and angry; there are a hundred
+reasons. I think no one has—has faced her before. She has been obeyed
+too much. And—and I think that if I stay I may be able—I may be some
+good,” she ended lamely.</p>
+
+<p>Chris nodded.</p>
+
+<p>“I understand,” he said softly.</p>
+
+<p>“Give me another week or two,” said Beatrice, “I will do my best.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have worked a miracle with Meg,” said Chris. “I believe you can
+work another. I will not tell my father; and the others shall not
+either.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>A wonderful change had indeed come to Margaret during the last month.
+Her whole soul, so cramped now by circumstances, had gone out in
+adoration towards this stranger. Chris found it almost piteous to watch
+her—her shy looks, the shiver that went over her, when the brilliant
+figure rustled into the room, or the brisk sentences were delivered from
+those smiling lips. He would see too how their hands met as they sat
+together; how Margaret would sit distracted and hungering for attention,
+eyeing the ceiling, the carpet, her embroidery; and how her eyes would
+leap to meet a glance, and her face flush up, as Beatrice throw her a
+soft word or look.</p>
+
+<p>And it was the right love, too, to the monk’s eyes; not a rival flame,
+but fuel for divine ardour. Margaret spent longer, not shorter, time at
+her prayers; was more, not less, devout at mass and communion; and her
+whole sore soul became sensitive and alive again. The winter had passed
+for her; the time of the singing-birds was come.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>She was fascinated by the other’s gallant brilliance. Religion for the
+nun had up to the present appeared a delicate thing that grew in the
+shadow or in the warm shelter of the cloister; now it blossomed out in
+Beatrice as a hardy bright plant that tossed its leaves in the wind and
+exulted in sun and cold. Yet it had its evening tendernesses too, its
+subtle fragrance when the breeze fell, its sweet colours and
+outlines—Beatrice too could pray; and Margaret’s spiritual instinct, as
+she knelt by her at the altar-rail or glanced at the other’s face as she
+came down fresh with absolution from the chair in the sanctuary where
+the chaplain sat, detected a glow of faith at least as warm as her own.</p>
+
+<p>She was astonished too at her friend’s gaiety; for she had expected, so
+far as her knowledge of human souls led to expect anything, a quiet
+convalescent spirit, recovering but slowly from the tragedy through
+which Margaret knew she had passed. It seemed to her at first as if
+Beatrice must be almost heartless, so little did she flinch when Lady
+Torridon darted Ralph’s name at her, or Master More’s, or flicked her
+suddenly where the wound ought to be; and it was not until the guest had
+been a month in the house that the nun understood.</p>
+
+<p>They were together one evening in Margaret’s own white little room above
+the oak parlour. Beatrice was sitting before the fire with her arms
+clasped behind her head, waiting till the other had finished her office,
+and looking round pleased in her heart, at the walls that told their
+tale so plainly. It was almost exactly like a cell. A low oak bed,
+red-blanketted, stood under the sloping roof, a prie-dieu beside it, and
+a cheap little French image of St. Scholastica over it. There was a
+table, with a sheet of white paper, a little ink-horn and two quills
+primly side by side upon it; and at the back stood a couple of small
+bound volumes in which the nun was accumulating little by little private
+devotions that appealed to her. A pair of beads hung on a nail by the
+window over which was drawn an old red curtain; two brass candlesticks
+with a cross between them stood over the hearth, giving it a faint
+resemblance to an altar. The boards were bare except for a strip of
+matting by the bed; and the whole room, walls, floor, ceiling and
+furniture were speckless and precise.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret made the sign of the cross, closed her book, and smiled at
+Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>“You dear child!” she answered.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret’s face shone with pleasure; and she put out her hand softly to
+the other’s knee, and laid it there.</p>
+
+<p>“Talk to me,” said the nun.</p>
+
+<p>“Well?” said Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me about your life in London. You never have yet, you know.”</p>
+
+<p>An odd look passed over the other’s face, and she dropped her eyes and
+laid her hands together in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Meg,” she said, “I should love to tell you if I could. What would
+you like to hear?”</p>
+
+<p>The nun looked at her wondering.</p>
+
+<p>“Why—everything,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“Shall I tell you of Chelsea and Master More?”</p>
+
+<p>Margaret nodded, still looking at her; and Beatrice began.</p>
+
+<p>It was an extraordinary experience for the nun to sit there and hear
+that wonderful tale poured out. Beatrice for the first time threw open
+her defences—those protections of the sensitive inner life that she had
+raised by sheer will—and showed her heart. She told her first of her
+life in the country before she had known anything of the world; of her
+father’s friendship with More when she was still a child, and of his
+death when she was about sixteen. She had had money of her own, and had
+come up to live with Mrs. More’s sisters; and so had gradually slipped
+into intimacy at Chelsea. Then she described the life there—the ordered
+beauty of it all—and the marvellous soul that was its centre and sun.
+She told her of More’s humour, his unfailing gaiety, his sweet cynicism
+that shot through his talk, his tender affections, and above all—for
+she knew this would most interest the nun—his deep and resolute
+devotion to God. She described how he had at one time lived at the
+Charterhouse, and had seemed to regret, before the end of his life, that
+he had not become a Carthusian; she told her of the precious parcel that
+had been sent from the Tower to Chelsea the day before his death, and
+how she had helped Margaret Roper to unfasten it and disclose the
+hair-shirt that he had worn secretly for years, and which now he had
+sent back for fear that it should be seen by unfriendly eyes or praised
+by flattering tongues.</p>
+
+<p>Her face grew inexpressibly soft and loving as she talked; more than
+once her black eyes filled with tears, and her voice faltered; and the
+nun sat almost terrified at the emotion she had called up. It was hardly
+possible that this tender feminine creature who talked so softly of
+divine and human things and of the strange ardent lawyer in whom both
+were so manifest, could be the same stately lady of downstairs who
+fenced so gallantly, who never winced at a wound and trod so bravely
+over sharp perilous ground.</p>
+
+<p>“They killed him,” said Beatrice. “King Henry killed him; for that he
+could not bear an honest, kindly, holy soul so near his own. And we are
+left to weep for him, of whom—of whom the world was not worthy.”</p>
+
+<p>Margaret felt her hand caught and caressed; and the two sat in silence a
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>“But—but—” began the nun softly, bewildered by this revelation.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my dear; you did not know—how should you?—what a wound I carry
+here—what a wound we all carry who knew him.”</p>
+
+<p>Again there was a short silence. Margaret was searching for some word of
+comfort.</p>
+
+<p>“But you did what you could for him, did you not? And—and even Ralph, I
+think I heard—”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice turned and looked at her steadily. Margaret read in her face
+something she could not understand.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—Ralph?” said Beatrice questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>“You told father so, did you not? He did what he could for Master More?”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice laid her other hand too over Margaret’s.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear; I do not know. I cannot speak of that.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you said—”</p>
+
+<p>“Margaret, my pet; you would not hurt me, would you? I do not think I
+can bear to speak of that.”</p>
+
+<p>The nun gripped the other’s two hands passionately, and laid her cheek
+against them.</p>
+
+<p>“Beatrice, I did not know—I forgot.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice stooped and kissed her gently.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The nun loved her tenfold more after that. It had been before a kind of
+passionate admiration, such as a subject might feel for a splendid
+queen; but the queen had taken this timid soul in through the
+palace-gates now, into a little inner chamber intimate and apart, and
+had sat with her there and shown her everything, her broken toys, her
+failures; and more than all her own broken heart. And as, after that
+evening, Margaret watched Beatrice again in public, heard her retorts
+and marked her bearing, she knew that she knew something that the others
+did not; she had the joy of sharing a secret of pain. But there was one
+wound that Beatrice did not show her; that secret was reserved for one
+who had more claim to it, and could understand. The nun could not have
+interpreted it rightly.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Mary and Nicholas went back to Great Keynes at the end of January; and
+Beatrice was out on the terrace with the others to see them go. Jim, the
+little seven-year-old boy, had fallen in love with her, ever since he
+had found that she treated him like a man, with deference and courtesy,
+and did not talk about him in his presence and over his head. He was
+walking with her now, a little apart, as the horses came round, and
+explaining to her how it was that he only rode a pony at present, and
+not a horse.</p>
+
+<p>“My legs would not reach, Mistress Atherton,” he said, protruding a
+small leather boot. “It is not because I am afraid, or father either. I
+rode Jess, the other day, but not astride.”</p>
+
+<p>“I quite understand,” said Beatrice respectfully, without the shadow of
+laughter in her face.</p>
+
+<p>“You see—” began the boy.</p>
+
+<p>Then his mother came up.</p>
+
+<p>“Run, Jim, and hold my horse. Mistress Beatrice, may I have a word with
+you?”</p>
+
+<p>The two turned and walked down to the end of the terrace again.</p>
+
+<p>“It is this,” said Mary, looking at the other from under her plumed hat,
+with her skirt gathered up with her whip in her gloved hand. “I wished
+to tell you about my mother. I have not dared till now. I have never
+seen her so stirred in my life, as she is now. I—I think she will do
+anything you wish in time. It is useless to feign that we do not
+understand one another—anything you wish—come back to her Faith
+perhaps; treat my father better. She—she loves you, I think; and yet
+dare not—”</p>
+
+<p>“On Ralph’s account,” put in Beatrice serenely.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; how did you know? It is on Ralph’s account. She cannot forgive
+that. Can you say anything to her, do you think? Anything to explain?
+You understand—”</p>
+
+<p>“I understand.”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not know how I dare say all this,” went on Mary blushing
+furiously, “but I must thank you too for what you have done for my
+sister. It is wonderful. I could have done nothing.”</p>
+
+<p>“My dear,” said Beatrice. “I love your sister. There is no need for
+thanks.”</p>
+
+<p>A loud voice hailed them.</p>
+
+<p>“Sweetheart,” shouted Sir Nicholas, standing with his legs apart at the
+mounting steps. “The horses are fretted to death.”</p>
+
+<p>“You will remember,” said Mary hurriedly, as they turned. “And—God
+bless you, Beatrice!”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Torridon was indeed very quiet now. It was strange for the others
+to see the difference. It seemed as if she had been conquered by the one
+weapon that she could wield, which was brutality. As Mr. Carleton had
+said, she had never been faced before; she had been accustomed to regard
+devoutness as incompatible with strong character; she had never been
+resisted. Both her husband and children had thought to conquer by
+yielding; it was easier to do so, and appeared more Christian; and she
+herself, like Ralph, was only provoked further by passivity. And now she
+had met one of the old school, who was as ready in the use of worldly
+weapons as herself; she had been ignored and pricked alternately, and
+with astonishing grace too, by one who was certainly of that tone of
+mind that she had gradually learnt to despise and hate.</p>
+
+<p>Chris saw this before his father; but he saw too that the conquest was
+not yet complete. His mother had been cowed with respect, as a dog that
+is broken in; she had not yet been melted with love. He had spoken to
+Mary the day before the Maxwells’ departure, and tried to put this into
+words; and Mary had seen where the opening for love lay, through which
+the work could be done; and the result had been the interview with
+Beatrice, and the mention of Ralph’s name. But Mary had not a notion how
+Beatrice could act; she only saw that Ralph was the one chink in her
+mother’s armour, and she left it to this girl who had been so adroit up
+to the present, to find how to pierce it.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James had given up trying to understand the situation. He had for so
+long regarded his wife as an irreconcilable that he hoped for nothing
+better than to be able to keep her pacified; anything in the nature of a
+conversion seemed an idle dream. But he had noticed the change in her
+manner, and wondered what it meant; he hoped that the pendulum had not
+swung too far, and that it was not she who was being bullied now by
+this imperious girl from town.</p>
+
+<p>He said a word to Mr. Carleton one day about it, as they walked in the
+garden.</p>
+
+<p>“Father,” he said, “I am puzzled. What has come to my wife? Have you not
+noticed how she has not spoken for three days. Do you think she dislikes
+Mistress Atherton. If I thought that—”</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir,” said the priest. “I do not think it is that. I think it is
+the other way about. She did dislike her—but not now.”</p>
+
+<p>“You do not think, Mistress Atherton is—is a little—discourteous and
+sharp sometimes. I have wondered whether that was so. Chris thinks not,
+however.”</p>
+
+<p>“Neither do I, sir. I think—I think it is all very well as it is. I
+hope Mistress Atherton is to stay yet a while.”</p>
+
+<p>“She speaks of going in a week or two,” said the old man. “She has been
+here six weeks now.”</p>
+
+<p>“I hope not,” said the priest, “since you have asked my opinion, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James sighed, looked at the other, and then left him, to search for
+his wife and see if she wanted him. He was feeling a little sorry for
+her.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>A week later the truth began to come out, and Beatrice had the
+opportunity for which she was waiting.</p>
+
+<p>They were all gathered before the hall-fire expecting supper; the
+painted windows had died with the daylight, and the deep tones of the
+woodwork in gallery and floor and walls had crept out from the gloom
+into the dancing flare of the fire and the steady glow of the sconces.
+The weather had broken a day or two before; all the afternoon sheets of
+rain had swept across the fields and gardens, and heavy cheerless
+clouds marched over the sky. The wind was shrilling now against the
+north side of the hall, and one window dripped a little inside on to the
+matting below it. The supper-table shone with silver and crockery, and
+the napkins by each place; and the door from the kitchen was set wide
+for the passage of the servants, one of whom waited discreetly in the
+opening for the coming of the lady of the house. They were all there but
+she; and the minutes went by and she did not come.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James turned enquiringly as the door from the court opened, but it
+was only a wet shivering dog who had nosed it open, and now crept
+deprecatingly towards the blaze.</p>
+
+<p>“You poor beast,” said Beatrice, drawing her skirts aside. “Take my
+place,” and she stepped away to allow him to come. He looked gratefully
+up, wagged his rat-tail, and lay down comfortably at the edge of the
+tiles.</p>
+
+<p>“My wife is very late,” said Sir James. “Chris—”</p>
+
+<p>He stopped as footsteps sounded in the flagged passage leading from the
+living rooms; and the next moment the door was flung open, and a woman
+ran forward with outstretched hands.</p>
+
+<p>“O! mon Dieu, mon Dieu!” she cried. “My lady is ill. Come, sir, come!”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_4IV">CHAPTER IV<br><span class="small">THE ELDER SON</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>Ralph had prospered exceedingly since his return from the Sussex
+Visitation. He had been sent on mission after mission by Cromwell, who
+had learnt at last how wholly he could be trusted; and with each success
+his reputation increased. It seemed to Cromwell that his man was more
+whole-hearted than he had been at first; and when he was told abruptly
+by Ralph that his relations with Mistress Atherton had come to an end,
+the politician was not slow to connect cause and effect. He had always
+regretted the friendship; it seemed to him that his servant’s character
+was sure to be weakened by his alliance with a friend of Master More;
+and though he had said nothing—for Ralph’s manner did not encourage
+questions—he had secretly congratulated both himself and his agent for
+so happy a termination to an unfortunate incident.</p>
+
+<p>For the meantime Ralph’s fortunes rose with his master’s; Lord Cromwell
+now reigned in England next after the King in both Church and State. He
+held a number of offices, each of which would have been sufficient for
+an ordinary man, but all of which did not overtax his amazing energy. He
+stood absolutely alone, with all the power in his hands; President of
+the Star Chamber, Foreign Minister, Home-Minister, and the Vicar-General
+of the Church; feared by Churchmen, distrusted by statesmen and nobles;
+and hated by all except his own few personal friends—an unique figure
+that had grown to gigantic stature through sheer effort and adroitness.</p>
+
+<p>And beneath his formidable shadow Ralph was waxing great. He had failed
+to get Lewes for himself, for Cromwell designed it for Gregory his son;
+but he was offered his choice among several other great houses. For the
+present he hesitated to choose; uncertain of his future. If his father
+died there would be Overfield waiting for him, so he did not wish to tie
+himself to one of the far-away Yorkshire houses; if his father lived, he
+did not wish to be too near him. There was no hurry, said Cromwell;
+there would be houses and to spare for the King’s faithful servants; and
+meantime it would be better for Mr. Torridon to remain in Westminster,
+and lay his foundations of prosperity deeper and wider yet before
+building. The title too that Cromwell dangled before him sometimes—that
+too could wait until he had chosen his place of abode.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph felt that he was being magnificently treated by his master; and
+his gratitude and admiration grew side by side with his rising fortune.
+There was no niggardliness, now that Cromwell had learnt to trust in
+him; he could draw as much money as he wished for the payment of his
+under-agents, or for any other purpose; and no questions were asked.</p>
+
+<p>The little house at Westminster grew rich in treasures; his bed-coverlet
+was the very cope he had taken from Rusper; his table was heavy with
+chalices beaten into secular shape; his fire-screen was a Spanish
+chasuble taken in the North. His servants were no longer three or four
+sleeping in the house; there was a brigade of them, some that attended
+for orders morning by morning, some that skirmished for him in the
+country and returned rich in documents and hearsay; and a dozen waited
+on his personal wants.</p>
+
+<p>He dealt too with great folks. Half a dozen abbots had been to see him
+in the last year or two, stately prelates that treated him as an equal
+and pleaded for his intercession; the great nobles, enemies of his
+master and himself, eyed him with respectful suspicion as he walked with
+Cromwell in Westminster Hall. The King had pulled his ears and praised
+him; Ralph had stayed at Greenwich a week at a time when the execution
+of the Benedictine abbots was under discussion; he had ridden down
+Cheapside with Henry on his right and Cromwell beyond, between the
+shouting crowds and beneath the wild tossing of gold-cloth and tapestry
+and the windy pealing of a hundred brazen bells. He had gone up with
+Norfolk to Doncaster, a mouth through which the King might promise and
+threaten, and had strode up the steps beside the Duke to make an end of
+the insurgent-leaders of the northern rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>He did not lack a goad, beside that of his own ambition, to drive him
+through this desperate stir; he found a sufficient one in his memory. He
+did not think much of his own family, except with sharp contempt. He did
+not even trouble to make any special report about Chris or Margaret; but
+it was impossible to remember Beatrice with contempt. When she had left
+him kneeling at his table, she had left something besides—the sting of
+her words, and the bitter coldness of her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>As he looked back he did not know whether he loathed her or loved her;
+he only knew that she affected him profoundly. Again and again as he
+dealt brutally with some timid culprit, or stood with his hand on his
+hip to direct the destruction of a shrine, the memory whipped him on his
+raw soul. He would show her whether he were a man or no; whether he
+depended on her or no; whether her woman’s tongue could turn him or no.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He was exercised now with very different matters. Religious affairs for
+the present had fallen into a secondary place, and home and foreign
+politics absorbed most of Cromwell’s energies and time. Forces were
+gathering once more against England, and the Catholic powers were coming
+to an understanding with one another against the country that had thrown
+off allegiance to the Pope and the Empire. There was an opportunity,
+however, for Henry’s propensity to marriage once more to play a part in
+politics; he had been three years without a wife; and Cromwell had
+hastened for the third time to avail himself of the King’s passions as
+an instrument in politics. He had understood that a union between
+England and the Lutheran princes would cause a formidable obstacle to
+Catholic machinations; and with this in view had excited Henry by a
+description and a picture of the Lady Anne, daughter of the Duke of
+Cleves and sister-in-law of the Elector of Saxony. He had been perfectly
+successful in the first stages; the stout duchess had landed at Deal at
+the end of December; and the marriage had been solemnised a few days
+later. But unpleasant rumour had been busy ever since; it was whispered
+far and wide that the King loathed his wife, and complained that he had
+been deceived as to her charms; and Ralph, who was more behind the
+scenes than most men, knew that the rumour was only too true. He had
+been present at an abominable incident the day after the marriage had
+taken place, when the King had stormed and raved about the council-room,
+crying out that he had been deceived, and adding many gross details for
+the benefit of his friends.</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell had been strangely moody ever since. Ralph had watched his
+heavy face day after day staring vacantly across the room, and his hand
+that held the pen dig and prick at the paper beneath it.</p>
+
+<p>Even that was not all. The Anglo-German alliance had provoked opposition
+on the continent instead of quelling it; and Ralph saw more than one
+threatening piece of news from abroad that hinted at a probable invasion
+of England should Cromwell’s schemes take effect. These too, however,
+had proved deceptive, and the Lutheran princes whom he had desired to
+conciliate were even already beginning to draw back from the
+consequences of their action.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was in Cromwell’s room one day towards the end of January, when a
+courier arrived with despatches from an agent who had been following the
+Spanish Emperor’s pacific progress through France, undertaken as a kind
+of demonstration against England.</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell tore open the papers, and glanced at them, running his quick
+attentive eye over this page and that; and Ralph saw his face grow stern
+and white. He tossed the papers on to the table, and nodded to the
+courier to leave the room.</p>
+
+<p>Then he took up a pen, examined it; dashed it point down against the
+table; gnawed his nails a moment, and then caught Ralph’s eye.</p>
+
+<p>“We are failing,” he said abruptly. “Mr. Torridon, if you are a rat you
+had better run.”</p>
+
+<p>“I shall not run, sir,” said Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“God’s Body!” said his master, “we shall all run together, I think;—but
+not yet.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he took up the papers again, and began to read.</p>
+
+<p>It was a few days later that Ralph received the news of his mother’s
+illness.</p>
+
+<p>She had written to him occasionally, telling him of his father’s
+tiresome ways, his brother’s arrogance, his sister’s feeble piety, and
+finally she had told him of Beatrice’s arrival.</p>
+
+<p>“I consented very gladly,” she had written, “for I thought to teach my
+lady a lesson or two; but I find her very pert and obstinate. I do not
+understand, my dear son, how you could have wished to make her your
+wife; and yet I will grant that she has a taking way with her; she seems
+to fear nothing but her own superstitions and folly, but I am very happy
+to think that all is over between you. She never loved you, my Ralph;
+for she cares nothing when I speak your name, as I have done two or
+three times; nor yet Master More either. I think she has no heart.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph had wondered a little as he read this, at his mother’s curious
+interest in the girl; and he wondered too at the report of Beatrice’s
+callousness. It was her damned pride, he assured himself.</p>
+
+<p>Then, one evening as he arrived home from Hackney where he had slept the
+previous night, he found a messenger waiting for him. The letter had not
+been sent on to him, as he had not left word where he was going.</p>
+
+<p>It contained a single line from his father.</p>
+
+<p>“Your mother is ill. Come at once. She wishes for you.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was in the stormy blackness of a February midnight that he rode up
+through the lighted gatehouse to his home. Above the terrace as he came
+up the road the tall hall-window glimmered faintly like a gigantic
+luminous door hung in space; and the lower window of his father’s room
+shone and faded as the fire leapt within.</p>
+
+<p>A figure rose up suddenly from before the hall-fire as he came in,
+bringing with him a fierce gust of wet wind through the opened door; and
+when he had slipped off his dripping cloak into his servant’s hands, he
+saw that his father was there two yards away, very stern and white, with
+outstretched hands.</p>
+
+<p>“My son,” said the old man, “you are too late. She died two hours ago.”</p>
+
+<p>It was a fierce shock, and for a moment he stood dazed, blinking at the
+light, holding his father’s warm slender hands in his own, and trying to
+assimilate the news. He had been driven inwards, and his obstinacy
+weakened, during that long ride from town through the stormy sunset into
+the black, howling night; memories had reasserted themselves on the
+strength of his anxiety; and the past year or two slipped from him, and
+left him again the eldest son of the house and of his two parents.</p>
+
+<p>Then as he looked into the pale bearded face before him, and the eyes
+which had looked into his own a few months ago with such passionate
+anger, he remembered all that was between them, dropped the hands and
+went forward to the fire.</p>
+
+<p>His father followed him and stood by him there as he spread his fingers
+to the blaze, and told him the details, in short detached sentences.</p>
+
+<p>She had been seized with pain and vomiting on the previous night at
+supper time; the doctor had been sent for, and had declared the illness
+to be an internal inflammation. She had grown steadily worse on the
+following day, with periods of unconsciousness; she had asked for Ralph
+an hour after she had been taken ill; the pain had seemed to become
+fiercer as the hours went on; she had died at ten o’clock that night.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph stood there and listened, his head pressed against the high
+mantelpiece, and his fingers stretching and closing mechanically to
+supple the stiffened joints.</p>
+
+<p>“Mistress Atherton was with her all the while,” said his father; “she
+asked for her.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph shot a glance sideways, and down again.</p>
+
+<p>“And—” he began.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; she was shriven and anointed, thank God; she could not receive
+Viaticum.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph did not know whether he was glad or sorry at that news. It was a
+proper proceeding at any rate; as proper as the candles and the shroud
+and the funeral rites. As regards grief, he did not feel it yet; but he
+was aware of a profound sensation in his soul, as of a bruise.</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for a moment or two; then the wind bellowed suddenly
+in the chimney, the tall window gave a crack of sound, and the smoke
+eddied out into the room. Ralph turned round.</p>
+
+<p>“They are with her still,” said Sir James; “we can go up presently.”</p>
+
+<p>The other shook his head abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” he said, “I will wait until to-morrow. Which is my room?”</p>
+
+<p>“Your old room,” said his father. “I have had a truckle-bed set there
+for your man. Will you find your way? I must stay here for Mistress
+Atherton.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph nodded sharply, and went out, down the hill.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was half an hour more before Beatrice appeared; and then Sir James
+looked up from his chair at the sound of a footstep and saw her coming
+up the matted floor. Her face was steady and resolute, but there were
+dark patches under her eyes, for she had not slept for two nights.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James stood up, and held out his hands.</p>
+
+<p>“Ralph has come,” he said. “He is gone to his room. Where are the
+others?”</p>
+
+<p>“The priests are at prayers and Meg too,” she said. “It is all ready,
+sir. You may go up when you please.”</p>
+
+<p>“I must say a word first,” said Sir James. “Sit down, Mistress
+Atherton.”</p>
+
+<p>He drew forward his chair for her; and himself stood up on the hearth,
+leaning his head on his hand and looking down into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>“It is this,” he said: “May our Lord reward you for what you have done
+for us.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice was silent.</p>
+
+<p>“You know she asked my pardon,” he said, “when we were left alone
+together. You do not know what that means. And she gave me her
+forgiveness for all my folly—”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice drew a sharp breath in spite of herself.</p>
+
+<p>“We have both sinned,” he went on; “we did not understand one another;
+and I feared we should part so. That we have not, we have to thank
+you—”</p>
+
+<p>His old voice broke suddenly; and Beatrice heard him draw a long sobbing
+breath. She knew she ought to speak, but her brain was bewildered with
+the want of sleep and the long struggle; she could not think of a word
+to say; she felt herself on the verge of hysteria.</p>
+
+<p>“You have done it all,” he said again presently. “She took all that Mr.
+Carleton said patiently enough, he told me. It is all your work.
+Mistress Atherton—”</p>
+
+<p>She looked up questioningly with her bright tired eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Mistress Atherton; may I know what you said to her?”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice made a great effort and recovered her self-control.</p>
+
+<p>“I answered her questions,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“Questions? Did she ask you of the Faith? Did she speak of me? Am I
+asking too much?”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice shook her head. For a moment again she could not speak.</p>
+
+<p>“I am asking what I should not,” said the old man.</p>
+
+<p>“No, no,” cried the girl, “you have a right to know. Wait, I will tell
+you—”</p>
+
+<p>Again she broke off, and felt her own breath begin to sob in her throat.
+She buried her face in her hands a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“God forgive me,” said the other. “I—”</p>
+
+<p>“It was about your son Ralph,” said Beatrice bravely, though her lips
+shook.</p>
+
+<p>“She—she asked whether I had ever loved him at all—and—”</p>
+
+<p>“Mistress Beatrice, Mistress Beatrice, I entreat you not to say more.”</p>
+
+<p>“And I told her—yes; and, yes—still.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_4V">CHAPTER V<br><span class="small">THE MUMMERS</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>It was a strange meeting for Beatrice and Ralph the next morning. She
+saw him first from the gallery in chapel at mass, kneeling by his
+father, motionless and upright, and watched him go down the aisle when
+it was over. She waited a few minutes longer, quieting herself,
+marshalling her forces, running her attention over each movement or word
+that might prove unruly in his presence; and then she got up from her
+knees and went down.</p>
+
+<p>It had been an intolerable pain to tell the dying woman that she loved
+her son; it tore open the wound again, for she had never yet spoken that
+secret aloud to any living soul, not even to her own. When the question
+came, as she knew it would, she had not hesitated an instant as to the
+answer, and yet the answer had materialised what had been impalpable
+before.</p>
+
+<p>As she had looked down from the gallery this morning she knew that she
+hated, in theory, every detail of his outlook on life; he was brutal,
+insincere; he had lied to her; he was living on the fruits of sacrilege;
+he had outraged every human tie he possessed; and yet she loved every
+hair of his dark head, every movement of his strong hands. It was that
+that had broken down the mother’s reserve; she had been beaten by the
+girl’s insolence, as a dog is beaten into respect; she had only one
+thing that she had not been able to forgive, and that was that this
+girl had tossed aside her son’s love; then the question had been asked
+and answered; and the work had been done. The dying woman had
+surrendered wholly to the superior personality; and had obeyed like a
+child.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>She had a sense of terrible guilt as she went downstairs into the
+passage that opened on the court; the fact that she had put into words
+what had lain in her heart, made her fancy that the secret was written
+on her face. Then again she drove the imagination down by sheer will;
+she knew that she had won back her self-control, and could trust her own
+discretion.</p>
+
+<p>Their greeting was that of two acquaintances. There was not the tremor
+of an eyelid of either, or a note in either voice, that betrayed that
+their relations had once been different. Ralph thanked her courteously
+for her attention to his mother; and she made a proper reply. Then they
+all sat down to breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Then Margaret had to be attended to, for she was half-wild with remorse;
+she declared to Beatrice when they went upstairs together that she had
+been a wicked daughter, that she had resented her mother’s words again
+and again, had behaved insolently, and so forth. Beatrice took her in
+her arms.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear,” she said, “indeed you must leave all that now. Come and see
+her; she is at peace, and you must be.”</p>
+
+<p>The bedroom where Lady Torridon had died was arranged as a <i>chapelle
+ardente;</i> the great bed had been moved out into the centre of the room.
+Six tall candlesticks with escutcheons and yellow tapers formed a
+slender mystical wall of fire and light about it; the windows were
+draped; a couple of kneeling desks were set at the foot of the bed.
+Chris was kneeling at one beside his father as they went in, and Mary
+Maxwell, who had arrived a few hours before death had taken place, was
+by herself in a corner.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice drew Margaret to the second desk, pushed the book to her, and
+knelt by her. There lay the body of the strange, fierce, lonely woman,
+with her beautiful hands crossed, pale as wax, with a crucifix between
+them; and those great black eyebrows beyond, below which lay the double
+reverse curve of the lashes. It seemed as if she was watching them both,
+as her manner had been in life, with a tranquil cynicism.</p>
+
+<p>And was she at peace, thought Beatrice, as she had told her daughter
+just now? Was it possible to believe that that stormy, vicious spirit
+had been quieted so suddenly? And yet that would be no greater miracle
+than that which death had wrought to the body. If the one was so still,
+why not the other? At least she had asked pardon of her husband for
+those years of alienation; she had demanded the sacraments of the
+Church!</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice bowed her head, and prayed for the departed soul.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>She was disturbed by the soft opening of a door, and lifted her eyes to
+see Ralph stand a moment by the head of the bed, before he sank on his
+knees. She could watch every detail of his face in the candlelight; his
+thin tight lips, his heavy eyebrows so like his mother’s, his curved
+nostrils, the clean sharp line of his jaw.</p>
+
+<p>She found herself analysing his processes of thought. His mother had
+been the one member of his family with whom he had had sympathy; they
+understood one another, these two bitter souls, as no one else did,
+except perhaps Beatrice herself. How aloof they had stood from all
+ordinary affections; how keen must have been their dual loneliness! And
+what did this snapped thread mean to him now? To what, in his opinion,
+did the broken end lead that had passed out from the visible world to
+the invisible? Did he think that all was over, and that the one soul
+that had understood his own had passed like a candle flame into the
+dark? And she too—was she crying for her son, a thin soundless sobbing
+in the world beyond sight? Above all, did he understand how alone he was
+now—how utterly, eternally alone, unless he turned his course?</p>
+
+<p>A great well of pity broke up and surged in her heart, flooding her eyes
+with tears, as she looked at the living son and the dead mother; and she
+dropped her head on her hands again, and prayed for his soul as well as
+for hers.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was a very strange atmosphere in the house during the day or two that
+passed before the funeral. The household met at meals and in the parlour
+and chapel, but seldom at other times. Ralph was almost invisible; and
+silent when he appeared. There were no explanations on either side; he
+behaved with a kind of distant courtesy to the others, answered their
+questions, volunteered a word or two sometimes; made himself useful in
+small ways as regarded giving orders to the servants, inspecting the
+funeral standard and scutcheons, and making one or two arrangements
+which fell to him naturally; and went out by himself on horseback or on
+foot during the afternoon. His contempt seemed to have fallen from him;
+he was as courteous to Chris as to the others; but no word was spoken on
+either side as regarded either the past and the great gulf that
+separated him from the others, or the future relations between him and
+his home.</p>
+
+<p>The funeral took place three days after death, on the Saturday morning;
+a requiem was sung in the presence of the body in the parish church; and
+Beatrice sat with the mourners in the Torridon chapel behind the black
+hearse set with lights, before the open vault in the centre of the
+pavement. Ralph sat two places beyond her, with Sir James between; and
+she was again vividly conscious of his presence, of his movements as he
+knelt and sat; and again she wondered what all the solemn ceremonies
+meant to him, the yellow candles, the black vestments, the mysterious
+hallowing of the body with incense and water—counteracting, as it were,
+with fragrance and brightness, the corruption and darkness of the grave.</p>
+
+<p>She walked back with Margaret, who clung to her now, almost desperately,
+finding in her sane serenity an antidote to her own remorse; and as she
+walked through the garden and across the moat, with Nicholas and Mary
+coming behind, she watched the three men going in front, Sir James in
+the middle, the monk on his left, and the slow-stepping Ralph on his
+right, and marvelled at the grim acting.</p>
+
+<p>There they went, the father and his two sons, side by side in courteous
+silence—she noticed Ralph step forward to lift the latch of the
+garden-gate for the others to pass through—and between them lay an
+impassable gulf; she found herself wondering whether the other gulf that
+they had looked into half an hour before were so deep or wide.</p>
+
+<p>She was out again with Sir James alone in the evening before supper, and
+learnt from him then that Ralph was to stay till Monday.</p>
+
+<p>“He has not spoken to me of returning again,” said the old man. “Of
+course it is impossible. Do you not think so, Mistress Atherton.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is impossible,” she said. “What good would be served?”</p>
+
+<p>“What good?” repeated the other.</p>
+
+<p>The evening was falling swiftly, layer on layer of twilight, as they
+turned to come back to the house. The steeple of the church rose up on
+their left, slender and ghostly against the yellow sky, out of the black
+yews and cypresses that lay banked below it. They stopped and looked at
+it a moment, as it aspired to heaven from the bones that lay about its
+base, like an eternal resurrection wrought in stone. There all about it
+were the mortal and the dead; the stones and iron slabs leaned, as they
+knew, in hundreds about the grass; and round them again stood the roofs,
+beginning now to kindle under the eaves, where the living slept and ate.
+There was a rumbling of heavy carts somewhere beyond the village, a
+crack or two of a whip, the barking of a dog.</p>
+
+<p>Then they turned again and went up to the house.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was the chaplain who was late this evening for supper. The others
+waited a few minutes by the fire, but there was no sign of him. A
+servant was sent up to his room and came back to report that he had
+changed his cassock and gone out; a boy had come from the parish-priest,
+said the man, ten minutes before, and Mr. Carleton had probably been
+sent for.</p>
+
+<p>They waited yet five minutes, but the priest did not appear, and they
+sat down. Supper was nearly over before he came. He came in by the
+side-door from the court, splashed with mud, and looking pale and
+concerned. He went straight up to Sir James.</p>
+
+<p>“May I speak with you, sir?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The old man got up at once, and went down the hall with him.</p>
+
+<p>The rest waited, expecting them to return, but there was no sign of
+them; and Ralph at last rose and led the way to the oak-parlour. As they
+passed the door of Sir James’s room they heard the sound of voices
+within.</p>
+
+<p>Conversation was a very difficult matter that evening. Ralph had behaved
+with considerable grace and tact, but Nicholas had not responded. Ever
+since his arrival on the day before the funeral he had eyed Ralph like a
+strange dog intruded into a house; Mary had hovered round her husband,
+watchful and anxious, stepping hastily into gaps in the conversation,
+sliding in a sentence or two as Nicholas licked his lips in preparation
+for a snarl; once even putting her hand swiftly on his and drowning a
+growl with a word of her own. Ralph had been wonderfully
+self-controlled; only once had Beatrice seen him show his teeth for a
+moment as his brother-in-law had scowled more plainly than usual.</p>
+
+<p>The atmosphere was charged to-night, now that the master of the house
+was away; and as Ralph took his seat in his father’s chair, Beatrice had
+caught her breath for a moment as she saw the look on Nicholas’s face.
+It seemed as if the funeral had lifted a stone that had hitherto held
+the two angry spirits down; Nicholas, after all, was but a son-in-law,
+and Ralph, to his view at least, a bad son. She feared that both might
+think that a quarrel did not outrage decency; but she feared for
+Nicholas more than for Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph appeared not to notice the other’s scowl, and leaned easily back,
+his head against the carved heraldry, and rapped his fingers softly and
+rhythmically on the bosses of the arms.</p>
+
+<p>Then she heard Nicholas draw a slow venomous breath; and the talk died
+on Mary’s lips. Beatrice stood up abruptly, in desperation; she did not
+know what to say; but the movement checked Nicholas, and he glanced at
+her a moment. Then Mary recovered herself, put her hand sharply on her
+husband’s, and slid out an indifferent sentence. Beatrice saw Ralph’s
+eyes move swiftly and sideways and down again, and a tiny wrinkle of a
+smile show itself at the corners of his mouth. But that danger was
+passed; and a minute later they heard the door of Sir James’s room
+opposite open, and the footsteps of the two men come out.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph stood up at once as his father came in, followed by the priest,
+and stepped back to the window-seat; there was the faintest hint in the
+slight motion of his hands to the effect that he had held his post as
+the eldest son until the rightful owner came. But the consciousness of
+it in Beatrice’s mind was swept away as she looked at the old man,
+standing with a white stern face and his hands clenched at his sides.
+She could see that something impended, and stood up quickly.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Carleton has brought shocking news,” he said abruptly; and his eyes
+wandered to his eldest son standing in the shadow of the curtain. “A
+company of mummers has arrived in the village—they—they are to give
+their piece to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a dead silence for a moment, for all knew what this meant.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas sprang to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>“By God, they shall not!” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James lifted his hand sharply.</p>
+
+<p>“We cannot hinder it,” he said. “The priests have done what they can.
+The fellow tells them—” he paused, and again his eyes wandered to
+Ralph—“the fellow tells them he is under the protection of my Lord
+Cromwell.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a swift rustle in the room. Nicholas faced sharply round to
+the window-seat, his hands clenched and his face quivering. Ralph did
+not move.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell them, father,” said Sir James.</p>
+
+<p>The chaplain gave his account. He had been sent for by the parish priest
+just before supper, and had gone with him to the barn that had been
+hired for the performance. The carts had arrived that evening from
+Maidstone; and were being unpacked. He had seen the properties; they
+were of the usual kind—all the paraphernalia for the parody of the Mass
+that was usually given by such actors. He had seen the vestments, the
+friar’s habit, the red-nosed mask, the woman’s costume and wig—all the
+regular articles. The manager had tried to protest against the priests’
+entrance; had denied at first that any insult was intended to the
+Catholic Religion; and had finally taken refuge in defiance; he had
+flung out the properties before their eyes; had declared that no one
+could hinder him from doing as he pleased, since the Archbishop had not
+protested; and Lord Cromwell had given him his express sanction.</p>
+
+<p>“We did all we were able,” said the priest. “Master Rector said he would
+put all the parishioners who came, under the ban of the Church; the
+fellow snapped his fingers in his face. I told them of Sir James’s
+wishes; the death of my Lady—it was of no avail. We can do nothing.”</p>
+
+<p>The priest’s sallow face was flushed with fury as he spoke; and his lips
+trembled piteously with horror and pain. It was the first time that the
+mummers had been near Overfield; they had heard tales of them from other
+parts of the country, but had hoped that their own village would escape
+the corruption. And now it had come.</p>
+
+<p>He stood shaking, as he ended his account.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Carleton says it would be of no avail for me to go down myself. I
+wished to. We can do nothing.”</p>
+
+<p>Again he glanced at Ralph, who had sat down silently in the shadow while
+the priest talked.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas could be restrained no longer. He shook off his wife’s hand and
+took a step across the room.</p>
+
+<p>“And you—you sit there, you devil!” he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James was with him in a moment, so swiftly that Beatrice did not see
+him move. Margaret was clinging to her now, whispering and sobbing.</p>
+
+<p>“Nick,” snapped out the old man, “hold your tongue, sir. Sit down.”</p>
+
+<p>“God’s Blood!” bellowed the squire. “You bid me sit down.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James gripped him so fiercely that he stepped back.</p>
+
+<p>“I bid you sit down,” he said. “Ralph, will you help us?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph stood up instantly. He had not stirred a muscle as Nick shouted at
+him.</p>
+
+<p>“I waited for that, sir,” he said. “What is it you would have me do?”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice saw that his face was quite quiet as he spoke; his eyelids
+drooped a little; and his mouth was tight and firm. He seemed not to be
+aware of Nicholas’s presence.</p>
+
+<p>“To hinder the play-acting,” said his father.</p>
+
+<p>There fell a dead silence again.</p>
+
+<p>“I will do it, sir,” said his son. “It—it is but decent.”</p>
+
+<p>And in the moment of profound astonishment that fell, he came straight
+across the room, passed by them all without turning his head, and went
+out.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice felt a fierce emotion grip her throat as she looked after him,
+and saw the door close. Then Margaret seized her again, and she turned
+to quiet her.</p>
+
+<p>She was aware that Sir James had gone out after his son, after a moment
+of silence, and she heard his footsteps pass along the flags outside.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! God bless him!” sobbed Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James came back immediately, shook his head, went across the room,
+and sat down in the seat that Ralph had left. A dreadful stillness fell.
+Margaret was quiet now. Mary was sitting with her husband on the other
+side of the hearth. Chris rose presently and sat down by his father, but
+no one spoke a word.</p>
+
+<p>Then Nicholas got up uneasily, came across the room, and stood with his
+back to the hearth warming himself. Beatrice saw him glance now and
+again to the shadowed window-seat where the two men sat; he hummed a
+note or two to himself softly; then turned round and stared at the fire
+with outstretched hands.</p>
+
+<p>The bell rang for prayers, and still without a word being spoken they
+all got up and went out.</p>
+
+<p>In the same silence they came back. Ralph’s servant was standing by the
+door as they entered.</p>
+
+<p>“If you please, sir, Mr. Ralph is come in. He bade me tell you that all
+is arranged.”</p>
+
+<p>The old man looked at him, swallowed once in his throat; and at last
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“It is arranged, you say? It will not take place?”</p>
+
+<p>“It will not take place, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where is Mr. Ralph?”</p>
+
+<p>“He is gone to his room, sir. He bade me tell you he would be leaving
+early for London.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_4VI">CHAPTER VI<br><span class="small">A CATASTROPHE</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>Ralph rode away early next morning, yet not so early as to escape an
+interview with his father. They met in the hall, Sir James in his loose
+morning gown and Ralph booted and spurred with his short cloak and tight
+cap. The old man took him by the sleeve, drawing him to the fire that
+burned day and night in winter.</p>
+
+<p>“Ralph—Ralph, my son,” he said, “I must thank you for last night.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have to thank yourself only, sir, and my mother. I could do no
+otherwise.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is you—” began his father.</p>
+
+<p>“It is certainly not Nick, sir. The hot fool nearly provoked me.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you hate such mummery yourself, my son?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>“It is not seemly—” began his father again.</p>
+
+<p>“It is certainly not seemly; but neither are the common folk seemly.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you have much business with them, my son?” Ralph smiled in the
+firelight.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, no, sir. I told them who I was. I charged myself with the burden.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you will not be in trouble with my Lord?”</p>
+
+<p>“My Lord has other matters to think of than a parcel of mummers.”</p>
+
+<p>Then they separated; and Ralph rode down the drive with his servants
+behind him. Neither father nor son had said a word of any return.
+Neither had Ralph had one private word with Beatrice during his three
+days’ stay. Once he had come into the parlour to find her going out at
+the other door; and he had wondered whether she had heard his step and
+gone out on purpose. But he knew very well that under the superficial
+courtesy between him and her there lay something deeper—some passionate
+emotion vibrated like a beam between them; but he did not know, even on
+his side and still less on hers, whether that emotion were one of love
+or loathing. It was partly from the discomfort of the charged
+atmosphere, partly from a shrinking from thanks and explanations that he
+had determined to go up to London a day earlier than he had intended; he
+had a hatred of personal elaborateness.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>He found Cromwell, on his arrival in London, a little less moody than he
+had been in the previous week; for he was busy with preparations for the
+Parliament that was to meet in April; and to the occupation that this
+gave him there was added a good deal of business connected with Henry’s
+negotiations with the Emperor. The dispute, that at present centred
+round the treatment of Englishmen in Spain, and other similar matters,
+in reality ran its roots far deeper; and there were a hundred details
+which occupied the minister. But there was still a hint of storm in the
+air; Cromwell spoke brusquely once or twice without cause, and Ralph
+refrained from saying anything about the affair at Overfield, but took
+up his own work again quietly.</p>
+
+<p>A fortnight later, however, he heard of it once more.</p>
+
+<p>He was sitting at a second table in Cromwell’s own room in the Rolls
+House, when one of the secretaries came up with a bundle of reports, and
+laid them as usual before Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph finished the letter he was engaged on—one to Dr. Barnes who had
+preached a Protestant sermon at Paul’s Cross, and who now challenged
+Bishop Gardiner to a public disputation. Ralph was telling him to keep
+his pugnacity to himself; and when he had done took up the reports and
+ran his eyes over them.</p>
+
+<p>They were of the usual nature—complaints, informations, protests,
+appeals from men of every rank of life; agents, farm-labourers, priests,
+ex-Religious, fanatics—and he read them quickly through, docketing
+their contents at the head of each that his master might be saved
+trouble.</p>
+
+<p>At one, however, he stopped, glanced momentarily at Cromwell, and then
+read on.</p>
+
+<p>It was an illiterate letter, ill-spelt and smudged, and consisted of a
+complaint from a man who signed himself Robert Benham, against “Mr.
+Ralph Torridon, as he named himself,” for hindering the performance of a
+piece entitled “The Jolly Friar” in the parish of Overfield, on Sunday,
+February the first. Mr. Torridon, the writer stated, had used my Lord
+Cromwell’s name and authority in stopping the play; expenses had been
+incurred in connection with it, for a barn had been hired, and the
+transport of the properties had cost money; and Mr. Benham desired to
+know whether these expenses would be made good to him, and if Mr.
+Torridon had acted in accordance with my Lord’s wishes.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph bit his pen in some perplexity, when he had finished making out
+the document. He wondered whether he had better show it to Cromwell; it
+might irritate him or not, according to his mood. If it was destroyed
+surely no harm would be done; and yet Ralph had a disinclination to
+destroy it. He sat a moment or two longer considering; once he took the
+paper by the corners to tear it; then laid it down again; glanced once
+more at the heavy intent face a couple of yards away, and then by a
+sudden impulse took up his pen and wrote a line on the corner explaining
+the purport of the paper, initialled it, and laid it with the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell was so busy during the rest of the day that there was no
+opportunity to explain the circumstances to him; indeed he was hardly in
+the room again, so great was the crowd that waited on him continually
+for interviews, and Ralph went away, leaving the reports for his chief
+to examine at his leisure.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The next morning there was a storm.</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell burst out on him as soon as he came in.</p>
+
+<p>“Shut the door, Mr. Torridon,” he snapped. “I must have a word with
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph closed the door and came across to Cromwell’s table and stood
+there, apparently imperturbable, but with a certain quickening of his
+pulse.</p>
+
+<p>“What is this, sir?” snarled the other, taking up the letter that was
+laid at his hand. “Is it true?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph looked at him coolly.</p>
+
+<p>“What is it, my Lord? Mr. Robert Benham?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Mr. Robert Benham. Is it true? I wish an answer.”</p>
+
+<p>“Certainly, my Lord. It is true.”</p>
+
+<p>“You hindered this piece being played? And you used my name?”</p>
+
+<p>“I told them who I was—yes.”</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell slapped the paper down.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, that is to use my name, is it not, Mr. Torridon?”</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose it is.”</p>
+
+<p>“You suppose it is! And tell me, if you please, why you hindered it.”</p>
+
+<p>“I hindered it because it was not decent. My mother had been buried
+that day. My father asked me to do so.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not decent! When the mummers have my authority!</p>
+
+<p>“If your Lordship does not understand the indecency, I cannot explain
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was growing angry now. It was not often that Cromwell treated him
+like a naughty boy; and he was beginning to resent it.</p>
+
+<p>The other stared at him under black brows.</p>
+
+<p>“You are insolent, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph bowed.</p>
+
+<p>“See here,” said Cromwell, “my men must have no master but me. They must
+leave houses and brethren and sisters for my sake. You should understand
+that by now; and that I repay them a hundredfold. You have been long
+enough in my service to know it. I have said enough. You can sit down,
+Mr. Torridon.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph went to his seat in a storm of fury. He felt he was supremely in
+the right—in the right in stopping the play, and still more so for not
+destroying the complaint when it was in his hands. He had been scolded
+like a school-child, insulted and shouted down. His hand shook as he
+took up his pen, and he kept his back resolutely turned to his master.
+Once he was obliged to ask him a question, and he did so with an icy
+aloofness. Cromwell answered him curtly, but not unkindly, and he went
+to his seat again still angry.</p>
+
+<p>When dinner-time came near, he rose, bowed slightly to Cromwell and went
+towards the door. As his fingers touched the handle he heard his name
+called; and turned round to see the other looking at him oddly.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Torridon—you will dine with me?”</p>
+
+<p>“I regret I cannot, my Lord,” said Ralph; and went out of the room.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>There were no explanations or apologies on either side when they met
+again; but in a few days their behaviour to one another was as usual.
+Yet underneath the smooth surface Ralph’s heart rankled and pricked with
+resentment.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>At the meeting of Parliament in April, the business in Cromwell’s hands
+grew more and more heavy and distracting.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph went with him to Westminster, and heard him deliver his eloquent
+little speech on the discord that prevailed in England, and the King’s
+determination to restore peace and concord.</p>
+
+<p>“On the Word of God,” cried the statesman, speaking with extraordinary
+fervour, his eyes kindling as he looked round the silent crowded
+benches, and his left hand playing with his chain. “On the Word of God
+His Highness’ princely mind is fixed; on this Word he depends for his
+sole support; and with all his might his Majesty will labour that error
+shall be taken away, and true doctrines be taught to his people,
+modelled by the rule of the Gospel.”</p>
+
+<p>Three days later when Ralph came into his master’s room, Cromwell looked
+up at him with a strange animation in his dark eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Good-day, sir,” he said; “I have news that I hope will please you. His
+Grace intends to confer on me one more mark of his favour. I am to be
+Earl of Essex.”</p>
+
+<p>It was startling news. Ralph had supposed that the minister was not
+standing so high with the King as formerly, since the unfortunate
+incident of the Cleves marriage. He congratulated him warmly.</p>
+
+<p>“It is a happy omen,” said the other. “Let us pray that it be a
+constellation and not a single star. There are others of my friends, Mr.
+Torridon, who have claim to His Highness’ gratitude.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked at him smiling; and Ralph felt his heart quicken once more, as
+it always did, at the hint of an honour for himself.</p>
+
+<p>The business of Parliament went on; and several important bills became
+law. A land-act was followed by one that withdrew from most of the towns
+of England the protection of a sanctuary in the case of certain
+specified crimes; the navy was dealt with; and then in spite of the
+promises of the previous years a heavy money-bill was passed. Finally
+five more Catholics, four priests and a woman, were attainted for high
+treason on various charges.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Ralph was not altogether happy as May drew on. There began to be signs
+that his master’s policy with regard to the Cleves alliance was losing
+ground in the councils of the State; but Cromwell himself seemed to
+acquiesce, so it appeared as if his own mind was beginning to change.
+There was a letter to Pate, the ambassador to the Emperor, that Ralph
+had to copy one day, and he gathered from it that conciliation was to be
+used towards Charles in place of the old defiance.</p>
+
+<p>But he did not see much of Parliament affairs this month.</p>
+
+<p>Cromwell had told him to sort a large quantity of private papers that
+had gradually accumulated in Ralph’s own house at Westminster; for that
+he desired the removal of most of them to his own keeping.</p>
+
+<p>They were an enormous mass of documents, dealing with every sort and
+kind of the huge affairs that had passed through Cromwell’s hands for
+the last five years. They concerned hundreds of persons, living and
+dead—statesmen, nobles, the foreign Courts, priests, Religious,
+farmers, tradesmen—there was scarcely a class that was not represented
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph sat hour after hour in his chair with locked doors, sorting,
+docketting, and destroying; and amazed by this startling object-lesson
+of the vast work in which he had had a hand. There were secrets there
+that would burst like a bomb if they were made public—intrigues,
+bribes, threats, revelations; and little by little a bundle of the most
+important documents accumulated on the table before him. The rest lay in
+heaps on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Those that he had set aside beneath his own eye were a miscellaneous set
+as regarded their contents; the only unity between them lay in the fact
+that they were especially perilous to Cromwell. Ralph felt as if he were
+handling gunpowder as he took them up one by one or added to the heap.</p>
+
+<p>The new coronet that my Lord of Essex had lately put upon his head would
+not be there another day, if these were made public. There would not be
+left even a head to put it upon. Ralph knew that a great minister like
+his master was bound to have a finger in very curious affairs; but he
+had not recognised how exceptional these were, nor how many, until he
+had the bundle of papers before him. There were cases in which persons
+accused and even convicted of high treason had been set at liberty on
+Cromwell’s sole authority without reference to the King; there were
+commissions issued in his name under similar conditions; there were
+papers containing drafts, in Cromwell’s own hand of statements of
+doctrine declared heretical by the Six Articles, and of which copies had
+been distributed through the country at his express order; there were
+copies of letters to country-sheriffs ordering the release of convicted
+heretics and the imprisonment of their accusers; there were evidences of
+enormous bribes received by him for the perversion of justice.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph finished his task one June evening, and sat dazed with work and
+excitement, his fingers soiled with ink, his tired eyes staring at the
+neat bundle before him.</p>
+
+<p>The Privy Council, he knew, was sitting that afternoon. Even at this
+moment, probably, my Lord of Essex was laying down the law, speaking in
+the King’s name, silencing his opponents by sheer force of will, but
+with the Royal power behind him. And here lay the papers.</p>
+
+<p>He imagined to himself with a fanciful recklessness what would happen if
+he made his way into the Council-room, and laid them on the table. It
+would be just the end of all things for his master. There would be no
+more bullying and denouncing then on that side; it would be a matter of
+a fight for life.</p>
+
+<p>The memory of his own grudge, only five months old, rose before his
+mind; and his tired brain grew hot and cloudy with resentment. He took
+up the bundle in his hand and wielded it a moment, as a man might test a
+sword. Here was a headsman’s axe, ground and sharp.</p>
+
+<p>Then he was ashamed; set the bundle down again, leaned back in his chair
+and stretched his arms, yawning.</p>
+
+<p>What a glorious evening it was! He must go out and take the air for a
+little by the river; he would walk down towards Chelsea.</p>
+
+<p>He rose up from his chair and went to the window, threw it open and
+leaned out. His house stood back a little from the street; and there was
+a space of cobbled ground between his front-door and the uneven stones
+of the thoroughfare. Opposite rose up one of the tall Westminster
+houses, pushing forward in its upper stories, with a hundred diamond
+panes bright in the slanting sunshine that poured down the street from
+the west. Overhead rose up the fantastic stately chimneys, against the
+brilliant evening sky, and to right and left the street passed out of
+sight in a haze of sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>It was a very quiet evening; the men had not yet begun to stream
+homewards from their occupations; and the women were busy within. A
+chorus of birds sounded somewhere overhead; but there was not a living
+creature to be seen except a dog asleep in the sunshine at the corner of
+the gravel.</p>
+
+<p>It was delicious to lean out here, away from the fire that burned hot
+and red in the grate under its black mass of papers that had been
+destroyed,—out in the light and air. Ralph determined that he would let
+the fire die now; it would not be needed again.</p>
+
+<p>He must go out, he told himself, and not linger here. He could lock up
+the papers for the present in readiness for their transport next day;
+and he wondered vaguely whether his hat and cane were in the
+entrance-hall below.</p>
+
+<p>He straightened himself, and turned away from the window, noticing as he
+did so the dog at the corner of the street sit up with cocked ears. He
+hesitated and turned back.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sound of furious running coming up the street. He would just
+see who the madman was who ran like this on a hot evening, and then go
+out himself.</p>
+
+<p>As he leaned again the pulsating steps came nearer; they were coming
+from the left, the direction of the Palace.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later a figure burst into sight, crimson-faced and hatless,
+with arms gathered to the sides and head thrown back; it appeared to be
+a gentleman by the dress—but why should he run like that? He dashed
+across the opening and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was interested. He waited a minute longer; but the footsteps had
+ceased; and he was just turning once more from the window, when another
+sound made him stand and listen again.</p>
+
+<p>It came from the same direction as before; and at first he could not
+make out what it was. There was a murmur and a pattering.</p>
+
+<p>It came nearer and louder; and he could distinguish once more running
+footsteps. Were they after a thief? he wondered. The murmur and clatter
+grew louder yet; and a second or two later two men burst into sight;
+one, an apprentice with his leather apron flapping as he ran, the other
+a stoutish man like a merchant. They talked and gesticulated as they
+went.</p>
+
+<p>The murmur behind swelled up. There were the voices of many people, men
+and women, talking, screaming, questioning. The dog was on his feet by
+now, looking intently down the street.</p>
+
+<p>Then the first group appeared; half a dozen men walking fast or
+trotting, talking eagerly. Ralph could not hear what they said.</p>
+
+<p>Then a number surged into sight all at once, jostling round a centre,
+and a clamour went up to heaven. The dog trotted up suspiciously as if
+to enquire.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph grew excited; he scarcely knew why. He had seen hundreds of such
+crowds; it might mean anything, from a rise in butter to a declaration
+of war. But there was something fiercely earnest about this mob. Was the
+King ill?</p>
+
+<p>He leaned further from the window and shouted; but no one paid him the
+slightest attention. The crowd shifted up the street, the din growing
+as they went; there was a sound of slammed doors; windows opened
+opposite and heads craned out. Something was shouted up and the heads
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph sprang back from the window, as more and more surged into sight;
+he went to his door, glancing at his papers as he ran across; unlocked
+the door; listened a moment; went on to the landing and shouted for a
+servant.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sound of footsteps and voices below; the men were already
+alert, but no answer came to his call. He shouted again.</p>
+
+<p>“Who is there? Find out what the disturbance means.”</p>
+
+<p>There was an answer from one of his men; and the street door opened and
+closed. Again he ran to the window, and saw his man run out without his
+doublet across the court, and seize a woman by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>He waited in passionate expectancy; saw him drop the woman’s arm and
+turn to another; and then run swiftly back to the house.</p>
+
+<p>There was something sinister in the man’s very movements across that
+little space; he ran desperately, with his head craning forward; once he
+stumbled; once he glanced up at his master; and Ralph caught a sight of
+his face.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was on the landing as the steps thundered upstairs, and met him at
+the head of the flight.</p>
+
+<p>“Speak man; what is it?”</p>
+
+<p>The servant lifted a face stamped with terror, a couple of feet below
+Ralph’s.</p>
+
+<p>“They—they say—”</p>
+
+<p>“What is it?”</p>
+
+<p>“They say that the King’s archers are about my Lord Essex’s house.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph drew a swift breath.</p>
+
+<p>“Well?”</p>
+
+<p>“And that my Lord was arrested at the Council to-day.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph turned, and in three steps was in his room again. The key clacked
+in the lock.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_4VII">CHAPTER VII<br><span class="small">A QUESTION OF LOYALTY</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>He did not know how long he stood there, with the bundle of papers
+gripped in his two hands; and the thoughts racing through his brain.</p>
+
+<p>The noises in the street outside waned and waxed again, as the news
+swept down the lanes, and recoiled with a wave of excited crowds
+following it. Then again they died to a steady far-off murmur as the mob
+surged and clamoured round the Palace and Abbey a couple of hundred
+yards away.</p>
+
+<p>At last Ralph sat down; still holding the papers. He must clear his
+brain; and how was that possible with the images flashing through it in
+endless and vivid succession? For a while he could not steady himself;
+the shock was bewildering; he could think of nothing but the appalling
+drama. Essex was fallen!</p>
+
+<p>Then little by little the muddy current of thought began to run clear.
+He began to understand what lay before him; and the question that still
+awaited decision.</p>
+
+<p>His first instinct had been to dash the papers on to the fire and grind
+them into the red heart of the wood; but something had checked him. Very
+slowly he began to analyse that instinct.</p>
+
+<p>First, was it not useless? He knew he did not possess one hundredth part
+of the incriminating evidence that was in existence. Of what service
+would it be to his master to destroy that one small bundle?</p>
+
+<p>Next, what would be the result to himself if he did? It was known that
+he was a trusted agent of the minister’s; his house would be searched;
+papers would be found; it would be certainly known that he had made away
+with evidence. There would be records of what he had, in the other
+houses. And what then?</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand if he willingly gave up all that was in his
+possession, it would go far to free him from complicity.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, like a venomous snake lifting its head, his own private
+resentment looked him in the eyes, and there was a new sting added to it
+now. He had lost all, he knew well enough; wealth, honour and position
+had in a moment shrunk to cinders with Cromwell’s fall, and for these
+cinders he had lost Beatrice too. He had sacrificed her to his master;
+and his master had failed him. A kind of fury succeeded to his dismay.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, would it not be sweet to add even one more stone to the mass that
+was tottering over the head of that mighty bully, that had promised and
+not performed?</p>
+
+<p>He blinked his eyes, shocked by the horror of the thought, and gripped
+the bundle yet more firmly. The memories of a thousand kindnesses
+received from his master cried at the door of his heart. The sweat
+dropped from his forehead; he lifted a stiff hand to wipe it away, and
+dropped it again into its grip on the papers.</p>
+
+<p>Then he slowly recapitulated to himself the reasons for not destroying
+them. They were overwhelming, convincing! What was there to set against
+them? One slender instinct only, that cried shrill and thin that in
+honour he must burn that damning evidence—burn it—burn it—whether or
+no it would help or hinder, it must be burnt!</p>
+
+<p>Then again he recurred to the other side; told himself that his
+instinct was no more than a ludicrous sentimentality; he must be guided
+by reason, not impulse. Then he glanced at the impulse again. Then the
+two sides rushed together, locked in conflict. He moaned a little, and
+lay back in his chair.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The bright sunlight outside had faded to a mellow evening atmosphere
+before he moved again; and the fire had died to one dull core of
+incandescence.</p>
+
+<p>As he stirred, he became aware that bells were pealing outside; a
+melodious roar filled the air. Somewhere behind the house five brazen
+voices, shouting all together, bellowed the exultation of the city over
+the great minister’s fall.</p>
+
+<p>He was weary and stiff as he stood up; but the fever had left his brain;
+and the decision had been made. He relaxed his fingers and laid the
+bundle softly down on the table from which he had snatched it a couple
+of hours before.</p>
+
+<p>They would be here soon, he knew; he wondered they had not come already.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving his papers there, he went out, taking the key with him, and
+locking the door after him. He called up one of his men, telling him he
+would be ready for supper immediately in the parlour downstairs, and
+that any visitors who came for him were to be admitted at once.</p>
+
+<p>Then he passed into his bedroom to wash and change his clothes.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Half an hour later he came upstairs again.</p>
+
+<p>He had supped alone, listening and watching the window as he ate; but no
+sign had come of any arrival. He had dressed with particular care,
+intending to be found at his ease when the searchers did arrive; there
+must be no sign of panic or anxiety. He had told his man as he rose
+from table, to say to any that came for him that they were expected, and
+to bring them immediately upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>He unlocked the door of his private room, and went in. All was as he had
+left it; the floor between the window and table was white with ordered
+heaps of papers; the bundle on the table itself glimmered where he had
+laid it.</p>
+
+<p>The fire had sunk to a spark. He tenderly lifted off the masses of black
+sheets that crackled as he touched them; it had not occurred to him
+before that these evidences of even a harmless destruction had better be
+removed; and he slid them carefully on to a broad sheet of paper, folded
+it, shaking the ashes together as he did so, and stood a moment,
+wondering where he should hide it.</p>
+
+<p>The room was growing dark now; he put the package down; went to the fire
+and blew it up a little, added some wood, and presently the flames were
+dancing on the broad hearth.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood up again he heard the knocker rap on his street-door. For a
+moment he had an instinct to run to the window and see who was there;
+but he put it aside; there was scarcely time to hide the ashes; and it
+was best too to give no hint of anxiety. He lifted the package of burnt
+papers once more, and stood hesitating; a press would be worse than
+useless as a hiding-place; all such would of course be searched. Then a
+thought struck him; he stood up noiselessly on his chair. The Holbein
+portrait of Cromwell in his furred gown and chain leaned forward from
+the tapestry over the mantelpiece. Ralph set one hand against the wall
+at the side; and then tenderly let the package fall behind the portrait.
+As he did so the painted and living eyes were on a level; it seemed
+strange to him that the faces were so near together at that moment; and
+it struck him with a grim irony that the master should be so protecting
+the servant under these circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Then he dropped lightly to the ground, and sat quickly in the chair,
+snatching up the bundle of papers from the table as he did so.</p>
+
+<p>The steps were on the landing now; he heard the crack of the balustrade;
+but it seemed they were coming very quietly.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment’s silence; the muscles of his throat contracted
+sharply, then there came the servant’s tap; the handle was turned.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph stood up quickly, still holding the papers, as the door opened,
+and Beatrice stepped forward into the room. The door shut noiselessly
+behind her.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>She stood there, with the firelight playing on her dark loose-sleeved
+mantle, the hood that surrounded her head, her pale face a little
+flushed, and her black steady eyes. Her breath came quickly between her
+parted lips.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph stared at her, dazed by the shock, still gripping the bundle of
+papers. She moved forward a step; and the spell snapped.</p>
+
+<p>“Mistress Beatrice,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“I have come,” she said; “what is it? You want me?”</p>
+
+<p>She came round the table, with an air of eager expectancy.</p>
+
+<p>“I—I did not know,” said Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“But you wanted me. What is the matter? I heard you call.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph stared again, bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>“Call?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I heard you. I was in my room at my aunt’s house—ah! a couple of
+hours ago. You called me twice. ‘Beatrice! Beatrice!’ Then—then they
+told me what had happened about my Lord Essex.”</p>
+
+<p>“I called you?” repeated Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes—you called me. Your voice was quite close to me, at my ear; I
+thought you were in the room. Tell me what it is.”</p>
+
+<p>She loosened her hold of her mantle as she stood there by the table; and
+it dropped open, showing a sparkle of jewels at her throat. She threw
+back her hood, and it dropped on to her shoulders, leaving visible the
+coiled masses of her black hair set with knots of ribbon.</p>
+
+<p>“I did not call,” said Ralph dully. “I do not know what you mean,
+Mistress Atherton.”</p>
+
+<p>She made a little impatient gesture.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! yes,” she said, “it is something. Tell me quickly. I suppose it has
+to do with my Lord. What is it?”</p>
+
+<p>“It is nothing,” said Ralph again.</p>
+
+<p>They stood looking at one another in silence. Beatrice’s eyes ran a
+moment up and down his rich dress, the papers in his hands, then
+wandered to the heaped floor, the table, and returned to the papers in
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>“You must tell me,” she said. “What is that you are holding?”</p>
+
+<p>An angry terror seized Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>“That is my affair, Mistress Atherton. What is your business with me?”</p>
+
+<p>She came a step nearer, and leant her left hand on his table. He could
+see those steady eyes on his face; she looked terribly strong and
+controlled.</p>
+
+<p>“Indeed you must tell me, Mr. Torridon. I am come here to do something.
+I do not know what. What are those papers?”</p>
+
+<p>He turned and dropped them on to the chair behind him.</p>
+
+<p>“I tell you again, I do not know what you mean.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is useless,” she said. “Have they been to you yet? What do you mean
+to do about my Lord? You know he is in the Tower?”</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose so,” said Ralph, “but my counsel is my own.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Torridon, let us have an end of this. I know well that you must
+have many secrets against my lord—”</p>
+
+<p>“I tell you that what I know is nothing. I have not a hundredth part of
+his papers.”</p>
+
+<p>He felt himself desperate and bewildered, like a man being pushed to the
+edge of a precipice, step by step. But those black eyes held and
+compelled him on. He scarcely knew what he was saying.</p>
+
+<p>“And are these papers all his? What have you been doing with them?”</p>
+
+<p>“My Lord told me to sort them.”</p>
+
+<p>The words were drawn out against his own will.</p>
+
+<p>“And those in your hand—on the chair. What are they?”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph made one more violent effort to regain the mastery.</p>
+
+<p>“If you were not a woman, Mistress Atherton, I should tell you you were
+insolent.”</p>
+
+<p>Not a ripple troubled those strong eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me, Mr. Torridon, what are they?”</p>
+
+<p>He stood silent and furious.</p>
+
+<p>“I will tell you what they are,” she said; “they are my Lord’s secrets.
+Is it not so? And you were about to burn them. Oh! Ralph, is it not so?”</p>
+
+<p>Her voice had a tone of entreaty in it. He dropped his eyes, overcome by
+the passion that streamed from her.</p>
+
+<p>“Is it not so?” she cried again.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you wish me to do so?” he said amazed. His voice seemed not his own;
+it was as if another spoke for him. He had the same sensation of
+powerlessness as once before when she had lashed him with her tongue in
+the room downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>“Wish you?” she cried. “Why, yes; what else?”</p>
+
+<p>He lifted his eyes to hers; the room seemed to have grown darker yet in
+those few minutes. He could only see now a shadowed face looking at him;
+but her bright passionate eyes shone out from it and dominated him.</p>
+
+<p>Again he spoke, in spite of himself.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall not burn them,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“Shall not? shall not?”</p>
+
+<p>“I shall not,” he said again.</p>
+
+<p>There was silence. Ralph’s soul was struggling desperately within him.
+He put out his hand mechanically and took up the papers once more, as if
+to guard them from this fierce, imperious woman. Beatrice’s eyes
+followed the movement; and then rested once more on his face. Then she
+spoke again, with a tense deliberateness that drove every word home,
+piercing and sharp to the very centre of his spirit.</p>
+
+<p>“Listen,” she said, “for this is what I came to say. I know what you are
+thinking—I know every thought as if it were my own. You tell yourself
+that it is useless to burn those secrets; that there are ten thousand
+more—enough to cast my lord. I make no answer to that.</p>
+
+<p>“You tell yourself that you can only save yourself by giving them up to
+his enemies. I make no answer to that.</p>
+
+<p>“You tell yourself that it will be known if you destroy them—that you
+will be counted as one of His Highness’s enemies. I make no answer to
+that. And I tell you to burn them.”</p>
+
+<p>She came a step nearer. There was not a yard between them now; and the
+fire of her words caught and scorched him with their bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>“You have been false to every high and noble thing. You have been false
+to your own conscience—to your father—your brother—your sister—your
+Church—your King and your God. You have been false to love and honour.
+You have been false to yourself. And now Almighty God of His courtesy
+gives you one more opportunity—an opportunity to be true to your
+master. I say nothing of him. God is his judge. You know what that
+verdict will be. And yet I bid you be true to him. He has a thousand
+claims on you. You have served him, though it be but Satan’s service;
+yet it is the highest that you know—God help you! He is called
+friendless now. Shall that be wholly true of him? You will be called a
+traitor presently—shall that be wholly true of you? Or shall there be
+one tiny point in which you are not false and treacherous as you have
+been in all other points?”</p>
+
+<p>She stopped again, looking him fiercely in the eyes.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>From the street outside there came the sound of footsteps; the ring of
+steel on stone. Ralph heard it, and his eyes rolled round to the window;
+but he did not move.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice was almost touching him now. He felt the fragrance that hung
+about her envelop him for a moment. Then he felt a touch on the papers;
+and his fingers closed more tightly.</p>
+
+<p>The steps outside grew louder and ceased; and the house suddenly
+reverberated with a thunder of knocking.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice sprang back.</p>
+
+<p>“Nay, you shall give me them,” she said; and stood waiting with
+outstretched hand.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph lifted the papers slowly, stared at them, and at her.</p>
+
+<p>Then he held them out.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>In a moment she had snatched them; and was on her knees by the hearth.
+Ralph watched her, and listened to the steps coming up the stairs. The
+papers were alight now. The girl dashed her fingers among them,
+grinding, tearing, separating the heavy pages.</p>
+
+<p>They were almost gone by now; the thick smoke poured up the chimney; and
+still Beatrice tore and dashed the ashes about.</p>
+
+<p>There was a knocking at the door; and the handle turned. The girl rose
+from her knees and smiled at Ralph as the door opened, and the
+pursuivants stood there in the opening.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_4VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br><span class="small">TO CHARING</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>Chris had something very like remorse after Ralph had left Overfield,
+and no words of explanation or regret had been spoken on either side. He
+recognised that he had not been blameless at the beginning of their
+estrangement—if, indeed, there ever had been a beginning—for their
+inflamed relations had existed to some extent back into boyhood as far
+as he could remember; but he had been responsible for at least a share
+in the fierce words in Ralph’s house after the death of the Carthusians.
+He had been hot-headed, insolent, theatrical; and he had not written to
+acknowledge it. He had missed another opportunity at Lewes—at least
+one—when pride had held him back from speaking, for fear that he should
+be thought to be currying favour. And now this last opportunity, the
+best of all—when Ralph had been accessible and courteous, affected,
+Chris imagined, by the death of his mother—this too had been missed;
+and he had allowed his brother to ride away without a word of regret or
+more than formal affection.</p>
+
+<p>He was troubled at mass, an hour after Ralph had gone; the distraction
+came between him and the sweet solemnity upon which he was engaged. His
+soul was dry and moody. He showed it in his voice. As a younger brother
+in past years; as a monk and a priest now, he knew that the duty of the
+first step to a reconciliation had lain with him; and that he had not
+taken it.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a troubled household altogether when Ralph had gone. There
+was first the shock of Lady Torridon’s death, and the hundred regrets
+that it had left behind. Then Beatrice too, who had helped them all so
+much, had told them that she must go back to town—her aunt was alone in
+the little house at Charing, for the friend who had spent Christmas
+there was gone back to the country; and Margaret, consequently, had been
+almost in despair. Lastly Sir James himself had been troubled; wondering
+whether he might not have been warmer with Ralph, more outspoken in his
+gratitude for the affair of the mummers, more ready to welcome an
+explanation from his son. The shadow of Ralph then rested on the
+household, and there was something of pathos in it. He was so much
+detached now, so lonely, and it seemed that he was content it should be
+so.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>There were pressing matters too to be arranged; and, weightiest of all,
+those relating to Margaret’s future. She would now be the only woman
+besides the servants, in the house; and it was growing less and less
+likely that she would be ever able to take up the Religious Life again
+in England. There seemed little reason for her remaining in the country,
+unless indeed she threw aside the Religious habit altogether, and went
+to live at Great Keynes as Mary preferred. Beatrice made an offer to
+receive her in London for a while, but in this case again she would have
+to wear secular dress.</p>
+
+<p>The evening before Beatrice left, the two sat and talked for a couple of
+hours. Margaret was miserable; she cried a little, clung to Beatrice,
+and then was ashamed of herself.</p>
+
+<p>“My dear child,” said the other. “It is in your hands. You can do as you
+please.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I cannot,” sobbed the nun. “I cannot; I do not know. Let me come
+with you, Beatrice.”</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice then settled down and talked to her. She told her of her duty
+to her father for the present; she must remember that he was lonely now.
+In any case she must not think of leaving home for another six months.
+In the meantime she had to consider two points. First, did she consider
+herself in conscience bound to Religion? What did the priest tell her?
+If she did so consider herself, then there was no question; she must go
+to Bruges and join the others. Secondly, if not, did she think herself
+justified in leaving her father in the summer? If so, she might either
+go to Great Keynes, or come up for at least a long visit to Charing.</p>
+
+<p>“And what do you think?” asked the girl piteously.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you wish me to tell you!” said Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret nodded.</p>
+
+<p>“Then I think you should go to Bruges in July or August.”</p>
+
+<p>Margaret stared at her; the tears were very near her eyes again.</p>
+
+<p>“My darling; I should love to have you in London,” went on the other
+caressing her. “Of course I should. But I cannot see that King Henry
+and his notions make any difference to your vows. They surely stand. Is
+it not so, my dear?”</p>
+
+<p>And so after a little more talk Margaret consented. Her mind had told
+her that all along; it was her heart only that protested against this
+final separation from her friend.</p>
+
+<p>Chris too agreed when she spoke to him a day or two later when Beatrice
+had gone back. He said he had been considering his own case too; and
+that unless something very marked intervened he proposed to follow Dom
+Anthony abroad. They could travel together, he said. Finally, when the
+matter was laid before their father he also consented.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall do very well,” he said. “Mary spoke to me of it; and Nicholas
+has asked me to make my home at Great Keynes; so if you go, my son, with
+Meg in the summer, I shall finish matters here, lease out the estate,
+and Mr. Carleton and I shall betake ourselves there. Unless”—he
+said—“unless Ralph should come to another mind.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>As the spring and early summer drew on, the news, as has been seen, was
+not reassuring.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the Six Articles of the previous year by which all vows of
+chastity were declared binding before God, there was no hint of making
+it possible for the thousands of Religious in England still compelled by
+them to return to the Life in which such vows were tolerable. The
+Religious were indeed dispensed from obedience and poverty by the civil
+authority; it was possible for them to buy, inherit, and occupy
+property; but a recognition of their corporate life was as far as ever
+away. It was becoming plainer every day that those who wished to pursue
+their vocation must do so in voluntary exile; and letters were already
+being exchanged between the brother and sister at home and the
+representatives of their respective communities on the Continent.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly on the eleventh of June there arrived the news of
+Cromwell’s fall and of all that it involved to Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>They were at dinner when it came.</p>
+
+<p>There was a door suddenly thrust open at the lower end of the hall; and
+a courier, white with dust and stiff with riding, limped up the matting
+and delivered Beatrice’s letter. It was very short.</p>
+
+<p>“Come,” she had written. “My Lord of Essex is arrested. He is in the
+Tower. Mr. Ralph, too, is there for refusing to inform against him. He
+has behaved gallantly.”</p>
+
+<p>There followed a line from Mistress Jane Atherton, her aunt, offering
+rooms in her own house.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>A wild confusion fell upon the household. Men ran to and fro, women
+whispered and sobbed in corners under shadow of the King’s displeasure
+that lay on the house, the road between the terrace and the stable
+buzzed with messengers, ordering and counter-ordering, for it was not
+certain at first that Margaret would not go. A mounted groom dashed up
+for instructions and was met by Sir James in his riding-cloak on the
+terrace who bade him ride to Great Keynes with the news, and entreat Sir
+Nicholas Maxwell to come up to London and his wife to Overfield; there
+was not time to write. Sir James’s own room was in confusion; his
+clothes lay tumbled on the ground and a distraught servant tossed them
+this way and that; Chris was changing his habit upstairs, for it would
+mean disaster to go to town as a monk. Margaret was on her knees in
+chapel, silent and self-controlled, but staring piteously at the
+compassionate figure of the great Mother who looked down on her with Her
+Son in Her arms. The huge dog under the chapel-cloister lifted his head
+and bayed in answer, as frantic figures fled across the court before
+him. And over all lay the hot June sky, and round about the deep
+peaceful woods.</p>
+
+<p>A start was made at three o’clock.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James was already in his saddle, as Chris ran out; an unfamiliar
+figure in his plain priest’s cloak and cap and great riding boots
+beneath. A couple of grooms waited behind, and another held the monk’s
+horse. Margaret was on the steps, white and steadied by prayer; and the
+chaplain stood behind with a strong look in his eyes as they met those
+of his patron.</p>
+
+<p>“Take care of her, father; take care of her. Her sister will be here
+to-night, please God. Oh! God bless you, my dear! Pray for us all. Jesu
+keep us all! Chris, are you mounted?”</p>
+
+<p>Then they were off; and the white dust rose in clouds about them.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was between eight and nine as they rode up the north bank of the
+river from London Bridge to Charing.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a terrible ride, with but few words between the two, and
+long silences that were the worst of all; as, blotting out the rich
+country and the deep woods and the meadows and heathery hills on either
+side of the road through Surrey, visions moved and burned before them,
+such as the King’s vengeance had made possible to the imagination. From
+far away across the Southwark fields Chris had seen the huddled
+buildings of the City, the princely spire that marked them, and had
+heard the sweet jangling of the thousand bells that told the Angelus;
+but he had thought of little but of that high gateway under which they
+must soon pass, where the pikes against the sky made palpable the
+horrors of his thought. He had given one swift glance up as he went
+beneath; and then his heart sickened as they went on, past the houses
+and St. Thomas’s chapel with gleams of the river seen beneath. Then as
+he looked his breath came sharp; far down there eastwards, seen for a
+moment, rose up the sombre towers where Ralph lay, and the saints had
+suffered.</p>
+
+<p>The old Religious Houses, stretching in a splendid line upwards, from
+the Augustinian priory near the river-bank, along the stream that flowed
+down from Ludgate, caught the last rays of sunlight high against the
+rich sky as the riders went along towards Charing between the
+sedge-brinked tide and the slope of grass on their right; and the monk’s
+sorrowful heart was overlaid again with sorrow as he looked at them,
+empty now and desolate where once the praises of God had sounded day and
+night.</p>
+
+<p>They stopped beneath the swinging sign of an inn, with Westminster
+towers blue and magical before them, to ask for Mistress Atherton’s
+house, and were directed a little further along and nearer to the
+water’s edge.</p>
+
+<p>It was a little old house when they came to it, built on a tiny private
+embankment that jutted out over the flats of the river-bank; of plaster
+and timber with overhanging storeys and windows beneath the roof. It
+stood by itself, east of the village, and almost before the jangle of
+the bell had died away, Beatrice herself was at the door, in her
+house-dress, bare-headed; with a face at once radiant and constrained.</p>
+
+<p>She took them upstairs immediately, after directing the men to take the
+horses, when they had unloaded the luggage, back to the inn where they
+had enquired the way: for there was no stable, she said, attached to the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>Chris came behind his father as if in a dream through the dark little
+hall and up the two flights on to the first landing. Beatrice stopped at
+a door.</p>
+
+<p>“You can say what you will,” she said, “before my aunt. She is of our
+mind in these matters.”</p>
+
+<p>Then they were in the room; a couple of candles burned on a table before
+the curtained window; and an old lady with a wrinkled kindly face
+hobbled over from her chair and greeted the two travellers.</p>
+
+<p>“I welcome you, gentlemen,” she said, “if a sore heart may say so to
+sore hearts.”</p>
+
+<p>There was no news of Nicholas, they were told; he had not been heard of.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>They heard the story so far as Beatrice knew it; but it was softened for
+their ears. She had found Ralph, she said, hesitating what to do. He had
+been plainly bewildered by the sudden news; they had talked a while; and
+then he had handed her the papers to burn. The magistrate sent by the
+Council had arrived to find the ashes still smoking. He had questioned
+Ralph sharply, for he had come with authority behind him; and Ralph had
+refused to speak beyond telling him that the bundles lying on the floor
+were all the papers of my Lord Essex that were in his possession. They
+had laid hands on these, and then searched the room. A quantity of
+ashes, Beatrice said, had fallen from behind a portrait over the hearth
+when they had shifted it. Then the magistrate had questioned her too,
+enquired where she lived, and let her go. She had waited at the corner
+of the street, and watched the men come out. Ralph walked in the centre
+as a prisoner. She had followed them to the river; had mixed with the
+crowd that gathered there; and had heard the order given to the
+wherryman to pull to the Tower. That was all that she knew.</p>
+
+<p>“Thank God for your son, sir. He bore himself gallantly.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence as she ended. The old man looked at her wondering
+and dazed. It was so sad, that the news scarcely yet conveyed its
+message.</p>
+
+<p>“And my Lord Essex?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“My Lord is in the Tower too. He was arrested at the Council by the Duke
+of Norfolk.”</p>
+
+<p>The old lady intervened then, and insisted on their going down to
+supper. It would be ready by now, she said, in the parlour downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>They supped, themselves silent, with Beatrice leaning her arms on the
+table, and talking to them in a low voice, telling them all that was
+said. She did not attempt to prophesy smoothly. The feeling against
+Cromwell, she said, passed all belief. The streets had been filled with
+a roaring crowd last night. She had heard them bellowing till long after
+dark. The bells were pealed in the City churches hour after hour, in
+triumph over the minister’s fall.</p>
+
+<p>“The dogs!” she said fiercely. “I never thought to say it, but my heart
+goes out to him.”</p>
+
+<p>Her spirit was infectious. Chris felt a kind of half-joyful recklessness
+tingle in his veins, as he listened to her talk, and watched her black
+eyes hot with indignation and firm with purpose. What if Ralph were
+cast? At least it was for faithfulness—of a kind. Even the father’s
+face grew steadier; that piteous trembling of the lower lip ceased, and
+the horror left his eyes. It was hard to remain in panic with that girl
+beside them.</p>
+
+<p>They had scarcely done supper when the bell of the outer door rang
+again, and a moment later Nicholas was with them, flushed with hard
+riding. He strode into the room, blinking at the lights, and tossed his
+riding whip on to the table.</p>
+
+<p>“I have been to the Lieutenant of the Tower,” he said; “I know him of
+old. He promises nothing. He tells me that Ralph is well-lodged. Mary is
+gone to Overfield. God damn the King!”</p>
+
+<p>He had no more news to give. He had sent off his wife at once on
+receiving the tidings, and had started half an hour later for London. He
+had been ahead of them all the way, it seemed; but had spent a couple of
+hours first in trying to get admittance to the Tower, and then in
+interviewing the Lieutenant; but there was no satisfaction to be gained
+there. The utmost he had wrung from him was a promise that he would see
+him again, and hear what he had to say.</p>
+
+<p>Then Nicholas had to sup and hear the whole story from the beginning;
+and Chris left his father to tell it, and went up with Beatrice to
+arrange about rooms.</p>
+
+<p>Matters were soon settled with the old lady; Nicholas and Chris were to
+sleep in one room, and Sir James in another. Two servants only could
+be accommodated in the house; the rest were to put up at the inn.
+Beatrice went off to give the necessary orders.</p>
+
+<p>Mistress Jane Atherton and Chris had a few moments together before the
+others came up.</p>
+
+<p>“A sore heart,” said the old lady again, “but a glad one too. Beatrice
+has told me everything.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am thankful too,” said Chris softly. “I wonder if my father
+understands.”</p>
+
+<p>“He will, father, he will. But even if he does not—well, God knows
+all.”</p>
+
+<p>It was evident when Sir James came upstairs presently that he did not
+understand anything yet, except that Beatrice thought that Ralph had
+behaved well.</p>
+
+<p>“But it is to my Lord Essex—who has been the worker of all the
+mischief—that my son is faithful. Is that a good thing then?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes,” said Chris. “You would not have him faithless there too?”</p>
+
+<p>“But would he not be on God’s side at last, if he were against
+Cromwell?”</p>
+
+<p>The old man was still too much bewildered to understand explanations,
+and his son was silent.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Chris could not sleep that night, and long after Nicholas lay deep in
+his pillow, with open mouth and tight eyes, the priest was at the window
+looking out over the river where the moon hung like a silver shield
+above Southwark. The meadows beyond the stream were dim and colourless;
+here and there a roof rose among trees; and straight across the broad
+water to his feet ran a path of heaving glory, where the strong ripple
+tossed the silver surface that streamed down upon it from the moon.</p>
+
+<p>London lay round him as quiet as Overfield, and Chris remembered with a
+stir at his heart his moonlight bathe all those years ago in the lake at
+home, when he had come back hot from hunting and had slipped down with
+the chaplain after supper. Then the water had seemed like a cool restful
+gulf in the world of sensation; the moon had not been risen at first;
+only the stars pricked above and below in air and water. Then the moon
+had come up, and a path of splendour had smitten the surface into sight.
+He had swum up it, he remembered, the silver ripple washing over his
+shoulders as he went.</p>
+
+<p>And now those years of monastic peace and storm had come and gone,
+sifting and penetrating his soul, washing out from it little by little
+the heats and passions with which he had plunged. As he looked back on
+himself he was astonished at his old complacent smallness. His figure
+appeared down that avenue of years, a tiny passionate thing,
+gesticulating, feverish, self-conscious. He remembered his serene
+certainty that he was right and Ralph wrong in every touch of friction
+between them, his own furious and theatrical outburst at the death of
+the Carthusians, his absurd dignity on later occasions. Even in those
+first beginnings of peace when the inner life had begun to well up and
+envelop him he had been narrow and self-centred; he had despised the
+common human life, not understanding that God’s Will was as energetic in
+the bewildering rush of the current as in the quiet sheltered
+back-waters to which he himself had been called. He had been awakened
+from that dream by the fall of the Priory, and that to which he opened
+his eyes had been forced into his consciousness by the months at home,
+when he had had that astringent mingling of the world and the spirit, of
+the interpenetration of the inner by the outer. And now for the first
+time he stood as a balanced soul between the two, alight with a tranquil
+grace within, and not afraid to look at the darkness without. He was
+ready now for either life, to go back to the cloister and labour there
+for the world at the springs of energy, or to take his place in the new
+England and struggle at the tossing surface.</p>
+
+<p>He stood here now by the hurrying turbulent stream, a wider and more
+perilous gulf than that that had lain before him as he looked at the
+moonlit lake at Overfield and yet over it brooded the same quiet shield
+of heaven, gilding the black swift flowing forces with the promise of a
+Presence greater than them all.</p>
+
+<p>He stood there long, staring and thinking.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_4IX">CHAPTER IX<br><span class="small">A RELIEF-PARTY</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>The days that followed were very anxious and troubled ones for Ralph’s
+friends at Charing. They were dreadful too from their very
+uneventfulness.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning following their arrival Chris went off to the Temple to
+consult a lawyer that the Lieutenant had recommended to Nicholas, and
+brought him back with him an hour later. The first need to be supplied
+was their lack of knowledge as to procedure; and the four men sat
+together until dinner, in the parlour on the first floor looking over
+the sunlit river; and discussed the entire situation.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer, Mr. Herries, a shrewd-faced Northerner, sat with his back to
+the window, fingering a quill horizontally in his lean brown fingers and
+talking in short sentences, glancing up between them, with patient
+silences as the others talked. He seemed the very incarnation of the
+slow inaction that was so infinitely trying to these anxious souls.</p>
+
+<p>The three laymen did not even know the crime with which Ralph was
+charged, but they soon learnt that the technical phrase for it was
+misprision of treason.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Torridon was arrested, I understand,” said the lawyer, “by order of
+Council. He would have been arrested in any case. He was known to be
+privy to my Lord Essex’s schemes. You inform me that he destroyed
+evidence. That will go against him if they can prove it.”</p>
+
+<p>He drew the quill softly through his lips, and then fell to fingering it
+again, as the others stared at him.</p>
+
+<p>“However,” went on Mr. Herries, “that is not our affair now. There will
+be time for that. Our question is, when will he be charged, and how? My
+Lord Essex may be tried by a court, or attainted in Parliament. I should
+suppose the latter. Mr. Torridon will be treated in the same way. If it
+be the former, we can do nothing but wait and prepare our case. If it be
+the latter, we must do our utmost to keep his name out of the bill.”</p>
+
+<p>He went on to explain his reasons for thinking that a bill of attainder
+would be brought against Cromwell. It was the customary method, he said,
+for dealing with eminent culprits, and its range had been greatly
+extended by Cromwell himself. At this moment three Catholics lay in the
+Tower, attainted through the statesman’s own efforts, for their supposed
+share in a conspiracy to deliver up Calais to the invaders who had
+threatened England in the previous year. Feeling, too, ran very high
+against Cromwell; the public would be impatient of a long trial; and a
+bill of attainder would give a readier outlet to the fury against him.</p>
+
+<p>This then was the danger; but they could do nothing, said the lawyer, to
+avert it, until they could get information. He would charge himself with
+that business, and communicate with them as soon as he knew.</p>
+
+<p>“And then?” asked Chris, looking at him desperately, for the cold
+deliberate air of Mr. Herries gave him a terrible sense of the
+passionless process of the law.</p>
+
+<p>“I was about to speak of that,” said the lawyer. “If it goes as I think
+it will, and Mr. Torridon’s name is suggested for the bill, we must
+approach the most powerful friends we can lay hold on, to use their
+influence against his inclusion. Have you any such, sir?” he added,
+looking at Sir James sharply over the quill.</p>
+
+<p>The old man shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>“I know no one,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer pursed his lips.</p>
+
+<p>“Then we must do the best we can. We can set aside at once all of my
+Lord Essex’s enemies—and—and he has many now. Two names come to my
+mind. Master Ralph Sadler—the comptroller; and my Lord of Canterbury.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah!” cried Chris, dropping his hand, “my Lord of Canterbury! My brother
+has had dealings with him.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James straightened himself in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>“I will ask no favour of that fellow,” he said sternly.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer looked at him with a cocked eyebrow.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, sir,” he said, “if you will not you will not. But I cannot
+suggest a better. He is in high favour with his Grace; they say he has
+already said a word for my Lord Essex—not much—much would be too much,
+I think; but still ’twas something. And what of Master Sadler?”</p>
+
+<p>“I know nothing of him,” faltered the old man.</p>
+
+<p>There was silence a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, sir,” said Mr. Herries, “you can think the matter over. I am for
+my Lord of Canterbury; for the reasons I have named to you. But we can
+wait a few days. We can do nothing until the method of procedure is
+known.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he went; promising to let them know as soon as he had information.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Rumours began to run swiftly through the City. It was said, though
+untruly at that time, that Cromwell had addressed a letter to the King
+at Henry’s own request, explaining his conduct, utterly denying that he
+had said certain rash words attributed to him, and that His Majesty was
+greatly affected by it. There was immense excitement everywhere; a crowd
+assembled daily outside Westminster Hall; groups at every corner of the
+streets discussed the fallen minister’s chances; and shouts were raised
+for those who were known to be his enemies, the Duke of Norfolk, Rich,
+and others—as they rode through to the Palace.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Ralph’s friends could do little. Nicholas rode down once or
+twice to see the Lieutenant of The Tower, and managed to extract a
+promise that Ralph should hear of their presence in London; but he could
+not get to see him, or hear any news except that he was in good health
+and spirits, and was lodged in a private cell.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly one afternoon a small piece of news arrived from Mr.
+Herries to the effect that Cromwell was to be attainted; and anxiety
+became intense as to whether Ralph would be included. Sir James could
+eat nothing at supper, but sat crumbling his bread, while Beatrice
+talked almost feverishly in an attempt to distract him. Finally he rose
+and went out, and the others sat on, eyeing one another, anxious and
+miserable.</p>
+
+<p>In desperation Nicholas began to talk of his visit to the Tower, of the
+Lieutenant’s timidity, and his own insistence; and they noticed nothing,
+till the door was flung open, and the old man stood there, his eyes
+bright and his lips trembling with hope. He held a scrap of paper in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>“Listen,” he cried as the others sprang to their feet.</p>
+
+<p>“A fellow has just come from Mr. Herries with this”—he lifted the paper
+and read,—“Mr. Torridon’s name is not in the bill. I will be with you
+to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank God!” said Chris.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>There was another long discussion the following morning. Mr. Herries
+arrived about ten o’clock to certify his news; and the four sat till
+dinner once again, talking and planning. There was not the same
+desperate hurry now; the first danger was passed.</p>
+
+<p>There was only one thing that the lawyer could do, and that was to
+repeat his advice to seek the intercession of the Archbishop. He
+observed again that while Cranmer had the friendship of the fallen
+minister, he had not in any sense been involved in his fall; he was
+still powerful with the King, and of considerable weight with the
+Council in consequence. He was likely therefore to be both able and
+willing to speak on behalf of Cromwell’s agent.</p>
+
+<p>“But I would advise nothing to be done until the bill of attainder has
+come before Parliament. We do not know yet how far Mr. Torridon’s action
+has affected the evidence. From what you say, gentlemen, and from what I
+have heard elsewhere, I should think that the papers Mr. Torridon
+destroyed are not essential to a conviction. My Lord’s papers at his own
+house are sufficient.”</p>
+
+<p>But they had some difficulty in persuading Sir James to consent to ask a
+favour of the Archbishop. In his eyes, Cranmer was beyond the pale of
+decency; he had lived with two women, said the old man, whom he called
+his wives, although as a priest he was incapable of marriage; he had
+violated his consecration oath; he had blessed and annulled the frequent
+marriages of the King with equal readiness; he was a heretic confessed
+and open on numberless points of the Catholic Faith.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Herries pointed out with laborious minuteness that this was beside
+the question altogether. He did not propose that Sir James Torridon
+should go to the Archbishop as to a spiritual superior, but as to one
+who chanced to have great influence;—if he were a murderer it would
+make no difference to his advice.</p>
+
+<p>Chris broke in with troubled eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Indeed, sir,” he said to his father, “you know how I am with you in
+all that you say; and yet I am with Mr. Herries too. I do not
+understand—”</p>
+
+<p>“God help us,” cried the old man. “I do not know what to do.”</p>
+
+<p>“Will you talk with Mistress Beatrice?” asked Chris.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James nodded.</p>
+
+<p>“I will do that,” he said.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The next day the bill was passed; and the party in the house at Charing
+sat sick at heart within doors, hearing the crowds roaring down the
+street, singing and shouting in triumph. Every cry tore their hearts;
+for was it not against Ralph’s master and friend that they rejoiced? As
+they sat at supper a great battering broke out at the door that looked
+on to the lane; and they sprang up to hear a drunken voice bellowing at
+them to come out and shout for liberty. Nicholas went crimson with
+anger; and he made a movement towards the hall, his hand on his hilt.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! sit down, Nick,” said the monk. “The drunken fool is away again.”</p>
+
+<p>And they heard the steps reel on towards Westminster.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>It was not until a fortnight later that they went at last to Lambeth.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James had been hard to persuade; but Beatrice had succeeded at last.
+Nicholas had professed himself ready to ask a favour of the devil
+himself under the circumstances; and Chris himself continued to support
+the lawyer’s opinion. He repeated his arguments again and again.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was necessary to make an appointment with the Archbishop; and a
+day was fixed at last. My Lord would see them, wrote a secretary, at
+two o’clock on the afternoon of July the third.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice sat through that long hot afternoon in the window-seat of the
+upstairs parlour, looking out over the wide river below, conscious
+perhaps for the first time of the vast weight of responsibility that
+rested on her.</p>
+
+<p>She had seen them go off in a wherry, the father and son with Nicholas
+in the stern, and the lawyer facing them on the cross-bench; they had
+been terribly silent as they walked down to the stairs; had stood
+waiting there without a word being spoken but by herself, as the wherry
+made ready; and she had talked hopelessly, desperately, to relieve the
+tension. Then they had gone off. Sir James had looked back at her over
+his shoulder as the boat put out; and she had seen his lips move. She
+had watched them grow smaller and smaller as they went, and then when a
+barge had come between her and them, she had gone home alone to wait for
+their return, and the tidings that they would bring.</p>
+
+<p>And she, in a sense was responsible for it all. If it had not been for
+her visit to Ralph, he would have handed the papers over to the
+authorities; he would be at liberty now, no doubt, as were Cromwell’s
+other agents; and, as she thought of it, her tortured heart asked again
+and again whether after all she had done right.</p>
+
+<p>She went over the whole question, as she sat there, looking out over the
+river towards Lambeth, fingering the shutter, glancing now and again at
+the bent old figure of her aunt in her tall chair, and listening to the
+rip of the needle through the silk. Could she have done otherwise? Was
+her interference and advice after all but a piece of mad chivalry,
+unnecessary and unpractical?</p>
+
+<p>And yet she knew that she would do it again, if the same circumstances
+arose. It would be impossible to do otherwise. Reason was against it;
+Mr. Herries had hinted as much with a quick lifting of his bushy
+eyebrows as she had told him the story. It would have made no difference
+to Cromwell—ah! but she had not done it for that; it was for the sake
+of Ralph himself; that he might not lose the one opportunity that came
+to him of making a movement back towards the honour he had forfeited.</p>
+
+<p>But it was no less torture to think of it all, as she sat here. She had
+faced the question before; but now the misery she had watched during
+these last three weeks had driven it home. Day by day she had seen the
+old father’s face grow lined and haggard as the suspense gnawed at his
+heart; she had watched him at meals—had seen him sit in bewildered
+grief, striving for self-control and hope—had seen him, as the light
+faded in the parlour upstairs, sink deeper into himself; his eyes hidden
+by his hand, and his grey pointed beard twitching at the trembling of
+his mouth. Once or twice she had met his eyes fixed on hers, in a
+questioning stare, and had known what was in his heart—a simple,
+unreproachful wonder at the strange events that had made her so
+intimately responsible for his son’s happiness.</p>
+
+<p>She thought of Margaret too, as she sat there; of the poor girl who had
+so rested on her, believed in her, loved her. There she was now at
+Overfield, living in a nightmare of suspense, watching so eagerly for
+the scanty letters, disappointed every time of the good news for which
+she hoped....</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The burden was an intolerable one. Beatrice was scarcely conscious of
+where she sat or for what she waited. She was living over again every
+detail of her relations with Ralph. She remembered how she had seen him
+at first at Chelsea; how he had come out with Master More from the door
+of the New Building and across the grass. She had been twisting a
+grass-ring then as she listened to the talk, and had tossed it on to the
+dog’s back. Then, day by day she had met him; he had come at all hours;
+and she had watched him, for she thought she had found a man. She
+remembered how her interest had deepened; how suddenly her heart had
+leapt that evening when she came into the hall and found him sitting in
+the dark. Then, step by step, the friendship had grown till it had
+revealed its radiant face at the bitterness of Chris’s words in the
+house at Westminster. Then her life had become magical; all the world
+cried “Ralph” to her; the trumpets she heard sounded to his praise; the
+sunsets had shone for him and her. Then came the news of the Visitors’
+work; and her heart had begun to question her insistently; the questions
+had become affirmation; and in one passionate hour she had gone to him,
+scourged him with her tongue, and left him. She had seen him again once
+or twice in the years that followed; had watched him from a window hung
+with tapestries in Cheapside, as he rode down beside the King; and had
+not dared to ask herself what her heart so longed to tell her. Then had
+come the mother’s question; and the falling of the veils.</p>
+
+<p>Then he had called her; she never doubted that; as she sat alone in her
+room one evening. It had come, thin and piteous;—“Beatrice, Beatrice.”
+He needed her, and she had gone, and meddled with his life once more.</p>
+
+<p>And he lay in the Tower....</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>“Beatrice, my child.”</p>
+
+<p>She turned from the window, her eyes blind with tears; and in a moment
+was kneeling at her aunt’s side, her face buried in her lap, and felt
+those kindly old hands passing over her hair. She heard a murmur over
+her head, but scarcely caught a word. There was but one thing she
+needed, and that—</p>
+
+<p>Then she knelt suddenly upright listening, and the caressing hand was
+still.</p>
+
+<p>“Beatrice, my dear, Beatrice.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>There were footsteps on the stairs outside, eager and urgent. The girl
+rose to her feet, and stood there, swaying a little with a restrained
+expectation.</p>
+
+<p>Then the door was open, and Chris was there, flushed and radiant, with
+the level evening light full on his face.</p>
+
+<p>“It is all well,” he cried, “my Lord will take us to the King.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_4X">CHAPTER X<br><span class="small">PLACENTIA</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>The river-front of Greenwich House was a magnificent sight as the four
+men came up to it one morning nearly three weeks later. The long
+two-storied row of brick buildings which Henry had named Placentia, with
+their lines of windows broken by the two clusters of slender towers, and
+porticos beneath, were fronted by broad platforms and a strip of turf
+with steps leading down to the water, and at each of these entrances
+there continually moved brilliant figures, sentries with the sunlight
+flashing on their steel caps and pike-points, servants in the royal
+livery, watermen in their blue and badges.</p>
+
+<p>Here and there at the foot of the steps rocked gaudy barges, a mass of
+gilding and colour, with broad low canopies at the stern, and flags
+drooping at the prow; wherries moved to and fro, like water-beetles,
+shooting across from bank to bank with passengers, above and below the
+palace, or pausing with uplifted oars as the stream swept them down, for
+the visitors to stare and marvel at the great buildings. Behind rose up
+the green masses of trees against the sloping park. And over all lay the
+July sky, solemn flakes of cloud drifting across a field of intense
+blue.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a delay in the fulfilment of the Archbishop’s promise; at
+one time he himself was away in the country on affairs, at another time
+the King was too much pressed, Cranmer reported, to have such a matter
+brought before him; and then suddenly a messenger had come across from
+Lambeth with a letter, bidding them present themselves at Greenwich on
+the following morning; for the day following that had been fixed for
+Cromwell’s execution, and the Archbishop hoped that the King would be
+ready to hear a word on behalf of the agent whose loyalty had failed to
+save his master.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The boatman suddenly backed water with his left-hand oar, took a stroke
+or two with his right, glancing over his shoulder; and the boat slid up
+to the foot of the steps.</p>
+
+<p>A couple of watermen were already waiting there, in the Archbishop’s
+livery, and steadied the boat for the four gentlemen to step out; and a
+moment later the four were standing on the platform, looking about them.</p>
+
+<p>They were at one of the smaller entrances to the palace, up-stream. A
+hundred yards further down was the royal entrance, canopied and
+carpeted, with the King’s barge rocking at the foot, a number of
+servants coming and going on the platform, and the great state windows
+overlooking all; but here they were in comparative quiet. A small
+doorway with its buff and steel-clad sentry before it opened on their
+right into the interior of the palace.</p>
+
+<p>One of the watermen saluted the party.</p>
+
+<p>“Master Torridon?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Chris assented.</p>
+
+<p>“My Lord bade me take you through to him, sir, as soon as you arrived.”</p>
+
+<p>He went before them to the door, said a word to the guard, and then the
+party passed on through the little entrance-hall into the interior. The
+corridor was plainly and severely furnished with matting under-foot,
+chairs here and there set along the wainscot, pieces of stuff with
+crossed pikes between hanging on the walls; through the bow windows
+they caught a glimpse now and again of a little court or two, a
+shrubbery and a piece of lawn, and once a vista of the park where Henry
+in his younger days used to hold his May-revels, a gallant and princely
+figure all in green from cap to shoes, breakfasting beneath the trees.</p>
+
+<p>Continually, as they went, first in the corridor and then through the
+waiting rooms at the end, they passed others going to and fro, servants
+hurrying on messages, leisurely and magnificent persons with their hats
+on, pages standing outside closed doors; and twice they were asked their
+business.</p>
+
+<p>“For my Lord of Canterbury,” answered the waterman each time.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to Chris that they must have gone an immense distance before
+the waterman at last stopped, motioning them to go on, and a page in
+purple livery stepped forward from a door.</p>
+
+<p>“For my Lord of Canterbury,” said the waterman for the last time.</p>
+
+<p>The page bowed, turned, and threw open the door.</p>
+
+<p>They found themselves in a square parlour, carpeted and hung with
+tapestries from floor to ceiling. A second door opened beyond, in the
+window side, into another room. A round table stood in the centre, with
+brocaded chairs about it, and a long couch by the fireplace. Opposite
+rose up the tall windows through which shone the bright river with the
+trees and buildings on the north bank beyond.</p>
+
+<p>They had hardly spoken a word to one another since they had left
+Charing, for all that was possible had been said during the weeks of
+waiting for the Archbishop’s summons.</p>
+
+<p>Cranmer had received them kindly, though he had not committed himself
+beyond promising to introduce them to the King, and had expressed no
+opinion on the case.</p>
+
+<p>He had listened to them courteously, had nodded quietly as Chris
+explained what it was that Ralph had done, and then almost without
+comment had given his promise. It seemed as if the Archbishop could not
+even form an opinion, and still less express one, until he had heard
+what his Highness had to say.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Chris walked to the window and the lawyer followed him.</p>
+
+<p>“Placentia!” said Mr. Herries, “I do not wonder at it. It is even more
+pleasing from within.”</p>
+
+<p>He stood, a prim, black figure, looking out at the glorious view, the
+shining waterway studded with spots of colour, the long bank of the
+river opposite, and the spires of London city lying in a blue heat-haze
+far away to the left.</p>
+
+<p>Chris stared at it too, but with unseeing eyes. It seemed as if all
+power of sensation had left him. The suspense of the last weeks had
+corroded the surfaces of his soul, and the intensity to which it was now
+rising seemed to have paralysed what was left. He found himself
+picturing the little house at Charing where Beatrice was waiting, and,
+he knew, praying; and he reminded himself that the next time he saw her
+he would know all, whether death or life was to be Ralph’s sentence. The
+solemn quiet and the air of rich and comfortable tranquillity which the
+palace wore, and which had impressed itself on his mind even in the
+hundred yards he had walked in it, gave him an added sense of what it
+was that lay over his brother, the huge passionless forces with which he
+had become entangled.</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned round. His father was sitting at the table, his head on
+his hand; and Nicholas was staring round the grave room with the
+solemnity of a child, looking strangely rustic and out of place in these
+surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>It was very quiet as Chris leaned against the window-shutter, in his
+secular habit, with his hands clasped behind his back, and looked. Once
+a footstep passed in the corridor outside, and the floor vibrated
+slightly to the tread; once a horn blew somewhere far away; and from the
+river now and again came the cry of a waterman, or the throb of oars in
+rowlocks.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James looked up once, opened his lips as if to speak; and then
+dropped his head on to his hand again.</p>
+
+<p>The waiting seemed interminable.</p>
+
+<p>Chris turned round to the window once more, slipped his breviary out of
+his pocket, and opened it. He made the sign of the cross and began—</p>
+
+<p>“<i>In nomine Patris et Filii....</i>”</p>
+
+<p>Then the second door opened; he turned back abruptly; there was a rustle
+of silk, and the Archbishop came through in his habit and gown.</p>
+
+<p>Chris bowed slightly as the prelate went past him briskly towards the
+table where Sir James was now standing up, and searched his features
+eagerly for an omen. There was nothing to be read there; his smooth
+large-eyed face was smiling quietly as its manner was, and his wide lips
+were slightly parted.</p>
+
+<p>“Good-day, Master Torridon; you are in good time. I am just come from
+His Highness, and will take you to him directly.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris saw his father’s face blanch a little as he bowed in return.
+Nicholas merely stared.</p>
+
+<p>“But we have a few minutes,” went on the Archbishop. “Sir Thomas
+Wriothesly is with him. Tell me again sir, what you wish me to say.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James looked hesitatingly to the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Herries,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Cranmer turned round, and again made that little half-deprecating bow to
+the priest and the lawyer. Mr. Herries stepped forward as Cranmer sat
+down, clasping his hands so that the great amethyst showed on his
+slender finger.</p>
+
+<p>“It is this, my Lord,” he said, “it is as we told your Lordship at
+Lambeth. This gentleman desires the King’s clemency towards Mr. Ralph
+Torridon, now in the Tower. Mr. Torridon has served—er—Mr. Cromwell
+very faithfully. We wish to make no secret of that. He destroyed certain
+private papers—though that cannot be proved against him, and you will
+remember that we were doubtful whether his Highness should be informed
+of that—”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James broke in suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>“I have been thinking of that, my Lord. I would sooner that the King’s
+Grace knew everything. I have no wish that that should be kept from
+him.”</p>
+
+<p>The Archbishop who had been looking with smiling attention from one to
+the other, now himself broke in.</p>
+
+<p>“I am glad you think that, sir. I think so myself. Though it cannot be
+proved as you say, it is far best that His Grace should know all. Indeed
+I think I should have told him in any case.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then, my Lord, if you think well,” went on Mr. Herries, “you might lay
+before his Grace that this is a free and open confession. Mr. Torridon
+did burn papers, and important ones; but they would not have served
+anything. Master Cromwell was cast without them.”</p>
+
+<p>“But Mr. Torridon did not know that?” questioned the Archbishop blandly.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, my Lord,” cried Sir James, “he must have known—that my Lord
+Cromwell—”</p>
+
+<p>The Archbishop lifted his hand delicately.</p>
+
+<p>“Master Cromwell,” he corrected.</p>
+
+<p>“Master Cromwell,” went on the old man, “he must have known that Mr.
+Cromwell had others, more important, that would be certainly found and
+used against him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then why did he burn them? You understand, sir, that I only wish to
+know what I have to say to his Grace.”</p>
+
+<p>“He burned them, my Lord, because he could not bear that his hand should
+be lifted against his master. Surely that is but loyal and good!”</p>
+
+<p>The Archbishop nodded quietly three or four times.</p>
+
+<p>“And you desire that his Grace will take order to have Mr. Torridon
+released?”</p>
+
+<p>“That is it, my Lord,” said the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I understand. And can you give any pledge for Mr. Torridon’s good
+behaviour?”</p>
+
+<p>“He has served Mr. Cromwell,” answered the lawyer, “very well for many
+years. He has been with him in the matter of the Religious Houses; he
+was one of the King’s Visitors, and assisted in the—the destruction of
+Lewes priory; and that, my Lord, is a sufficient—”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James gave a sudden sob.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Herries, Mr. Herries—”</p>
+
+<p>Cranmer turned to him smiling.</p>
+
+<p>“I know what you feel, sir,” he said. “But if this is true—”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, it is true! God help him,” cried the old man.</p>
+
+<p>“Then that is what we need, sir; as you said just now. Yes, Mr.
+Herries?”</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer glanced at the old man again.</p>
+
+<p>“That is sufficient guarantee, my Lord, that Mr. Ralph Torridon is no
+enemy of his Grace’s projects.”</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot bear that!” cried Sir James.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas, who had been looking awed and open-mouthed from one to the
+other, took him by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>“You must, father,” he said. “It—it is devilish; but it is true. Chris,
+have you nothing?”</p>
+
+<p>The monk came forward a step.</p>
+
+<p>“It is true, my Lord,” he said. “I was a monk of Lewes myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“And you have conformed,” put in the Archbishop swiftly.</p>
+
+<p>“I am living at home peaceably,” said Chris; “it is true that my brother
+did all this, but—but my father wishes that it should not be used in
+his cause.”</p>
+
+<p>“If it is true,” said the Archbishop, “it is best to say it. We want
+nothing but the bare truth.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I cannot bear it,” cried the old man again.</p>
+
+<p>Chris came round behind the Archbishop to his father.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you leave it, father, to my Lord Archbishop? My Lord understands
+what we think.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James looked at him, dazed and bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>“God help us! Do you think so, Chris?”</p>
+
+<p>“I think so, father. My Lord, you understand all?”</p>
+
+<p>The Archbishop bowed again slightly.</p>
+
+<p>“Then, my Lord, we will leave it all in your hands.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a tap at the door.</p>
+
+<p>The Archbishop rose.</p>
+
+<p>“That is our signal,” he said. “Come, gentlemen, his Grace will be ready
+immediately.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Herries sprang to the door and opened it, bowing as the Archbishop
+went through, followed by Sir James and Nicholas. He and Chris followed
+after.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>There was a kind of dull recklessness in the monk’s heart as he went
+through. He knew that he was in more peril than any of the others, and
+yet he did not fear it. The faculty of fear had been blunted, not
+sharpened, by his experiences; and he passed on towards the King’s
+presence, almost without a tremor.</p>
+
+<p>The room was empty, except for a page by the further door, who opened it
+as the party advanced; and beyond was a wide lobby, with doors all
+round, and a staircase on the right as they came out. The Archbishop
+made a little motion to the others as he went up, gathering his skirts
+about him, and acknowledging with his disengaged hand the salute of the
+sentry that stood in the lobby.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the stairs was a broad landing; then a corridor through
+which they passed, and on. They turned to the left, and as they went it
+was apparent that they were near the royal apartments. There were thick
+leather rugs lying here and there; along the walls stood magnificent
+pieces of furniture, inlaid tables with tall dragon-jars upon them,
+suits of Venetian armour elaborately worked in silver, and at the door
+of every room that opened on the corridor there was standing a sentry or
+a servant, who straightened themselves at the sight of the Archbishop.
+He carefully acknowledged each salutation, and nodded kindly once or
+twice.</p>
+
+<p>There was a heavy odour in the air, warm and fragrant, as of mingled
+stuffs and musk, which even the wide windows set open towards the garden
+on the right hand did not wholly obliterate.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time since leaving Charing, Chris’s heart quickened. The
+slow stages of approach to the formidable presence had begun to do their
+work; if he had seen the King at once he would not have been moved; if
+he had had an hour longer, he would have recovered from his emotion; but
+this swift ordered approach, the suggestiveness of the thick carpets
+and furniture, the sight of the silent figures waiting, the musky smell
+in the air, all combined now to work upon him; he began to fancy that he
+was drawing nearer the presence of some great carrion-beast that had
+made its den here, that was guarded by these discreet servitors, and to
+which this smooth prelate, in the rôle of the principal keeper, was
+guiding him. Any of these before him might mark the sanctuary of the
+labyrinth, where the creature lurked; one might open, and a savage face
+look out, dripping blood and slaver.</p>
+
+<p>A page threw back a door at last, and they passed through; but again
+there was a check. It was but one more waiting room. The dozen persons,
+folks of all sorts, a lawyer, a soldier, and others stood up and bowed
+to the prelate.</p>
+
+<p>Then the party sat down near the further door in dead silence, and the
+minutes began to pass.</p>
+
+<p>There were cries from the river once or twice as they waited; once a
+footstep vibrated through the door, and twice a murmur of voices sounded
+and died again.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly a hand was laid on the handle from the other side, and the
+Archbishop rose, with Sir James beside him.</p>
+
+<p>There was still a pause. Then a voice sounded loud and near, and there
+was a general movement in the room as all rose to their feet. The door
+swung open and the Garter King-at-Arms came through, bland and smiling,
+his puffed silk sleeves brushing against the doorpost as he passed. A
+face like a mask, smooth and expressionless, followed him, and nodded to
+the Archbishop.</p>
+
+<p>Cranmer turned slightly to his party, again made that little movement,
+and went straight through.</p>
+
+<p>Chris followed with Mr. Herries.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_4XI">CHAPTER XI<br><span class="small">THE KING’S HIGHNESS</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>As Chris knelt with the others, and the door closed behind him, he was
+aware of a great room with a tall window looking on to the river on his
+left, tapestry-hung walls, a broad table heaped with papers in the
+centre, a high beamed ceiling, and the thick carpet under his knees.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he did not see the King. The page who had beckoned them in
+had passed across the room, and Chris’s eyes followed him out through an
+inner door in the corner.</p>
+
+<p>Then, still on his knees, he turned his eyes to see the Archbishop going
+towards the window, and up the step that led on to the dais that
+occupied the floor of the oriel.</p>
+
+<p>Then he saw the King.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>A great figure was seated opposite the side door at which they had
+entered on the broad seat that ran round the three sides of the window.
+The puffed sleeves made the shoulders look enormous; a gold chain lay
+across them, with which the gross fingers were playing. Beneath, the
+vast stomach swelled out into the slashed trunks, and the scarlet legs
+were crossed one over the other. On the head lay a broad plumed velvet
+cap, and beneath it was the wide square face, at once jovial and solemn,
+with the narrow slits of eyes above, and the little pursed mouth fringed
+by reddish hair below, that Chris remembered in the barge years before.
+The smell of musk lay heavy in the air.</p>
+
+<p>Here was the monstrous carrion-beast then at last, sunning himself and
+waiting.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>So the party rested a moment or two, while the Archbishop went across to
+the dais; he knelt again and then stood up and said a word or two
+rapidly that Chris could not hear.</p>
+
+<p>Henry nodded, and turned his bright narrow eyes on to them; and then
+made a motion with his hand. The Archbishop turned round and repeated
+the gesture; and Chris rose in his place as did the others.</p>
+
+<p>“Master Torridon, your Grace,” explained the Archbishop, with a
+deferential stoop of his shoulders. “Your Grace will remember—”</p>
+
+<p>The King nodded abruptly, and thrust his hand out.</p>
+
+<p>Chris touched his father behind.</p>
+
+<p>“Go forward,” he whispered; “kiss hands.”</p>
+
+<p>The old man went forward a hesitating step or two. The Archbishop
+motioned sharply, and Sir James advanced again up to the dais, sank
+down, and lifted the hand to his lips, and fell back for the others.</p>
+
+<p>When Chris’s turn came, and he lifted the heavy fingers, he noticed for
+a moment a wonderful red stone on the thumb, and recognised it. It was
+the Regal of France that he had seen years before at his visit to St.
+Thomas’s shrine at Canterbury. In a flash, too, he remembered Cromwell’s
+crest as he had seen it on the papers at Lewes—the demi-lion holding up
+the red-gemmed ring.</p>
+
+<p>Then he too had fallen back, and the Archbishop was speaking.</p>
+
+<p>“Your Grace will remember that there is a Mr. Ralph Torridon in the
+Tower—an agent of Mr. Cromwell’s—”</p>
+
+<p>The King’s face moved slightly, but he said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>—“Who is awaiting trial for destroying evidence. It is that, at least,
+your Grace, that is asserted against him. But it has not been proved.
+Master Torridon here tells me, your Highness, that it cannot be proved,
+but that he wishes to acknowledge it freely on his son’s behalf.”</p>
+
+<p>Henry’s eyes shot back again at the old man, ran over the others, and
+settled again on Cranmer’s face, who was standing beside him with his
+back to the window.</p>
+
+<p>“He is here to plead for your Grace’s clemency. He wishes to lay before
+your Grace that his son erred through over-faithfulness to Mr.
+Cromwell’s cause; and above all that the evidence so destroyed has not
+affected the course of justice—”</p>
+
+<p>“God’s Body!” jarred in the harsh voice suddenly, “it has not. Nor shall
+it.”</p>
+
+<p>Cranmer waited a moment with downcast eyes; but the King was silent
+again.</p>
+
+<p>“Master Torridon has persuaded me to come with him to your Grace to
+speak for him. He is not accustomed—”</p>
+
+<p>“And who are these fellows?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris felt those keen eyes running over him.</p>
+
+<p>“This is Master Nicholas Maxwell,” explained the Archbishop, indicating
+him. “Master Torridon’s son-in-law; and this, Mr. Herries—”</p>
+
+<p>“And the priest?” asked the King.</p>
+
+<p>“The priest is Sir Christopher Torridon, living with his father at
+Overfield.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ha! has he always lived there then?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, your Grace,” said Cranmer smoothly, “he was a monk at Lewes until
+the dissolution of the house.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have heard somewhat of his name,” mused Henry. “What is it, sir, that
+I have heard of you?”</p>
+
+<p>“It was perhaps Mr. Ralph Torridon’s name that your Grace—” began
+Cranmer.</p>
+
+<p>“Nay, nay, it was not. What was it, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris’s heart was beating in his ears like a drum now. It had come,
+then, that peril that had always been brooding on the horizon, and which
+he had begun to despise. He had thought that there could be no danger in
+his going to the King; it was so long since Lewes had fallen, and his
+own part had been so small. But his Grace’s memory was good, it seemed!
+Danger was close to him, incarnate in that overwhelming presence. He
+said nothing, but stood awaiting detection.</p>
+
+<p>“It is strange,” said Henry. “I have forgot. Well, my Lord?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have told your Grace all,” explained the Archbishop. “Mr. Ralph
+Torridon has not yet been brought to trial, and his father hopes that
+your Grace will take into consideration these two things: that it was a
+mistake of over-faithfulness that his son committed; and that it has not
+hindered the course of justice.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, well,” said Henry, “and that sounds to be in reason. We have none
+too much of either faithfulness or justice in these days. And there is
+no other charge against the fellow?”</p>
+
+<p>“There is no other charge, your Grace.”</p>
+
+<p>There fell a complete silence for a moment or two.</p>
+
+<p>Chris glanced up at his father, his own heart uplifted by hope, and saw
+the old man’s face trembling with it too. The wrinkled eyes were full of
+tears, and his lips quivered; and Chris could feel the short cloak that
+hung against him shaking at his hand. Nicholas’s crimson face showed a
+mingling of such emotion and solemnity that Chris was seized with an
+internal hysterical spasm; but it suddenly died within him as he
+brought his eyes round, and saw that the King was staring at him
+moodily....</p>
+
+<p>The Archbishop’s voice broke in again.</p>
+
+<p>“Are we to understand, your Grace, that your Grace’s clemency is
+extended to Mr. Ralph Torridon?”</p>
+
+<p>“Eh! then,” said the King peevishly, “hold your tongue, my Lord. I am
+trying to remember. Where is Michael?”</p>
+
+<p>“Shall I call him, your Grace?”</p>
+
+<p>“Nay, then; let the lawyer ring the bell!”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Herries sprang to the table at the King’s gesture, and struck the
+little hand-bell that stood there. The door where the page had
+disappeared five minutes before opened silently, and the servant stood
+there.</p>
+
+<p>“Michael,” said the King, and the page vanished.</p>
+
+<p>There was an uncomfortable silence. Cranmer stood back a little with an
+air of patient deference, and his quick eyes glanced up now and again at
+the party before him. There was a certain uneasiness in his manner, as
+Chris could see; but the monk presently dropped his eyes again, as he
+saw that the King was once more looking at him keenly, with tight pursed
+lips, and a puzzled look on his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>The thoughts began to race through Chris’s brain. He found himself
+praying with desperate speed that Michael, whoever he was, might not
+know; and that the King might not remember; and meanwhile through
+another part of his being ran the thought of the irony of his situation.
+Here he was, come to plead for his brother’s life, and on the brink of
+having to plead for his own. The quiet room increased his sense of the
+irony. It seemed so safe and strong and comfortable, up here in the rich
+room, with the tall window looking on to the sunlit river, in a palace
+girt about with guards; and yet the very security of it was his danger.
+He had penetrated into the stronghold of the great beast that ruled
+England: he was within striking distance of those red-stained claws and
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly the creature stirred and snarled.</p>
+
+<p>“I know it now, sir. You were one of the knaves that would not sign the
+surrender of Lewes.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris lifted his eyes and dropped them again.</p>
+
+<p>“God’s Body,” said the King, “and you come here!”</p>
+
+<p>Again there was silence.</p>
+
+<p>Chris saw his father half turn towards him with a piteous face, and
+perceived that the lawyer had drawn a little away.</p>
+
+<p>The King turned abruptly to Cranmer.</p>
+
+<p>“Did you know this, my Lord?”</p>
+
+<p>“Before God, I did not!”—but his voice shook as he answered.</p>
+
+<p>Chris was gripping his courage, and at last spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“We were told it was a free-will act, your Grace.”</p>
+
+<p>Henry said nothing to this. His eyes were rolling up and down the monk’s
+figure, with tight, thoughtful lips. Cranmer looked desperately at Sir
+James.</p>
+
+<p>“I did not know that, your Grace,” he said again. “I only knew that this
+priest’s brother had been very active in your Grace’s business.”</p>
+
+<p>Henry turned sharply.</p>
+
+<p>“Eh?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James’s hands rose and clasped themselves instinctively. Cranmer
+again looked at him almost fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Ralph Torridon was one of the Visitors,” explained the Archbishop
+nervously.</p>
+
+<p>“And this fellow a monk!” cried the King.</p>
+
+<p>“They must have met at Lewes, your Grace.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! my Lord,” cried Sir James suddenly. “I entreated you—”</p>
+
+<p>Henry turned on him suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell us the tale, sir. What is all this?”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James took a faltering step forward, and then suddenly threw out his
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! your Grace, it is a bitter tale for a father to tell. It is true,
+all of it. My son here was a monk at Lewes. He would not sign the
+surrender. I—I approved him for it. I—I was there when my son Ralph
+cast him out—”</p>
+
+<p>“God’s blood!” cried the King with a beaming face. “The one brother cast
+the other out!”</p>
+
+<p>Chris saw the Archbishop’s face suddenly lighten as he watched the King
+sideways.</p>
+
+<p>“But I cannot bear that he should be saved for that!” went on the old
+man piteously. “He was a good servant to your Grace, but a bad one to
+our Lord—”</p>
+
+<p>The Archbishop drew a swift breath of horror, and his hands jerked. But
+Henry seemed not to hear; his little mouth had opened in a round hole of
+amazed laughter, and he was staring at the old man without hearing him.</p>
+
+<p>“And you were there?” he said. “And your wife? And your aunts and
+sisters?”</p>
+
+<p>“My wife is dead,” cried the old man. “Your Grace—”</p>
+
+<p>“And on which side was she?”</p>
+
+<p>“She was—was on your Grace’s side.”</p>
+
+<p>Henry threw himself back in his chair.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>For one moment Chris did not know whether it was wrath or laughter that
+shook him. His face grew crimson, and his narrow eyes disappeared into
+shining slits; his fat hands were on his knees, and his great body
+shook. From his round open mouth came silent gusts of quick breath, and
+he began to sway a little from side to side.</p>
+
+<p>Across the Archbishop’s face came a deferential and sympathetic smile,
+and he looked quickly and nervously from the King to the group and back
+again. Sir James had fallen back a pace at the King’s laughter, and
+stood rigid and staring. Chris took a step close to him and gripped his
+hand firmly.</p>
+
+<p>There was a footstep behind, and the King leaned forward again, wiping
+the tears away with his sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Michael, Michael!” he sobbed, “here is a fine tale.”</p>
+
+<p>A dark-dressed man stepped forward from behind, and stood expectant.</p>
+
+<p>“God! What a happy family!” said the King. “And this fellow here?”</p>
+
+<p>He motioned towards Nicholas, with a feeble gesture. He was still weak
+with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>The young squire moved forward a step, rigid and indignant.</p>
+
+<p>“I am against your Grace,” he said sharply.</p>
+
+<p>Henry grew suddenly grave.</p>
+
+<p>“Eh! that is no way to speak,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“It is the only way I can speak,” said Nicholas, “if your Grace desires
+the truth.”</p>
+
+<p>The King looked at him a moment; but the humour still shone in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, well. It is the truth I want. Michael, I sent for you to know
+about the priest here; but I know now. And is it true that his brother
+in the Tower—Ralph Torridon—was one of the Visitors?”</p>
+
+<p>The man pursed his lips a moment. He was standing close to Chris, a
+little in front of him.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, your Majesty.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! well. We must let him out, I suppose—if there is nothing more
+against him. You shall tell me presently, Michael.”</p>
+
+<p>The Archbishop looked swiftly across at the party.</p>
+
+<p>“Then your Grace extends—”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Michael, what is it?” interrupted the King.</p>
+
+<p>“It is a matter your Majesty might wish to hear in private,” said the
+stranger.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, step aside, my Lord. And you, gentlemen.”</p>
+
+<p>The King motioned down to the further end of the room, as Michael came
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>The Archbishop stepped off the low platform, and led the way down the
+floor; and the others followed.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Chris was in a whirl of bewilderment. He could see the King’s great face
+interested and attentive as the secretary said something in his ear, and
+then suddenly light up with amusement again.</p>
+
+<p>“Not a word, not a word,” whispered Henry harshly. “Very good, Michael.”</p>
+
+<p>The secretary then whispered once more. Chris could hear the sharp
+sibilants, but no word. The King nodded once more, and the man stepped
+down off the dais.</p>
+
+<p>“Prepare the admission, then,” said the King after him.</p>
+
+<p>The secretary bowed as he turned and went out of the room once more.</p>
+
+<p>Henry beckoned.</p>
+
+<p>“Come, gentlemen.”</p>
+
+<p>He watched them with a solemn joviality as they came up, the Archbishop
+in front, the father and son together, and the two others behind.</p>
+
+<p>“You are a sad crew,” began the King, eyeing them pleasantly, and
+sitting forward with a hand on either knee, “and I am astonished, my
+Lord of Canterbury, at your companying with them. But we will have
+mercy, and remember your son’s services, Master Torridon, in the past.
+That alone will excuse him. Remember that. That alone. He is the
+stronger man, if he turned out the priest there. And I remember your son
+very well, too; and will forgive him. But I shall not employ him again.
+And his forgiveness shall cover yours, Master Priest; but you must be
+off—you must be off, sir,” he barked suddenly, “out of these realms in
+a week. We will have no more treason from you.”</p>
+
+<p>The fierce overpowering personality flared out as he spoke, and Chris
+felt his heart beat sick at the force of it.</p>
+
+<p>“And you two gentlemen,” went on the King, still smouldering, “you two
+had best hold your tongues. We will not hear such talk in our presence
+or out of it. But we will excuse it now. There, sir, have I said
+enough?”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James dropped abruptly on his knees.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! God bless your Grace!” he began, with the tears running down.</p>
+
+<p>Henry made an abrupt gesture.</p>
+
+<p>“You shall go to your son,” he said, “and see how he fares, and tell him
+this. And she shall have the order of release presently, from me or
+another.”</p>
+
+<p>Again the little mouth creased and twitched with amusement.</p>
+
+<p>“And I hope he will be happy with his mother. You may tell him that from
+me.”</p>
+
+<p>The Archbishop looked up.</p>
+
+<p>“Mistress Torridon is dead, your Grace,” he said softly and
+questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, well,” said the King; and thrust out his hand to be kissed.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Chris did not know how they got out of the room. They kissed hands
+again; the old man muttered out his thanks; but he seemed bewildered by
+the rush of events, and the supreme surprise. Chris, as he backed away
+from the presence, saw for the last time those narrow royal eyes fixed
+on him, still bright with amusement and expectancy, and the great
+red-fringed cheeks creased about the tiny mouth with an effort to keep
+back laughter. Why was the King laughing, he wondered?</p>
+
+<p>They waited a few minutes in the ante-room for the order that the
+Archbishop had whispered to them should be sent out immediately. They
+said nothing to one another—but the three sat close, looking into one
+another’s eyes now and again in astonishment and joy, while Mr. Herries
+stood a little apart solemn and happy at the importance of the rôle he
+had played in the whole affair, and disdaining even to look at the rest
+of the company who sat on chairs and watched the party.</p>
+
+<p>The secretary came to them in a few minutes, and handed them the order.</p>
+
+<p>“My Lord of Canterbury is detained,” he said; “he bade me tell you
+gentlemen that he could not see you again.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James was standing up and examining the order.</p>
+
+<p>“For four?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes,” said the secretary, and glanced at the four men.</p>
+
+<p>Chris put his hand on his father’s arm.</p>
+
+<p>“It is all well,” he whispered, “say nothing more. It will do for
+Beatrice.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_4XII">CHAPTER XII<br><span class="small">THE TIDINGS AT THE TOWER</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>They debated as they stood on the steps in the sunlight five minutes
+later, as to whether they should go straight to the Tower, or back to
+Charing and take Beatrice with them. They spoke softly to one another,
+as men that have come out from darkness to light, bewildered by the
+sense of freedom and freshness that lay round them. Instead of the
+musk-scented rooms, the formidable dominating presence, the suspense and
+the terror, the river laughed before them, the fresh summer breeze blew
+up it, and above all Ralph was free, and that, not only of his prison,
+but of his hateful work. It had all been done in those few sentences;
+but as yet they could not realise it; and they regarded it, as they
+regarded the ripples at their feet, the lapping wherry, and far-off
+London city, as a kind of dazzling picture which would by and by be
+found to move and live.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer congratulated them, and they smiled back and thanked him.</p>
+
+<p>“If you will put me to shore at London Bridge,” said Mr. Herries—“I
+have a little business I might do there—that is, if you will be going
+so far.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris looked at his father, whose arm he was holding.</p>
+
+<p>“We must take her with us,” he said. “She has earned it.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir James nodded, dreamily, and turned to the boat.</p>
+
+<p>“To the London Bridge Stairs first,” he said.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>There was a kind of piquant joy in their hearts as they crept up past
+the Tower, and saw its mighty walls and guns across the water. He was
+there, but it was not for long. They would see him that day, and
+to-morrow—to-morrow at the latest, they would all leave it together.</p>
+
+<p>There were a hundred plans in the old man’s mind, as he leaned gently
+forward and back to the motion of the boat and stared at the bright
+water. Ralph and he should live at Overfield again; his son would surely
+be changed by all that had come to him, and above all by his own
+response to the demands of loyalty. They should learn to understand one
+another better now—better than ever before. The hateful life lay behind
+them of distrust and contempt; Ralph would come back to his old self,
+and be again as he had been ten years back before he had been dazzled
+and drugged by the man who was to die next day. Then he thought of that
+man, and half-pitied him even then; those strong walls held nothing but
+terror for him—terror and despair; the scaffold was already going up on
+Tower Hill—and as the old man thought of it he leaned forward and tried
+to see over the wharf and under the trees where the rising ground lay;
+but there was nothing to be seen—the foliage hid it.</p>
+
+<p>Chris, also silent beside him, was full of thoughts. He would go abroad
+now, he knew, with Margaret, as they had intended. The King’s order was
+the last sign of God’s intention for him. He would place Margaret with
+her own sisters at Bruges, and then himself go on to Dom Anthony and
+take up the life again. He knew he would meet some of his old brethren
+in Religion—Dom Anthony had written to say that three or four had
+already joined him at Cluny; the Prior—he knew—had turned his back for
+ever on the monastic life, and had been put into a prebendal stall at
+Lincoln.</p>
+
+<p>And meanwhile he would have the joy of knowing that Ralph was free of
+his hateful business; the King would not employ him again; he would live
+at home now, and rule Overfield well: he and his father together. Ah!
+and what if Beatrice consented to rule it with him! Surely now—He
+turned and looked at his father as he thought of it, and their eyes met.</p>
+
+<p>Chris leaned a little closer.</p>
+
+<p>“Beatrice!” he said. “What if she—?”</p>
+
+<p>The old man nodded tenderly, and his drawn eyes shone in his face.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! Chris—I was thinking that—”</p>
+
+<p>Then Nicholas came out of his maze.</p>
+
+<p>Ever since his entrance into the palace, except when he had flared out
+at the King, he had moved and stood and sat in a solemn bewilderment.
+The effect of the changed atmosphere had been to paralyse his simple and
+sturdy faculties; and his face had grown unintelligent during the
+process. More than once Chris had been seized with internal laughter, in
+spite of the tragedy; the rustic squire was so strangely incongruous
+with the situation. But he awoke now.</p>
+
+<p>“God bless me!” he said wonderingly. “It is all over and done. God—”</p>
+
+<p>Chris gave a short yelp of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>“Dear Nick,” he said, “yes. God bless you indeed! You spoke up well!”</p>
+
+<p>“Did I do right, sir,” said the other to Sir James, “I could not help
+it. I—”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! Nick,” said the old man, and leaned forward and put his hand on his
+knee.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas preened himself as he sat there; he would tell Mary how he had
+bearded his Majesty, and what a diplomatist was her husband.</p>
+
+<p>“You did very well, sir,” put in Mr. Herries ironically. “You terrified
+his Grace, I think.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris glanced at the lawyer; but Nicholas took it all with the greatest
+complacency; tilted his hilt a little forward, smoothed his doublet, and
+sat smiling and well-pleased.</p>
+
+<p>They reached the Stairs presently and put Mr. Herries ashore.</p>
+
+<p>“I will be at your house to-morrow, sir,” he said, “when you go to take
+Mr. Ralph out of prison. The order will be there by the morning, I make
+no doubt.”</p>
+
+<p>He bowed and smiled and moved off, a stiff figure deliberately picking
+its way up the oozy steps to the crowded street overhead.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Beatrice’s face was at the window as they came up the tide half-an-hour
+later. Chris stood up in the wherry, when he saw it, and waved his cap
+furiously, and the face disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>She was at the landing stage before they reached it, a slender brilliant
+figure in her hood and mantle, with her aunt beside her. Chris stood up
+again and cried between his hands across the narrowing space that all
+was well; and her face was radiant as the boat slipped up to the side,
+and balanced there with the boatman’s hand on the stone edging.</p>
+
+<p>“It is all well,” said Chris again as he stood by her a moment later.
+“He is to go free, and we are to tell him.”</p>
+
+<p>He dared not look at her; but he was aware that she stood very still and
+rigid, and that her eyes were on his father’s.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! Mistress Beatrice—”</p>
+
+<p>Chris began to understand it all a little better, a few minutes later,
+as the boat was once again on its way downstream. He and Nicholas had
+moved to the bows of the wherry, and the girl and the old man sat alone
+in the stern.</p>
+
+<p>They were all very silent at first; Chris leaned on his elbow and stared
+out at the sliding banks, the trees on this side and that, the great
+houses with their high roofs and towers behind, and their stone steps in
+front, the brilliant glare on the water, the hundreds of boats—great
+barges flashing jewels from their dozen blades, spidery wherries making
+this way and that; and his mind was busy weaving pictures. He saw it all
+now; there had been that in Beatrice’s face during the moment he had
+looked at her, that was more than sympathy. In the shock of that great
+joy the veils had fallen, and her soul had looked out through her black
+tearful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>There was little doubt now as to what would happen. It was not for their
+sake alone, or for Ralph’s, that she had looked like that; she had not
+said one word, but he knew what was unspoken.</p>
+
+<p>As they passed under London Bridge he turned a little and looked across
+the boatman’s shoulder at the two as they sat there in the stern, and
+what he saw confirmed him. The old man had flung an arm along the back
+of the seat, and was leaning a little forward, talking in a low voice,
+his face showing indeed the lines and wrinkles that had deepened more
+than ever during these last weeks, but irradiated with an extraordinary
+joy. And the girl was beside him, smiling with downcast eyes, turning a
+quick look now and again as she sat there. Chris could see her scarlet
+lips trembling, and her hands clasped on her knee, shifting a little now
+and again as she listened. It was a strange wooing; the father courting
+for the son, and the woman answering the son through the father; and
+Chris understood what was the answer that she was giving.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas was watching it too; and presently the two in the stern looked
+up suddenly; first Beatrice and then Sir James, and their eyes flashed
+joy across and across as the four souls met.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Five minutes later again they were at the Tower Stairs.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morris, who had been sent on by Mistress Jane Atherton when she had
+heard the news, was there holding his horse by the bridle; and behind
+him had collected a little crowd of idlers. He gave the bridle to one of
+them, and came down the steps to help them out of the boat.</p>
+
+<p>“You have heard?” said Chris as he stepped out last.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, father,” said the servant.</p>
+
+<p>Chris looked at him; and his mask-like face too seemed strangely lighted
+up. There was still across his cheek the shadow of a mark as of an old
+whip-cut.</p>
+
+<p>As they passed up the steps they became aware that the little crowd that
+had waited at the top was only the detached fringe of a multitude that
+had assembled further up the slope. It stretched under the trees as far
+as they could see to right and left, from the outer wall of the Tower on
+the one side, to where the rising ground on the left was hidden under
+the thick foliage in the foreground. There was a murmur of talking and
+laughter, the ringing of hand-bells, the cracking of whips and the cries
+of children. The backs of the crowd were turned to the steps: there was
+plainly something going on higher up the slope, and it seemed somewhat
+away to the left.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Chris did not understand, and he turned to Morris.</p>
+
+<p>“What is it?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“The scaffold,” said the servant tersely.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment high above the murmur of the crowd came the sound of
+heavy resounding blows, as of wood on wood.</p>
+
+<p>Then Chris remembered; and for one moment he sickened as he walked. His
+father turned and looked over his shoulder as he went with Beatrice in
+front, and his eyes were eloquent.</p>
+
+<p>“I had forgotten,” said Chris softly. “God help him!”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>They turned in towards the right almost immediately to the low outer
+gate of the fortress; and those for the first time remembered that the
+order they carried was for four only.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas instantly offered to wait outside and let Morris go in. Morris
+flatly refused. There was a short consultation, and then Nicholas went
+up to the sentry on guard with the order in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at it, glanced at the party, and then turned and knocked
+with his halberd on the great door behind, and in a minute or two an
+officer came out in his buff and feathers. He took the order and ran his
+eyes over it.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas explained.</p>
+
+<p>The officer looked at him a moment without answering.</p>
+
+<p>“And the lady too?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes,” said Nicholas.</p>
+
+<p>“The lady wishes—” then he broke off. “You will have to see the
+Lieutenant,” he went on. “I can let you all through to his lodgings.”</p>
+
+<p>They passed in with a yeoman to conduct them under the low heavy
+vaulting and through to the open way beyond. On their right was the wall
+between them and the river, and on their left the enormous towers and
+battlements of the inner court.</p>
+
+<p>Chris walked with Morris behind, remembering the last time he was here
+with the Prior all those years before. They had walked silently then,
+too, but for another reason.</p>
+
+<p>They passed the low Traitor’s Gate on their right; Chris glanced at the
+green lapping water beneath it as he went—Ralph had landed there—and
+turned up the steep slope to the left under the gateway of the inner
+court; and in a minute or two more were at the door of the Lieutenant’s
+lodgings.</p>
+
+<p>There seemed a strange suggestiveness in the silence and order of the
+wide ward that lay before them. The great White Tower dominated the
+whole place on the further side, huge and menacing, pierced by its
+narrow windows set at wide intervals; on the left, the row of towers
+used as prisons diminished in perspective down to where the wall turned
+at right angles and ran in behind the keep; and the great space enclosed
+by the whole was almost empty. There were soldiers on guard here and
+there at the doorways; a servant hurried across the wide sunlit ground,
+and once, as they waited, a doctor in his short gown came out of one
+door and disappeared into another.</p>
+
+<p>And here they waited for an answer to their summons, silent and happy in
+their knowledge. The place held no terrors for them.</p>
+
+<p>The soldier knocked again impatiently, and again stood aside.</p>
+
+<p>Chris saw Nicholas sidle up to the man with something of the same awe on
+his face that had been there an hour ago.</p>
+
+<p>“My Lord—Master Cromwell?” he heard him whisper, correcting himself.</p>
+
+<p>The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>“There,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>There were three soldiers, Chris noticed, standing at the foot of one of
+the Towers a little distance off. It was there, then, that Thomas
+Cromwell, wool-carder, waited for death, hearing, perhaps, from his
+window the murmur of the crowd beyond the moat, and the blows of mallet
+on wood as his scaffold went up.</p>
+
+<p>Then the door opened, and after a word or two the soldier motioned them
+in.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Again they had to wait.</p>
+
+<p>The Lieutenant, they were told, had been called away. He was expected
+back presently.</p>
+
+<p>They sat down, still in silence, in the little ground-floor parlour. It
+was a pleasant little room, with a wide hearth, and two windows looking
+on to the court.</p>
+
+<p>But the suspense was not like that of the morning. Now they knew how it
+must end. There would be a few minutes more, long perhaps to Ralph, as
+he sat in his cell somewhere not far from them, knowing nothing of the
+pardon that was on its way; and then the door would open, where day by
+day for the last six weeks the gaoler had come and gone; and the faces
+he knew would be there, and it would be from their lips that he would
+hear the message.</p>
+
+<p>The old man and the girl still sat together in the window-seat, silent
+now like the others. They had had their explanations in the boat, and
+each knew what was in the other’s heart. Chris and Nicholas stood by the
+hearth, Mr. Morris by the door; and there was not the tremor of a doubt
+in any of them as to what the future held.</p>
+
+<p>Chris looked tranquilly round the room, at the little square table in
+the centre, the four chairs drawn close to it, with their brocade
+panels stained and well-worn showing at the back, the dark ceiling, the
+piece of tapestry that hung over the side-table between the doors—it
+was a martial scene, faded and discoloured, with ghostly bare-legged
+knights on fat prancing horses all in inextricable conflict, a great
+battleaxe stood out against the dusky foliage of an autumn tree; and a
+stag with his fore feet in the air, ramped in the foreground, looking
+over his shoulder. It was a ludicrously bad piece of work, picked up no
+doubt by some former Lieutenant who knew more of military than artistic
+matters, and had hung there—how long? Chris wondered.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself criticising it detail by detail, comparing it with his
+own designs in the antiphonary; he had that antiphonary still at home;
+he had carried it off from Lewes, when Ralph—Ralph!—had turned him
+out. He had put it up into a parcel on the afternoon of the spoilers’
+arrival. He would show it to Ralph again now—in a day or two at
+Overfield; they would laugh over it together; and he would take it with
+him abroad, and perhaps finish it there. God’s work is not so easily
+hindered after all.</p>
+
+<p>But all the while, the wandering stream of his thought was lighted and
+penetrated by the radiant joy of his heart. It was all true, not a
+dream!</p>
+
+<p>He glanced again at the two in the window-seat.</p>
+
+<p>His father was looking out of the lattice; but Beatrice raised her eyes
+to his, and smiled at him.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James stood up.</p>
+
+<p>“The Lieutenant is coming,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later there were steps in the flagged passage; and a murmur of
+voices. The soldier who had brought them to the lodgings was waiting
+there with the order of admission, and was no doubt explaining the
+circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Then the door opened suddenly; and a tall soldierly-looking man,
+grey-haired and clean-shaven, in an officer’s dress, stood there, with
+the order in his hand, as the two in the window-seat rose to meet him.</p>
+
+<p>“Master Torridon,” he said abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James stepped forward.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“You have come to see Mr. Ralph Torridon whom we have here?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir—my son.”</p>
+
+<p>Nicholas stepped forward, and the Lieutenant nodded at him.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir,” said the officer to him, “I could not admit you before—” he
+stopped, as if embarrassed, and turned to Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>“And this lady too?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Master Lieutenant,” said the old man.</p>
+
+<p>“But—but—I do not understand—”</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the radiant faces before him, and then dropped his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose—you have not heard then?”</p>
+
+<p>Chris felt his heart leap, and then begin to throb furiously and
+insistently. What had happened? Why did the man look like that? Why did
+he not speak?</p>
+
+<p>The Lieutenant came a step forward and put his hand on the table. He was
+looking strangely from face to face.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the court was very still. The footstep that had passed on the
+flagstones a minute before had ceased; and there was no sound but the
+chirp of a bird under the eaves.</p>
+
+<p>“You have not heard then?” said the Lieutenant again.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! for God’s sake—” cried the old man suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>“I have just come from your son,” said the other steadily. “You are only
+just in time. He is at the point of death.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h4 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_4XIII">CHAPTER XIII<br><span class="small">THE RELEASE</span></h4></div>
+
+
+<p>It was morning, and they still sat in Ralph’s cell.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The attendant had brought in stools and a tall chair with a broken back,
+and these were grouped round the low wooden bed; the old man in the
+chair on one side, from where he could look down on his son’s face, with
+Beatrice beside him, Chris and Nicholas on the other side. Mr. Morris
+was everywhere, sitting on a form by the door, in and out with food and
+medicine, at his old master’s bedside, lifting his pillow, turning him
+in bed, holding his convulsive hands.</p>
+
+<p>He had been ill six days, the Lieutenant told them. The doctor who had
+been called in from outside named the disease <i>phrenitis</i>. It was
+certain that he would not recover; and a message to that effect had been
+sent across on the morning before, with the usual reports to Greenwich.</p>
+
+<p>They had supped as they sat—silently—on what the gaoler brought; and
+had slept by turns in the tall chair, wakening at a sound from the bed;
+at the movement of the light across the floor as Morris slipped to and
+fro noiselessly; at the chirp of the birds and the noises of the
+stirring City as the daylight broadened on the wall, and the narrow
+window grew bright and luminous.</p>
+
+<p>And now the morning was high, and they were waiting for the end.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>A little table stood by the door, white-covered, with two candles,
+guttering now in their sockets, and a tall crucifix, ivory and black,
+lifting its arms in the midst. Before it stood two veiled vessels.</p>
+
+<p>“He will speak before he passes,” the doctor had told them the evening
+before; “I do not know whether he will be able to receive Viaticum.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Chris raised himself a little in his chair—he was stiff with leaning
+elbows on knees; and he stretched out his feet softly; looking down
+still at the bed.</p>
+
+<p>His brother lay with his back to him; the priest could see the black
+hair, longer than Court fashion allowed now, the brown sinewy neck
+beneath; and one arm outlined over his hip beneath the piled clothes.
+The fingers were moving a little, contracting and loosening, contracting
+and loosening; and he could hear the long slow breaths.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond sat Beatrice, upright and quiet, one hand in her lap, and the
+other holding the father’s. The old man was bowed with his head on his
+other hand, as he had been for the last hour, his back bent forward with
+the burden, and his feet crossed before him.</p>
+
+<p>From outside the noises grew louder as the morning advanced. There had
+been the sound of continual coming and going since it was light. Wheels
+had groaned and rattled up out of the distance and ceased abruptly; and
+the noise of hoofs had been like an endless patter over the
+stone-paving. And now, as the hours passed a murmur had been increasing,
+a strange sound like the wind in dry trees, as the huge crowd gathered.</p>
+
+<p>Beatrice raised her eyes suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>The fortress itself which had been quiet till now seemed to awaken
+abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>The sound seemed to come to them up the stairs, but they had learnt
+during those hours that all sounds from within came that way. There was
+a trumpet-note or two, short and brazen; a tramp of feet for a moment,
+the throb of drums; then silence again; then the noise of moving
+footsteps that came and went in an instant. And as the sound came, Ralph
+stirred.</p>
+
+<p>He swayed slowly over on to his back; his breath came in little groans
+that died to silence again as he subsided, and his arm drew out and lay
+on the bedclothes. Chris could see his face now in sharp profile against
+Beatrice’s dark skirt, white and sharp; the skin was tightly stretched
+over the nose and cheekbones, his long thin lips were slightly open,
+there was a painful frown on his forehead, and his eyes squinted
+terribly at the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>A contraction seized the priest’s throat as he watched; the face was at
+once so august and so pitiable.</p>
+
+<p>The lips began to move again, as they had moved during the night; it
+seemed as if the dying man were talking and listening. The eyelids
+twitched a little; and once he made a movement as if to rise up. Chris
+was down on his knees in a moment, holding him tenderly down; he felt
+the thin hands come up and fumble with his own, and noticed lines deepen
+between the flickering eyelids. Then the hands lay quiet.</p>
+
+<p>Chris lifted his eyes and saw his father’s face and Beatrice’s watching.
+Something of the augustness of the dying man seemed to rest on the grey
+bearded lips and solemn eyes that looked down. Beatrice’s face was
+steady and tender, and as the priest’s eyes met hers, she nodded.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, speak to him,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>Chris threw a hand across the bed and rested it on the wooden frame, and
+then lowered himself softly till his mouth was at the other’s ear.</p>
+
+<p>“Ralph,” he said, “Ralph, do you hear me?”</p>
+
+<p>Then he raised his face a little and watched.</p>
+
+<p>The eyelids were rising slowly; but they dropped again; and there came a
+little faint babbling from the writhing lips; but no words were
+intelligible. Then they were silent.</p>
+
+<p>“He hears,” said Beatrice softly.</p>
+
+<p>The priest bent low again; and as he did so, from outside came a strange
+sound, as of a long monstrous groan from a thousand throats. Again the
+dying man stirred; his hand sought his brother’s arm and gripped it with
+a kind of feeble strength; then dropped again on to the coverlet.</p>
+
+<p>Chris hesitated a moment, and again glanced up; and as he did so, there
+was a sound on the stairs. He threw himself back on his heels and looked
+round, as the doctor came in with Morris behind him.</p>
+
+<p>He was a stout ruddy man, and moved heavily across the floor; but Ralph
+seemed not to hear it.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor came to the end of the bed, and stood staring down at the
+dying man’s face, frowning and pursing his lips; Chris watched him
+intently for some sign. Then he came round by Beatrice, leaned over the
+bed, and took Ralph’s wrist softly into his fingers. He suddenly seemed
+to remember himself, and turned his face abruptly over his shoulder to
+Sir James.</p>
+
+<p>“There is a man come from the palace,” he whispered harshly. “I suppose
+it is the pardon.” And Chris saw him arch his eyebrows and purse his
+lips again. Then he bent over Ralph once more.</p>
+
+<p>Then again the doctor jerked his head towards the window behind and
+spoke across to Chris.</p>
+
+<p>“They have him out there,” he said; “Master Cromwell, I mean.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he rose abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>“He cannot receive Viaticum; and he will not be able to make his
+confession. I should shrive him at once, sir, and anoint him.”</p>
+
+<p>“At once?” whispered Chris.</p>
+
+<p>“The sooner the better,” said the doctor; “there is no telling.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris rose swiftly from his knees, and made a sharp sign to Morris. Then
+he sank down once more, looking round, and lifted the purple stole from
+the floor where he had laid it the evening before; and even as he did so
+his soul revolted.</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at Beatrice. Would not she understand the unchivalry of the
+act? But the will in her eyes compelled him.—Yes, yes! Who could set a
+limit to mercy?</p>
+
+<p>He slipped the strip over his shoulders, and again bent down over his
+brother, with one arm across the motionless body. Beatrice and Sir James
+were on their knees by now. Nicholas was busy with Morris at the further
+end of the room. The doctor was gone.</p>
+
+<p>There was a profound silence now outside as the priest bent lower and
+lower till his lips almost touched the ear of the dying man; and every
+word of the broken abrupt sentences was audible to all in the room.</p>
+
+<p>“Ralph—Ralph—dear brother. You are at the point of death. I must
+shrive you. You have sinned very deeply against God and man. I shall
+anoint you afterwards. Make an act of sorrow in your heart for all your
+sins; it will stand for confession. Think of Jesu’s love, and of His
+death on the bitter cross—the wounds that He bore for us in love. Give
+me a sign if you can that you repent.”</p>
+
+<p>Chris spoke rapidly, and leaned back a moment. Now he was terrified of
+waiting—he did not know how long it would be; but for an intent instant
+he stared down on the shadowed face.</p>
+
+<p>Again the eyelids flickered; the lips formed words, and ceased again.</p>
+
+<p>The priest glanced up, scarcely knowing why; and then again lowered
+himself that if it were possible Ralph might hear.</p>
+
+<p>Then he spoke, with a tense internal effort as if to drive the grace
+home....</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Ego te absolvo ab omnibus censuris et peccatis, in nomine Patris</i>—”
+He raised himself a little and lifted his hand, moving it sideways
+across and down as he ended—“<i>et Filii et Spiritus Sancti</i>.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The priest rose up once more, his duty driving his emotion down; he did
+not dare to look across at the two figures beyond the bed, or even to
+question himself again as to what he was doing.</p>
+
+<p>The two men at the further end of the room were waiting now; they had
+lifted the candles and crucifix off the table, and set them on the bench
+by the side.</p>
+
+<p>Chris went swiftly across the room, dropped on one knee, rose again,
+lifted the veiled vessel that stood in the centre, with the little linen
+cloth beneath, and set it all down on the bench. He knelt again, went a
+step aside back to the table, lifted the other vessel, and signed with
+his head.</p>
+
+<p>The two men grasped the ends of the table, and carried it across the
+floor to the end of the bed. Chris followed and set down the sacred oils
+upon it.</p>
+
+<p>“The cross and one candle,” he whispered sharply.</p>
+
+<p>A minute later he was standing by the bed once more.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Oremus</i>—” he began, reading rapidly off the book that Beatrice held
+steadily beneath his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Almighty Everlasting God, Who through blessed James Thy Apostle, hast
+spoken, saying, Is any sick among you, let him call the priests of the
+Church</i>—” (The lips of the dying man were moving again at the sound of
+the words; was it in protest or in faith?)—“... <i>that what is done
+without through our ministry, may be wrought within spiritually by Thy
+divine power, and invisibly by Thy healing; through our Lord Jesus
+Christ. Amen.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>The lips were moving faster than ever on the pillow; the head was
+beginning to turn from side to side, and the mouth lay open.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Usquequo, Domine</i>” ... began Beatrice.</p>
+
+<p>Chris dipped his thumb in the vessel, and sank swiftly on to his knees.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Per istam sanctam Unctionem</i>”—“<i>through this holy unction</i>....”</p>
+
+<p>(The old man leaned suddenly forward on to his knees, and steadied that
+rolling head in his two hands; and Chris signed firmly on the eyelids,
+pressing them down and feeling the fluttering beneath his thumb as he
+did so.)</p>
+
+<p>“... <i>And His most loving mercy, may the Lord forgive thee whatsoever
+thou hast sinned through sight.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>Ah! that was done—dear God! those eyes that had drooped and sneered,
+that had looked so greedily on treasure—their lids shone now with the
+loving-kindness of God.</p>
+
+<p>Chris snatched a morsel of wool that Morris put forward from behind,
+wiped the eyelids, and dropped the fragment into the earthen basin at
+his side.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Per istam sanctam Unctionem</i>....”</p>
+
+<p>And the ears were anointed—the ears that had listened to Layton’s
+filth, to Cromwell’s plotting; and to the cries of the oppressed.</p>
+
+<p>The nostrils; the lips that had lied and stormed and accused against
+God’s people, compressed now in his father’s fingers—they seemed to
+sneer even now, and to writhe under the soft oil; the hands that had
+been laid on God’s portion, that had torn the vessels from the altar and
+the cloth of gold from the treasury—those too were signed now, and lay
+twitching on the coverlet.</p>
+
+<p>The bed clothes at the foot of the wooden framework were lifted and laid
+back as Chris passed round to the end, and the long feet, icy cold, were
+lying exposed side by side.</p>
+
+<p><i>Per Istam sanctam Unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat
+tibi Domimus quidquid peccasti per incessum pedum. Amen.</i></p>
+
+<p>Then they too were sealed with pardon, the feet that had been so swift
+and unwearied in the war with God, that had trodden the sanctuary in His
+despite, and trampled down the hearts of His saints—they too were
+signed now with the mark of Redemption and lay again under the folded
+coverlet at the end of their last journey.</p>
+
+<p>A convulsion tore at the priest’s heart.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Then suddenly in the profound silence outside there broke out an
+indescribable clamour, drowning in an instant the murmur of prayers
+within. It seemed as if the whole world of men were there, and roaring.
+The sound poured up through the window, across the moat; the boards of
+the flooring vibrated with the sound. There was the throb of drums
+pulsating through the long-drawn yell, the screams of women, the barking
+of dogs; and a moment later, like some devilish benediction, the bells
+of Barking Church pealed out, mellow and jangling, in an exultation of
+blood.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph struggled in his bed; his hands rose clutching at his throat,
+tearing open his shirt before Beatrice’s fingers could reach them. The
+breath came swift and hoarse through his open teeth, and his eyelids
+flickered furiously. Then they opened, and his face grew quiet, as he
+looked out across the room.</p>
+
+<p>“My—my Lord!” he said.</p>
+
+<p class="center p2 big">THE END.
+</p>
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 16375 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #16375 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16375)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The King's Achievement, by Robert Hugh Benson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The King's Achievement
+
+Author: Robert Hugh Benson
+
+Release Date: July 27, 2005 [EBook #16375]
+Last Updated: March 3, 2017
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KING'S ACHIEVEMENT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Geoff Horton and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE KING'S ACHIEVEMENT
+
+By Robert Hugh Benson
+
+Author of "By What Authority?" "The Light Invisible,"
+"A Book of the Love of Jesus," etc.
+
+_Non minus principi turpia sunt multa supplicia, quam medico multa
+funera._
+
+(Sen. de clem. 1, 24, 1.)
+
+
+
+
+_I must express my gratitude once more to the Rev. Dom Bede Camm,
+O.S.B., as well as to the Very Rev. Mgr. Barnes, who have done me great
+service in revising proofs and making suggestions; to the Rev. E.
+Conybeare, who very kindly provided the coins for the cover-design of
+the book; to my mother and sister, to Eustace Virgo, Esq., to Dr.
+Ross-Todd, and to others, who have been extremely kind in various ways
+during the writing of this book in the summer and autumn of 1904._
+
+_I must also express my great indebtedness to the Right Rev. Abbot
+Gasquet, O.S.B., both on account of his invaluable books, which I have
+used freely, and for his personal kindness in answering my questions._
+
+ROBERT HUGH BENSON
+
+_The Catholic Rectory,
+Cambridge,
+July 14, 1905._
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BOOK I.
+THE KING'S WILL.
+
+CHAPTER
+
+   I.  A DECISION
+  II.  A FORETASTE OF PEACE
+ III.  THE ARRIVAL AT LEWES
+  IV.  A COMMISSION
+   V.  MASTER MORE
+  VI.  RALPH'S INTERCESSION
+ VII.  A MERRY PRISONER
+VIII.  A HIGHER STEP
+  IX.  LIFE AT LEWES
+   X.  THE ARENA
+  XI.  A CLOSING-IN
+ XII.  A RECOVERY
+XIII.  PRISONER AND PRINCE
+ XIV.  THE SACRED PURPLE
+  XV.  THE KING'S FRIEND
+
+
+BOOK II.
+THE KING'S TRIUMPH.
+
+PART I.--THE SMALLER HOUSES.
+
+   I.  AN ACT OF FAITH
+  II.  THE BEGINNING OF THE VISITATION
+ III.  A HOUSE OF LADIES
+  IV.  AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
+   V.  FATHER AND SON
+  VI.  A NUN'S DEFIANCE
+ VII. ST. PANCRAS PRIORY
+VIII. RALPH'S RETURN
+  IX. RALPH'S WELCOME
+
+PART II--THE FALL OF LEWES.
+
+   I. INTERNAL DISSENSION
+  II. SACERDOS IN AETERNUM
+ III. THE NORTHERN RISING
+  IV. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SEAL
+   V. THE SINKING SHIP
+  VI. THE LAST STAND
+ VII. AXES AND HAMMERS
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+THE KING'S GRATITUDE.
+
+   I. A SCHEME
+  II. A DUEL
+ III. A PEACE-MAKER
+  IV. THE ELDER SON
+   V. THE MUMMERS
+  VI. A CATASTROPHE
+ VII. A QUESTION OF LOYALTY
+VIII. TO CHARING
+  IX. A RELIEF-PARTY
+   X. PLACENTIA
+  XI. THE KING'S HIGHNESS
+ XII. THE TIDINGS AT THE TOWER
+XIII. THE RELEASE
+
+
+
+
+BENEFICO--IGNOTO
+HVNC--LIBRVM
+D.
+
+
+
+
+THE KING'S ACHIEVEMENT
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A DECISION
+
+
+Overfield Court lay basking in warm June sunshine. The western side of
+the great house with its new timber and plaster faced the evening sun
+across the square lawns and high terrace; and the woods a couple of
+hundred yards away cast long shadows over the gardens that lay beyond
+the moat. The lawns, in their broad plateaux on the eastern side
+descended by steps, in cool shadow to the lake that formed a
+quarter-circle below the south-eastern angle of the house; and the
+mirrored trees and reeds on the other side were broken, circle after
+circle, by the great trout that were rising for their evening meal. The
+tall front of the house on the north, formed by the hall in the centre
+with the kitchen at its eastern end and the master's chamber on the
+western, was faced by a square-towered gatehouse through which the
+straight drive leading into the main road approached the house under a
+lime-avenue; and on the south side the ground fell away again rapidly
+below the chapel and the morning-room, in copse and garden and wild
+meadow bright with buttercups and ox-eye daisies, down to the lake again
+and the moat that ran out of it round the entire domain.
+
+The cobbled courtyard in the centre of the house, where the tall leaded
+pump stood, was full of movement. Half a dozen trunks lay there that
+had just been carried in from the luggage-horses that were now being led
+away with patient hanging heads towards the stables that stood outside
+the gatehouse on the right, and three or four dusty men in livery were
+talking to the house-servants who had come out of their quarters on the
+left. From the kitchen corner came a clamour of tongues and dishes, and
+smoke was rising steadily from the huge outside chimney that rose beyond
+the roofs.
+
+Presently there came clear and distinct from the direction of the
+village the throb of hoofs on the hard road; and the men shouldered the
+trunks, and disappeared, staggering, under the low archway on the right,
+beside which the lamp extinguisher hung, grimy with smoke and grease.
+The yard dog came out at the sound of the hoofs, dragging his chain
+after him, from his kennel beneath the little cloister outside the
+chapel, barked solemnly once or twice, and having done his duty lay down
+on the cool stones, head on paws, watching with bright eyes the door
+that led from the hall into the Court. A moment later the little door
+from the masters chamber opened; and Sir James Torridon came out and,
+giving a glance at the disappearing servants, said a word or two to the
+others, and turned again through the hall to meet his sons.
+
+The coach was coming up the drive round toward the gatehouse, as he came
+out on the wide paved terrace; and he stood watching the glitter of
+brasswork through the dust, the four plumed cantering horses in front,
+and the bobbing heads of the men that rode behind; and there was a grave
+pleased expectancy on his bearded face and in his bright grey eyes as he
+looked. His two sons had met at Begham, and were coming home, Ralph from
+town sites a six months' absence, and Christopher from Canterbury,
+where he had been spending a week or two in company with Mr. Carleton,
+the chaplain of the Court. He was the more pleased as the house had been
+rather lonely in their absence, since the two daughters were both from
+home, Mary with her husband, Sir Nicholas Maxwell, over at Great Keynes,
+and Margaret at her convent education at Rusper: and he himself had had
+for company his wife alone.
+
+She came out presently as the carriage rolled through the archway, a
+tall dignified figure of a woman, finely dressed in purple and black,
+and stood by him, silently, a yard or two away, watching the carriage
+out of steady black eyes. A moment later the carriage drew up at the
+steps, and a couple of servants ran down to open the door.
+
+Ralph stepped out first, a tall man like both his parents, with a face
+and slow gait extraordinarily like his mother's, and dressed in the same
+kind of rich splendour, with a short silver-clasped travelling cloak,
+crimson hose, and plumed felt cap; and his face with its pointed black
+beard had something of the same steady impassivity in it; he was
+flicking the dust from his shoulder as he came up the steps on to the
+terrace.
+
+Christopher followed him, not quite so tall as the other, and a good ten
+years younger, with the grey eyes of his father, and a little brown
+beard beginning to sprout on his cheeks and chin.
+
+Ralph turned at the top of the steps
+
+"The bag," he said shortly; and then turned again to kiss his parents'
+hands; as Christopher went back to the carriage, from which the priest
+was just stepping out. Sir James asked his son about the journey.
+
+"Oh, yes," he said; and then added, "Christopher was late at Begham."
+
+"And you are well, my son?" asked his mother, as they turned to walk up
+to the house.
+
+"Oh, yes!" he said again.
+
+Sir James waited for Christopher and Mr. Carleton, and the three
+followed the others a few yards behind.
+
+"You saw her?" said his father.
+
+Christopher nodded.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I must speak to you, sir, before I tell the others."
+
+"Come to me when you are dressed, then. Supper will be in an hour from
+now;" and he looked at his son with a kind of sharp expectancy.
+
+The courtyard was empty as they passed through, but half a dozen
+servants stood crowded in the little flagged passage that led from it
+into the kitchen, and watched Ralph and his mother with an awed interest
+as they came out from the hall. Mr. Ralph had come down from the heart
+of life, as they knew; had been present at the crowning of Anne Boleyn a
+week before, had mixed with great folks; and what secrets of State might
+there not be in that little strapped bag that his brother carried behind
+him?
+
+When the two first had disappeared, the servants broke into talk, and
+went back to the kitchen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lady Torridon, with her elder son and the chaplain, had to wait a few
+minutes on the dais in the hall an hour later, before the door under the
+musicians' gallery opened, and the other two came in from the master's
+chamber. Sir James looked a little anxious as he came across the clean
+strewed rushes, past the table at the lower end where the household sat,
+but Christopher's face was bright with excitement. After a word or two
+of apology they moved to their places. Mr. Carleton said grace, and as
+they sat down the door behind from the kitchen opened, and the servants
+came through with the pewter dishes.
+
+Ralph was very silent at first; his mother sat by him almost as silent
+as himself; the servants sprang about noiseless and eager to wait on
+him; and Sir James and the chaplain did most of the conversation,
+pleasant harmless talk about the estate and the tenants; but as supper
+went on, and the weariness of the hot journey faded, and the talk from
+the lower tables grew louder, Ralph began to talk a little more freely.
+
+"Yes," he said, "the crowning went well enough. The people were quiet
+enough. She looked very pretty in her robes; she was in purple velvet,
+and her gentlemen in scarlet. We shall have news of her soon."
+
+Sir James looked up sharply at his son. They were all listening
+intently; and even a servant behind Ralph's chair paused with a silver
+jug.
+
+"Yes," said Ralph again with a tranquil air, setting down his Venetian
+glass; "God has blessed the union already."
+
+"And the King?" asked his father, from his black velvet chair in the
+centre.
+
+There fell a deeper silence yet as that name was mentioned. Henry
+dominated the imagination of his subjects to an extraordinary degree, no
+less in his heavy middle-age than in the magnificent strength and
+capacity of his youth.
+
+But Ralph answered carelessly enough. He had seen the King too often.
+
+"The King looked pleased enough; he was in his throne. He is stouter
+than when I saw him last. My Lord of Canterbury did the crowning; Te
+Deum was sung after, and then solemn mass. There was a dozen abbots, I
+should think, and my Lords of York and London and Winchester with two or
+three more. My Lord of Suffolk bore the crown."
+
+"And the procession?" asked his father again.
+
+"That, too, was well enough. There came four chariots after the Queen,
+full of ancient old ladies, at which some of the folks laughed. And then
+the rest of them."
+
+They talked a few minutes about the coronation, Sir James asking most of
+the questions and Ralph answering shortly; and presently Christopher
+broke in--
+
+"And the Lady Katharine--" he began.
+
+"Hush, my son," said his father, glancing at Ralph, who sat perfectly
+still a moment before answering.
+
+"Chris is always eager about the wrong thing," he said evenly; "he is
+late at Begham, and then asks me about the Princess Dowager. She is
+still alive, if you mean that."
+
+Lady Torridon looked from one to the other.
+
+"And Master Cromwell?" she asked.
+
+"Master Cromwell is well enough. He asked me to give you both his
+respects. I left him at Hackney."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tall southern windows of the hall, above the pargetted plaster, had
+faded through glowing ruby and blue to dusk before they rose from the
+table and went down and through the passage into the little parlour next
+the master's chamber, where they usually took their dessert. This part
+of the house had been lately re-built, but the old woodwork had been
+re-used, and the pale oak panels, each crowned by an elaborate foliated
+head, gave back the pleasant flicker of the fire that burned between the
+polished sheets of Flemish tiles on either side of the hearth. A great
+globe stood in the corner furthest from the door, with a map of England
+hanging above it. A piece of tapestry hung over the mantelpiece,
+representing Diana bending over Endymion, and two tall candles in brass
+stands burned beneath. The floor was covered with rushes.
+
+Mr. Carleton, who had come with them as far as the door, according to
+custom, was on the point of saying-good-night, when Sir James called him
+back.
+
+"Come in, father," he said, "we want you to-night. Chris has something
+to tell us."
+
+The priest came in and sat down with the others, his face in shadow, at
+the corner of the hearth.
+
+Sir James looked across at his younger son and nodded; and Chris, his
+chin on his hand, and sitting very upright on the long-backed settle
+beside the chaplain, began rather nervously and abruptly.
+
+"I--I have told Ralph," he said, "on the way here and you, sir; but I
+will tell you again. You know I was questioning whether I had a vocation
+to the religious life; and I went, with that in my mind, to see the Holy
+Maid. We saw her, Mr. Carleton and I; and--and I have made up my mind I
+must go."
+
+He stopped, hesitating a little, Ralph and his mother sat perfectly
+still, without a word or sign of either sympathy or disapproval. His
+father leaned forward a little, and smiled encouragingly.
+
+"Go on, my son."
+
+Chris drew a breath and leaned back more easily.
+
+"Well, we went to St. Sepulchre's; and she could not see us for a day or
+two. There were several others staying with us at the monastery; there
+was a Carthusian from Sheen--I forget his name."
+
+"Henry Man," put in the chaplain.
+
+"--And some others," went on Chris, "all waiting to see her. Dr. Bocking
+promised to tell us when we could see her; and he came to us one morning
+after mass, and told us that she was in ecstasy, and that we were to
+come at once. So we all went to the nuns' chapel, and there she was on
+her knees, with her arms across her breast."
+
+He stopped again. Ralph cleared his throat, crossed his legs, and drank
+a little wine.
+
+"Yes?" said the knight questioningly.
+
+"Well--she said a great deal," went on Chris hurriedly.
+
+"About the King?" put in his mother who was looking at the fire.
+
+"A little about the King," said Chris, "and about holy things as well.
+She spoke about heaven; it was wonderful to hear her; with her eyes
+burning, and such a voice; and then she spoke low and deep and told us
+about hell, and the devil and his torments; and I could hardly bear to
+listen; and she told us about shrift, and what it did for the soul; and
+the blessed sacrament. The Carthusian put a question or two to her, and
+she answered them: and all the while she was speaking her voice seemed
+to come from her body, and not from her mouth; and it was terrible to
+see her when she spoke of hell; her tongue lay out on her cheek, and her
+eyes grew little and afraid."
+
+"Her tongue in her cheek, did you say?" asked Ralph politely, without
+moving.
+
+Chris flushed, and sat back silent. His father glanced quickly from one
+to the other.
+
+"Tell us more, Chris," he said. "What did she say to you?"
+
+The young man leaned forward again.
+
+"I wish, Ralph--" he began.
+
+"I was asking--" began the other.
+
+"There, there," said Sir James. "Go on, Chris."
+
+"Well, after a while Dr. Bocking brought me forward; and told her to
+look at me; and her eyes seemed to see something beyond me; and I was
+afraid. But he told me to ask her, and I did. She said nothing for a
+while; and then she began to speak of a great church, as if she saw it;
+and she saw there was a tower in the middle, and chapels on either side,
+and tombs beside the high altar; and an image, and then she stopped, and
+cried out aloud 'Saint Pancras pray for us'--and then I knew."
+
+Chris was trembling violently with excitement as he turned to the priest
+for corroboration. Mr. Carleton nodded once or twice without speaking.
+
+"Then I knew," went on Chris. "You know it was what I had in my mind;
+and I had not spoken a word of Lewes, or of my thought of going there."
+
+"Had you told any?" asked his father.
+
+"Only Dr. Bocking. Then I asked her, was I to go there; but she said
+nothing for a while; and her eyes wandered about; and she began to speak
+of black monks going this way and that; and she spoke of a prior, and of
+his ring; it was of gold, she said, with figures engraved on it. You
+know the ring the Prior wears?" he added, looking eagerly at his father.
+
+Sir James nodded.
+
+"I know it," he said. "Well?"
+
+"Well, I asked her again, was I to go there; and then she looked at me
+up and down; I was in my travelling suit; but she said she saw my cowl
+and its hanging sleeves, and an antiphoner in my hands; and then her
+face grew dreadful and afraid again, and she cried out and fell forward;
+and Dr. Bocking led us out from the chapel."
+
+There was a long silence as Chris ended and leaned back again, taking
+up a bunch of raisins. Ralph sighed once as if wearied out, and his
+mother put her hand on his sleeve. Then at last Sir James spoke.
+
+"You have heard the story," he said, and then paused; but there was no
+answer. At last the chaplain spoke from his place.
+
+"It is all as Chris said," he began, "I was there and heard it. If the
+woman is not from God, she is one of Satan's own; and it is hard to
+think that Satan would tell us of the sacraments and bid us use them
+greedily, and if she is from God--" he stopped again.
+
+The knight nodded at him.
+
+"And you, sweetheart?" he said to his wife.
+
+She turned to him slowly.
+
+"You know what I think," she said. "If Chris believes it, he must go, I
+suppose."
+
+"And you, Ralph?"
+
+Ralph raised himself in his chair.
+
+"Do you wish me to say what I think?" he asked deliberately, "or what
+Chris wishes me to say? I will do either."
+
+Chris made a quick movement of his head; but his father answered for
+him.
+
+"We wish you to say what you think," he said quietly.
+
+"Well, then," said Ralph, "it is this. I cannot agree with the father. I
+think the woman is neither of God nor Satan; but that she speaks of her
+own heart, and of Dr. Bocking's. I believe they are a couple of
+knaves--clever knaves, I will grant, though perhaps the woman is
+something of a fool too; for she deceives persons as wise even as Mr.
+Carleton here by speaking of shrift and the like; and so she does the
+priests' will, and hopes to get gain for them and herself. I am not
+alone in thinking this--there are many in town who think with me, and
+holy persons too."
+
+"Is Master Cromwell one of them?" put in Chris bitterly.
+
+Ralph raised his eyebrows a little.
+
+"There is no use in sneering," he said, "but Master Cromwell is one of
+them. I suppose I ought not to speak of this; but I know you will not
+speak of it again; and I can tell you of my own knowledge that the Holy
+Maid will not be at St. Sepulchre's much longer."
+
+His father leaned forward.
+
+"Do you mean--" he began.
+
+"I mean that His Grace is weary of her prophesyings. It was all very
+well till she began to meddle with matters of State; but His Grace will
+have none of that. I can tell you no more. On the other hand if Chris
+thinks he must be a monk, well and good; I do not think so myself; but
+that is not my affair; but I hope he will not be a monk only because a
+knavish woman has put out her tongue at him, and repeated what a knavish
+priest has put into her mouth. But I suppose he had made up his mind
+before he asked me."
+
+"He has made up his mind," said his father, "and will hold to it unless
+reason is shown to the contrary; and for myself I think he is right."
+
+"Very well, then," said Ralph; and leaned back once more.
+
+The minutes passed away in silence for a while; and then Ralph asked a
+question or two about his sisters.
+
+"Mary is coming over to hunt to-morrow with her husband," said Sir
+James. "I have told Forrest to be here by nine o'clock. Shall you come
+with us?"
+
+Ralph yawned, and sipped his Bordeaux.
+
+"I do not know," he said, "I suppose so."
+
+"And Margaret is at Rusper still," went on the other. "She will not be
+here until August."
+
+"She, too, is thinking of Religion," put in Lady Torridon impassively.
+
+Ralph looked up lazily.
+
+"Indeed," he said, "then Mary and I will be the only worldlings."
+
+"She is very happy with the nuns," said his father, smiling, "and a
+worldling can be no more than that; and perhaps not always as much."
+
+Ralph smiled with one corner of his mouth.
+
+"You are quite right, sir," he said.
+
+The bell for evening prayers sounded out presently from the turret in
+the chapel-corner, and the chaplain rose and went out.
+
+"Will you forgive me, sir," said Ralph, "if I do not come this evening?
+I am worn out with travelling. The stay at Begham was very troublesome."
+
+"Good-night, then, my son. I will send Morris to you immediately."
+
+"Oh, after prayers," said Ralph. "I need not deprive God of his prayers
+too."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lady Torridon had gone out silently after the chaplain, and Sir James
+and Chris walked across the Court together. Overhead the summer night
+sky was clear and luminous with stars, and the air still and fragrant.
+There were a few lights here and there round the Court, and the tall
+chapel windows shone dimly above the little cloister. A link flared
+steadily on its iron bracket by the door into the hall, and threw waves
+of flickering ruddy light across the cobble-stones, and the shadow of
+the tall pump wavered on the further side.
+
+Sir James put his hand tenderly on Chris' shoulder.
+
+"You must not be angry at Ralph, my son," he said. "Remember he does not
+understand."
+
+"He should not speak like that," said Chris fiercely. "How dare he do
+so?"
+
+"Of course he should not; but he does not know that. He thinks he is
+advising you well. You must let him alone, Chris. You must remember he
+is almost mad with business. Master Cromwell works him hard."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The chapel was but dimly lighted as Chris made his way up to the high
+gallery at the west where he usually knelt. The altar glimmered in the
+dusk at the further end, and only a couple of candles burned on the
+priest's kneeling stool on the south side. The rest was dark, for the
+house hold knew compline by heart; and even before Chris reached his
+seat he heard the blessing asked for a quiet night and a perfect end. It
+was very soothing to him as he leaned over the oak rail and looked down
+on the dim figures of his parents in their seat at the front, and the
+heads of the servants below, and listened to the quiet pulsation of
+those waves of prayer going to and fro in the dusk, beating, as a summer
+tide at the foot of a cliff against those white steps that rose up to
+the altar where a single spark winked against the leaded window beneath
+the silk-shrouded pyx. He had come home full of excitement and joy at
+his first sight of an ecstatic, and at the message that she had seemed
+to have for him, and across these heightened perceptions had jarred the
+impatience of his brother in the inn at Begham and in the carriage on
+their way home, and above all his sharp criticism and aloofness in the
+parlour just now. But he became quieter as he knelt now; the bitterness
+seemed to sink beneath him and to leave him alone in a world of
+peaceful glory--the world of mystic life to which his face was now set,
+illuminated by the words of the nun. He had seen one who could see
+further than he himself; he had looked upon eyes that were fixed on
+mysteries and realms in which he indeed passionately believed, but which
+were apt to be faint and formless sometimes to the weary eyes of faith
+alone; and as a proof that these were more than fancies she had told him
+too of what he could verify--of the priory at Lewes which she had never
+visited, and even the details of the ring on the Prior's finger which he
+alone of the two had seen. And then lastly she had encouraged him in his
+desires, had seen him with those same wide eyes in the habit that he
+longed to wear, going about the psalmody--the great _Opus Dei_--to which
+he longed to consecrate his life. If such were not a message from God to
+him for what further revelation could he hope?
+
+And as for Ralph's news and interests, of what value were they? Of what
+importance was it to ask who sat on the Consort's throne, or whether she
+wore purple velvet or red? These were little matters compared with those
+high affairs of the soul and the Eternal God, of which he was already
+beginning to catch glimpses, and even the whispers that ran about the
+country places and of which Ralph no doubt could tell him much if he
+chose, of the danger that threatened the religious houses, and of
+Henry's intentions towards them--even these were but impotent cries of
+the people raging round the throne of the Anointed.
+
+So he knelt here now, pacified and content again, and thought with
+something of pity of his brother dozing now no doubt before the parlour
+fire, cramped by his poor ideals and dismally happy in his limitations.
+
+His father, too, was content down below in the chapel. He himself had
+at one time before his marriage looked towards the religious life; and
+now that it had turned out otherwise had desired nothing more than that
+he should be represented in that inner world of God's favourites by at
+least one of his children. His daughter Margaret had written a week
+earlier to say that her mind was turning that way, and now Christopher's
+decision had filled up the cup of his desires. To have a priest for a
+son, and above all one who was a monk as well was more than he had dared
+to hope, though not to pray for; if he could not be one himself, at
+least he had begotten one--one who would represent him before God, bring
+a blessing on the house, and pray and offer sacrifice for his soul until
+his time should be run out and he see God face to face. And Ralph would
+represent him before men and carry on the line, and hand on the house to
+a third generation--Ralph, at whom he had felt so sorely puzzled of
+late, for he seemed full of objects and ambitions for which the father
+had very little sympathy, and to have lost almost entirely that delicate
+relation with home that was at once so indefinable and so real. But he
+comforted himself by the thought that his elder son was not wholly
+wasting time as so many of the country squires were doing round about,
+absorbed in work that a brainless yeoman could do with better success.
+Ralph at least was occupied with grave matters, in Cromwell's service
+and the King's, and entrusted with high secrets the issue of which both
+temporal and eternal it was hard to predict. And, no doubt, the knight
+thought, in time he would come back and pick up the strands he had
+dropped; for when a man had wife and children of his own to care for,
+other businesses must seem secondary; and questions that could be
+ignored before must be faced then.
+
+But he thought with a little anxiety of his wife, and wondered whether
+his elder son had not after all inherited that kind of dry rot of the
+soul, in which the sap and vigour disappear little by little, leaving
+the shape indeed intact but not the powers. When he had married her,
+thirty-five years before, she had seemed to him an incarnate mystery of
+whose key he was taking possession--her silence had seemed pregnant with
+knowledge, and her words precious pieces from an immeasurable treasury;
+and then little by little he had found that the wide treasury was empty,
+clean indeed and capacious, but no more, and above all with no promise
+of any riches as yet unperceived. Those great black eyes, that high
+forehead, those stately movements, meant nothing; it was a splendid
+figure with no soul within. She did her duty admirably, she said her
+prayers, she entertained her guests with the proper conversation, she
+could be trusted to behave well in any circumstances that called for
+tact or strength; and that was all. But Ralph would not be like that; he
+was intensely devoted to his work, and from all accounts able in its
+performance; and more than that, with all his impassivity he was capable
+of passion; for his employer Sir Thomas Cromwell was to Ralph's eyes,
+his father had begun to see, something almost more than human. A word
+against that master of his would set his eyes blazing and his voice
+trembling; and this showed that at least the soul was not more than
+sleeping, or its powers more than misdirected.
+
+And meanwhile there was Chris; and at the thought the father lifted his
+eyes to the gallery, and saw the faint outline of his son's brown head
+against the whitewash.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A FORETASTE OF PEACE
+
+
+It was not until the party was riding home the next day that Sir
+Nicholas Maxwell and his wife were informed of Chris' decision.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They had had a fair day's sport in the two estates that marched with one
+another between Overfield and Great Keynes, and about fifteen stags had
+been killed as well as a quantity of smaller game.
+
+Ralph had ridden out after the party had left, and had found Sir
+Nicholas at the close of the afternoon just as the last drive was about
+to take place; and had stepped into his shelter to watch the finish. It
+was a still, hot afternoon, and the air over the open space between the
+copse in which they stood and the dense forest eighty yards away danced
+in the heat.
+
+Ralph nodded to his brother-in-law, who was flushed and sunburnt, and
+then stood behind, running his eyes up and down that sturdy figure with
+the tightly-gaitered legs set well apart and the little feathered cap
+that moved this way and that as the sportsman peered through the
+branches before him. Once he turned fierce eyes backwards at the whine
+of one of the hounds, and then again thrust his hot dripping face into
+the greenery.
+
+Then very far away came a shout, and a chorus of taps and cries followed
+it, sounding from a couple of miles away as the beaters after sweeping
+a wide circle entered the thick undergrowth on the opposite side of the
+wood. Sir Nicholas' legs trembled, and he shifted his position a little,
+half lifting his strong spliced hunting bow as he did so.
+
+For a few minutes there was silence about them except for the distant
+cries, and once for the stamp of a horse behind them. Then Sir Nicholas
+made a quick movement, and dropped his hands again; a single rabbit had
+cantered out from the growth opposite, and sat up with cocked ears
+staring straight at the deadly shelter. Then another followed; and again
+in a sudden panic the two little furry bodies whisked back into cover.
+
+Ralph marvelled at this strange passion that could set a reasonable man
+twitching and panting like the figure in front of him. He himself was a
+good rider, and a sufficiently keen hunter when his blood was up; but
+this brother-in-law of his seemed to live for little else. Day after
+day, as Ralph knew, from the beginning of the season to the end he was
+out with his men and hounds, and the rest of the year he seemed to spend
+in talking about the sport, fingering and oiling his weapons through
+long mornings, and elaborating future campaigns, in which the quarries'
+chances should be reduced to a minimum.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On a sudden Sir Nicholas's figure stiffened and then relaxed. A doe had
+stepped out noiselessly from the cover, head up and feet close together,
+sniffing up wind--and they were shooting no does this month. Then again
+she moved along against the thick undergrowth, stepping delicately and
+silently, and vanished without a sound a hundred yards along to the
+left.
+
+The cries and taps were sounding nearer now, and at any moment the game
+might appear. Sir Nicholas shifted his position again a little, and
+simultaneously the scolding voice of a blackbird rang out in front, and
+he stopped again. At the same moment a hare, mad with fright, burst out
+of the cover, making straight for the shelter. Sir Nicholas' hands rose,
+steady now the crisis had come; and Ralph leaning forward touched him on
+the shoulder and pointed.
+
+A great stag was standing in the green gloom within the wood eighty
+yards away, with a couple of does at his flank. Then as a shout sounded
+out near at hand, he bolted towards the shelter in a line that would
+bring him close to it. Ralph crouched down, for he had left his bow with
+his man an hour earlier, and one of the hounds gave a stifled yelp as
+Nicholas straightened himself and threw out his left foot. Either the
+sound or the movement startled the great brown beast in front, and as
+the arrow twanged from the string he checked and wheeled round, and went
+off like the wind, untouched. A furious hiss of the breath broke from
+Nicholas, and he made a swift sign as he turned to his horse; and in a
+moment the two lithe hounds had leapt from the shelter and were flying
+in long noiseless leaps after the disappearing quarry; the does,
+confused by the change of direction, had whisked back into cover. A
+moment later Nicholas too was after the hounds, his shoulders working
+and his head thrust forward, and a stirrup clashed and jingled against
+the saddle.
+
+Ralph sat down on the ground smiling. It gave him a certain pleasure to
+see such a complete discomfiture; Nicholas was always so amusingly angry
+when he failed, and so full of reasons.
+
+The forest was full of noises now; a crowd of starlings were protesting
+wildly overhead, there were shouts far away and the throb of hoofs, and
+the ground game was pouring out of the undergrowth and dispersing in
+all directions. Once a boar ran past, grumbling as he went, turning a
+wicked and resentful eye on the placid gentleman in green who sat on the
+ground, but who felt for his long dirk as he saw the fury on the brute's
+face and the foam on the tusks. But the pig thought discretion was best,
+and hurried on complaining. More than one troop of deer flew past, the
+does gathered round their lord to protect him, all swerving together
+like a string of geese as they turned the corner of the shelter and
+caught sight of Ralph; but the beaters were coming out now, whistling
+and talking as they came, and gathering into groups of two or three on
+the ground, for the work was done, and it had been hot going.
+
+Mary Maxwell appeared presently on her grey horse, looking slender and
+dignified in her green riding-suit with the great plume shading her
+face, and rode up to Ralph whom she had seen earlier in the afternoon.
+
+"My husband?" she enquired looking down at Ralph who was lying with his
+hat over his eyes.
+
+"He left me just now," said her brother, "very hot and red, after a stag
+which he missed. That will mean some conversation to-night, Minnie."
+
+She smiled down at him.
+
+"I shall agree with him, you know," she said.
+
+"Of course you will; it is but right. And I suppose I shall too."
+
+"Will you wait for him? Tell him we are going home by the mill. It is
+all over now."
+
+Ralph nodded, and Mary moved off down the glade to join the others.
+
+Ralph began to wonder how Nicholas would take the news of Chris'
+decision. Mary, he knew very well, would assent to it quietly as she
+did to all normal events, even though they were not what she would have
+wished; and probably her husband would assent too, for he had a great
+respect for a churchman. For himself his opinions were divided and he
+scarcely knew what he thought. From the temporal point of view Chris'
+step would be an advantage to him, for the vow of poverty would put an
+end to any claims upon the estate on the part of the younger son; but
+Ralph was sufficiently generous not to pay much attention to this. From
+the social point of view, no great difference would be made; it was as
+respectable to have a monk for a brother as a small squire, and Chris
+could never be more than this unless he made a good marriage. From the
+spiritual point of view--and here Ralph stopped and wondered whether it
+was very seriously worth considering. It was the normal thing of course
+to believe in the sublimity of the religious life and its peculiar
+dignity; but the new learning was beginning to put questions on the
+subject that had very considerably affected the normal view in Ralph's
+eyes. In that section of society where new ideas are generated and to
+which Ralph himself belonged, there were very odd tales being told; and
+it was beginning to be thought possible that monasticism had
+over-reached itself, and that in trying to convert the world it had
+itself been converted by the world. Ralph was proud enough of the honour
+of his family to wonder whether it was an unmixed gain that his own
+brother should join such ranks as these. And lastly there were the facts
+that he had learnt from his association with Cromwell that made him
+hesitate more than ever in giving Chris his sympathy. He had been
+thinking these points over in the parlour the night before when the
+others had left him, and during the day in the intervals of the sport;
+and he was beginning to come to the conclusion that all things
+considered he had better just acquiesce in the situation, and neither
+praise nor blame overmuch.
+
+It was a sleepy afternoon. The servants had all gone by now, and the
+horn-blowings and noises had died away in the direction of the mill;
+there was no leisure for stags to bray, as they crouched now far away in
+the bracken, listening large-eyed and trumpet-eared for the sounds of
+pursuit; only the hum of insect life in the hot evening sunshine filled
+the air; and Ralph began to fall asleep, his back against a fallen
+trunk.
+
+Then he suddenly awakened and saw his brother-in-law, black against the
+sky, looking down at him, from the saddle.
+
+"Well?" said Ralph, not moving.
+
+Nicholas began to explain. There were a hundred reasons, it seemed, for
+his coming home empty-handed; and where were his men?
+
+"They are all gone home," said Ralph, getting up and stretching himself.
+"I waited for you It is all over."
+
+"You understand," said Nicholas, putting his horse into motion, and
+beginning to explain all over again, "you understand that it had not
+been for that foul hound yelping, I should have had him here. I never
+miss such a shot; and then when we went after him--"
+
+"I understand perfectly, Nick," said Ralph. "You missed him because you
+did not shoot straight, and you did not catch him because you did not go
+fast enough. A lawyer could say no more."
+
+Nicholas threw back his head and laughed loudly, for the two were good
+friends.
+
+"Well, if you will have it," he said, "I was a damned fool. There! A
+lawyer dare not say as much--not to me, at any rate."
+
+Ralph found his man half a mile further on coming to meet him with his
+horse, and he mounted and rode on with Nicholas towards the mill.
+
+"I have something to tell you," he said presently. "Chris is to be a
+monk."
+
+"Mother of God!" cried Nicholas, half checking his horse, "and when was
+that arranged?"
+
+"Last night," went on Ralph. "He went to see the Holy Maid at St.
+Sepulchre's, and it seems that she told him he had a vocation; so there
+is an end of it."
+
+"And what do you all think of it?" asked the other.
+
+"Oh! I suppose he knows his business."
+
+Nicholas asked a number of questions, and was informed that Chris
+proposed to go to Lewes in a month's time. He was already twenty-three,
+the Prior had given his conditional consent before, and there was no
+need for waiting. Yes, they were Cluniacs; but Ralph believed that they
+were far from strict just at present. It need not be the end of Chris so
+far as this world was concerned.
+
+"But you must not say that to him," he went on, "he thinks it is heaven
+itself between four walls, and we shall have a great scene of farewell.
+I think I must go back to town before it takes place: I cannot do that
+kind of thing."
+
+Nicholas was not attending, and rode on in silence for a few yards,
+sucking in his lower lip.
+
+"We are lucky fellows, you and I," he said at last, "to have a monk to
+pray for us."
+
+Ralph glanced at him, for he was perfectly grave, and a rather intent
+and awed look was in his eyes.
+
+"I think a deal of that," he went on, "though I cannot talk to a
+churchman as I should. I had a terrible time with my Lord of Canterbury
+last year, at Otford. He was not a hunter like this one, and I knew not
+what else to speak of."
+
+Ralph's eyes narrowed with amusement.
+
+"What did you say to him?" he asked.
+
+"I forget," said Nicholas, "and I hope my lord did. Mary told me I
+behaved like a fool. But this one is better. I hear. He is at Ashford
+now with his hounds."
+
+They talked a little more about Chris, and Ralph soon saw on which side
+Nicholas ranged himself. It was an unfeigned pleasure to this hunting
+squire to have a monk for a brother-in-law; there was no knowing how
+short purgatory might not be for them all under the circumstances.
+
+It was evident, too, when they came up with the others a couple of miles
+further on, that Nicholas's attitude towards the young man had undergone
+a change. He looked at him with a deep respect, refrained from
+criticising his bloodless hands, and was soon riding on in front beside
+him, talking eagerly and deferentially, while Ralph followed with Mary
+and his father.
+
+"You have heard?" he said to her presently.
+
+"Father has just told me," she said. "We are very much pleased--dear
+Chris!"
+
+"And then there is Meg," put in her father.
+
+"Oh! Meg; yes, I knew she would. She is made for a nun."
+
+Sir James edged his horse in presently close to Ralph, as Mary went in
+front through a narrow opening in the wood.
+
+"Be good to him," he said. "He thinks so much of you."
+
+Ralph glanced up and smiled into the tender keen eyes that were looking
+into his own.
+
+"Why, of course, sir," he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was an immense pleasure to Chris to notice the difference in
+Nicholas's behaviour towards him. There was none of that loud and
+cheerful rallying that stood for humour, no criticisms of his riding or
+his costume. The squire asked him a hundred questions, almost nervously,
+about the Holy Maid and himself, and what had passed between them.
+
+"They say the Host was carried to her through the air from Calais,
+Chris, when the King was there. Did you hear her speak of that?"
+
+Chris shook his head.
+
+"There was not time," he said.
+
+"And then there was the matter of the divorce--" Nicholas turned his
+head slightly; "Ralph cannot hear us, can he? Well--the matter of the
+divorce--I hear she denounced that, and would have none of it, and has
+written to the Pope, too."
+
+"They were saying something of the kind," said Chris, "but I thought it
+best not to meddle."
+
+"And what did she say to you?"
+
+Chris told him the story, and Nicholas's eyes grew round and fixed as he
+listened; his mouth was a little open, and he murmured inarticulate
+comments as they rode together up from the mill.
+
+"Lord!" he said at last, "and she said all that about hell. God save us!
+And her tongue out of her mouth all the while! And did you see anything
+yourself? No devils or angels?"
+
+"I saw nothing," said Chris. "I just listened, but she saw them."
+
+"Lord!" said Nicholas again, and rode on in profound silence.
+
+The Maxwells were to stay to supper at the Court; and drive home
+afterwards; so there was no opportunity for Chris to go down and bathe
+in the lake as he usually did in summer after a day's hunting, for
+supper was at seven o'clock, and he had scarcely more than time to
+dress.
+
+Nicholas was very talkative at supper, and poured out all that Chris had
+told him, with his usual lack of discretion; for the other had already
+told the others once all the details that he thought would interest
+them.
+
+"They were talking about the divorce," he broke out, and then stopped
+and eyed Ralph craftily; "but I had better not speak of that here--eh,
+Chris?"
+
+Ralph looked blandly at his plate.
+
+"Chris did not mention that," he said. "Tell us, Nick."
+
+"No, no," cried Nicholas. "I do not want you to go with tales to town.
+Your ears are too quick, my friend. Then there was that about the Host
+flying from Calais, eh, Chris? No, no; you said you had heard nothing of
+that."
+
+Chris looked up and his face was a little flushed.
+
+"No, Nick," he said.
+
+"There seems to have been a great deal that Chris did not tell us--"
+began Ralph.
+
+Sir James glanced swiftly from his seat under the canopy.
+
+"He told us all that was needed," he said.
+
+"Aha!" broke out Nicholas again, "but the Holy Maid said that the King
+would not live six months if he--"
+
+Chris's face was full of despair and misery, and his father interrupted
+once more.
+
+"We had better not speak of that, my son," he said to Nicholas. "It is
+best to leave such things alone."
+
+Ralph was smiling broadly with tight lips by now.
+
+"By my soul, Nick, you are the maddest wind-bag I have ever heard. All
+our heads might go for what you have said to-night. Thank God the
+servants are gone."
+
+"Nick," cried Mary imploringly, "do hold your tongue."
+
+Lady Torridon looked from one to the other with serene amusement, and
+there was an odd pause such as generally fell when she showed signs of
+speaking. Her lips moved but she said nothing, and ran her eyes over the
+silver flagons before her.
+
+When the Maxwells had gone at last, and prayers were over, Chris slipped
+across the Court with a towel, and went up to the priest's room over the
+sacristy. Mr. Carleton looked up from his lamp and rose.
+
+"Yes, Chris," he said, "I will come. The moon will be up soon."
+
+They went down together through the sacristy door on to the level
+plateaux of lawns that stretched step after step down to the dark lake.
+The sky was ablaze with stars, and in the East there was a growing light
+in the quarter where the moon was at its rising. The woods beyond the
+water were blotted masses against the sky; and the air was full of the
+rich fragrance of the summer night. The two said very little, and the
+priest stopped on the bank as Chris stepped out along the little boarded
+pier that ran out among the rushes into deep water. There was a scurry
+and a cry, and a moor-hen dashed out from under cover, and sped across
+the pond, scattering the silver points that hung there motionless,
+reflected from the heaven overhead.
+
+Chris was soon ready, and stood there a moment, a pale figure in the
+gloom, watching the shining dots rock back again in the ripples to
+motionlessness. Then he lifted his hands and plunged.
+
+It seemed to him, as he rose to the surface again, as if he were
+swimming between two sides. As he moved softly out across the middle,
+and a little ripple moved before him, the water was invisible. There was
+only a fathomless gulf, as deep below as the sky was high above, pricked
+with stars. As he turned his head this way and that the great trees,
+high overhead, seemed less real than those two immeasurable spaces above
+and beneath. There was a dead silence everywhere, only broken by the
+faint suck of the water over his shoulder, and an indescribably sweet
+coolness that thrilled him like a strain of music. Under its influence,
+again, as last night, the tangible, irritating world seemed to sink out
+of his soul; here he was, a living creature alone in a great silence
+with God, and nothing else was of any importance.
+
+He turned on his back, and there was the dark figure on the bank
+watching him, and above it the great towered house, with its half-dozen
+lighted windows along its eastern side, telling him of the world of men
+and passion.
+
+"Look," came the priest's voice, and he turned again, and over the
+further bank, between two tall trees, shone a great silver rim of the
+rising moon. A path of glory was struck now across the black water, and
+he pleased himself by travelling up it towards the remote splendour,
+noticing as he went how shadows had sprung into being in that moment,
+and how the same light that made the glory made the dark as well. His
+soul seemed to emerge a stage higher yet from the limits in which the
+hot day and the shouting and the horns and the crowded woods had
+fettered it. How remote and little seemed Ralph's sneers and Nicholas's
+indiscretions and Mary's pity! Here he moved round in a cooler and
+serener mood. That keen mood, whether physical or spiritual he did not
+care to ask, made him inarticulate as he walked up with the priest ten
+minutes later. But Mr. Carleton seemed to understand.
+
+"There are some things besides the divorce best not talked about," he
+said, "and I think bathing by starlight is one of them."
+
+They passed under the chapel window presently, and Chris noticed with an
+odd sensation of pleasure the little translucent patch of colour between
+the slender mullions thrown by the lamp within--a kind of reflex or
+anti-type of the broad light shining over the water.
+
+"Come up for a while," went on the priest, as they reached the
+side-entrance, "if you are not too tired."
+
+The two went through the sacristy-door, locking it behind them, and up
+the winding stairs in the turret at the corner to the priest's chamber.
+Chris threw himself down, relaxed and happy, in the tall chair by the
+window, where he could look out and see the moon, clear of the trees
+now, riding high in heaven.
+
+"That was a pity at supper," said the priest presently, as he sat at the
+table. "I love Sir Nicholas and think him a good Christian, but he is
+scarcely a discreet one."
+
+"Tell me, father," broke out Chris, "what is going to happen?"
+
+Mr. Carleton looked at him smiling. He had a pleasant ugly face, with
+little kind eyes and sensitive mouth.
+
+"You must ask Mr. Ralph," he said, "or rather you must not. But he knows
+more than any of us."
+
+"I wish he would not speak like that."
+
+"Dear lad," said the priest, "you must not feel it like that. Remember
+our Lord bore contempt as well as pain."
+
+There was silence a moment, and then Chris began again. "Tell me about
+Lewes, father. What will it be like?"
+
+"It will be bitterly hard," said the priest deliberately. "Christ Church
+was too bitter for me, as you know. I came out after six months, and the
+Cluniacs are harder. I do not know if I lost my vocation or found it;
+but I am not the man to advise you in either case."
+
+"Ralph thinks it is easy enough. He told me last night in the carriage
+that I need not trouble myself, and that monks had a very pleasant time.
+He began to tell me some tale about Glastonbury, but I would not hear
+it."
+
+"Ah," said the chaplain regretfully, "the world's standard for monks is
+always high. But you will find it hard enough, especially in the first
+year. But, as I said, I am not the man to advise you--I failed."
+
+Chris looked at him with something of pity in his heart, as the priest
+fingered the iron pen on the table, and stared with pursed lips and
+frowning forehead. The chaplain was extraordinarily silent in public,
+just carrying on sufficient conversation not to be peculiar or to seem
+morose, but he spoke more freely to Chris, and would often spend an hour
+or two in mysterious talk with Sir James. Chris's father had a very
+marked respect for the priest, and had had more than one sharp word with
+his wife, ten years before when he had first come to the house, and had
+found Lady Torridon prepared to treat her chaplain with the kind of
+respect that she gave to her butler. But the chaplain's position was
+secured by now, owing in a large measure to his own tact and
+unobtrusiveness, and he went about the house a quiet, sedate figure of
+considerable dignity and impressiveness, performing his duties
+punctually and keeping his counsel. He had been tutor to both the sons
+for a while, to Ralph only for a few months, but to Chris since his
+twelfth birthday, and the latter had formed with him a kind of peaceful
+confederacy, often looking in on him at unusual hours, always finding
+him genial, although very rarely confidential. It was to Mr. Carleton,
+too, that Chris owed his first drawings to the mystical life of prayer;
+there was a shelf of little books in the corner by the window of the
+priest's room, from which he would read to the boy aloud, first
+translating them into English as he went, and then, as studies
+progressed, reading the Latin as it stood; and that mysteriously
+fascinating world in which great souls saw and heard eternal things and
+talked familiarly with the Saviour and His Blessed Mother had first
+dawned on the boy there. New little books, too, appeared from time to
+time, and the volumes had overflowed their original home; and from that
+fact Christopher gathered that the priest, though he had left the
+external life of Religion, still followed after the elusive spirit that
+was its soul.
+
+"But tell me," he said again, as the priest laid the pen down and sat
+back in his chair, crossing his buckled feet beneath the cassock; "tell
+me, why is it so hard? I am not afraid of the discipline or the food."
+
+"It is the silence," said the priest, looking at him.
+
+"I love silence," said Chris eagerly.
+
+"Yes, you love an hour or two, or there would be no hope of a vocation
+for you. But I do not think you will love a year. However, I may be
+wrong. But it is the day after day that is difficult. And there is no
+relaxation; not even in the infirmary. You will have to learn signs in
+your novitiate; that is almost the first exercise."
+
+The priest got up and fetched a little book from the corner cupboard.
+
+"Listen," he said, and then began to read aloud the instructions laid
+down for the sign-language of novices; how they were to make a circle in
+the air for bread since it was round, a motion of drinking for water,
+and so forth.
+
+"You see," he said, "you are not even allowed to speak when you ask for
+necessaries. And, you know, silence has its peculiar temptations as well
+as its joys. There is accidie and scrupulousness and contempt of
+others, and a host of snares that you know little of now."
+
+"But--" began Chris.
+
+"Oh, yes; it has its joys, and gives a peculiar strength."
+
+Chris knew, of course, well enough by now in an abstract way what the
+Religious discipline would mean, but he wished to have it made more
+concrete by examples, and he sat long with the chaplain asking him
+questions. Mr. Carleton had been, as he said, in the novitiate at
+Canterbury for a few months, and was able to tell him a good deal about
+the life there; but the differences between the Augustinians and the
+Cluniacs made it impossible for him to go with any minuteness into the
+life of the Priory at Lewes. He warned him, however, of the tendency
+that every soul found in silence to think itself different from others,
+and of so peculiar a constitution that ordinary rules did not apply to
+it. He laid so much stress on this that the other was astonished.
+
+"But it is true," said Chris, "no two souls are the same."
+
+The priest smiled.
+
+"Yes, that is true, too; no two sheep are the same, but the sheep nature
+is one, and you will have to learn that for yourself. A Religious rule
+is drawn up for many, not for one; and each must learn to conform
+himself. It was through that I failed myself; I remembered that I was
+different from others, and forgot that I was the same."
+
+Mr. Carleton seemed to take a kind of melancholy pleasure in returning
+to what he considered his own failure, and Chris began to wonder whether
+the thought of it was not the secret of that slight indication to
+moroseness that he had noticed in him.
+
+The moon was high and clear by now, and Chris often leaned his cheek on
+the sash as the priest talked, and watched that steady shining shield
+go up the sky, and the familiar view of lawns and water and trees,
+ghostly and mystical now in the pale light.
+
+The Court was silent as he passed through it near midnight, as the
+household had been long in bed; the flaring link had been extinguished
+two hours before, and the shadows of the tall chimneys lay black and
+precise at his feet across the great whiteness on the western side of
+the yard. Again the sense of the smallness of himself and his
+surroundings, of the vastness of all else, poured over his soul; these
+little piled bricks and stones, the lawns and woods round about, even
+England and the world itself, he thought, as his mind shot out towards
+the stars and the unfathomable spaces--all these were but very tiny
+things, negligeable quantities, when he looked at them in the eternal
+light. It was this thought, after all, that was calling him out of the
+world, and had been calling him fitfully ever since his soul awoke eight
+years ago, and knew herself and her God: and his heart expanded and grew
+tremulous as he remembered once more that his vocation had been sealed
+by a divine messenger, and that he would soon be gone out of this little
+cell into the wide silent liberty of the most dear children of God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE ARRIVAL AT LEWES
+
+
+Ralph relented as the month drew on, and was among those who wished
+Chris good-bye on the afternoon of the July day on which he was to
+present himself at Lewes. The servants were all drawn up at the back of
+the terrace against the hall, watching Ralph, even more than his
+departing brother, with the fascinated interest that the discreet and
+dignified friend of Cromwell always commanded. Ralph was at his best on
+such occasions, genial and natural, and showed a pleasing interest in
+the girths of the two horses, and the exact strapping of the couple of
+bags that Chris was to take with him. His own man, too, Mr. Morris, who
+had been with him ever since he had come to London, was to ride with
+Chris, at his master's express wish; stay with him in the guest-house
+that night, and return with the two horses and a precise report the next
+morning.
+
+"You have the hares for my Lord Prior," he said impressively, looking at
+the game that was hanging head downwards from the servant's saddle.
+"Tell him that they were killed on Tuesday."
+
+Sir James and his younger son were walking together a few yards away in
+deep talk; and Lady Torridon had caused a chair to be set for her at the
+top of the terrace steps where she could at once do her duty as a
+mother, and be moderately comfortable at the same time. She hardly spoke
+at all, but looked gravely with her enigmatic black eyes at the horses'
+legs and the luggage, and once held up her hand to silence a small dog
+that had begun to yelp with excitement.
+
+"They must be going," said Ralph, when all was ready; and at the same
+moment Chris and his father came up, Sir James's arm thrown over his
+son's shoulders.
+
+The farewells were very short; it was impossible to indulge in sentiment
+in the genial business-atmosphere generated by Ralph, and a minute later
+Chris was mounted. Sir James said no more, but stood a little apart
+looking at his son. Lady Torridon smiled rather pleasantly and nodded
+her head two or three times, and Ralph, with Mr. Carleton, stood on the
+gravel below, his hand on Chris's crupper, smiling up at him.
+
+"Good-bye, Chris," he said, and added with an unusual piety, "God keep
+you!"
+
+As the two horses passed through the gatehouse, Chris turned once again
+with swimming eyes, and saw the group a little re-arranged. Sir James
+and Ralph were standing together, Ralph's arm thrust through his
+father's; Mr. Carleton was still on the gravel, and Lady Torridon was
+walking very deliberately back to the house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The distance to Lewes was about fourteen miles, and it was not until
+they had travelled some two of them, and had struck off towards Burgess
+Hill that Chris turned his head for Mr. Morris to come up.
+
+It was very strange to him to ride through that familiar country, where
+he had ridden hundreds of times before, and to know that this was
+probably the last time that he would pass along those lanes, at least
+under the same circumstances. It had the same effect on him, as a death
+in the house would have; the familiar things were the same, but they
+wore a new and strange significance. The few men and children he passed
+saluted him deferentially as usual, and then turned fifty yards further
+on and stared at the young gentleman who, as they knew, was riding off
+on such an errand, and with such grave looks.
+
+Mr. Morris came up with an eager respectfulness at Chris's sign, keeping
+a yard or two away lest the swinging luggage on his own horse should
+discompose the master, and answered a formal question or two about the
+roads and the bags, which Chris put to him as a gambit of conversation.
+The servant was clever and well trained, and knew how to modulate his
+attitude to the precise degree of deference due to his master and his
+master's relations; he had entered Ralph's service from Cromwell's own
+eight years before. He liked nothing better than to talk of London and
+his experiences there, and selected with considerable skill the topics
+that he knew would please in each case. Now he was soon deep on the
+subject of Wolsey, pausing respectfully now and again for corroboration,
+or to ask a question the answer to which he knew a good deal better than
+Chris himself.
+
+"I understand, sir, that the Lord Cardinal had a wonderful deal of
+furniture at York House: I saw some of it at Master Cromwell's; his
+grace sent it to him, at least, so I heard. Is that so, sir?"
+
+Chris said he did not know.
+
+"Well, I believe it was so, sir; there was a chair there, set with
+agates and pearl, that I think I heard Mr. Ralph say had come from
+there. Did you ever see my lord, sir?"
+
+Chris said he had seen him once in a narrow street at Westminster, but
+the crowd was so great he could not get near.
+
+"Ah! sir; then you never saw him go in state. I remember once seeing
+him, sir, going down to Hampton Court, with his gentlemen bearing the
+silver pillars before him, and the two priests with crosses. What might
+the pillars mean, sir?"
+
+Again Chris confessed he did not know.
+
+"Ah, sir!" said Morris reflectively, as if he had received a
+satisfactory answer. "And there was his saddle, Mr. Christopher, with
+silver-gilt stirrups, and red velvet, set on my lord's mule. And there
+was the Red Hat borne in front by another gentleman. At mass, too, he
+would be served by none under the rank of an earl; and I heard that he
+would have a duke sometimes for his lavabo. I heard Mr. Ralph say that
+there was more than a hundred and fifty carts that went with the Lord
+Cardinal up to Cawood, and that was after the King's grace had broken
+with him, sir; and he was counted a poor man."
+
+Chris asked what was in the carts.
+
+"Just his stuff, sir," said Mr. Morris reverentially.
+
+The servant seemed to take a melancholy pleasure in recounting these
+glories, but was most discreet about the political aspects of Wolsey,
+although Chris tried hard to get him to speak, and he would neither
+praise nor blame the fallen prelate; he was more frank, however, about
+Campeggio, who as an Italian, was a less dangerous target.
+
+"He was not a good man, I fear, Mr. Christopher. They told some very
+queer tales of him when he was over here. But he could ride, sir, Master
+Maxwell's man told me, near as well as my Lord of Canterbury himself.
+You know they say, sir, that the Archbishop can ride horses that none of
+his grooms can manage. But I never liked to think that a foreigner was
+to be sent over to do our business for us, and more than ever not such
+an one as that."
+
+He proceeded to talk a good deal about Campeggio; his red silk and his
+lace, his gout, his servants, his un-English ways; but it began to get a
+little tiresome to Chris, and soon after passing through Ditchling, Mr.
+Morris, having pointed across the country towards Fatton Hovel, and
+having spoken of the ghost of a cow that was seen there with two heads,
+one black and one white, fell gradually behind again, and Chris rode
+alone.
+
+They were coming up now towards the downs, and the great rounded green
+shoulders heaved high against the sky, gashed here and there by white
+strips and patches where the chalk glared in the bright afternoon sun.
+Ditchling beacon rose to their right, a hundred feet higher than the
+surrounding hills, and the high country sloped away from it parallel
+with their road, down to Lewes. The shadows were beginning to lie
+eastwards and to lengthen in long blue hollows and streaks against the
+clear green turf.
+
+Chris wondered when he would see that side of the downs again; his ride
+was like a kind of farewell progress, and all that he looked on was
+dearer than it had ever been before, but he comforted himself by the
+thought of that larger world, so bright with revelation and so
+enchanting in its mystery that lay before him. He pleased himself by
+picturing this last journey as a ride through an overhung lane,
+beautiful indeed, but dusky, towards shining gates beyond which lay
+great tracts of country set with palaces alive with wonderful presences,
+and watered by the very river of life.
+
+He did not catch sight of Lewes until he was close upon it, and it
+suddenly opened out beneath him, with its crowded roofs pricked by a
+dozen spires, the Norman castle on its twin mounds towering to his left,
+a silver gleam of the Ouse here and there between the plaster and timber
+houses as the river wound beneath its bridges, and beyond all the vast
+masses of the Priory straight in front of him to the South of the town,
+the church in front with its tall central tower, a huddle of convent
+roofs behind, all white against the rich meadows that lay beyond the
+stream.
+
+Mr. Morris came up as Chris checked his horse here.
+
+"See, Mr. Christopher," he said, and the other turned to see the town
+gallows on the right of the road, not fifty yards away, with a ragged
+shape or two hanging there, and a great bird rising heavily and winging
+its way into the west. Mr. Morris's face bore a look of judicial
+satisfaction.
+
+"We are making a sweep of them," he said, and as a terrible figure, all
+rags and sores, with blind red eyes and toothless mouth rose croaking
+and entreating from the ditch by the road, the servant pointed with
+tight lips and solemn eyes to Hangman's Acre. Chris fumbled in his
+purse, threw a couple of groats on to the ground, and rode on down the
+hill.
+
+His heart was beating fast as he went down Westgate Lane into the High
+Street, and it quickened yet further as the great bells in the Priory
+church began to jangle; for it was close on vesper time, and
+instinctively he shook his reins to hasten his beast, who was picking
+his way delicately through the filth and tumbled stones that lay
+everywhere, for the melodious roar seemed to be bidding him haste and be
+welcome. Mr. Morris was close beside him, and remarked on this and that
+as they went, the spire of St. Ann's away to the right, with St.
+Pancras's Bridge, a swinging sign over an inn with Queen Katharine's
+face erased, but plainly visible under Ann Boleyn's, the tall mound
+beyond the Priory crowned by a Calvary, and the roof of the famous
+dove-cote of the Priory, a great cruciform structure with over two
+thousand cells. But Christopher knew it all better than the servant,
+and paid little attention, and besides, his excitement was running too
+high. They came down at last through Antioch Street, Puddingbag Lane,
+and across the dry bed of the Winterbourne, and the gateway was before
+them.
+
+The bells had ceased by now, after a final stroke. Mr. Morris sprang off
+his horse, and drew on the chain that hung by the smaller of the two
+doors. There was a sound of footsteps and a face looked out from the
+grating. The servant said a word or two; the face disappeared, and a
+moment later there was the turning of a key, and one leaf of the
+horse-entrance rolled back. Chris touched his beast with his heel,
+passed through on to the paved floor, and sat smiling and flushed,
+looking down at the old lay-brother, who beamed up at him pleasantly and
+told him he was expected.
+
+Chris dismounted at once, telling the servant to take the horses round
+to the stables on the right, and himself went across the open court
+towards the west end of the church, that rose above him fifty feet into
+the clear evening air, faced with marble about the two doors, and
+crowned by the western tower and the high central spire beyond where the
+bells hung. On the right lay the long low wall of the Cellarer's
+offices, with the kitchen jutting out at the lower end, and the
+high-pitched refectory roof above and beyond it. The church was full of
+golden light as he entered, darkening to dusk in the chapels on either
+side, pricked with lights here and there that burned before the images,
+and giving an impression of immense height owing to its narrowness and
+its length. The air was full of rolling sound, sonorous and full, that
+echoed in the two high vaults on this side and that of the high altar,
+was caught in the double transepts, and lost in the chapels that opened
+in a corona of carved work at the further end, for the monks were busy
+at the _Opus Dei_, and the psalms rocked from side to side, as if the
+nave were indeed a great ship ploughing its way to the kingdom of
+heaven.
+
+There were a few seats at the western end, and into one of these
+Christopher found his way, signing himself first from the stoup at the
+door, and inclining before he went in. Then he leaned his chin on his
+hands and looked eagerly.
+
+It was difficult to make out details clearly at the further end, for the
+church was poorly lighted, and there was no western window; the glare
+from the white roads, too, along which he had come still dazzled him,
+but little by little, helped by his own knowledge of the place, he began
+to see more clearly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+High above him ran the lines of the clerestory, resting on the rounded
+Norman arches, broken by the beam that held the mighty rood, with the
+figures of St. Mary and St. John on either side; and beyond, yet higher,
+on this side of the high altar, rose the lofty air of the vault ninety
+feet above the pavement. To left and right opened the two western
+transepts, and from where he knelt he could make out the altar of St.
+Martin in the further one, with its apse behind. The image of St.
+Pancras himself stood against a pillar with the light from the lamp
+beneath flickering against his feet. But Christopher's eyes soon came
+back to the centre, beyond the screen, where a row of blackness on
+either side in the stalls, marked where the monks rested back, and where
+he would soon be resting with them. There were candles lighted at sparse
+intervals along the book-rests, that shone up into the faces bent down
+over the wide pages beneath; and beyond all rose the altar with two
+steady flames crowning it against the shining halpas behind that cut it
+off from the four groups of slender carved columns that divided the five
+chapels at the extreme east. Half-a-dozen figures sat about the nave,
+and Christopher noticed an old man, his white hair falling to his
+shoulders, two seats in front, beginning to nod gently with sleep as the
+soft heavy waves of melody poured down, lulling him.
+
+He began now to catch the words, as his ears grew accustomed to the
+sound, and he, too, sat back to listen.
+
+"_Fiat pax in virtute tua: et abundantia in turribus tuis;" "Propter
+fratres meos et proximos meos_:" came back the answer, "_loquebar pacem
+de te_." And once more: "_Propter domum Domini Dei nostri: quaesivi bona
+tibi_."
+
+Then there was a soft clattering roar as the monks rose to their feet,
+and in double volume from the bent heads sounded out the _Gloria Patri_.
+
+It was overwhelming to the young man to hear the melodious tumult of
+praise, and to remember that in less than a week he would be standing
+there among the novices and adding his voice. It seemed to him as if he
+had already come into the heart of life that he had felt pulsating round
+him as he swam in the starlight a month before. It was this that was
+reality, and the rest illusion. Here was the end for which man was made,
+the direct praise of God; here were living souls eager and alert on the
+business of their existence, building up with vibration after vibration
+the eternal temple of glory in which God dwelt. Once he began to sing,
+and then stopped. He would be silent here until his voice had been
+authorized to join in that consecrated offering.
+
+He waited until all was over, and the two lines of black figures had
+passed out southwards, and the sacristan was going round putting out
+the lights; and then he too rose and went out, thrilled and excited,
+into the gathering twilight, as the bell for supper began to sound out
+from the refectory tower.
+
+He found Mr. Morris waiting for him at the entrance to the guest-house,
+and the two went up the stairs at the porter's directions into the
+parlour that looked out over the irregular court towards the church and
+convent.
+
+Christopher sat down in the window seat.
+
+Over the roofs opposite the sky was still tender and luminous, with rosy
+light from the west, and a little troop of pigeons were wheeling over
+the church in their last flight before returning home to their huge
+dwelling down by the stream. The porter had gone a few minutes before,
+and Christopher presently saw him returning with Dom Anthony Marks, the
+guest-master, whom he had got to know very well on former visits. In a
+fit of shyness he drew back from the window, and stood up, nervous and
+trembling, and a moment later heard steps on the stairs. Mr. Morris had
+slipped out, and now stood in the passage, and Chris saw him bowing with
+a nicely calculated mixture of humility and independence. Then a black
+figure appeared in the doorway, and came briskly through.
+
+"My dear Chris," he said warmly, holding out his hands, and Chris took
+them, still trembling and excited.
+
+They sat down together in the window-seat, and the monk opened the
+casement and threw it open, for the atmosphere was a little heavy, and
+then flung his arm out over the sill and crossed his feet, as if he had
+an hour at his disposal. Chris had noticed before that extraordinary
+appearance of ease and leisure in such monks, and it imperceptibly
+soothed him. Neither would Dom Anthony speak on technical matters, but
+discoursed pleasantly about the party at Overfield Court and the beauty
+of the roads between there and Lewes, as if Chris were only come to pay
+a passing visit.
+
+"Your horses are happy enough," he said. "We had a load of fresh beans
+sent in to-day. And you, Chris, are you hungry? Supper will be here
+immediately. Brother James told the guest-cook as soon as you came."
+
+He seemed to want no answer, but talked on genially and restfully about
+the commissioners who had come from Cluny to see after their possessions
+in England, and their queer French ways.
+
+"Dom Philippe would not touch the muscadel at first, and now he cannot
+have too much. He clamoured for claret at first, and we had to give him
+some. But he knows better now. But he says mass like a holy angel of
+God, and is a very devout man in all ways. But they are going soon."
+
+Dom Anthony fulfilled to perfection the ideal laid down for a
+guest-master in the Custumal. He showed, indeed, the "cheerful
+hospitality to guests" by which "the good name of the monastery was
+enhanced, friendships multiplied, enmities lessened, God honoured, and
+charity increased." He recognised perfectly well the confused terror in
+Christopher's mind and his anxiety to make a good beginning, and
+smoothed down the tendency to awkwardness that would otherwise have
+shown itself. He had a happy tranquil face, with wide friendly eyes that
+almost disappeared when he laughed, and a row of even white teeth.
+
+As he talked on, Christopher furtively examined his habit, though he
+knew every detail of it well enough already. He had, of course, left his
+cowl, or ample-sleeved singing gown, in the sacristy on leaving the
+church, and was in his black frock girded with the leather belt, and
+the scapular over it, hanging to the ground before and behind. His hood,
+Christopher noticed, was creased and flat as if he were accustomed to
+sit back at his ease. He wore strong black leather boots that just
+showed beneath his habit, and a bunch of keys, duplicates of those of
+the camerarius and cook, hung on his right side. He was tonsured
+according to the Benedictine pattern, and his lips and cheeks were
+clean-shaven.
+
+He noticed presently that Christopher was eyeing him, and put his hand
+in friendly fashion on the young man's knee.
+
+"Yes," he said, smiling, "yours is ready too. Dom Franklin looked it out
+to-day, and asked me whether it would be the right size. But of the
+boots I am not so sure."
+
+There was a clink and a footstep outside, and the monk glanced out.
+
+"Supper is here," he said, and stood up to look at the table--the
+polished clothless top laid ready with a couple of wooden plates and
+knives, a pewter tankard, salt-cellar and bread. There was a plain chair
+with arms drawn up to it. The rest of the room, which Christopher had
+scarcely noticed before, was furnished plainly and efficiently, and had
+just that touch of ornament that was intended to distinguish it from a
+cell. The floor was strewn with clean rushes; a couple of iron
+candlesticks stood on the mantelpiece, and the white walls had one or
+two religious objects hanging on them--a wooden crucifix opposite the
+table, a framed card bearing an "Image of Pity" with an indulgenced
+prayer illuminated beneath, a little statue of St. Pancras on a bracket
+over the fire, and a clear-written copy of rules for guests hung by the
+low oak door.
+
+Dom Anthony nodded approvingly at the table, took up a knife and rubbed
+it delicately on the napkin, and turned round.
+
+"We will look here," he said, and went towards the second door by the
+fire. Christopher followed him, and found himself in the bedroom,
+furnished with the same simplicity as the other; but with an iron
+bedstead in the corner, a kneeling stool beside it, with a little French
+silver image of St. Mary over it, and a sprig of dried yew tucked in
+behind. A thin leather-bound copy of the Little Office of Our Lady lay
+on the sloping desk, with another book or two on the upper slab. Dom
+Anthony went to the window and threw that open too.
+
+"Your luggage is unpacked, I see," he said, nodding to the press beside
+which lay the two trunks, emptied now by Mr. Morris's careful hands.
+
+"There are some hares, too," said Christopher. "Ralph has sent them to
+my Lord Prior."
+
+"The porter has them," said the monk, "they look strangely like a
+bribe." And he nodded again with a beaming face, and his eyes grew
+little and bright at his own humour.
+
+He examined the bed before he left the room again, turned back the
+sheets and pressed them down, and the straw rustled drily beneath;
+glanced into the sweating earthenware jug, refolded the coarse towel on
+its wooden peg, and then smiled again at the young man.
+
+"Supper," he said briefly.
+
+Christopher stayed a moment with a word of excuse to wash off the dust
+of his ride from his hands and face, and when he came back into the
+sitting-room found the candles lighted, the wooden shutters folded over
+the windows, and a basin of soup with a roast pigeon steaming on the
+table. The monk was standing, waiting for him by the door.
+
+"I must be gone, Chris," he said, "but I shall be back before compline.
+My Lord Prior will see you to-morrow. There is nothing more? Remember
+you are at home now."
+
+And on Christopher's assurances that he had all he could need, he was
+gone, leisurely and cheerfully, and his footsteps sounded on the stairs.
+
+Mr. Morris came up before Chris had finished supper, and as he silently
+slipped away his plate and set another for the cheese, Chris remembered
+with a nervous exultation that this would be probably the last time that
+he would have a servant to wait on him. He was beginning to feel
+strangely at home already; the bean soup was strong and savoury, the
+beer cool; and he was pleasantly exercised by his ride. Mr. Morris, too,
+in answer to his enquiries, said that he had been well looked after in
+the servants' quarters of the guest-house, and had had an entertaining
+supper with an agreeable Frenchman who, it seemed, had come with the
+Cluniac commissioners. Respect for his master and a sense of the
+ludicrous struggled in Mr. Morris's voice as he described the
+foreigner's pronunciation and his eloquent gestures.
+
+"He's not like a man, sir," he said, and shook with reminiscent
+laughter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was half an hour before Dom Anthony returned, and after hospitable
+enquiries, sat down by Chris again in the wide window-seat and began to
+talk.
+
+He told him that guests were not expected to attend the night-offices,
+and that indeed he strongly recommended Chris doing nothing of the kind
+at any rate that night; that masses were said at all hours from five
+o'clock onwards; that prime was said at seven, and was followed by the
+_Missa familiaris_ for the servants and work-people of the house.
+Breakfast would be ready in the guest-house at eight; the chapter-mass
+would be said at the half-hour and after the daily chapter which
+followed it had taken place, the Prior wished to see Christopher. The
+high mass was sung at ten, and dinner would be served at eleven. He
+directed his attention, too, to the card that hung by the door on which
+these hours were notified.
+
+Christopher already knew that for the first three or four days he would
+have to remain in the guest-house before any formal step was taken with
+regard to him, but he said a word to Father Anthony about this.
+
+"Yes," said the monk, "my Lord Prior will tell you about that. But you
+will be here as a guest until Sunday, and on that day you will come to
+the morning chapter to beg for admission. You will do that for three
+days, and then, please God, you will be clothed as a novice."
+
+And once more he looked at him with deep smiling eyes.
+
+Chris asked him a few more questions, and Dom Anthony told him what he
+wished to know, though protesting with monastic etiquette that it was
+not his province.
+
+"Dom James Berkely is the novice-master," he said, "you will find him
+very holy and careful. The first matter you will have to learn is how to
+wear the habit, carry your hands, and to walk with gravity. Then you
+will learn how to bow, with the hands crossed on the knees, so--" and he
+illustrated it by a gesture--"if it is a profound inclination; and when
+and where the inclinations are to be made. Then you will learn of the
+custody of the eyes. It is these little things that help the soul at
+first, as you will find, like--like--the bindings of a peach-tree, that
+it may learn how to grow and bear its fruit. And the Rule will be given
+you, and what a monk must have by rote, and how to sing. You will not be
+idle, Chris."
+
+It was no surprise to Christopher to hear how much of the lessons at
+first were concerned with external behaviour. In his visits to Lewes
+before, as well as from the books that Mr. Carleton had lent him, he had
+learnt that the perfection of the Religious Life depended to a
+considerable extent upon minuti� that were both aids to, and the result
+of, a tranquil and recollected mind, the acquirement of which was part
+of the object of the monk's ambition. The ideal, he knew, was the
+perfect direction of every part of his being, of hands and eyes, as well
+as of the great powers of the soul; what God had joined together man
+must not put asunder, and the man who had every physical movement under
+control, and never erred through forgetfulness or impulse in these
+little matters, presumably also was master of his will, and retained
+internal as well as external equanimity.
+
+The great bell began to toll presently for compline, and the
+guest-master rose in the midst of his explanations.
+
+"My Lord Prior bade me thank you for the hares," he said. "Perhaps your
+servant will take the message back to Mr. Ralph to-morrow. Come."
+
+They went down the stairs together and out into the summer twilight, the
+great strokes sounding overhead in the gloom as they walked. Over the
+high wall to the left shone a light or two from Lewes town, and beyond
+rose up the shadowy masses of the downs over which Christopher had
+ridden that afternoon. Over those hills, too, he knew, lay his old home.
+As they walked together in silence up the paved walk to the west end of
+the church, a vivid picture rose before the young man's eyes of the
+little parlour where he had sat last night--of his silent mother in her
+black satin; his father in the tall chair, Ralph in an unwontedly easy
+and genial mood lounging on the other side and telling stories of town,
+of the chaplain with his homely, pleasant face, slipping silently out at
+the door. That was the last time that all that was his,--that he had a
+right and a place there. If he ever saw it again it would be as a guest
+who had become the son of another home, with new rights and relations,
+and at the thought a pang of uncontrollable shrinking pricked at his
+heart.
+
+But at the door of the church the monk drew his arm within his own for a
+moment and held it, and Chris saw the shadowed eyes under his brows rest
+on him tenderly.
+
+"God bless you, Chris!" he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A COMMISSION
+
+
+Within a few days of Christopher's departure to Lewes, Ralph also left
+Overfield and went back to London.
+
+He was always a little intolerant at home, and generally appeared there
+at his worst--caustic, silent, and unsympathetic. It seemed to him that
+the simple country life was unbearably insipid; he found there neither
+wit nor affairs: to see day after day the same faces, to listen to the
+same talk either on country subjects that were distasteful to him, or,
+out of compliment to himself, political subjects that were unfamiliar to
+the conversationalists, was a very hard burden, and he counted such
+things as the price he must pay for his occasional duty visits to his
+parents. He could not help respecting the piety of his father, but he
+was none the less bored by it; and the atmosphere of silent cynicism
+that seemed to hang round his mother was his only relief. He thought he
+understood her, and it pleased him sometimes to watch her, to calculate
+how she would behave in any little domestic crisis or incident that
+affected her, to notice the slight movement of her lips and her eyelids
+gently lowering and rising again in movements of extreme annoyance. But
+even this was not sufficient compensation for the other drawbacks of
+life at Overfield Court, and it was with a very considerable relief that
+he stepped into his carriage at last towards the end of July, nodded and
+smiled once more to his father who was watching him from the terrace
+steps with a wistful and puzzled face, anxious to please, and heard the
+first crack of the whip of his return journey.
+
+He had, indeed, a certain excuse for going, for a despatch-rider had
+come down from London with papers for him from Sir Thomas Cromwell, and
+it was not hard to assume a serious face and announce that he was
+recalled by affairs; and there was sufficient truth in it, too, for one
+of the memoranda bore on the case of Elizabeth Barton, the holy maid of
+Kent, and announced her apprehension. Cromwell however, did not actually
+recall him, but mentioned the fact of her arrest, and asked if he had
+heard much said of her in the country, and what the opinion of her was
+in that district.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The drive up to London seemed very short to him now; he went slowly
+through the bundle of papers on which he had to report, annotating them
+in order here and there, and staring out of the window now and again
+with unseeing eyes. There were a dozen cases on which he was engaged,
+which had been forwarded to him during his absence in the country--the
+priest at High Hatch was reported to have taken a wife, and Cromwell
+desired information about this; Ralph had ridden out there one day and
+gossipped a little outside the parsonage; an inn-keeper a few miles to
+the north of Cuckfield had talked against the divorce and the reigning
+Consort; a mistake had been made in the matter of a preaching license,
+and Cranmer had desired Cromwell to look into it; a house had been sold
+in Cheapside on which Ralph had been told to keep a suspicious eye, and
+he was asked his opinion on the matter; and such things as these
+occupied his time fully, until towards four o'clock in the afternoon his
+carriage rolled up to the horse-ferry at Lambeth, and he thrust the
+papers back into his bag before stepping out.
+
+On arriving at his own little house in Westminster, the rent of which
+was paid by his master, he left his other servants to carry up the
+luggage, and set out himself again immediately with Morris in a hackney
+carriage for Chancery Lane.
+
+As he went, he found himself for the hundredth time thinking of the
+history of the man to whom he was going.
+
+Sir Thomas Cromwell was beginning to rise rapidly from a life of
+adventure and obscurity abroad. He had passed straight from the
+Cardinal's service to the King's three years before, and had since then
+been knighted, appointed privy-councillor, Master of the Jewel-house,
+and Clerk of the Hanaper in the Court of Chancery. At the same time he
+was actively engaged on his amazing system of espionage through which he
+was able to detect disaffection in all parts of the country, and thereby
+render himself invaluable to the King, who, like all the Tudors, while
+perfectly fearless in the face of open danger was pitiably terrified of
+secret schemes.
+
+And it was to this man that he was confidential agent! Was there any
+limit to the possibilities of his future?
+
+Ralph found a carriage drawn up at the door and, on enquiry, heard that
+his master was on the point of leaving; and even as he hesitated in the
+entrance, Cromwell shambled down the stairs with a few papers in his
+hand, his long sleeveless cloak flapping on each step behind him, and
+his felt plumed cap on his head in which shone a yellow jewel.
+
+His large dull face, clean shaven like a priest's, lighted up briskly as
+he saw Ralph standing there, and he thrust his arm pleasantly through
+his agent's.
+
+"Come home to supper," he said, and the two wheeled round and went out
+and into the carriage. Mr. Morris handed the bag through the window to
+his master, and stood bare-headed as the carriage moved off over the
+newly laid road.
+
+It would have been a very surprising sight to Sir James Torridon to see
+his impassive son's attitude towards Cromwell. He was deferential, eager
+to please, nervous of rebuke, and almost servile, for he had found his
+hero in that tremendous personality. He pulled out his papers now, shook
+them out briskly, and was soon explaining, marking and erasing. Cromwell
+leaned back in his corner and listened, putting in a word of comment now
+and again, or dotting down a note on the back of a letter, and watching
+Ralph with a pleasant, oblique look, for he liked to see his people
+alert and busy. But he knew very well what his demeanour was like at
+other times, and had at first indeed been drawn to the young man by his
+surprising insolence of manner and impressive observant silences.
+
+"That is very well, Mr. Torridon," he said. "I will see to the license.
+Put them all away."
+
+Ralph obeyed, and then sat back too, silent indeed, but with a kind of
+side-long readiness for the next subject; but Cromwell spoke no more of
+business for the present, only uttering short sentences about current
+affairs, and telling his friend the news.
+
+"Frith has been burned," he said. "Perhaps you knew it. He was obstinate
+to the end, my Lord Bishop reported. He threw Saint Chrysostom and Saint
+Augustine back into their teeth. He gave great occasion to the funny
+fellows. There was one who said that since Frith would have no
+purgatory, he was sent there by my Lord to find out for himself whether
+there be such a place or not. There was a word more about his manner of
+going there, 'Frith frieth,' but 'twas not good. Those funny fellows
+over-reach themselves. Hewet went with him to Smithfield and hell."
+
+Ralph smiled, and asked how they took it.
+
+"Oh, very well. A priest bade the folk pray no more for Frith than for a
+dog, but Frith smiled on him and begged the Lord to forgive him his
+unkind words."
+
+He was going on to tell him a little more about the talk of the Court,
+when the carriage drove up to the house in Throgmorton Street, near
+Austin Friars, which Cromwell had lately built for himself.
+
+"My wife and children are at Hackney," he said as he stepped out. "We
+shall sup alone."
+
+It was a great house, built out of an older one, superbly furnished with
+Italian things, and had a large garden at the back on to which looked
+the windows of the hall. Supper was brought up almost immediately--a
+couple of woodcocks and a salad--and the two sat down, with a pair of
+servants in blue and silver to wait on them. Cromwell spoke no more word
+of business until the bottle of wine had been set on the table, and the
+servants were gone. And then he began again, immediately.
+
+"And what of the country?" he said. "What do they say there?" He took a
+peach from the carved roundel in the centre of the table, and seemed
+absorbed in its contemplation.
+
+Ralph had had some scruples at first about reporting private
+conversations, but Cromwell had quieted them long since, chiefly by the
+force of his personality, and partly by the argument that a man's duty
+to the State over-rode his duty to his friends, and that since only talk
+that was treasonable would be punished, it was simpler to report all
+conversations in general that had any suspicious bearing, and that he
+himself was most competent to judge whether or no they should be
+followed up. Ralph, too, had become completely reassured by now that no
+injury would be done to his own status among his friends, since his
+master had never yet made direct use of any of his information in such a
+manner as that it was necessary for Ralph to appear as a public witness.
+And again, too, he had pointed out that the work had to be done, and
+that was better for the cause of justice and mercy that it should be
+done by conscientious rather than by unscrupulous persons.
+
+He talked to him now very freely about the conversations in his father's
+house, knowing that Cromwell did not want more than a general specimen
+sketch of public feeling in matters at issue.
+
+"They have great faith in the Maid of Kent, sir," he said. "My
+brother-in-law, Nicholas, spoke of her prophecy of his Grace's death. It
+is the devout that believe in her; the ungodly know her for a fool or a
+knave."
+
+"_Filii hujus saeculi prudentiores sunt_,"--quoted Cromwell gravely.
+"Your brother-in-law, I should think, was a child of light."
+
+"He is, sir."
+
+"I should have thought so. And what else did you hear?"
+
+"There is a good deal of memory of the Lady Katharine, sir. I heard the
+foresters talking one day."
+
+"What of the Religious houses?"
+
+Ralph hesitated.
+
+"My brother Christopher has just gone to Lewes," he said. "So I heard
+more of the favourable side, but I heard a good deal against them, too.
+There was a secular priest talking against them one day, with our
+chaplain, who is a defender of them."
+
+"Who was he?" asked Cromwell, with the same sharp, oblique glance.
+
+"A man of no importance, sir; the parson of Great Keynes."
+
+"The Holy Maid is in trouble," went on the other after a minute's
+silence. "She is in my Lord of Canterbury's hands, and we can leave her
+there. I suppose she will be hanged."
+
+Ralph waited. He knew it was no good asking too much.
+
+"What she said of the King's death and the pestilence is enough to cast
+her," went on Cromwell presently. "And Bocking and Hadleigh will be in
+his hands soon, too. They do not know their peril yet."
+
+They went on to talk of the friars, and of the disfavour that they were
+in with the King after the unfortunate occurrences of the previous
+spring, when Father Peto had preached at Greenwich before Henry on the
+subject of Naboth's vineyard and the end of Ahab the oppressor. There
+had been a dramatic scene, Cromwell said, when on the following Sunday a
+canon of Hereford, Dr. Curwin, had preached against Peto from the same
+pulpit, and had been rebuked from the rood-loft by another of the
+brethren, Father Elstow, who had continued declaiming until the King
+himself had fiercely intervened from the royal pew and bade him be
+silent.
+
+"The two are banished," said Cromwell, "but that is not the end of it.
+Their brethren will hear of it again. I have never seen the King so
+wrathful. I suppose it was partly because the Lady Katharine so
+cossetted them. She was always in the church at the night-office when
+the Court was at Greenwich, and Friar Forrest, you know, was her
+confessor. There is a rod in pickle."
+
+Ralph listened with all his ears. Cromwell was not very communicative
+on the subject of the Religious houses, but Ralph had gathered from
+hints of this kind that something was preparing.
+
+When supper was over and the servants were clearing away, Cromwell went
+to the window where the glass glowed overhead with his new arms and
+scrolls--a blue coat with Cornish choughs and a rose on a fess between
+three rampant lions--and stood there, a steady formidable figure, with
+his cropped head and great jowl, looking out on to the garden.
+
+When the men had gone he turned again to Ralph.
+
+"I have something for you," he said, "but it is greater than those other
+matters--a fool could not do it. Sit down."
+
+He came across the room to the fireplace, as Ralph sat down, and himself
+took a chair by the table, lifting the baudkin cushion and settling it
+again comfortably behind him.
+
+"It is this," he said abruptly. "You know that Master More has been in
+trouble. There was the matter of the gilt flagon which Powell said he
+had taken as a bribe, and the gloves lined with forty pound. Well, he
+disproved that, and I am glad of it, glad of it," he repeated steadily,
+looking down at his ring and turning it to catch the light. "But there
+is now another matter--I hear he has been practising with the Holy Maid
+and hearkening to her ravings, and that my Lord of Rochester is in it
+too. But I am not sure of it."
+
+Cromwell stopped, glanced up at Ralph a moment, and then down again.
+
+"I am not sure of it," he said again, "and I wish to be. And I think you
+can help me."
+
+Ralph waited patiently, his heart beginning to quicken. This was a great
+matter.
+
+"I wish you to go to him," said his master, "and to get him into talk.
+But I do not see how it can be managed."
+
+"He knows I am in your service, sir," suggested Ralph.
+
+"Yes, yes," said Cromwell a little impatiently, "that is it. He is no
+fool, and will not talk. This is what I thought of. That you should go
+to him from me, and feign that you are on his side in the matter. But
+will he believe that?" he ended gloomily, looking at the other
+curiously.
+
+There was silence for a minute, while Cromwell drummed his fingers
+softly on the table. Then presently Ralph spoke.
+
+"There is this, sir," he said. "I might speak to him about my brother
+Chris who, as I told you, has gone to Lewes at the Maid's advice, and
+then see what Master More has to say."
+
+Cromwell still looked at him.
+
+"Yes," he said, "that seems reasonable. And for the rest--well, I will
+leave that in your hands."
+
+They talked a few minutes longer about Sir Thomas More, and Cromwell
+told the other what a quiet life the ex-Chancellor had led since his
+resignation of office, of his house at Chelsea, and the like, and of the
+decision that he had apparently come to not to mix any further in public
+affairs.
+
+"There is thunder in the air," he said, "as you know very well, and
+Master More is no mean weather-prophet. He mis-liked the matter of the
+Lady Katharine, and Queen Anne is no friend of his. I think he is wise
+to be quiet."
+
+Ralph knew perfectly well that this tolerant language did not represent
+Cromwell's true attitude towards the man of whom they were speaking, but
+he assented to all that was said, and added a word or two about Sir
+Thomas More's learning, and of the pleasant manner in which he himself
+had been received when he had once had had occasion to see him before.
+
+"He was throwing Horace at me," said the other, with a touch of
+bitterness, "the last time that I was there. I do not know which he
+loves best, that or his prayers."
+
+Again Ralph recognised an animus. Cromwell had suffered somewhat from
+lack of a classical education.
+
+"But it is a good thing to love the classics and devotion," he went on
+presently with a sententious air, "they are solaces in time of trouble.
+I have found that myself."
+
+He glanced up at the other and down again.
+
+"I was caught saying our Lady matins one day," he said, "when the
+Cardinal was in trouble. I remember I was very devout that morning."
+
+He went on to talk of Wolsey and of his relations with him, and Ralph
+watched that heavy smooth face become reminiscent and almost
+sentimental.
+
+"If he had but been wiser;" he said. "I have noticed again and again the
+folly of wise men. There is always clay mixed with gold. I suppose
+nothing but the fire that Fryth denied can purge it out; and my lord's
+was ambition."
+
+He wagged his head in solemn reprobation, and Ralph did not know whether
+to laugh or to look grave. Then there fell a long silence, and Cromwell
+again fell to fingering his signet-ring, taking it off his thumb and
+rolling it on the smooth oak, and at last stood up with a brisker air.
+
+"Well," he said, "I have a thousand affairs, and my son Gregory is
+coming here soon. Then you will see about that matter. Remember I wish
+to know what Master More thinks of her, that--that I may know what to
+think."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph understood sufficiently clearly, as he walked home in the evening
+light, what it was that his master wanted. It was no less than to catch
+some handle against the ex-chancellor, though he had carefully abstained
+from saying so. Ralph recognised the adroitness, and saw that while the
+directions had been plain and easy to understand, yet that not one word
+had been spoken that could by any means be used as a handle against
+Cromwell. If anyone in England at that time knew how to wield speech it
+was his master; it was by that weapon that he had prevailed with the
+King, and still kept him in check; it was that weapon rashly used by his
+enemies that he was continually turning against them, and under his
+tutoring Ralph himself had begun to be practised in the same art.
+
+Among other causes, too, of his admiration for Cromwell, was the
+latter's extraordinary business capacity. There was hardly an affair of
+any importance in which he did not have a finger at least, and most of
+them he held in the palm of his hand, and that, not only in the mass but
+in their minutest details. Ralph had marvelled more than once at the
+minuti� that he had seen dotted down on the backs of old letters lying
+on his master's table. Matters of Church and State, inextricably
+confused to other eyes, was simple to this man; he understood
+intuitively where the key of each situation lay, and dealt with them one
+after another briefly and effectively. And yet with all this no man wore
+an appearance of greater leisure; he would gossip harmlessly for an
+hour, and yet by the end had said all that he wished to say, and
+generally learnt, too, from his companion whoever he might be, all he
+wished to learn. Ralph had watched him more than once at this business;
+had seen delicate subjects introduced in a deft unsuspicious sentence
+that roused no alarm, and had marvelled at his power to play with men
+without their dreaming of what was going forward.
+
+And now it was Master More that was threatened. Ralph knew well that
+there was far more behind the scenes than he could understand or even
+perceive, and recognised that the position of Sir Thomas was more
+significant than would appear, and that developments might be expected
+to follow soon.
+
+For himself he had no shrinking from his task. He understood that
+government was carried on by such methods, and that More himself would
+be the first to acknowledge that in war many things were permissible
+that would be outrageous in times of peace, and that these were times of
+war. To call upon a friend, to eat his bread and salt, and talk
+familiarly with him, and to be on the watch all the while for a weak
+spot through which that friend might be wounded, seemed to Ralph,
+trained now and perfected in Cromwell's school, a perfectly legitimate
+policy, and he walked homewards this summer evening, pleased with this
+new mark of confidence, and anxious to acquit himself well in his task.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The house that Ralph occupied in Westminster was in a street to the west
+of the Abbey, and stood back a little between its neighbours. It was a
+very small one, of only two rooms in width and one in depth, and three
+stories high; but it had been well furnished, chiefly with things
+brought up from Overfield Court, to which Ralph had taken a fancy, and
+which his father had not denied him. He lived almost entirely in the
+first floor, his bedroom and sitting-room being divided by the narrow
+landing at the head of the stairs that led up to the storey above, which
+was occupied by Mr. Morris and a couple of other servants. The lower
+storey Ralph used chiefly for purposes of business, and for interviews
+which were sufficiently numerous for one engaged in so many affairs.
+Cromwell had learnt by now that he could be trusted to say little and to
+learn much, and the early acts of many little dramas that had ended in
+tragedy had been performed in the two gravely-furnished rooms on the
+ground floor. A good deal of the law-business, in its early stages,
+connected with the annulling of the King's marriage with Queen Katharine
+had been done there; a great canonist from a foreign university had
+explained there his views in broken English, helped out with Latin, to a
+couple of shrewd-faced men, while Ralph watched the case for his master;
+and Cromwell himself had found the little retired house a convenience
+for meeting with persons whom he did not wish to frighten over much,
+while Ralph and Mr. Morris sat alert and expectant on the other side of
+the hall, with the door open, listening for raised voices or other signs
+of a quarrel.
+
+The rooms upstairs had been furnished with considerable care. The floors
+of both were matted, for the plan involved less trouble than the
+continual laying of clean rushes. The sitting-room was panelled up six
+feet from the floor, and the three feet of wall above were covered with
+really beautiful tapestry that Ralph had brought up from Overfield.
+There was a great table in the centre, along one side of which rested a
+set of drawers with brass handles, and in the centre of the table was a
+deep well, covered by a flap that lay level with the rest of the top.
+Another table stood against the wall, on which his meals were served,
+and the door of a cupboard in which his plate and knives were kept
+opened immediately above it, designed in the thickness of the wall.
+There were half-a-dozen chairs, two or three other pieces of furniture,
+a backed settle by the fire and a row of bookshelves opposite the
+windows; and over the mantelpiece, against the tapestry, hung a picture
+of Cromwell, painted by Holbein, and rejected by him before it was
+finished. Ralph had begged it from the artist who was on the point of
+destroying it. It represented the sitter's head and shoulders in
+three-quarter face, showing his short hair, his shrewd heavy face, with
+its double chin, and the furred gown below.
+
+Mr. Morris was ready for his master and opened the door to him.
+
+"There are some letters come, Mr. Ralph, sir," he said. "I have laid
+them on your table."
+
+Ralph nodded, slipped off his thin cloak into his servant's hands
+without speaking, laid down his cane and went upstairs.
+
+The letters were very much what he expected, and dealt with cases on
+which he was engaged. There was an entreaty from a country squire near
+Epping Forest, whose hounds had got into trouble with the King's
+foresters that he would intercede for him to Cromwell. A begging letter
+from a monk who had been ejected from his monastery for repeated
+misconduct, and who represented himself as starving; Ralph lifted this
+to his nostrils and it smelt powerfully of spirits, and he laid it down
+again, smiling to himself. A torrent of explanation from a schoolmaster
+who had been reported for speaking against the sacrament of the altar,
+calling the saints to witness that he was no follower of Fryth in such
+detestable heresy. A dignified protest from a Justice of the Peace in
+Kent who had been reproved by Cromwell, through Ralph's agency, for
+acquitting a sturdy beggar, and who begged that he might in future deal
+with a responsible person; and this Ralph laid aside, smiling again and
+promising himself that he would have the pleasure of granting the
+request. An offer, written in a clerkly hand, from a fellow who could
+not sign his name but had appended a cross, to submit some important
+evidence of a treasonable plot, on the consideration of secrecy and a
+suitable reward.
+
+A year ago such a budget would have given Ralph considerable pleasure,
+and a sense of his own importance; but business had been growing on him
+rapidly of late, as his master perceived his competence, and it gave him
+no thrill to docket this one, write a refusal to that, a guarded answer
+to another, and finally to open the well of his table and drop the
+bundle in.
+
+Then he turned round his chair, blew out one candle carefully, and set
+to thinking about Master Thomas More.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+MASTER MORE
+
+
+It was not until nearly a month later that Ralph made an opportunity to
+call upon Sir Thomas More. Cromwell had given him to understand that
+there was no immediate reason for haste; his own time was tolerably
+occupied, and he thought it as well not to make a show of over-great
+hurry. He wrote to Sir Thomas, explaining that he wished to see him on a
+matter connected with his brother Christopher, and received a courteous
+reply begging him to come to dinner on the following Thursday, the
+octave of the Assumption, as Sir Thomas thought it proper to add.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a wonderfully pleasant house, Ralph thought, as his wherry came
+up to the foot of the garden stairs that led down from the lawn to the
+river. It stood well back in its own grounds, divided from the river by
+a wall with a wicket gate in it. There was a little grove of trees on
+either side of it; a flock of pigeons were wheeling about the
+bell-turret that rose into the clear blue sky, and from which came a
+stroke or two, announcing the approach of dinner-time as he went up the
+steps.
+
+There was a figure lying on its face in the shadow by the house, as
+Ralph came up the path, and a small dog, that seemed to be trying to dig
+the head out from the hands in which it was buried, ceased his
+excavations and set up a shrill barking. The figure rolled over, and sat
+up; the pleasant brown face was all creased with laughter; small pieces
+of grass were clinging to the long hair, and Ralph, to his amazement,
+recognised the ex-Lord Chancellor of England.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," said More, rising and shaking himself. "I had
+no idea--you take me at a disadvantage; it is scarcely dignified"--and
+he stopped, smiling and holding out one hand, while he stretched the
+other deprecatingly, to quiet that insistent barking.
+
+Ralph had a sensation of mingled contempt and sympathy as he took his
+hand.
+
+"I had the honour of seeing you once before, Master More," he said.
+
+"Why, yes," said More, "and I hope I cut a better figure last time, but
+Anubis would take no refusal. But I am ashamed, and beg you will not
+speak of it to Mrs. More. She is putting on a new coif in your honour."
+
+"I will be discreet," said Ralph, smiling.
+
+They went indoors almost immediately, when Sir Thomas had flicked the
+grass sufficiently off his gown to escape detection, and straight
+through to the hall where the table was laid, and three or four girls
+were waiting.
+
+"Your mother is not here yet, I see," said Sir Thomas, when he had made
+Ralph known to his daughters, and the young man had kissed them
+deferentially, according to the proper etiquette--"I will tell you
+somewhat--hush--" and he broke off again sharply as the door from the
+stairs opened, and a stately lady, with a rather solemn and
+uninteresting face, sailed in, her silk skirts rustling behind her, and
+her fresh coif stiff and white on her head. A middle-aged man followed
+her in, looking a little dejected, and made straight across to where the
+ladies were standing with an eagerness that seemed to hint at a sense of
+escape.
+
+"Mrs. Alice," said Sir Thomas, "this is Mr. Ralph Torridon, of whom you
+have heard me speak. I was fortunate enough to welcome him on the lawn
+just now."
+
+"I saw you, Mr. More," said his wife with dignity, as she took Ralph's
+hand and said a word about the weather.
+
+"Then I will confess," said Sir Thomas, smiling genially round, "I
+welcomed Mr. Torridon with the back of my head, and with Anubis biting
+my ears."
+
+Ralph felt strangely drawn to this schoolboy kind of man, who romped
+with dogs and lay on his stomach, and was so charmingly afraid of his
+wife. His contempt began to melt as he looked at him and saw those wise
+twinkling eyes, and strong humorous mouth, and remembered once more who
+he was, and his reputation.
+
+Sir Thomas said grace with great gravity and signed himself reverently
+before he sat down. There was a little reading first of the Scriptures
+and a commentary on it, and then as dinner went on Ralph began to attend
+less and less to his hostess, who, indeed appeared wholly absorbed in
+domestic details of the table and with whispering severely to the
+servants behind her hand, and to listen and look towards the further end
+where Sir Thomas sat in his tall chair, his flapped cap on his head, and
+talked to his daughters on either side. Mr. Roper, the man who had come
+in with Mrs. More, was sitting opposite Ralph, and seemed to be chiefly
+occupied in listening too. A bright-looking tall girl, whom her father
+had introduced by the name of Cecily, sat between Ralph and her father.
+
+"Not at all," cried Sir Thomas, in answer to something that Ralph did
+not catch, "nothing of the kind! It was Juno that screamed. Argus would
+not condescend to it. He was occupied in dancing before the bantams."
+
+Ralph lost one of the few remarks that Mrs. More addressed to him, in
+wondering what this meant, and the conversation at the other end swept
+round a corner while he was apologising. When he again caught the
+current Sir Thomas was speaking of wherries.
+
+"I would love to row a wherry," he said. "The fellows do not know their
+fortune; they might lead such sweet meditative lives; they do not, I am
+well aware, for I have never heard such blasphemy as I have heard from
+wherrymen. But what opportunities are theirs! If I were not your father,
+my darling, I would be a wherryman. _Si cognovisses et tu quae ad pacem
+tibi_! Mr. Torridon, would you not be a wherryman if you were not Mr.
+Torridon?"
+
+"I thought not this morning," said Ralph, "as I came here. It seemed hot
+rowing against the stream."
+
+"It is part of the day's work," said More. "When I was Chancellor I
+loved nothing more than a hot summer's day in Court, for I thought of my
+cool garden where I should soon be walking. I must show you the New
+Building after dinner, Mr. Torridon."
+
+Cecily and Margaret presently had a short encounter across the table on
+some subject that Ralph did not catch, but he saw Margaret on the other
+side flush up and bring her lips sharply together. Sir Thomas leapt into
+the breach.
+
+"_Unde leves animae tanto caluere furore?_" he cried, and glanced up at
+Ralph to see if he understood the quotation, as the two girls dropped
+their eyes ashamed.
+
+"_Pugnavare pares, succubuere pares_," said Ralph by a flash of
+inspiration, and looking at the girls.
+
+Sir Thomas's eyes shone with pleasure.
+
+"I did not know you were such a treasure, Mr. Torridon. Now, Master
+Cromwell could not have done that."
+
+There fell a silence as that name was spoken, and all at the table eyed
+Ralph.
+
+"He was saying as much to me the other day," went on Ralph, excited by
+his success. "He told me you knew Horace too well."
+
+"And that my morals were corrupted by him," went on More. "I know he
+thinks that, but I had the honour of confuting him the other day with
+regard to the flagon and gloves. Now, there is a subject for Martial,
+Mr. Torridon. A corrupt statesman who has retired on his ill-gotten
+gains disproves an accusation of bribery. Let us call him Atticus
+'Attice ... Attice' ...--We might say that he put on the gloves lest his
+forgers should be soiled while he drank from the flagon, or something of
+the kind."
+
+Sir Thomas's eyes beamed with delight as he talked. To make an apt
+classical quotation was like wine to him, but to have it capped
+appropriately was like drunkenness. Ralph blessed his stars that he had
+been so lucky, for he was no great scholar, and he guessed he had won
+his host's confidence.
+
+Dinner passed on quietly, and as they rose from table More came round
+and took his guest by the arm.
+
+"You must come with me and see my New Building," he said, "you are
+worthy of it, Mr. Torridon."
+
+He still held his arm affectionately as they walked out into the garden
+behind the house, and as he discoursed on the joys of a country life.
+
+"What more can I ask of God?" he said. "He has given me means and tastes
+to correspond, and what man can say more. I see visions, and am able to
+make them realities. I dream of a dovecote with a tiled roof, and
+straightway build it; I picture a gallery and a chapel and a library
+away from the clack of tongues, and behold there it is. The eye cannot
+say to the hand, 'I have no need of thee.' To see and dream without the
+power of performance is heart-breaking. To perform without the gift of
+imagination is soul-slaying. The man is blessed that hath both eye and
+hand, tastes and means alike."
+
+It was a very pleasant retreat that Sir Thomas More had built for
+himself at the end of his garden, where he might retire when he wanted
+solitude. There was a little entrance hall with a door at one corner
+into the chapel, and a long low gallery running out from it, lined with
+bookshelves on one side, and with an open space on the other lighted by
+square windows looking into the garden. The polished boards were bare,
+and there was a path marked on them by footsteps going from end to end.
+
+"Here I walk," said More, "and my friends look at me from those shelves,
+ready to converse but never to interrupt. Shall we walk here, Mr.
+Torridon, while you tell me your business?"
+
+Ralph had, indeed, a touch of scrupulousness as he thought of his host's
+confidence, but he had learnt the habit of silencing impulses and of
+only acting on plans deliberately formed; so he was soon laying bare his
+anxiety about Chris, and his fear that he had been misled by the Holy
+Maid.
+
+"I am very willing, Mr. More," he said, "that my brother should be a
+monk if it is right, but I could not bear he should be so against God's
+leading. How am I to know whether the maid's words are of God or no?"
+
+Sir Thomas was silent a moment.
+
+"But he had thoughts of it before, I suppose," he said, "or he would not
+have gone to her. In fact, you said so."
+
+Ralph acknowledged that this was so.
+
+"--And for several years," went on the other.
+
+Again Ralph assented.
+
+"And his tastes and habits are those of a monk, I suppose. He is long
+at his prayers, given to silence, and of a tranquil spirit?"
+
+"He is not always tranquil," said Ralph. "He is impertinent sometimes."
+
+"Yes, yes; we all are that. I was very impertinent to you at dinner in
+trying to catch you with Martial his epigram, though I shall not offend
+again. But his humour may be generally tranquil in spite of it. Well, if
+that is so, I do not see why you need trouble about the Holy Maid. He
+would likely have been a monk without that. She only confirmed him."
+
+"But," went on Ralph, fighting to get back to the point, "if I thought
+she was trustworthy I should be the more happy."
+
+"There must always be doubtfulness," said More, "in such matters. That
+is why the novitiate is so severe; it is to show the young men the worst
+at once. I do not think you need be unhappy about your brother."
+
+"And what is your view about the Holy Maid?" asked Ralph, suddenly
+delivering his point.
+
+More stopped in his walk, cocked his head a little on one side like a
+clever dog, and looked at his companion with twinkling eyes.
+
+"It is a delicate subject," he said, and went on again.
+
+"That is what puzzles me," said Ralph. "Will you not tell me your
+opinion, Mr. More?"
+
+There was again a silence, and they reached the further end of the
+gallery and turned again before Sir Thomas answered.
+
+"If you had not answered me so briskly at dinner, Mr. Torridon, do you
+know that I should have suspected you of coming to search me out. But
+such a good head, I think, cannot be allied with a bad heart, and I
+will tell you."
+
+Ralph felt a prick of triumph but none of remorse.
+
+"I will tell you," went on More, "and I am sure you will keep it
+private. I think the Holy Maid is a good woman who has a maggot."
+
+Ralph's spirits sank again. This was a very non-committing answer.
+
+"I do not think her a knave as some do, but I think, to refer to what we
+said just now, that she has a large and luminous eye, and no hand worth
+mentioning. She sees many visions, but few facts. That tale about the
+Host being borne by angels from Calais to my mind is nonsense. Almighty
+God does not work miracles without reason, and there is none for that.
+The blessed sacrament is the same at Dover as at Calais. And a woman who
+can dream that can dream anything, for I am sure she did not invent it.
+On other matters, therefore, she may be dreaming too, and that is why
+once more I tell you that to my mind you can leave her out of your
+thoughts with regard to your brother. She is neither prophetess nor
+pythoness."
+
+This was very unsatisfactory, and Ralph strove to remedy it.
+
+"And in the matter of the King's death, Mr. More?" he said.
+
+Again Sir Thomas stopped in his walk.
+
+"Do you know, Mr. Torridon, I think we may leave that alone," he said a
+little abruptly. And Ralph sucked in his lip and bit it sharply at the
+consciousness of his own folly.
+
+"I hope your brother will be very happy," went on the other after a
+moment, "and I am sure he will be, if his call is from God, as I think
+likely. I was with the Carthusians myself, you know, for four years,
+and sometimes I think I should have stayed there. It is a blessed life.
+I do not envy many folks, but I do those. To live in the daily
+companionship of our blessed Lord and of his saints as those do, and to
+know His secrets--_secreta Domini_--even the secrets of His Passion and
+its ineffable joys of pain--that is a very fortunate lot, Mr. Torridon.
+I sometimes think that as it was with Christ's natural body so it is
+with His mystical body: there be some members, His hands and feet and
+side, through which the nails are thrust, though indeed there is not one
+whole spot in His body--_inglorius erit inter viros aspectus ejus--nos
+putavimus eum quasi leprosum_--but those parts of His body that are
+especially pained are at once more honourable and more happy than those
+that are not. And the monks are those happy members."
+
+He was speaking very solemnly, his voice a little tremulous, and his
+kindly eyes were cast down, and Ralph watched him sidelong with a little
+awe and pity mingled. He seemed so natural too, that Ralph thought that
+he must have over-rated his own indiscretion.
+
+A shadow fell across the door into the garden as they came near it, and
+one of the girls appeared in the opening.
+
+"Why, Meg," cried her father, "what is it, my darling?"
+
+"Beatrice has come, sir," said the girl. "I thought you would wish to
+know."
+
+More put out his arm and laid it round his daughter's waist as she
+turned with him.
+
+"Come, Mr. Torridon," he said, "if you have no more to say, let us go
+and see Beatrice."
+
+There was a group on the lawn under one of the lime trees, two or three
+girls and Mr. Roper, who all rose to their feet as the three came up.
+More immediately sat down on the grass, putting his feet delicately
+together before him.
+
+"Will, fetch this gentleman a chair. It is not fit for Master
+Cromwell's friend to sit on the grass like you and me."
+
+Ralph threw himself down on the lawn instantly, entreating Mr. Roper not
+to move.
+
+"Well, well," said Sir Thomas, "let be. Sit down too, Will, _et cubito
+remanete presso_. Mr. Torridon understands that, I know, even if Master
+Cromwell's friend does not. Why, tillie-vallie, as Mrs. More says, I
+have not said a word to Beatrice. Beatrice, this is Mr. Ralph Torridon,
+and this, Mr. Torridon, is Beatrice. Her other name is Atherton, but to
+me she is a feminine benediction, and nought else."
+
+Ralph rose swiftly and looked across at a tall slender girl that was
+sitting contentedly on an outlying root of the lime tree, beside of Sir
+Thomas, and who rose with him.
+
+"Mr. More cannot let my name alone, Mr. Torridon," she said tranquilly,
+as she drew back after the salute. "He made a play upon it the other
+day."
+
+"And have been ashamed of it ever since," said More; "it was sacrilege
+with such a name. Now, I am plain Thomas, and more besides. Why did you
+send for me, Beatrice?"
+
+"I have no defence," said the girl, "save that I wanted to see you."
+
+"And that is the prettiest defence you could have made--if it does not
+amount to corruption. Mr. Torridon, what is the repartee to that?"
+
+"I need no advocate," said the girl; "I can plead well enough."
+
+Ralph looked up at her again with a certain interest. She seemed on
+marvellously good terms with the whole family, and had an air of being
+entirely at her ease. She had her black eyes bent down on to a piece of
+grass that she was twisting into a ring between her slender jewelled
+fingers, and her white teeth were closed firmly on her lower lip as she
+worked. Her long silk skirts lay out unregarded on the grass, and her
+buckles gleamed beneath. Her voice was pleasant and rather deep, and
+Ralph found himself wondering who she was, and why he had not seen her
+before, for she evidently belonged to his class, and London was a small
+place.
+
+"I see you are making one more chain to bind me to you," said More
+presently, watching her.
+
+She held it up.
+
+"A ring only," she said.
+
+"Then it is not for me," said More, "for I do not hold with Dr.
+Melanchthon, nor yet Solomon in the matter of wives. Now, Mr. Torridon,
+tell us all some secrets. Betray your master. We are all agog. Leave off
+that ring, Beatrice, and attend."
+
+"I am listening," said the girl as serenely as before, still intent on
+her weaving.
+
+"The King breakfasted this morning at eight of the clock," said Ralph
+gravely. "It is an undoubted fact, I had it on the highest authority."
+
+"This is excellent," said Sir Thomas. "Let us all talk treason. I can
+add to that. His Grace had a fall last night and lay senseless for
+several hours."
+
+He spoke with such gravity that Ralph glanced up. At the same moment
+Beatrice looked up from her work and their eyes met.
+
+"He fell asleep," added Sir Thomas.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was very pleasant to lie there in the shadow of the lime that
+afternoon, and listen to the mild fooling, and Ralph forgot his
+manners, and almost his errand too, and never offered to move. The grass
+began to turn golden as the sun slanted to the West, and the birds began
+to stir after the heat of the day, and to chirp from tree to tree. A
+hundred yards away the river twinkled in the sun, seen beyond the trees
+and the house, and the voices of the boatmen came, softened by distance
+and water, as they plied up and down the flowing highway. Once a barge
+went past under the Battersea bank, with music playing in the stern, and
+Ralph raised himself on his elbow to watch it as it went down the stream
+with flags flying behind, and the rhythmical throb of the row-locks
+sounding time to the dancing melody.
+
+Ralph did his best to fall in with the humour of the day, and told a
+good story or two in his slow voice--among them one of his mother
+exercising her gift of impressive silence towards a tiresome chatterbox
+of a man, with such effect that the conversationalist's words died on
+his lips, after the third or fourth pause made for applause and comment.
+He told the story well, and Lady Torridon seemed to move among them, her
+skirts dragging majestically on the grass, and her steady, sombre face
+looking down on them all beneath half-closed languid eye-lids.
+
+"He has never been near us again," said Ralph, "but he never fails to
+ask after my mother's distressing illness when I meet him in town."
+
+He was a little astonished at himself as he talked, for he was not
+accustomed to take such pains to please, but he was conscious that
+though he looked round at the faces, and addressed himself to More, he
+was really watching for the effect on the girl who sat behind. He was
+aware of every movement that she made; he knew when she tossed the ring
+on the little sleeping brown body of the dog that had barked at him
+earlier in the day, and set to work upon another. She slipped that on
+her finger when she had done, and turned her hand this way and that, her
+fingers bent back, a ruby catching the light as she did so, looking at
+the effect of the green circle against the whiteness. But he never
+looked at her again, except once when she asked him some question, and
+then he looked her straight in her black eyes as he answered.
+
+A bell sounded out at last again from the tower, and startled him. He
+got up quickly.
+
+"I am ashamed," he said smiling, "how dare I stay so long? It is your
+kindness, Mr. More."
+
+"Nay, nay," said Sir Thomas, rising too and stretching himself. "You
+have helped us to lose another day in the pleasantest manner
+possible--you must come again, Mr. Torridon."
+
+He walked down with Ralph to the garden steps, and stood by him talking,
+while the wherry that had been hailed from the other side made its way
+across.
+
+"Beatrice is like one of my own daughters," he said, "and I cannot give
+her better praise than that. She is always here, and always as you saw
+her today. I think she is one of the strongest spirits I know. What did
+you think of her, Mr. Torridon?"
+
+"She did not talk much," said Ralph.
+
+"She talks when she has aught to say," went on More, "and otherwise is
+silent. It is a good rule, sir; I would I observed it myself."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Ralph.
+
+"She is the daughter of a friend I had, and she lives just now with my
+wife's sisters, Nan and Fan. She is often in town with one of them. I am
+astonished you have not met her before."
+
+The wherry slid up to the steps and the man in his great boots slipped
+over the side to steady it.
+
+"Now is the time to begin your philosophy," said More as Ralph stepped
+in, "and a Socrates is ready. Talk it over, Mr. Torridon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+RALPH'S INTERCESSION
+
+
+Ralph was astonished to find how the thought of the tall girl he had met
+at Sir Thomas More's house remained with him. He had reported the result
+of his interview with More himself to his master; and Cromwell had
+received it rather coldly. He had sniffed once or twice.
+
+"That was not very well done, Mr. Torridon. I fear that you have
+frightened him, and gained nothing by it."
+
+Ralph stood silent.
+
+"But I see you make no excuses," went on Cromwell, "so I will make them
+for you. I daresay he was frightened already; and knew all about what
+had passed between her and the Archbishop. You must try again, sir."
+
+Ralph felt his heart stir with pleasure.
+
+"I may say I have made friends with Mr. More, sir," he said. "I had good
+fortune in the matter of a quotation, and he received me kindly. I can
+go there again without excusing my presence, as often as you will."
+
+Cromwell looked at him.
+
+"There is not much to be gained now," he said, "but you can go if you
+will; and you may perhaps pick up something here and there. The more
+friends you make the better."
+
+Ralph went away delighted; he had not wholly failed then in his master's
+business, and he seemed to have set on foot a business of his own; and
+he contemplated with some excitement his future visits to Chelsea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He had his first word with the King a couple of months later. He had
+often, of course, seen him before, once or twice in the House of Lords,
+formidable and frowning on his throne, his gross chin on his hand,
+barking out a word or two to his subjects, or instructing them in
+theology, for which indeed he was very competent; and several times in
+processions, riding among his gentlemen on his great horse, splendid in
+velvet and gems; and he had always wondered what it was that gave him
+his power. It could not be mere despotism, he thought, or his burly
+English nature; and it was not until he had seen him near at hand, and
+come within range of his personality that he understood why it was that
+men bore such things from him.
+
+He was sent for one afternoon by Cromwell to bring a paper and was taken
+up at once by a servant into the gallery where the minister and the King
+were walking together. They were at the further end from that at which
+he entered, and he stood, a little nervous at his heart, but with his
+usual appearance of self-possession, watching the two great backs turned
+to him, and waiting to be called.
+
+They turned again in a moment, and Cromwell saw him and beckoned,
+himself coming a few steps to meet him. The King waited, and Ralph was
+aware of, rather than saw, that wide, coarse, strong face, and the long
+narrow eyes, with the feathered cap atop, and the rich jewelled dress
+beneath. The King stood with his hands behind his back and his legs well
+apart.
+
+Cromwell took the paper from Ralph, who stepped back, hesitating what to
+do.
+
+"This is it, your Grace," said the minister going back again. "Your
+Grace will see that it is as I said."
+
+Ralph perceived a new tone of deference in his master's voice that he
+had never noticed before, except once when Cromwell was ironically
+bullying a culprit who was giving trouble.
+
+The King said nothing, took the paper and glanced over it, standing a
+little aside to let the light fall on it.
+
+"Your Grace will understand--" began Cromwell again.
+
+"Yes, yes, yes," said the harsh voice impatiently. "Let the fellow take
+it back," and he thrust the paper into Cromwell's hand, who turned once
+more to Ralph.
+
+"Who is he?" said the King. "I have seen his face. Who are you?"
+
+"This is Mr. Ralph Torridon," said Cromwell; "a very useful friend to
+me, your Grace."
+
+"The Torridons of Overfield?" questioned Henry once more, who never
+forgot a face or a name.
+
+"Yes, your Grace," said Cromwell.
+
+"You are tall enough, sir," said the King, running his narrow eyes up
+and down Ralph's figure;--"a strong friend."
+
+"I hope so, your Grace," said Ralph.
+
+The King again looked at him, and Ralph dropped his eyes in the glare of
+that mighty personality. Then Henry abruptly thrust out his hand to be
+kissed, and as Ralph bent over it he was aware of the thick straight
+fingers, the creased wrist, and the growth of hair on the back of the
+hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph was astonished, and a little ashamed at his own excitement as he
+passed down the stairs again. It was so little that had happened; his
+own part had been so insignificant; and yet he was tingling from head to
+foot. He felt he knew now a little better how it was that the King's
+will, however outrageous in its purposes, was done so quickly. It was
+the sheer natural genius of authority and royalty that forced it
+through; he had felt himself dominated and subdued in those few moments,
+so that he was not his own master. As he went home through the street or
+two that separated the Palace gate from his own house, he found himself
+analysing the effect of that presence, and, in spite of its repellence,
+its suggestion of coarseness, and its almost irritating imperiousness,
+he was conscious that there was a very strong element of attractiveness
+in it too. It seemed to him the kind of attractiveness that there is for
+a beaten dog in the chastising hand: the personality was so overwhelming
+that it compelled allegiance, and that not wholly one of fear. He found
+himself thinking of Queen Katharine and understanding a little better
+how it was that the refined, delicately nurtured and devout woman, so
+constant in her prayers, so full of the peculiar fineness of character
+that gentle birth and religion alone confer, could so cling to this
+fierce lord of hers, throw herself at his feet with tears before all the
+company, and entreat not to be separated from him, calling him her "dear
+lord," her "love," and her most "merciful and gracious prince."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The transition from this train of thought to that bearing on Beatrice
+was not a difficult one; for the memory of the girl was continually in
+his mind. He had seen her half a dozen times now since their first
+meeting; for he had availed himself to the full of Cromwell's
+encouragement to make himself at home at Chelsea; and he found that his
+interest in her deepened every time. With a touch of amusement he found
+himself studying Horace and Terence again, not only for Sir Thomas
+More's benefit, but in order to win his approval and his good report to
+his household, among whom Beatrice was practically to be reckoned.
+
+He was pleased too by More's account of Beatrice.
+
+"She is nearly as good a scholar as my dear Meg," he had said one day.
+"Try her, Mr. Torridon."
+
+Ralph had carefully prepared an apt quotation that day, and fired it off
+presently, not at Beatrice, but, as it were, across her; but there was
+not the faintest response or the quiver of an eyelid.
+
+There was silence a moment; and then Sir Thomas burst out--
+
+"You need not look so demure, my child; we all know that you
+understand."
+
+Beatrice had given him a look of tranquil amusement in return.
+
+"I will not be made a show of," she said.
+
+Ralph went away that day more engrossed than ever. He began to ask
+himself where his interest in her would end; and wondered at its
+intensity.
+
+As he questioned himself about it, it seemed that to him it was to a
+great extent her appearance of detached self-possession that attracted
+him. It was the quality that he most desired for himself, and one which
+he had in measure attained; but he was aware that in the presence of
+Cromwell at least it deserted him. He knew well that he had found his
+master there, and that he himself was nothing more than a
+hero-worshipper before a shrine; but it provoked him to feel that there
+was no one who seemed to occupy the place of a similar divinity with
+regard to this girl. Obviously she admired and loved Sir Thomas
+More--Ralph soon found out how deeply in the course of his visits--but
+she was not in the least afraid of her friend. She serenely contradicted
+him when she disagreed with what he said, would fail to keep her
+appointments at his house with the same equanimity, and in spite of Sir
+Thomas's personality never appeared to give him more than a friendly and
+affectionate homage. With regard to Ralph himself, it was the same. She
+was not in the least awed by him, or apparently impressed by his
+reputation which at this time was growing rapidly as that of a capable
+and daring agent of Cromwell's; and even once or twice when he
+condescended to hint at the vastness of the affairs on which he was
+engaged, in a desperate endeavour to rouse her admiration, she only
+looked at him steadily a moment with very penetrating eyes, and began to
+speak of something else. He began to feel discouraged.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first hint that Ralph had that he had been making a mistake in his
+estimate of her, came from Margaret Roper, who was still living at
+Chelsea with her husband Will.
+
+Ralph had walked up to the house one bleak afternoon in early spring
+along the river-bank from Westminster, and had found Margaret alone in
+the dining-hall, seated by the window with her embroidery in her hand,
+and a Terence propped open on the sill to catch the last gleams of light
+from the darkening afternoon. She greeted Ralph warmly, for he was a
+very familiar figure to them all by now, and soon began to talk, when he
+had taken a seat by the wide open fireplace whence the flames flickered
+out, casting shadows and lights round the high room, across the
+high-hung tapestries and in the gloomy corners.
+
+"Beatrice is here," she said presently, "upstairs with father. I think
+she is doing some copying for him."
+
+"She is a great deal with him," observed Ralph.
+
+"Why, yes; father thinks so much of her. He says that none can write so
+well as she, or has such a quick brain. And then she does not talk, he
+says, nor ask foolish woman-questions like the rest of us." And Margaret
+glanced up a moment, smiling.
+
+"I suppose I must not go up," said Ralph, a little peevishly; for he was
+tired with his long day.
+
+"Why, no, you must not," said Margaret, "but she will be down soon, Mr.
+Torridon."
+
+There was silence for a moment or two; and then Margaret spoke again.
+
+"Mr. Torridon," she said, "may I say something?" Ralph made a little
+sound of assent. The warmth of the fire was making him sleepy.
+
+"Well, it is this," said Margaret slowly, "I think you believe that
+Beatrice does not like you. That is not true. She is very fond of you;
+she thinks a great deal of you," she added, rather hastily.
+
+Ralph sat up; his drowsiness was gone.
+
+"How do you know that, Mrs. Roper?" he asked. His voice sounded
+perfectly natural, and Margaret was reassured at the tone of it. She
+could not see Ralph well; it was getting dark now.
+
+"I know it well," she said. "Of course we talk of you when you are
+gone."
+
+"And does Mrs. Beatrice talk of me?"
+
+"Not so much," said Margaret, "but she listens very closely; and asks us
+questions sometimes." The girl's heart was beating with excitement as
+she spoke; but she had made up her mind to seek this opportunity. It
+seemed a pity, she thought, that two friends of hers should so
+misunderstood one another.
+
+"And what kind of questions?" asked Ralph again.
+
+"She wonders--what you really think--" went on Margaret slowly, bending
+down over her embroidery, and punctuating her words with
+stitches--"about--about affairs--and--and she said one day that--"
+
+"Well?" said Ralph in the same tone.
+
+"That she thought you were not so severe as you seemed," ended Margaret,
+her voice a little tremulous with amusement.
+
+Ralph sat perfectly still, staring at the great fire-plate on which a
+smoky Phoebus in relief drove the chariot of the sun behind the tall
+wavering flames that rose from the burning logs. He knew very well why
+Margaret had spoken, and that she would not speak without reason; but
+the fact revealed was so bewilderingly new to him that he could not take
+it in. Margaret looked at him once or twice a little uneasily; and at
+last sighed.
+
+"It is too dark," she said, "I must fetch candles."
+
+She slipped out of the side-door that led to the servants' quarters, and
+Ralph was left alone. All his weariness was gone now; the whirl of
+images and schemes with which his brain had been seething as he walked
+up the river-bank half-an-hour before, had receded into obscurity; and
+one dominating thought filled their place: What if Margaret were right?
+And what did he mean to do himself? Surely he was not--
+
+The door from the entrance passage opened, and a tall slender figure
+stood there, now in light, now in shadow, as the flames rose and fell.
+
+"Meg," said a voice.
+
+Ralph sat still a moment longer.
+
+"Meg," said Beatrice again, "how dark you are."
+
+Ralph stood up.
+
+"Mrs Roper has just gone," he said, "you must put up with me, Mrs.
+Beatrice."
+
+"Who is it?" said the girl advancing. "Mr. Torridon?"
+
+She had a paper in her hand as she came across the floor, and Ralph drew
+out a chair for her on the other side of the hearth.
+
+"Yes," he said. "Mrs. Roper has gone for lights. She will be back
+immediately."
+
+Beatrice sat down.
+
+"It is a troublesome word," she said. "Master More cannot read it
+himself, and has sent me to ask Meg. He says that every dutiful daughter
+should be able to read her father's hand."
+
+And Ralph could see a faint amused smile in her black eyes, as the
+firelight shone on them.
+
+"Master More always has an escape ready," he said, as he too sat down.
+
+The girl's hand holding the paper suddenly dropped on to her knee, and
+the man saw she was looking at him oddly.
+
+"Yes?" he said interrogatively; and then--
+
+"Why do you look at me like that, Mrs. Beatrice?"
+
+"It is what you said. Do you really think that, Mr. Torridon?"
+
+Ralph was bewildered for a moment.
+
+"I do not understand," he said.
+
+"Do you truly think he always has an escape ready?" repeated the girl.
+
+Then Ralph understood.
+
+"You mean he is in danger," he said steadily. "Well, of course he is.
+There is no great man that is not. But I do not see why he should not
+escape as he has always done."
+
+"You think that, Mr. Torridon?"
+
+"Why, yes;" went on Ralph, a little hastily. "You remember the matter
+of the bribe. See how he cleared himself. Surely, Mrs. Beatrice--"
+
+"And you really think so," said the girl. "I know that you know what we
+do not; and I shall believe what you say."
+
+"How can I tell?" remonstrated Ralph. "I can only tell you that in this
+matter I know nothing that you do not. Master More is under no
+suspicion."
+
+Beatrice drew a breath of relief.
+
+"I am glad I spoke to you, sir," she said. "It has been on my mind. And
+something that he said a few minutes ago frightened me."
+
+"What did he say?" asked Ralph curiously.
+
+"Ah! it was not much. It was that no man knew what might come next; that
+matters were very strange and dismaying--and--and that he wanted this
+paper copied quickly, for fear--"
+
+The girl stopped again, abruptly.
+
+"I know what you feel, Mrs. Beatrice," said Ralph gently. "I know how
+you love Master More, and how terrified we may become for our friends."
+
+"What do you think yourself, Mr. Torridon," she said suddenly, almost
+interrupting him.
+
+He looked at her doubtfully a moment, and half wished that Margaret
+would come back.
+
+"That is a wide question," he said.
+
+"Well, you know what I mean," she said coolly, completely herself again.
+She was sitting back in her chair now, drawing the paper serenely to and
+fro between her fingers; and he could see the firelight on her chin and
+brows, and those steady eyes watching him. He had an impulse of
+confidence.
+
+"I do think changes are coming," he said. "I suppose we all do."
+
+"And you approve?"
+
+"Oh! how can I say off-hand?--But I think changes are needed."
+
+She was looking down at the fire again now, and did not speak for a
+moment.
+
+"Master More said you were of the new school," she said meditatively.
+
+Ralph felt a curious thrill of exultation. Margaret was right then; this
+girl had been thinking about him.
+
+"There is certainly a stirring," he said; and his voice was a little
+restrained.
+
+"Oh, I am not blind or deaf," said the girl. "Of course, there is a
+stirring--but I wondered--"
+
+Then Margaret came in with the candles.
+
+Ralph went away that evening more excited than he liked. It seemed as if
+Mistress Roper's words had set light to a fire ready laid, and he could
+perceive the warmth beginning to move about his heart and odd wavering
+lights flickering on his circumstances and business that had not been
+there before.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He received his first letter from Beatrice a few weeks later, and it
+threw him into a strait between his personal and official claims.
+
+Cromwell at this time was exceedingly occupied with quelling the ardour
+of the House of Lords, who were requesting that the Holy Maid of Kent
+and her companions might have an opportunity of defending themselves
+before the Act of Attainder ordered by the King was passed against them;
+but he found time to tell his agent that trouble was impending over More
+and Fisher; and to request him to hand in any evidence that he might
+have against the former.
+
+"I suppose we shall have to let the Bishop off with a fine," said the
+minister, "in regard to the Maid's affair; but we shall catch him
+presently over the Act; and Mr. More is clear of it. But we shall have
+him too in a few days. Put down what you have to say, Mr. Torridon, and
+let me have it this evening."
+
+And then he rustled off down the staircase to where his carriage was
+waiting to take him to Westminster, where he proposed to tell the
+scrupulous peers that the King was not accustomed to command twice, and
+that to suspect his Grace of wishing them to do an injustice was a piece
+of insolence that neither himself nor his royal master had expected of
+them.
+
+Ralph was actually engaged in putting down his very scanty accusations
+against Sir Thomas More when the letter from Beatrice was brought up to
+him. He read it through twice in silence; and then ordered the courier
+to wait below. When the servant had left the room, he read it through a
+third time.
+
+It was not long; but it was pregnant.
+
+"I entreat you, sir," wrote the girl, "for the love of Jesu, to let us
+know if anything is designed against our friend. Three weeks ago you
+told me it was not so; I pray God that may be true still. I know that
+you would not lift a finger against him yourself--" (Ralph glanced at
+his own neat little list at these words, and bit his pen)--"but I wish
+you to do what you can for him and for us all." Then followed an
+erasure.
+
+Ralph carried the paper to the window, flattened it against the panes
+and read clearly the words, "If my" under the scratching lines, and
+smiled to himself as he guessed what the sentence was that she was
+beginning.
+
+Then the letter continued.
+
+"I hear on good authority that there is something against him. He will
+not escape; and will do nothing on such hearsay, but only tells us to
+trust God, and laughs at us all. Good Mr. Torridon, do what you can.
+Your loving friend, B.A."
+
+Ralph went back from the window where he was still standing, and sat
+down again, bending his head into his hands. He had no sort of scruples
+against lying as such or betraying Mr. More's private conversation; his
+whole training was directed against such foolishness, and he had learnt
+at last from Cromwell's incessant precept and example that the good of
+the State over-rode all private interests. But he had a disinclination
+to lie to Beatrice; and he felt simply unable to lose her friendship by
+telling her the truth.
+
+As he sat there perfectly still, the servant peeped in once softly to
+see if the answer was ready, and noiselessly withdrew. Ralph did not
+stir; but still sat on, pressing his eyeballs till they ached and fiery
+rings twisted before him in the darkness. Then he abruptly sat up,
+blinked a moment or two, took up a pen, bit it again, and laid it down
+and sat eyeing the two papers that lay side by side on his desk.
+
+He took up his own list, and read it through. After all, it was very
+insignificant, and contained no more than minute scraps of conversation
+that Sir Thomas More had let drop. He had called Queen Katharine "poor
+woman" three or four times; had expressed a reverence for the Pope of
+Rome half a dozen times, and had once called him the Vicar of Christ. He
+had been silent when someone had mentioned Anne Boleyn's name; he had
+praised the Carthusians and the Religious Life generally, at some
+length.
+
+They were the kind of remarks that might mean nothing or a great deal;
+they were consistent with loyalty; they were not inconsistent with
+treason; in fact they were exactly the kind of material out of which
+serious accusations might be manufactured by a skilled hand, though as
+they stood they proved nothing.
+
+A further consideration to Ralph was his duty to Cromwell; he scarcely
+felt it seemly to lie whole-heartedly to him; and on the other hand he
+felt now simply unable to lie to Beatrice. There was only one way out of
+it,--to prevaricate to them both.
+
+He took up his own paper, glanced at it once more; and then with a
+slightly dramatic gesture tore it across and across, and threw it on the
+ground. Then he took up his pen and wrote to Beatrice.
+
+"I have only had access to one paper against our friend--that I have
+destroyed, though I do not know what Master Cromwell will say. But I
+tell you this to show at what a price I value your friendship.
+
+"Of course our friend is threatened. Who is not in these days? But I
+swear to you that I do not know what is the design."
+
+He added a word or two more for politeness' sake, prayed that "God might
+have her in His keeping," and signed himself as she had done, her
+"loving friend."
+
+Then he dried the ink with his pounce box, sealed the letter with great
+care, and took it down to the courier himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He faced Cromwell in the evening with a good deal of terror, but with
+great adroitness; swore positively that More had said nothing actually
+treasonable, and had found, on putting pen to paper, that the
+accusations were flimsier than he thought.
+
+"But it is your business to see that they be not so," stormed his
+master. Ralph paused a moment respectfully.
+
+"I cannot make a purse out of a sow's ear, sir. I must have at least
+some sort of silk."
+
+When Cromwell had ceased to walk up and down, Ralph pointed out with
+considerable shrewdness that he did not suppose that his evidence was
+going to form the main ground of the attack on More; and that it would
+merely weaken the position to bring such feeble arguments to bear.
+
+"Why he would tear them to shreds, sir, in five minutes; he would make
+out that they were our principal grounds--he is a skilled lawyer. If I
+may dare to say so, Master Cromwell, let your words against Mr. More be
+few and choice."
+
+This was bolder speaking than he had ever ventured on before; but
+Cromwell was in a good humour. The peers had proved tractable and had
+agreed to pass the attainder against Elizabeth Barton without any more
+talk of justice and the accused's right of defence; and he looked now at
+Ralph with a grim approval.
+
+"I believe you are right, Mr. Torridon. I will think, over it."
+
+A week later the blow fell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cromwell looked up at him one Sunday evening as he came into the room,
+with his papers, and without any greeting spoke at once.
+
+"I wish you to go to Lambeth House to-morrow morning early, Mr.
+Torridon. Master More is to be there to have the Oath of Succession
+tendered to him with the others. Do your best to persuade him to take
+it; be his true friend."
+
+A little grim amusement shone in his eyes as he spoke. Ralph looked at
+him a moment.
+
+"I mean it, Mr. Torridon: do your best. I wish him to think you his
+friend."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Ralph went across the Thames in a wherry the following morning, he
+was still thinking out the situation. Apparently Cromwell wished to keep
+in friendly touch with More; and this now, of course, was only possible
+through Ralph, and would have been impossible if the latter's evidence
+had been used, or were going to be used. It was a relief to him to know
+that the consummation of his treachery was postponed at least for the
+present; (but he would not have called it treachery).
+
+As Lambeth towers began to loom ahead, Ralph took out Beatrice's letter
+that had come in answer to his own a few days before, and ran his eyes
+over it. It was a line of passionate thanks and blessing. Surely he had
+reached her hidden heart at last. He put the letter back in his inner
+pocket, just before he stepped ashore. It no doubt would be a useful
+evidence of his own sincerity in his interview with More.
+
+There was a great crowd in the court as he passed through, for many were
+being called to take the oath, which, however, was not made strictly
+legal until the following Second Act in the autumn. Several carriages
+were drawn up near the house door, and among them Ralph recognised the
+liveries of his master and of Lord Chancellor Audley. A number of horses
+and mules too were tethered to rings in the wall on the other side with
+grooms beside them, and ecclesiastics and secretaries were coming and
+going, disputing in groups, calling to one another, in the pleasant
+April sunshine.
+
+On enquiry he found that the Commissioners were sitting in one of the
+downstair parlours; but one of Cromwell's servants at the door told him
+that he was not to go in there, but that Mr. More was upstairs by
+himself, and that if he pleased he would show him the way.
+
+It was an old room looking on to the garden, scantily furnished, with a
+patch of carpet by the window and a table and chair set upon it. More
+turned round from the window-seat on which he was kneeling to look out,
+and smiled genially as Ralph heard the servant close the door.
+
+"Why, Mr. Torridon, are you in trouble too? This is the detention-room
+whither I am sent to consider myself."
+
+He led Ralph, still holding his hand, to the window-seat, where he
+leaned again looking eagerly into the garden.
+
+"There go the good boys," he said, "to and fro in the playground; and
+here sit I. I suppose I have nothing but the rod to look for."
+
+Ralph felt a little awkward in the presence of this gaiety; and for a
+minute or two leaned out beside More, staring mechanically at the
+figures that passed up and down. He had expected almost to find him at
+his prayers, or at least thoughtfully considering himself.
+
+More commented agreeably on the passers-by.
+
+"Dr. Wilson was here a moment ago; but he is off now, with a man on
+either side. He too is a naughty fellow like myself, and will not listen
+to reason. There is the Vicar of Croydon, good man, coming out of the
+buttery wiping his mouth."
+
+Ralph looked down at the priest's flushed excited face; he was talking
+with a kind of reckless gaiety to a friend who walked beside him.
+
+"He was sad enough just now," went on the other, "while he was still
+obstinate; but his master hath patted him on the head now and given him
+cake and wine. He was calling out for a drink just now (which he hath
+got, I see) either for gladness or for dryness, or else that we might
+know _quod ille notus erat pontifici_."
+
+Dr. Latimer passed presently, his arms on either side flung round a
+priest's neck; he too was talking volubly and laughing; and the skirts
+of his habit wagged behind him.
+
+"He is in high feather," said More, "and I have no doubt that his
+conscience is as clear as his eyes. Come, Mr. Torridon; sit you down.
+What have you come for?"
+
+Ralph sat back on the window-seat with his back to the light, and his
+hat between his knees.
+
+"I came to see you, sir; I have not been to the Commissioners. I heard
+you were here."
+
+"Why, yes," said More, "here I am."
+
+"I came to see if I could be of any use to you, Master More; I know a
+friend's face is a good councillor sometimes, even though that friend be
+a fool."
+
+More patted him softly on the knee.
+
+"No fool," he said, "far from it."
+
+He looked at him so oddly that Ralph feared that he suspected him; so he
+made haste to bring out Beatrice's letter.
+
+"Mistress Atherton has written me this," he said. "I was able to do her
+a little service--at least I thought it so then."
+
+More took the letter and glanced at it.
+
+"A very pretty letter," he said, "and why do you show it me?"
+
+Ralph looked at him steadily.
+
+"Because I am Master Cromwell's servant; and you never forget it."
+
+More burst into a fit of laughter; and then took Ralph kindly by the
+hand.
+
+"You are either very innocent or very deep," he said. "And what have you
+come to ask me?"
+
+"I have come to ask nothing, Master More," said Ralph indignantly,
+withdrawing his hand--"except to be of service to you."
+
+"To talk about the oath," corrected the other placidly. "Very well then.
+Do you begin, Mr. Torridon."
+
+Ralph made a great effort, for he was sorely perplexed by Sir Thomas'
+attitude, and began to talk, putting all the reasons forward that he
+could think of for the accepting of the oath. He pointed out that
+government and allegiance would be impossible things if every man had to
+examine for himself the claims of his rulers; when vexed and elaborate
+questions arose--and this certainly was one such--was it not safer to
+follow the decrees of the King and Parliament, rather than to take up a
+position of private judgment, and decide upon details of which a subject
+could have no knowledge? How, too, could More, under the circumstances,
+take upon himself to condemn those who had subscribed the oath?--he
+named a few eminent prelates, the Abbot of Westminster and others.
+
+"I do not condemn them," put in More, who was looking interested.
+
+"Then you are uncertain of the matter?" went on Ralph who had thought
+out his line of argument with some care.
+
+More assented.
+
+"But your duty to the King's grace is certain; therefore it should
+outweigh a thing that is doubtful."
+
+Sir Thomas sucked in his lower lip, and stared gravely on the young
+man.
+
+"You are very shrewd, sir," he said. "I do not know how to answer that
+at this moment; but I have no reasonable doubt but that there is an
+answer."
+
+Ralph was delighted with his advantage, and pursued it eagerly; and
+after a few minutes had won from More an acknowledgment that he might be
+willing to consider the taking of the oath itself; it was the other
+clauses that touched his conscience more. He could swear to be loyal to
+Anne's children; but he could not assent to the denunciation of the Pope
+contained in the preamble of the Act, and the oath would commit him to
+that.
+
+"But you will tell that to the Commissioners, sir?" asked Ralph eagerly.
+
+"I will tell them all that I have told you," said More smiling.
+
+Ralph himself was somewhat doubtful as to whether the concession would
+be accepted; but he professed great confidence, and secretly
+congratulated himself with having made so much way. But presently a
+remark of More's showed that he appreciated the situation.
+
+"I am very grateful to you, Mr. Torridon, for coming and talking to me;
+and I shall tell my wife and children so. But it is of no use. They are
+resolved to catch me. First there was the bribe; then the matter of the
+Maid; then this; and if I took a hundred oaths they would find one more
+that I could not, without losing my soul; and that indeed I do not
+propose to do. _Quid enim proficit homo?_"
+
+There was a knock at the door a moment later, and a servant came in to
+beg Mr. More to come downstairs again; the Commissioners were ready for
+him.
+
+"Then good-day, Mr. Torridon. You will come and see me sometimes, even
+if not at Chelsea. Wherever I may be it will be as nigh heaven as
+Chelsea."
+
+Ralph went down with him, and parted from him at the door of the
+Commissioner's room; and half-an-hour later a message was sent out to
+him by Cromwell that he need wait no longer; Mr. More had refused the
+oath, and had been handed over to the custody of the Abbot of
+Westminster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A MERRY PRISONER
+
+
+The arrest of Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher and their committal to
+the Tower a few days later caused nothing less than consternation in
+England and of furious indignation on the Continent. It was evident that
+greatness would save no man; the best hope lay in obscurity, and men who
+had been loud in self-assertion now grew timorous and silent.
+
+Ralph was now in the thick of events. Besides his connection with More,
+he had been present at one of the examinations of the Maid of Kent and
+her admirers; had formed one of the congregation at Paul's Cross when
+the confession drawn up for her had been read aloud in her name by Dr.
+Capon, who from the pulpit opposite the platform where the penitents
+were set, preached a vigorous sermon against credulity and superstition.
+Ralph had read the confession over a couple of days before in Cromwell's
+room, and had suggested a few verbal alterations; and he had been
+finally present, a few days after More's arrest, at the last scene of
+the drama, when Elizabeth Barton, with six priests, suffered, under the
+provisions of an act of attainder, on Tyburn gallows.
+
+All these events were indications of the course that things were taking
+in regard to greater matters. Parliament had now advanced further than
+ever in the direction of a breach with Rome, and had transferred the
+power of nomination to bishoprics from the Holy See to the Crown, and,
+what was as least as significant, had dealt in a similar manner with the
+authority over Religious houses.
+
+On the other side, Rome had declared definitely against the annulling of
+Queen Katharine's marriage, and to this the King had retorted by turning
+the pulpits against the Pope, and in the course of this had found
+himself compelled to deal sharply with the Franciscans, who were at the
+same time the most popular and the most papal of all preachers. In the
+following out of this policy, first several notable friars were
+imprisoned, and next a couple of subservient Religious, a Dominican and
+an Augustinian, were appointed grand visitors of the rebellious Order.
+
+A cloud of terror now began to brood over the Religious houses in
+England, as the news of these proceedings became known, and Ralph had a
+piteous letter from his father, entreating him to give some explanation
+of the course of affairs so far as was compatible with loyalty to his
+master, and at least his advice as to Christopher's profession.
+
+"We hear sad tales, dear son," wrote Sir James, "on all sides are fears,
+and no man knows what the end will be. Some even say that the Orders
+will be reduced in number. And who knows what may be toward now that the
+Bishop and Mr. More are in trouble. I know not what is all this that
+Parliament has been doing about the Holy Father his authority; but I am
+sure that it cannot be more than what other reigns have brought about in
+declaring that the Prince is temporal lord of his land. But, however
+that may be, what do you advise that your brother should do? He is to be
+professed in August, unless it is prevented, and I dare not put out my
+hand to hinder it, until I know more. I do not ask you, dear son, to
+tell me what you should not; I know my duty and yours too well for that.
+But I entreat you to tell me what you can, that I may not consent to
+your brother's profession if it is better that it should not take place
+until affairs are quieter. Your mother would send you her dear love, I
+know, if she knew I were writing, but she is in her chamber, and the
+messenger must go with this. Jesu have you in His blessed keeping!"
+
+Ralph wrote back that he knew no reason against Christopher's
+profession, except what might arise from the exposure of the Holy Maid
+on whose advice he had gone to Lewes, and that if his father and brother
+were satisfied on that score, he hoped that Christopher would follow
+God's leading.
+
+At the same time that he wrote this he was engaged, under Cromwell's
+directions, in sifting the evidence offered by the grand visitors to
+show that the friars refused to accept the new enactments on the subject
+of the papal jurisdiction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the other hand, the Carthusians in London had proved more submissive.
+There had been a struggle at first when the oath of the succession had
+been tendered to them, and Prior Houghton, with the Procurator, Humphrey
+Middlemore, had been committed to the Tower. The oath affirmed the
+nullity of Queen Katharine's marriage with the King on the alleged
+ground of her consummated marriage with Henry's elder brother, and
+involved, though the Carthusians did not clearly understand it so at the
+time, a rejection of the Pope's authority as connected with the
+dispensation for Katharine's union with Henry. In May their scruples
+were removed by the efforts of some who had influence with them, and the
+whole community took the oath as required of them, though with the
+pathetic addition of a clause that they only submitted "so far as it
+was lawful for them so to do." This actual submission, to Cromwell's
+mind and therefore to Ralph's, was at first of more significance than
+was the uneasy temper of the community, as reported to them, which
+followed their compliance; but as the autumn drew on this opinion was
+modified.
+
+It was in connection with this that Ralph became aware for the first
+time of what was finally impending with regard to the King's supremacy
+over the Church.
+
+He had been sitting in Cromwell's room in the Chancery all through one
+morning, working at the evidence that was flowing in from all sides of
+disaffection to Henry's policy, sifting out worthless and frivolous
+charges from serious ones. Every day a flood of such testimony poured in
+from the spies in all parts of the country, relating to the deepening
+dissatisfaction with the method of government; and Cromwell, as the
+King's adviser, came in for much abuse. Every kind of manifestation of
+this was reported, the talk in the ale-houses and at gentlemen's tables
+alike, words dropped in the hunting-field or over a game of cards; and
+the offenders were dealt with in various ways, some by a sharp rebuke or
+warning, others by a sudden visit of a pursuivant and his men.
+
+Ralph made his report as usual at the end of the morning, and was on the
+point of leaving, when his master called him back from the door.
+
+"A moment," he said, "I have something to say. Sit down."
+
+When Ralph had taken the chair again that he had just left, Cromwell
+took up a pen, and began to play with it delicately as he talked.
+
+"You will have noticed," he began, "how hot the feeling runs in the
+country, and I am sure you will also have understood why it is so. It
+is not so much what has happened,--I mean in the matter of the marriage
+and of the friars,--but what folk fear is going to happen. It seems to
+the people that security is disappearing; they do not understand that
+their best security lies in obedience. And, above all, they think that
+matters are dangerous with regard to the Church. They know now that the
+Pope has spoken, and that the King pays no heed, but, on the other hand,
+waxes more bold. And that because his conscience bids him. Remember
+that, sir, when you have to do with his Highness."
+
+He glanced at Ralph again, but there was no mockery in his solemn eyes.
+Then he went on.
+
+"I am going to tell you, Mr. Torridon, that these folks are partly
+right, and that his Grace has not yet done all that he intends. There is
+yet one more step to take--and that is to declare the King supreme over
+the Church of England."
+
+Ralph felt those strong eyes bent upon him, and he nodded, making no
+sign of approval or otherwise.
+
+"This is no new thing, Mr. Torridon," went on Cromwell, after a moment's
+silence. "The King of England has always been supreme, though I will
+acknowledge that this has become obscured of late. But it is time that
+it be re-affirmed. The Popes have waxed presumptuous, and have laid
+claim to titles that Christ never gave them, and it is time that they be
+reminded that England is free, and will not suffer their domination. As
+for the unity of the Catholic Church, that can be attended to later on,
+and on firmer ground; when the Pope has been taught not to wax so proud.
+There will be an Act passed by Parliament presently, perhaps next year,
+to do this business, and then we shall know better what to do. Until
+that, it is very necessary, as you have already seen, to keep the folks
+quiet, and not to suffer any contradiction of his Grace's rights. Do you
+understand me, Mr. Torridon?"
+
+Cromwell laid the pen clown and leaned back in his chair, with his
+fingers together.
+
+"I understand, sir," said Ralph, in a perfectly even tone.
+
+"Well, that is all that I have to say," ended his master, still watching
+him. "I need not tell you how necessary secrecy is in the matter."
+
+Ralph was considerably startled as he went home, and realized better
+what it was that he had heard. While prudent persons were already
+trembling at the King's effrontery and daring in the past, Henry was
+meditating a yet further step. He began to see now that the instinct of
+the country was, as always, sharper than that of the individual, and
+that these uneasy strivings everywhere rose from a very definite
+perception of danger. The idea of the King's supremacy, as represented
+by Cromwell, would not seem to be a very startling departure; similar
+protests of freedom had been made in previous reigns, but now, following
+as it did upon overt acts of disobedience to the Sovereign Pontiff, and
+of disregard of his authority in matters of church-law and even of the
+status of Religious houses, it seemed to have a significance that
+previous protests had lacked.
+
+And behind it all was the King's conscience! This was a new thought to
+Ralph, but the more he considered it the more it convinced him. It was a
+curious conscience, but a mighty one, and it was backed by an
+indomitable will. For the first time there opened out to Ralph's mind a
+glimpse of the possibility that he had scarcely dreamed of hitherto--of
+a Nationalism in Church affairs that was a reality rather than a
+theory--in which the Bishop of Rome while yet the foremost bishop of
+Christendom and endowed with special prerogatives, yet should have no
+finger in national affairs, which should be settled by the home
+authorities without reference to him. No doubt, he told himself, a
+readjustment was needed--visions and fancies had encrusted themselves so
+quickly round the religion credible by a practical man that a scouring
+was called for. How if this should be the method by which not only such
+accretions should be done away, but yet more practical matters should be
+arranged, and steps taken to amend the unwarranted interferences and
+pecuniary demands of this foreign bishop?
+
+He had had more than one interview with Sir Thomas More in the Tower,
+and once was able to take him news of his own household at Chelsea. For
+a month none of his own people, except his servant, was allowed to visit
+him, and Ralph, calling on him about three weeks after the beginning of
+his imprisonment, found him eager for news.
+
+He was in a sufficiently pleasant cell in the Beauchamp Tower, furnished
+with straw mats underfoot, and straw hangings in place of a wainscot;
+his bed stood in one corner, with his crucifix and beads on a little
+table beside it, and his narrow window looked out through eleven feet of
+wall towards the Court and the White Tower. His books, too, which his
+servant, John Wood, had brought from Chelsea, and which had not yet been
+taken from him, stood about the room, and several lay on the table among
+his papers, at which he was writing when Ralph was admitted by the
+warder.
+
+"I am very glad to see you, Mr. Torridon," he said, "I knew you would
+not forget an old friend, even though he could not take your counsel. I
+daresay you have come to give it me again, however."
+
+"If I thought you would take it," began Ralph.
+
+"But I will not," said More smiling, "no more than before. Sit down, Mr.
+Torridon."
+
+Ralph had come at Cromwell's suggestion, and with a very great
+willingness of his own, too. He knew he could not please Beatrice more
+than by visiting her friend, and he himself was pleased and amused to
+think that he could serve his master's interests from one side and his
+own from another by one action.
+
+He talked a little about the oath again, and mentioned how many had
+taken it during the last week or two.
+
+"I am pleased that they can do it with a good conscience," observed
+More. "And now let us talk of other matters. If I would not do it for my
+daughter's sake, who begged me, I would not do it for the sake of both
+the Houses of Parliament, nor even, dear Mr. Torridon, for yours and
+Master Cromwell's."
+
+Ralph saw that it was of no use, and began to speak of other things. He
+gave him news of Chelsea.
+
+"They are not very merry there," he said, "and I hardly suppose you
+would wish them to be."
+
+"Why not?" cried More, with a beaming face, "I am merry enough. I would
+not be a monk; so God hath compelled me to be one, and treats me as one
+of His own spoilt children. He setteth me on His lap and dandleth me. I
+have never been so happy."
+
+He told Ralph presently that his chief sorrow was that he could not go
+to mass or receive the sacraments. The Lieutenant, Sir Edward
+Walsingham, who had been his friend, had told him that he would very
+gladly have given him liberties of this kind, but that he dared not, for
+fear of the King's displeasure.
+
+"But I told him," said More, "not to trouble himself that I liked his
+cheer well enough as it was, and if ever I did not he was to put me out
+of his doors."
+
+After a little more talk he showed Ralph what he was writing. It was a
+treatise called a "Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation."
+
+"It is to persuade myself," he said, "that I am no more a prisoner than
+I was before; I know I am, but sometimes forget it. We are all God's
+prisoners."
+
+Ralph glanced down the page just written and was astonished at its good
+humour.
+
+"Some prisoner of another gaol," he read, "singeth, danceth in his two
+fetters, and feareth not his feet for stumbling at a stone; while God's
+prisoner, that hath but his one foot fettered by the gout, lieth
+groaning on a couch, and quaketh and crieth out if he fear there would
+fall on his foot no more than a cushion."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph went straight up the river from the Tower to Chelsea to take them
+news of the prisoner, and was silent and moody as he went. He had been
+half touched and half enraged by More's bearing--touched by his
+simplicity and cheerfulness and enraged by his confidence in a bad
+cause.
+
+Mrs. Alice More behaved as usual when he got there: she had a genius for
+the obvious; commented on the weariness of living in one room, the
+distress at the thought that one was fastened in at the will of another;
+deplored the plainness of the prison fare, and the folly of her husband
+in refusing an oath that she herself and her children and the vast
+majority of the prominent persons in England had found so simple in
+accepting. She left nothing unsaid.
+
+Finally, she apologized for the plainness of her dress.
+
+"You must think me a slattern, Mr. Torridon, but I cannot help it. I
+have not the heart nor the means, now that my man is in prison, to do
+better."
+
+And her solemn eyes filled with tears.
+
+When he had given the news to the family he went aside from the group in
+the garden to where Beatrice Atherton was sitting below the Jesu tree,
+with work on her lap.
+
+He had noticed as he talked that she was sitting there, and had raised
+his voice for her benefit. He fancied, and with a pleasure at the
+delicate instinct, that she did not wish to appear as intimately
+interested in the news from the Tower as those who had a better right to
+be. He was always detecting now faint shades in her character, as he
+knew her better, that charmed and delighted him.
+
+She was doing some mending, and only glanced up and down again without
+ceasing or moving, as Ralph stood by her.
+
+"I thought you never used the needle," he began in a moment.
+
+"It is never too late to mend," she said, without the faintest movement.
+
+Ralph felt again an odd prick of happiness. It gave him a distinct
+thrill of delight that she would make such an answer and so swiftly; and
+at such a time, when tragedy was round her and in her heart, for he knew
+how much she loved the man from whom he had just come.
+
+He sat down on the garden chair opposite, and watched her fingers and
+the movements of her wrist as she passed the needle in and out, and
+neither spoke again till the others had dispersed.
+
+"You heard all I said?" said Ralph at last.
+
+She bowed her head without answering.
+
+"Shall I go and bring you news again presently?"
+
+"If you please," she said.
+
+"I hope to be able to do some little things for him," went on Ralph,
+dropping his eyes, and he was conscious that she momentarily looked up.
+
+--"But I am afraid there is not much. I shall speak for him to Master
+Cromwell and the Lieutenant."
+
+The needle paused and then went on again.
+
+Ralph was conscious of an extraordinary momentousness in every word that
+he said. He was well aware that this girl was not to be wooed by
+violence, but that he must insinuate his mind and sympathies delicately
+with hers, watching for every movement and ripple of thought. He had
+known ever since his talk with Margaret Roper that Beatrice was, as it
+were, turned towards him and scrutinising him, and that any mistake on
+his part, however slight, might finally alienate her. Even his gestures,
+the tones of his voice, his manner of walking, were important elements.
+He knew now that he was the kind of person who might be acceptable to
+her--or rather that his personality contained one facet that pleased
+her, and that he must be careful now to keep that facet turned towards
+her continually at such an angle that she caught the flash. He had
+sufficient sense, not to act a part, for that, he knew, she would soon
+discover, but to be natural in his best way, and to use the fine
+instincts that he was aware of possessing to tell him exactly how she
+would wish him to express himself. It would be a long time yet, he
+recognised, before he could attain his final object; in fact he was not
+perfectly certain what he wanted; but meanwhile he availed himself of
+every possible opportunity to get nearer, and was content with his
+progress.
+
+He was sorely tempted now to discuss Sir Thomas's position and to
+describe his own, but he perceived from her own aloofness just now that
+it would seem a profanity, so he preserved silence instead, knowing that
+it would be eloquent to her. At last she spoke again, and there was a
+suggestion of a tremor in her voice.
+
+"I suppose you can do nothing for him really? He must stay in the
+Tower?"
+
+Ralph threw out his hands, silently, expostulating.
+
+"Nothing?" she said again, bending over her work.
+
+Ralph stood up, looking down at her, but made no answer.
+
+"I--I would do anything," she said deliberately, "anything, I think, for
+the man--" and then broke off abruptly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph went away from Chelsea that afternoon with a whirling head and
+dancing heart. She had said no more than that, but he knew what she had
+meant, and knew, too that she would not have said as much to anyone to
+whom she was indifferent. Of course, it was hopeless to think of
+bringing about More's release, but he could at least pretend to try, and
+Ralph was aware that to chivalrous souls a pathetic failure often
+appeals more than an excellent success.
+
+Folks turned to look after him more than once as he strode home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A HIGHER STEP
+
+
+As Chris, on the eve of his profession, looked back over the year that
+had passed since his reception at the guest-house, he scarcely knew
+whether it seemed like a week or a century. At times it appeared as if
+the old life in the world were a kind of far-away picture in which he
+saw himself as one detached from his present personality, moving among
+curious scenes in which now he had no part; at other times the familiar
+past rushed on him fiercely, deafened him with its appeal, and claimed
+him as its own. In such moods the monastery was an intolerable prison,
+the day's round an empty heart-breaking formality in which his soul was
+being stifled, and even his habit, which he had once touched so
+reverently, the badge of a fool.
+
+The life of the world at such times seemed to him the only sanity; these
+men used the powers that God had given them, were content with simple
+and unostentatious doings and interests, reached the higher vocation by
+their very naivet�, and did not seek to fly on wings that were not meant
+to bear them. How sensible, Christopher told himself, was Ralph's ideal!
+God had made the world, so Ralph lived in it--a world in which great and
+small affairs were carried on, and in which he interested himself. God
+had made horses and hawks, had provided materials for carriages and fine
+clothes and cross-bows, had formed the sexes and allowed for love and
+domestic matters, had created brains with their capacities of passion
+and intellect; and so Ralph had taken these things as he found them,
+hunted, dressed, lived, managed and mixed with men. At times in his cell
+Chris saw that imposing figure in all its quiet bravery of dress, that
+sane, clever face, those pitying and contemptuous eyes looking at him,
+and heard the well-bred voice asking and commenting and wondering at the
+misguided zeal of a brother who could give all this up, and seek to live
+a life that was built on and sustained by illusions.
+
+One event during his first six months of the novitiate helped to
+solemnise him and to clear the confusion.
+
+Old Dom Augustine was taken sick and died, and Chris for the first time
+in his life watched the melting tragedy of death. The old monk had been
+moved from the dortor to the sick-room when the end seemed imminent, and
+one afternoon Chris noticed the little table set outside the door, with
+its candles and crucifix, the basin of cotton-wool, and the other signs
+that the last sacraments were to be administered. He knew little of the
+old man, except his bleared face and shaking hands as he had seen them
+in choir, and had never been greatly impressed by him; but it was
+another matter when in the evening of the same day, at his master's
+order he passed into the cell and knelt down with the others to see the
+end.
+
+The old monk was lying now on the cross of ashes that had been spread on
+the floor; his features looked pinched and white in the candlelight; his
+old mouth moved incessantly, and opened now and again to gasp; but there
+was an august dignity on his face that Chris had never seen there
+before.
+
+Outside the night was still and frosty; only now and again the heavy
+stroke of the bell told the town that a soul was passing.
+
+Dom Augustine had received Viaticum an hour before. Chris had heard the
+steady tinkle of the bell, like the sound of Aaron's garments, as the
+priest who had brought him Communion passed back with his sacred burden,
+and Chris had fallen on his knees where he stood as he caught a glimpse
+of the white procession passing back to the church, their frosty breath
+going up together in the winter night air, the wheeling shadows, and the
+glare of the torches giving a pleasant warm light in the dull cloister.
+
+But all that was over now, and the end was at hand.
+
+As Chris knelt there, mechanically responding to the prayers on which
+the monk's soul was beginning to lift itself and flutter for escape,
+there fell a great solemnity on his spirit. The thought, as old as
+death, made itself real to him, that this was the end of every man and
+of himself too. Where Dom Augustine lay, he would lie, with his past
+behind him, of which every detail would be instinct with eternal import.
+All the tiny things of the monastic life--the rising in time for the
+night office, attention during it, the responses to grace, the little
+movements prescribed by etiquette, the invisible motions of a soul that
+had or had not acted for the love of God, those stirrings, falls,
+aspirations, that incessant activity of eighty years--all so incredibly
+minute from one point of view, so incredibly weighty from another--the
+account of all those things was to be handed in now, and an eternal
+judgment given.
+
+He looked at the wearied, pained old face again, at the tight-shut eyes,
+the jerking movements of the unshaven lips, and wondered what was
+passing behind;--what strange colloquy of the soul with itself or its
+Master or great personages of the Court of Heaven. And all was set in
+this little bare setting of white walls, a tumbled bed, a shuttered
+window, a guttering candle or two, a cross of ashes on boards, a ring
+of faces, and a murmur of prayers!
+
+The solemnity rose and fell in Chris's soul like a deep organ-note
+sounding and waning. How homely and tender were these last rites, this
+accompaniment of the departing soul to the edge of eternity with all
+that was dear and familiar to it--the drops of holy water, the mellow
+light of candles, and the sonorous soothing Latin! And yet--and yet--how
+powerless to save a soul that had not troubled to make the necessary
+efforts during life, and had lost the power of making them now!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When all was over he went out of the cell with an indescribable gravity at
+his heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the great events in the spring of '34 began to take place, Chris
+was in a period of abstracted peace, and the rumours of them came to him
+as cries from another planet.
+
+Dom Anthony Marks came into the cloister one day from the guest-house
+with a great excitement in his face,
+
+"Here is news!" he said, joining himself to Chris and another young monk
+with whom the lonely novice was sometimes allowed to walk. "Master
+Humphreys, from London, tells me they are all in a ferment there."
+
+Chris looked at him with a deferential coldness, and waited for more.
+
+"They say that Master More hath refused the oath, and that he is lodged
+in the Tower, and my Lord of Rochester too."
+
+The young monk burst into exclamations and questions, but Chris was
+silent. It was sad enough, but what did it matter to him? What did it
+really matter to anyone? God was King.
+
+Dom Anthony was in a hurry, and scuffled off presently to tell the
+Prior, and in an hour or two there was an air of excitement through the
+house. Chris, however, heard nothing more except the little that the
+novice-master chose to tell him, and felt a certain contempt for the
+anxious-eyed monks who broke the silence by whispers behind doors, and
+the peace of the monastery by their perturbed looks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even when a little later in the summer the commissioner came down to
+tender the oath of succession Chris heard little and cared less. He was
+aware of a fine gentleman striding through the cloister, lolling in the
+garth, and occupying a prominent seat in the church; he noticed that his
+master was long in coming to him after the protracted chapter-meetings,
+but it appeared to him all rather an irrelevant matter. These things
+were surely quite apart from the business for which they were all
+gathered in the house--the _opus Dei_ and the salvation of souls; this
+or that legal document did not seriously affect such high matters.
+
+The novice-master told him presently that the community had signed the
+oath, as all others were doing, and that there was no need for anxiety:
+they were in the hands of their Religious Superiors.
+
+"I was not anxious," said Chris abruptly, and Dom James hastened to snub
+him, and to tell him that he ought to have been, but that novices always
+thought they knew everything, and were the chief troubles that Religious
+houses had to put up with.
+
+Chris courteously begged pardon, and went to his lessons wondering what
+in the world all the pother was about.
+
+But such moods of detachment were not continuous they visited him for
+weeks at a time, when his soul was full of consolation, and he was
+amazed that any other life seemed possible to anyone. He seemed to
+himself to have reached the very heart and secret of existence--surely
+it was plain enough; God and eternity were the only things worth
+considering; a life passed in an ecstasy, if such were possible, was
+surely more consonant with reality than one of ordinary activities.
+Activities were, after all, but concessions to human weakness and desire
+for variety; contemplation was the simple and natural attitude of a soul
+that knew herself and God.
+
+But he was a man as well as a novice, and when these moods ebbed from
+his soul they left him strangely bitter and dry: the clouds would
+gather; the wind of discontent would begin to shrill about the angles of
+his spirit, and presently the storm of desolation would be up.
+
+He had one such tempestuous mood immediately before his profession.
+
+During its stress he had received a letter from his father which he was
+allowed to read, in which Sir James half hinted at the advisability of
+postponing the irrevocable step until things were quieter, and his heart
+had leaped at the possibility of escape. He did not know till then how
+strong had grown the motive of appearing well in the eyes of his
+relatives and of fearing to lose their respect by drawing back; and now
+that his father, too, seemed to suggest that he had better re-consider
+himself, it appeared that a door was opened in the high monastery wall
+through which he might go through and take his honour with him.
+
+He passed through a terrible struggle that night.
+
+Never had the night-office seemed so wearisomely barren. The glamour
+that had lighted those dark walls and the double row of cowls and
+down-bent faces, the mystical beauty of the single flames here and
+there that threw patches of light on the carving of the stalls and the
+sombre habits, and gave visibility and significance to what without them
+was obscure, the strange suggestiveness of the high-groined roof and the
+higher vault glimmering through the summer darkness--all this had faded
+and left him, as it seemed, sane and perceptive of facts at last. Out
+there through those transepts lay the town where reasonable folk slept,
+husband and wife together, and the children in the great bed next door,
+with the tranquil ordinary day behind them and its fellow before; there
+were the streets, still now and dark and empty but for the sleeping
+dogs, where the signs swung and the upper stories leaned together, and
+where the common life had been transacted since the birth of the town
+and would continue till its decay. And beyond lay the cool round hills,
+with their dark dewy slopes, over which he had ridden a year ago, and
+all England beyond them again, with its human life and affairs and
+interests; and over all hung the serene stars whence God looked down
+well pleased with all that He had made.
+
+And, meanwhile, here he stood in his stall in his night shoes and black
+habit and cropped head, propped on his misericorde, with the great pages
+open before him, thumbed and greasy at their corners, from which he was
+repeating in a loud monotone formula after formula that had had time to
+grow familiar from repetition, but not yet sweet from associations--here
+he stood with heavy eyelids after his short sleep, his feet aching and
+hot, and his whole soul rebellious.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was sent by his novice-master next day to the Prior, with his
+father's letter in his hand, and stood humbly by the door while the
+Prior read it. Chris watched him under half-raised eye-lids; saw the
+clean-cut profile with its delicate mouth bent over the paper, and the
+hand with the enamelled ring turn the page. Prior Crowham was a
+cultivated, well-bred man, not over strong-willed, but courteous and
+sympathetic. He turned a little to Chris in his carved chair, as he laid
+the letter down.
+
+"Well," he said, smiling, "it is for you to choose whether you will
+offer yourself. Of course, there is uneasiness abroad, as this letter
+says, but what then?"
+
+He smiled pleasantly at the young man, and Chris felt a little ashamed.
+There was silence for a moment.
+
+"It is for you to choose," said the Prior again, "you have been happy
+with us, I think?"
+
+Chris pressed his lips together and looked down.
+
+"Of course Satan will not leave you alone," went on the monk presently.
+"He will suggest many reasons against your profession. If he did not, I
+should be afraid that you had no vocation."
+
+Again he waited for an answer, and again Chris was silent. His soul was
+so desolate that he could not trust himself to say all that he felt.
+
+"You must wait a little," went on the Prior, "recommend yourself to our
+Lady and our Patron, and then leave yourself in their hands. You will
+know better when you have had a few days. Will you do this, and then
+come to me again?"
+
+"Yes, my Lord Prior," said Chris, and he took up the letter, bowed, and
+went out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Within the week relief and knowledge came to him. He had done what the
+monk had told him, and it had been followed by a curious sense of relief
+at the thought suggested to him that the responsibility of decision did
+not rest on him but on his heavenly helpers. And then as he served mass
+the answer came.
+
+It was in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, a little building entered
+from the north transept, with its windows opening directly on to the
+road leading up into the town; there was no one there but the two. It
+was about seven o'clock on the feast of the Seven Martyrs, and the
+chapel was full of a diffused tender morning light, for the chapel was
+sheltered from the direct sunshine by the tall church on its south.
+
+As they went up to the altar the bell sounded for the Elevation at the
+high-altar of the church, at the _missa familiaris_, and the footstep of
+someone passing through the north transept ceased instantly at the
+sound. The priest ascended the steps, set down the vessels, spread the
+corporal, opened the book, and came down again for the preparation.
+There was no one else in the chapel, and the peace of the place in the
+summer light, only vitalized by the brisk chirping of a sparrow under
+the eaves, entered into Christopher's soul.
+
+As the mass went on it seemed as if a veil were lifting from his spirit,
+and leaving it free and sensible again. The things around him fell into
+their proper relationships, and there was no doubt in his mind that this
+newly restored significance of theirs was their true interpretation.
+They seemed penetrated and suffused by the light of the inner world; the
+red-brocaded chasuble moving on a level with his eyes, stirring with the
+shifting of the priest's elbows, was more than a piece of rich stuff,
+the white alb beneath more than mere linen, the hood thrown back in the
+amice a sacramental thing. He looked up at the smoky yellow flames
+against the painted woodwork at the back of the altar, at the
+discoloured stones beside the grey window-mouldings still with the
+slanting marks of the chisel upon them, at the black rafters overhead,
+and last out through the shafted window at the heavy July foliage of the
+elm that stood by the road and the brilliant morning sky beyond; and
+once more he saw what these things meant and conveyed to an immortal
+soul. The words that he had said during these last weeks so mechanically
+were now rich and alive again, and as he answered the priest he
+perceived the spiritual vibration of them in the inner world of which
+his own soul was but a part. And then the climax was reached, and he
+lifted the skirt of the vestment with his left hand and shook the bell
+in his right; the last shreds of confusion were gone, and his spirit
+basked tranquil and content and certain again in the light that was
+newly risen on him.
+
+He went to the novice-master after the morning-chapter, and told him
+that he had made up his mind to offer himself for profession if it was
+thought advisable by the authorities.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Towards the end of August he presented himself once more before the
+chapter to make his solemn demand; his petition was granted, and a day
+appointed for his profession.
+
+Then he withdrew into yet stricter seclusion to prepare for the step.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+LIFE AT LEWES
+
+
+Under the direction of the junior-master who overlooked the young monks
+for some years after their profession, Chris continued his work of
+illumination, for which he had shown great aptitude during his year of
+noviceship.
+
+The art was beginning to disappear, since the introduction of printing
+had superseded the need of manuscript, but in some Religious Houses it
+was still thought a suitable exercise during the hours appointed for
+manual labour.
+
+It was soon after the beginning of the new year that Chris was entrusted
+with a printed antiphonary that had its borders and initials left white;
+and he carried the great loose sheets with a great deal of pride to the
+little carrel or wooden stall assigned to him in the northern cloister.
+
+It was a tiny room, scarcely six feet square, lighted by the window into
+the cloister-garth, and was almost entirely filled by the chair, the
+sloping desk against the wall, and the table where the pigments and
+brushes lay ready to the hand. The door opened on to the cloister itself
+where the professed monks were at liberty to walk, and on the opposite
+side stood the broad aumbries that held the library of the house; and it
+was from the books here that Chris was allowed to draw ideas for his
+designs. It was a great step in that life of minute details when now for
+the first time he was permitted to follow his own views, instead of
+merely filling in with colour outlines already drawn for him; and he
+found his scheme for the decoration a serious temptation to distraction
+during the office. As he stood among the professed monks, in his own
+stall at last, he found his eyes wandering away to the capitals of the
+round pillars, the stone foliage and fruit that burst out of the slender
+shafts, the grim heads that strained forward in mitre and crown
+overhead, and even the living faces of his brethren and superiors, clear
+against the dark woodwork. When he bent his eyes resolutely on his book
+he found his mind still intent on his more secular business; he mentally
+corrected this awkward curve of the initial, substituted an oak spray
+with acorns for that stiff monstrosity, and set my Lord Prior's face
+grinning among griffins at the foot of the page where humour was more
+readily admitted.
+
+It was an immense joy when he closed his carrel-door, after his hour's
+siesta in the dormitory, and sat down to his work. He was still warm
+with sleep, and the piercing cold of the unwarmed cloister did not
+affect him, but he set his feet on the sloping wooden footstool that
+rested on the straw for fear they should get cold, and turned smiling to
+his side-table.
+
+There were all the precious things laid out; the crow's quills sharpened
+to an almost invisible point for the finer lines, the two sets of
+pencils, one of silver-point that left a faint grey line, and the other
+of haematite for the burnishing of the gold, the badger and minever
+brushes, the sponge and pumice-stone for erasures; the horns for black
+and red ink lay with the scissors and rulers on the little upper shelf
+of his desk. There were the pigments also there, which he had learnt to
+grind and prepare, the crushed lapis lazuli first calcined by heat
+according to the modern degenerate practice, with the cheap German blue
+beside it, and the indigo beyond; the prasinum; the vermilion and red
+lead ready mixed, and the rubrica beside it; the yellow orpiment, and,
+most important of all, the white pigments, powdered chalk and egg
+shells, lying by the biacca. In a separate compartment covered carefully
+from chance draughts or dust lay the precious gold leaf, and a little
+vessel of the inferior fluid gold used for narrow lines.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His first business was to rule the thick red lines down the side of the
+text, using a special metal pen for it; and then to begin to sketch in
+his initials and decorations. For this latter part of the work he had
+decided to follow the lines of Foucquet from a Book of the Hours that he
+had taken out of its aumbry; a mass of delicate foliage and leaves, with
+medallions set in it united by twisted thorn-branches twining upwards
+through the broad border. These medallions on the first sheet he
+purposed to fill with miniatures of the famous relics kept at Lewes, the
+hanging sleeve of the Blessed Virgin in its crystal case, the
+drinking-cup of Cana, the rod of Moses, and the Magdalene's box of
+ointment. In the later pages which would be less elaborate he would
+introduce the other relics, and allow his humour free play in designing
+for the scrolls at the foot tiny portraits of his brethren; the Prior
+should be in a mitre and have the legs and tail of a lion, the
+novice-master, with a fox's brush emerging from his flying cowl, should
+be running from a hound who carried a discipline in his near paw. But
+there was time yet to think of these things; it would be weeks before
+that page could be reached, and meanwhile there was the foliage to be
+done, and the rose leaf that lay on his desk to be copied minutely from
+a hundred angles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His distractions at mass and office were worse than ever now that the
+great work was begun, and week after week in confession there was the
+same tale. The mere process was so absorbing, apart from the joy of
+creation and design. More than once he woke from a sweating nightmare in
+the long dormitory, believing that he had laid on gold-leaf without
+first painting the surface with the necessary mordant, or had run his
+stilus through his most delicate miniature. But he made extraordinary
+progress in the art; and the Prior more than once stepped into his
+carrel and looked over his shoulder, watching the slender fingers with
+the bone pen between them polishing the gold till it shone like a
+mirror, or the steady lead pencil moving over the white page in
+faultless curve. Then he would pat him on the shoulder, and go out in
+approving silence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris was supremely content that he had done right in asking for
+profession. It appeared to him that he had found a life that was above
+all others worthy of an immortal soul. The whole day's routine was
+directed to one end, the performance of the _Opus Dei_, the uttering of
+praises to Him who had made and was sustaining and would receive again
+all things to Himself.
+
+They rose at midnight for the night-office that the sleeping world might
+not be wholly dumb to God; went to rest again; rose once more with the
+world, and set about a yet sublimer worship. A stream of sacrifice
+poured up to the Throne through the mellow summer morning, or the cold
+winter darkness and gloom, from altar after altar in the great church.
+Christopher remembered pleasantly a morning soon after the beginning of
+his novitiate when he had been in the church as a set of priests came in
+and began mass simultaneously; the mystical fancy suggested itself as
+the hum of voices began that he was in a garden, warm and bright with
+grace, and that bees were about him making honey--that fragrant
+sweetness of which it had been said long ago that God should eat--and as
+the tinkle of the Elevation sounded out here and there, it seemed to him
+as a signal that the mysterious confection was done, and that every
+altar sprang into perfume from those silver vessels set with jewel and
+crystal.
+
+When the first masses were over, there was a pause in which the _mixtum_
+was taken--bread and wine or beer--standing in the refectory, after a
+short prayer that the Giver of all good gifts might bless the food and
+drink of His servants, and was closed again by another prayer said
+privately for all benefactors. Meanwhile the bell was ringing for the
+Lady mass, to remind the monks that the interval was only as it were a
+parenthetical concession; and after Terce and the Lady Mass followed the
+Chapter, in which faults were confessed and penances inflicted, and the
+living instruments of God's work were examined and scoured for use. The
+martyrology was read at this time, as well as some morning prayers, to
+keep before the monks' minds the remembrance of those great vessels of
+God's household called to so high an employment. It was then, too, that
+other business of the house was done, and the seal affixed to any
+necessary documents. Christopher had an opportunity once of examining
+this seal when it had been given him to clean, and he looked with awe on
+the figures of his four new patrons, St. Peter, St. Pancras, St. Paul
+and Our Lady, set in niches above a cliff with the running water of the
+Ouse beneath, and read the petition that ran round the circle--
+
+"_Dulcis agonista tibi convertit domus ista Pancrati memorum precibus
+memor esto tuorum._"
+
+When the chapter was over, and the deaths of any brethren of the order
+had been announced, and their souls prayed for, there was a pause for
+recreation in the cloister and the finishing of further business before
+they assembled again in time to go into church for the high mass, at
+which the work and prayers of the day were gathered up and consecrated
+in a supreme offering. Even the dinner that followed was a religious
+ceremony; it began by a salutation of the Christ in glory that was on
+the wall over the Prior's table, and then a long grace was sung before
+they took their seats. The reader in the stone-pulpit on the south wall
+of the refectory began his business on the sounding of a bell; and at a
+second stroke there was a hum and clash of dishes from the kitchen end,
+and the aproned servers entered in line bearing the dishes. Immediately
+the meal was begun the drink destined for the poor at the gate was set
+aside, and a little later a representative of them was brought into the
+refectory to receive his portion; at the close again what was left over
+was collected for charity; while the community after singing part of the
+grace after meat went to finish it in the church.
+
+Chris learned to love the quiet religious graciousness of the refectory.
+The taking of food here was a consecrated action; it seemed a
+sacramental thing. He loved the restraint and preciseness of it, ensured
+by the solemn crucifix over the door with its pathetic inscription
+"SITIO," the polished oak tables, solid and narrow, the shining pewter
+dishes, the folded napkins, the cleanly-served plentiful food, to each
+man his portion, the indescribable dignity of the prior's little table,
+the bowing of the servers before it, the mellow grace ringing out in its
+monotone that broke into minor thirds and octaves of melody, like a
+grave line of woodwork on the panelling bursting into a stiff leaf or
+two at its ends. There was a strange and wonderful romance it about on
+early autumn evenings as the light died out behind the stained windows
+and the reader's face glowed homely and strong between his two candles
+on the pulpit. And surely these tales of saints, the extract from the
+Rule, these portions of Scripture sung with long pauses and on a
+monotone for fear that the reader's personality should obscure the
+message of what he read--surely this was a better accompaniment to the
+taking of food, in itself so gross a thing, than the feverish chatter of
+a secular hall and the bustling and officiousness of paid servants.
+
+After a general washing of hands the monks dispersed to their work, and
+the novices to bowls or other games; the Prior first distributing the
+garden instruments, and then beginning the labour with a commendation of
+it to God; and after finishing the manual work and a short time of
+study, they re-assembled in the cloister to go to Vespers. This, like
+the high mass, was performed with the ceremonial proper to the day, and
+was followed by supper, at which the same kind of ceremonies were
+observed as at dinner. When this was over, after a further short
+interval the evening reading or Collation took place in the
+chapter-house, after which the monks were at liberty to go and warm
+themselves at the one great fire kept up for the purpose in the
+calefactory; and then compline was sung, followed by Our Lady's Anthem.
+
+This for Chris was one of the climaxes of the day's emotions. He was
+always tired out by now with the day's work, and longing for bed, and
+this approach to the great Mother of Monks soothed and quieted him. It
+was sung in almost complete darkness, except for a light or two in the
+long nave where a dark figure or two would be kneeling, and the pleasant
+familiar melody, accompanied softly by the organ overhead after the bare
+singing of Compline, seemed like a kind of good-night kiss. The
+infinite pathos of the words never failed to touch him, the cry of the
+banished children of Eve, weeping and mourning in this vale of tears to
+Mary whose obedience had restored what Eve's self-will had ruined, and
+the last threefold sob of endearment to the "kindly, loving, sweet,
+Virgin Mary." After the high agonisings and aspirations of the day's
+prayer, the awfulness of the holy Sacrifice, the tramping monotony of
+the Psalter, the sting of the discipline, the aches and sweats of the
+manual labour, the intent strain of the illuminating, this song to Mary
+was a running into Mother's arms and finding compensation there for all
+toils and burdens.
+
+Finally in complete silence the monks passed along the dark cloister,
+sprinkled with holy water as they left the church, up to the dormitory
+which ran over the whole length of the chapter house, the bridges and
+other offices, to sleep till midnight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The effect of this life, unbroken by external distractions, was to make
+Chris's soul alert and perceptive to the inner world, and careless or
+even contemptuous of the ordinary world of men. This spiritual realm
+began for the first time to disclose its details to him, and to show
+itself to some extent a replica of nature. It too had its varying
+climate, its long summer of warmth and light, its winter of dark
+discontent, its strange and bewildering sunrises of Christ upon the
+soul, when He rose and went about His garden with perfume and music, or
+stayed and greeted His creature with the message of His eyes. Chris
+began to learn that these spiritual changes were in a sense independent
+of him, that they were not in his soul, but rather that his soul was in
+them. He could be happy and content when the winds of God were cold and
+His light darkened, or sad and comfortless when the flowers of grace
+were apparent and the river of life bright and shining.
+
+And meanwhile the ordinary world went on, but far away and dimly heard
+and seen; as when one looks down from a castle-garden on to humming
+streets five hundred feet below; and the old life at Overfield, and
+Ralph's doings in London seemed unreal and fantastic activities,
+purposeless and empty.
+
+Little by little, however, as the point of view shifted, Chris began to
+find that the external world could not be banished, and that the
+annoyances from the clash of characters discordant with his own were as
+positive as those which had distressed him before. Dom Anselm Bowden's
+way of walking and the patch of grease at the shoulder of his cowl,
+never removed, and visible as he went before him into the church was as
+distractingly irritating as Ralph's contempt; the buzz in the voice of a
+cantor who seemed always to sing on great days was as distressing as his
+own dog's perversity at Overfield, or the snapping of a bow-string.
+
+When _accidie_ fell upon Chris it seemed as if this particular house was
+entirely ruined by such incidents; the Prior was finickin, the
+junior-master tyrannical, the paints for illumination inferior in
+quality, the straw of his bed peculiarly sharp, the chapter-house
+unnecessarily draughty. And until he learnt from his confessor that this
+spiritual ailment was a perfectly familiar one, and that its symptoms
+and effects had been diagnosed centuries before, and had taken him at
+his word and practised the remedies he enjoined, Chris suffered
+considerably from discontent and despair alternately. At times others
+were intolerable, at times he was intolerable to himself, reproaching
+himself for having attempted so high a life, criticising his fellows
+for so lowering it to a poor standard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first time that he was accused in chapter of a fault against the
+Rule was a very great and shocking humiliation.
+
+He had accused himself as usual on his knees of his own remissions, of
+making an unnecessarily loud noise in drinking, of intoning a wrong
+antiphon as cantor, of spilling crumbs in the refectory; and then leaned
+back on his heels well content with the insignificance of his list, to
+listen with a discreet complacency to old Dom Adrian, who had overslept
+himself once, spilled his beer twice, criticised his superior, and
+talked aloud to himself four times during the Greater Silence, and who
+now mumbled out his crimes hastily and unconcernedly.
+
+When the self-accusations were done, the others began, and to his horror
+Chris heard his own name spoken.
+
+"I accuse Dom Christopher Torridon of not keeping the guard of the eyes
+at Terce this morning."
+
+It was perfectly true; Chris had been so much absorbed in noticing an
+effect of shade thrown by a corbel, and in plans for incorporating it
+into his illumination that he had let a verse pass as far as the star
+that marked the pause. He felt his heart leap with resentment. Then a
+flash of retort came to him, and he waited his turn.
+
+"I accuse Dom Bernard Parr of not keeping the guard of the eyes at Terce
+this morning. He was observing me."
+
+Just the faintest ripple passed round the line; and then the Prior spoke
+with a tinge of sharpness, inflicting the penances, and giving Chris a
+heavy sentence of twenty strokes with the discipline.
+
+When Chris's turn came he threw back his habit petulantly, and
+administered his own punishment as the custom was, with angry fervour.
+
+As he was going out the Prior made him a sign, and took him through into
+his own cell.
+
+"Counter-accusations are contrary to the Rule," he said. "It must not
+happen again," and dismissed him sternly.
+
+And then Chris for a couple of days had a fierce struggle against
+uncharitableness, asking himself whether he had not eyed Dom Bernard
+with resentment, and then eyeing him again. It seemed too as if a fiend
+suggested bitter sentences of reproach, that he rehearsed to himself,
+and then repented. But on the third morning there came one of those
+strange breezes of grace that he was beginning to experience more and
+more frequently, and his sore soul grew warm and peaceful again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in those kinds of temptation now that he found his warfare to
+lie; internal assaults so fierce that it was terribly difficult to know
+whether he had yielded or not, sudden images of pride and anger and lust
+that presented themselves so vividly and attractively that it seemed he
+must have willed them; it was not often that he was tempted to sin in
+word or deed--such, when they came, rushed on him suddenly; but in the
+realm of thought and imagination and motive he would often find himself,
+as it were, entering a swarm of such things, that hovered round him,
+impeding his prayer, blinding his insight, and seeking to sting the very
+heart of his spiritual life. Then once more he would fight himself free
+by despising and rejecting them, or would emerge without conscious will
+of his own into clearness and serenity.
+
+But as he looked back he regretted nothing. It was true that the
+warfare was more subtle and internal, but it was more honourable too;
+for to conquer a motive or tame an imagination was at once more arduous
+and more far-reaching in its effects than a victory in merely outward
+matters, and he seldom failed to thank God half-a-dozen times a day for
+having given him the vocation of a monk.
+
+There was one danger, however, that he did not realise, and his
+confessor failed to point it out to him; and that was the danger of the
+wrong kind of detachment. As has been already seen the theory of the
+Religious Life was that men sought it not merely for the salvation of
+their own souls, but for that of the world. A monastery was a place
+where in a special sense the spiritual commerce of the world was carried
+on: as a workman's shed is the place deputed and used by the world for
+the manufacture of certain articles. It was the manufactory of grace
+where skilled persons were at work, busy at a task of prayer and
+sacrament which was to be at other men's service. If the father of a
+family had a piece of spiritual work to be done, he went to the
+monastery and arranged for it, and paid a fee for the sustenance of
+those he employed, as he might go to a merchant's to order a cargo and
+settle for its delivery.
+
+Since this was so then, it was necessary that the spiritual workmen
+should be in a certain touch with those for whom they worked. It was
+true that they must be out of the world, undominated by its principles
+and out of love with its spirit; but in another sense they must live in
+its heart. To use another analogy they were as windmills, lifted up from
+the earth into the high airs of grace, but their base must be on the
+ground or their labour would be ill-spent. They must be mystically one
+with the world that they had resigned.
+
+Chris forgot this; and laboured, and to a large extent succeeded, in
+detaching himself wholly; and symptoms of this mistake showed themselves
+in such things as tending to despise secular life, feeling impatient
+with the poor to whom he had to minister, in sneering in his heart at
+least at anxious fussy men who came to arrange for masses, at
+troublesome women who haunted the sacristy door in a passion of
+elaborateness, and at comfortable families who stamped into high mass
+and filled a seat and a half, but who had yet their spiritual burdens
+and their claims to honour.
+
+But he was to be brought rudely down to facts again. He was beginning to
+forget that England was about him and stirring in her agony; and he was
+reminded of it with some force in the winter after his profession.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was going out to the gate-house one day on an errand from the
+junior-master when he became aware of an unusual stir in the court.
+There were a couple of palfreys there, and half-a-dozen mules behind,
+whilst three or four strange monks with a servant or two stood at their
+bridles.
+
+Chris stopped to consider, for he had no business with guests; and as he
+hesitated the door of the guest-house opened, and two prelates came out
+with Dom Anthony behind them--tall, stately men in monks' habits with
+furred cloaks and crosses. Chris slipped back at once into the cloister
+from which he had just come out, and watched them go past to the Prior's
+lodging.
+
+They appeared at Vespers that afternoon again, sitting in the first
+returned stalls near the Prior, and Chris recognised one of them as the
+great Abbot of Colchester. He looked at him now and again during Vespers
+with a reverential awe, for the Abbot was a great man, a spiritual peer
+of immense influence and reputation, and watched that fatherly face,
+his dignified bows and stately movements, and the great sapphire that
+shone on his hand as he turned the leaves of his illuminated book.
+
+The two prelates were at supper, sitting on either side of the Prior on
+the dais; and afterwards the monks were called earlier than usual from
+recreation into the chapter-house.
+
+The Prior made them a little speech saying that the Abbot had something
+to say to them, and then sat down; his troubled eyes ran over the faces
+of his subjects, and his fingers twitched and fidgetted on his knees.
+
+The Abbot did not make them a long discourse; but told them briefly that
+there was trouble coming; he spoke in veiled terms of the Act of
+Supremacy, and the serious prayer that was needed; he said that a time
+of testing was close at hand, and that every man must scrutinise his own
+conscience and examine his motives; and that the unlearned had better
+follow the advice and example of their superiors.
+
+It was all very vague and unsatisfactory; but Chris became aware of
+three things. First, that the world was very much alive and could not be
+dismissed by a pious aspiration or two; second, that the world was about
+to make some demand that would have to be seriously dealt with, and
+third, that there was nothing really to fear so long as their souls were
+clean and courageous. The Abbot was a melting speaker, full at once of a
+fatherly tenderness and vehemence, and as Chris looked at him he felt
+that indeed there was nothing to fear so long as monks had such
+representatives and protectors as these, and that the world had better
+look to itself for fear it should dash itself to ruin against such rocks
+of faith and holiness.
+
+But as the spring drew on, an air of suspense and anxiety made itself
+evident in the house. News came down that More and Fisher were still in
+prison, that the oath was being administered right and left, that the
+King had thrown aside all restraints, and that the civil breach with
+Rome seemed in no prospect of healing. As for the spiritual breach the
+monks did not seriously consider it yet; they regarded themselves as
+still in union with the Holy See whatever their rulers might say or do,
+and only prayed for the time when things might be as before and there
+should be no longer any doubt or hesitation in the minds of weak
+brethren.
+
+But the Prior's face grew more white and troubled, and his temper
+uncertain.
+
+Now and again he would make them speeches assuring them fiercely that
+all was well, and that all they had to do was to be quiet and obedient;
+and now he would give way to a kind of angry despair, tell them that all
+was lost, that every man would have to save himself; and then for days
+after such an exhibition he would be silent and morose, rapping his
+fingers softly as he sat at his little raised table in the refectory,
+walking with downcast eyes up and down the cloister muttering and
+staring.
+
+Towards the end of April he sent abruptly for Chris, told him that he
+had news from London that made his presence there necessary, and ordered
+him to be ready to ride with him in a week or two.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE ARENA
+
+
+It was in the evening of a warm May day that the Prior and Chris arrived
+at the hostelry in Southwark, which belonged to Lewes Priory.
+
+It was on the south side of Kater Lane, opposite St. Olave's church, a
+great house built of stone with arched gates, with a large porch opening
+straight into the hall, which was high and vaulted with a frieze of
+grotesque animals and foliage running round it. There were a few
+servants there, and one or two friends of the Prior waiting at the porch
+as they arrived; and one of them, a monk himself from the cell at
+Farley, stepped up to the Prior's stirrup and whispered to him.
+
+Chris heard an exclamation and a sharp indrawing of breath, but was too
+well trained to ask; so he too dismounted and followed the others into
+the hall, leaving his beast in the hands of a servant.
+
+The Prior was already standing by the monk at the upper end, questioning
+him closely, and glancing nervously this way and that.
+
+"To-day?" he asked sharply, and looked at the other horrified.
+
+The monk nodded, pale-faced and anxious, his lower lip sucked in.
+
+The Prior turned to Chris.
+
+"They have suffered to-day," he said.
+
+News had reached Lewes nearly a week before that the Carthusians had
+been condemned, for refusing to acknowledge the King as head of the
+English Church, but it had been scarcely possible to believe that the
+sentence would be carried out, and Chris felt the blood beat in his
+temples and his lips turn suddenly dry as he heard the news.
+
+"I was there, my Lord Prior," said the monk.
+
+He was a middle-aged man, genial and plump, but his face was white and
+anxious now, and his mouth worked. "They were hanged in their habits,"
+he went on. "Prior Houghton was the first despatched;" and he added a
+terrible detail or two.
+
+"Will you see the place, my Lord Prior?" he said, "You can ride there.
+Your palfrey is still at the door."
+
+Prior Robert Crowham looked at him a moment with pursed lips; and then
+shook his head violently.
+
+"No, no," he said. "I--I must see to the house." The monk looked at
+Chris.
+
+"May I go, my Lord Prior?" he asked.
+
+The Prior stared at him a moment, in a desperate effort to fix his
+attention; then nodded sharply and wheeled round to the door that led to
+the upper rooms.
+
+"Mother of God!" he said. "Mother of God!" and went out.
+
+Chris went through with the strange priest, down the hall and out into
+the porch again. The others were standing there, fearful and whispering,
+and opened out to let the two monks pass through.
+
+Chris had been tired and hot when he arrived, but he was conscious now
+of no sensation but of an overmastering desire to see the place; he
+passed straight by his horse that still stood with a servant at his
+head, and turned up instinctively toward the river.
+
+The monk called after him.
+
+"There, there," he cried, "not so fast--we have plenty of time."
+
+They took a wherry at the stairs and pushed out with the stream. The
+waterman was a merry-looking man who spoke no word but whistled to
+himself cheerfully as he laid himself to the oars, and the boat began to
+move slantingly across the flowing tide. He looked at the monks now and
+again; but Chris was seated, staring out with eyes that saw nothing down
+the broad stream away to where the cathedral rose gigantic and graceful
+on the other side. It was the first time he had been in London since a
+couple of years before his profession, but the splendour and strength of
+the city was nothing to him now. It only had one significance to his
+mind, and that that it had been this day the scene of a martyrdom. His
+mind that had so long lived in the inner world, moving among
+supernatural things, was struggling desperately to adjust itself.
+
+Once or twice his lips moved, and his hands clenched themselves under
+his scapular; but he saw and heard nothing; and did not even turn his
+head when a barge swept past them, and a richly dressed man leaned from
+the stern and shouted something mockingly. The other monk looked
+nervously and deprecatingly up, for he heard the taunting threat across
+the water that the Carthusians were a good riddance, and that there
+would be more to follow.
+
+They landed at the Blackfriars stairs, paid the man, who was still
+whistling as he took the money, and passed up by the little stream that
+flowed into the river, striking off to the left presently, and leaving
+the city behind them. They were soon out again on the long straight road
+that led to Tyburn, for Chris walked desperately fast, paying little
+heed to his companion except at the corners when he had to wait to know
+the way; and presently Tyburn-gate began to raise its head high against
+the sky.
+
+Once the strange monk, whose name Chris had not even troubled to ask,
+plucked him by his hanging sleeve.
+
+"The hurdles came along here," he said; and Chris looked at him vacantly
+as if he did not understand.
+
+Then they were under Tyburn-gate, and the clump of elms stood before
+them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a wide open space, dusty now and trampled.
+
+What grass there had been in patches by the two little streams that
+flowed together here, was crushed and flat under foot. The elms cast
+long shadows from the west, and birds were chirping in the branches;
+there was a group or two of people here and there looking curiously
+about them. A man's voice came across the open space, explaining; and
+his arm rose and wheeled and pointed and paused--three or four children
+hung together, frightened and interested.
+
+But Chris saw little of all this. He had no eyes for the passing
+details; they were fixed on the low mound that rose fifty yards away,
+and the three tall posts, placed in a triangle and united by
+cross-beams, that stood on it, gaunt against the sky.
+
+As he came nearer to it, walking as one in a dream across the dusty
+ground and trampled grass, and paying no heed to the priest behind him
+who whispered with an angry nervousness, he was aware of the ends of
+three or four ropes that hung motionless from the beams in the still
+evening air; and with his eyes fixed on these in exaltation and terror
+he stumbled up the sloping ground and came beneath them.
+
+There was a great peace round him as he stood there, stroking one of
+the uprights with a kind of mechanical tenderness; the men were silent
+as they saw the two monks there, and watched to see what they would do.
+
+The towers of Tyburn-gate rose a hundred yards away, empty now, but
+crowded this morning; and behind them the long road with the fields and
+great mansions on this side and that, leading down to the city in front
+and Westminster on the right, those two dens of the tiger that had
+snarled so fiercely a few hours before, as she licked her lips red with
+martyrs' blood. It was indescribably peaceful now; there was no sound
+but the birds overhead, and the soft breeze in the young leaves, and the
+trickle of the streams defiled to-day, but running clean and guiltless
+now; and the level sunlight lay across the wide flat ground and threw
+the shadow of the mound and gallows nearly to the foot of the gate.
+
+But to Chris the place was alive with phantoms; the empty space had
+vanished, and a sea of faces seemed turned up to him; he fancied that
+there were figures about him, watching him too, brushing his sleeve,
+faces looking into his eyes, waiting for some action or word from him.
+For a moment his sense of identity was lost; the violence of the
+associations, and perhaps even the power of the emotions that had been
+wrought there that day, crushed out his personality; it was surely he
+who was here to suffer; all else was a dream and an illusion. From his
+very effort of living in eternity, a habit had been formed that now
+asserted itself; the laws of time and space and circumstance for the
+moment ceased to exist; and he found himself for an eternal instant
+facing his own agony and death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then with a rush facts re-asserted themselves, and he started and
+looked round as the monk touched him on the arm.
+
+"You have seen it," he said in a sharp undertone, "it is enough. We
+shall be attacked." Chris paid him no heed beyond a look, and turned
+once more.
+
+It was here that they had suffered, these gallant knights of God; they
+had stood below these beams, their feet on the cart that was their
+chariot of glory, their necks in the rope that would be their heavenly
+badge; they had looked out where he was looking as they made their
+little speeches, over the faces to Tyburn-gate, with the same sun that
+was now behind him, shining into their eyes.
+
+He still stroked the rough beam; and as the details came home, and he
+remembered that it was this that had borne their weight, he leaned and
+kissed it; and a flood of tears blinded him.
+
+Again the priest pulled his sleeve sharply.
+
+"For God's sake, brother!" he said.
+
+Chris turned to him.
+
+"The cauldron," he said; "where was that?"
+
+The priest made an impatient movement, but pointed to one side, away
+from where the men were standing still watching them; and Chris saw
+below, by the side of one of the streams a great blackened patch of
+ground, and a heap of ashes.
+
+The two went down there, for the other monk was thankful to get to any
+less conspicuous place; and Chris presently found himself standing on
+the edge of the black patch, with the trampled mud and grass beyond it
+beside the stream. The grey wood ashes had drifted by now far across the
+ground, but the heavy logs still lay there, charred and smoked, that had
+blazed beneath the cauldron where the limbs of the monks had been
+seethed; and he stared down at them, numbed and fascinated by the
+horror of the thought. His mind, now in a violent reaction, seemed
+unable to cope with its own knowledge, crushed beneath its weight; and
+his friend heard him repeating with a low monotonous insistence--
+
+"Here it was," he said, "here; here was the cauldron; it was here."
+
+Then he turned and looked into his friend's eyes.
+
+"It was here," he said; "are you sure it was here?"
+
+The other made an impatient sound.
+
+"Where else?" he said sharply. "Come, brother, you have seen enough."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He told him more details as they walked home; as to what each had said,
+and how each had borne himself. Father Reynolds, the Syon monk, had
+looked gaily about him, it seemed, as he walked up from the hurdle; the
+secular priest had turned pale and shut his eyes more than once; the
+three Carthusian priors had been unmoved throughout, showing neither
+carelessness nor fear; Prior Houghton's arm had been taken off to the
+London Charterhouse as a terror to the others; their heads, he had
+heard, were on London Bridge.
+
+Chris walked slowly as he listened, holding tight under his scapular the
+scrap of rough white cloth he had picked up near the cauldron, drinking
+in every detail, and painting it into the mental picture that was
+forming in his mind; but there was much more in the picture than the
+other guessed.
+
+The priest was a plain man, with a talent for the practical, and knew
+nothing of the vision that the young monk beside him was seeing--of the
+air about the gallows crowded with the angels of the Agony and Passion,
+waiting to bear off the straggling souls in their tender experienced
+hands; of the celestial faces looking down, the scarred and glorious
+arms stretched out in welcome; of Mary with her mother's eyes, and her
+virgins about her--all ring above ring in deepening splendour up to the
+white blinding light above, where the Everlasting Trinity lay poised in
+love and glory to receive and crown the stalwart soldiers of God.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A CLOSING-IN
+
+
+Ralph kept his resolution to pretend to try and save Sir Thomas More,
+and salved his own conscience by protesting to Beatrice that his efforts
+were bound to fail, and that he had no influence such as she imagined.
+He did certainly more than once remark to Cromwell that Sir Thomas was a
+pleasant and learned man, and had treated him kindly, and once had gone
+so far as to say that he did not see that any good would be served by
+his death; but he had been sharply rebuked, and told to mind his own
+business; then, softening, Cromwell had explained that there was no
+question of death for the present; but that More's persistent refusal to
+yield to the pressure of events was a standing peril to the King's
+policy.
+
+This policy had now shaped itself more clearly. In the autumn of '34 the
+bill for the King's supremacy over the Church of England began to take
+form; and Ralph had several sights of the documents as all business of
+this kind now flowed through Cromwell's hands, and he was filled with
+admiration and at the same time with perplexity at the adroitness of the
+wording. It was very short, and affected to assume rather than to enact
+its object.
+
+"Albeit the King's Majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be," it
+began, "the supreme head of the Church of England, and so is recognised
+by the clergy of this realm in their Convocations, yet, nevertheless,
+for corroboration and confirmation thereof ... and to repress and extirp
+all errors, heresies and other enormities ... be it enacted by authority
+of this present Parliament that the King our sovereign lord ... shall be
+taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the
+Church of England, called _Anglicans Ecclesia_." The bill then proceeded
+to confer on him a plenitude of authority over both temporal and
+spiritual causes.
+
+There was here considerable skill in the manner of its drawing up, which
+it owed chiefly to Cromwell; for it professed only to re-state a matter
+that had slipped out of notice, and appealed to the authority of
+Convocation which had, truly, under Warham allowed a resolution to the
+same effect, though qualified by the clause, "as far as God's law
+permits," to pass in silence.
+
+Ralph was puzzled by it: he was led to believe that it could contain no
+very radical change from the old belief, since the clergy had in a sense
+already submitted to it; and, on the other hand, the word "the only
+supreme head in earth" seemed not only to assert the Crown's civil
+authority over the temporalities of the Church, but to exclude
+definitely all jurisdiction on the part of the Pope.
+
+"It is the assertion of a principle," Cromwell said to him when he asked
+one day for an explanation; "a principle that has always been held in
+England; it is not intended to be precise or detailed: that will follow
+later."
+
+Ralph was no theologian, and did not greatly care what the bill did or
+did not involve. He was, too, in that temper of inchoate agnosticism
+that was sweeping England at the time, and any scruples that he had in
+his more superstitious moments were lulled by the knowledge that the
+clergy had acquiesced. What appeared more important to him than any
+hair-splittings on the exact provinces of the various authorities in
+question, was the necessity of some step towards the crippling of the
+spiritual empire whose hands were so heavy, and whose demands so
+imperious. He felt, as an Englishman, resentful of the leading strings
+in which, so it seemed to him, Rome wished to fetter his country.
+
+The bill passed through parliament on November the eighteenth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph lost no opportunity of impressing upon Beatrice how much he had
+risked for the sake of her friend in the Tower, and drew very moving
+sketches of his own peril.
+
+The two were sitting together in the hall at Chelsea one winters evening
+soon after Christmas. The high panelling was relieved by lines of
+greenery, with red berries here and there; a bunch of mistletoe leaned
+forward over the sloping mantelpiece, and there was an acrid smell of
+holly and laurel in the air. It was a little piteous, Ralph thought,
+under the circumstances.
+
+Another stage had been passed in More's journey towards death, in the
+previous month, when he had been attainted of misprision of treason by
+an act designed to make good the illegality of his former conviction,
+and the end was beginning to loom clear.
+
+"I said it would be no use, Mistress Beatrice, and it is none--Master
+Cromwell will not hear a word."
+
+Beatrice looked up at Ralph, and down again, as her manner was. Her
+hands were lying on her lap perfectly still as she sat upright in her
+tall chair.
+
+"You have done what you could, I know," she said, softly.
+
+"Master Cromwell did not take it very well," went on Ralph with an
+appearance of resolute composure, "but that was to be expected."
+
+Again she looked up, and Ralph once more was seized with the desire to
+precipitate matters and tell her what was in his heart, but he repressed
+it, knowing it was useless to speak yet.
+
+It was a very stately and slow wooing, like the movement of a minuet;
+each postured to each, not from any insincerity, except perhaps a little
+now and then on Ralph's side, but because for both it was a natural mode
+of self-expression. It was an age of dignity abruptly broken here and
+there by violence. There were slow and gorgeous pageants followed by
+brutal and bestial scenes, like the life of a peacock who paces
+composedly in the sun and then scuttles and screams in the evening. But
+with these two at present there was no occasion for abruptness, and
+Ralph, at any rate, contemplated with complacency his own graciousness
+and grandeur, and the skilfully posed tableaux in which he took such a
+sedate part.
+
+As the spring drew on and the crocuses began to star the grass along the
+river and the sun to wheel wider and wider, the chill and the darkness
+began to fall more heavily on the household at Chelsea. They were
+growing very poor by now; most of Sir Thomas's possessions elsewhere had
+been confiscated by the King, though by his clemency Chelsea was still
+left to Mrs. Alice for the present; and one by one the precious things
+began to disappear from the house as they were sold to obtain
+necessaries. All the private fortune of Mrs. More had gone by the end of
+the winter, and her son still owed great sums to the Government on
+behalf of his father.
+
+At the beginning of May she told Ralph that she was making another
+appeal to Cromwell for help, and begged him to forward her petition.
+
+"My silks are all gone," she said, "and the little gold chain and cross
+that you may remember, Mr. Torridon, went last month, too--I cannot tell
+what we shall do. Mr. More is so obstinate"--and her eyes filled with
+tears--"and we have to pay fifteen shillings every week for him and John
+a' Wood."
+
+She looked so helpless and feeble as she sat in the window seat,
+stripped now of its tapestry cushions, with the roofs of the New
+Building rising among its trees at the back, where her husband had
+walked a year ago with such delight, that Ralph felt a touch of
+compunction, and promised to do his best.
+
+He said a word to Cromwell that evening as he supped with him at
+Hackney, and his master looked at him curiously, sitting forward in the
+carved chair he had had from Wolsey, in his satin gown, twisting the
+stem of his German glass in his ringed fingers.
+
+"And what do you wish me to do, sir?" he asked Ralph with a kind of
+pungent irony.
+
+Ralph explained that he scarcely knew himself; perhaps a word to his
+Grace--
+
+"I will tell you what it is, Mr. Torridon," broke in his master, "you
+have made another mistake. I did not intend you to be their friend, but
+to seem so."
+
+"I can scarcely seem so," said Ralph quietly, but with a certain
+indignation at his heart, "unless I do them little favours sometimes."
+
+"You need not seem so any longer," said Cromwell drily, "the time is
+past."
+
+And he set his glass down and sat back.
+
+Yet Ralph's respect and admiration for his master became no less. He had
+the attractiveness of extreme and unscrupulous capability. It gave Ralph
+the same joy to watch him as he found in looking on at an expert fencer;
+he was so adroit and strong and ready; mighty and patient in defence,
+watchful for opportunities of attack and merciless when they came. His
+admirers scarcely gave a thought to the piteousness of the adversary;
+they were absorbed in the scheme and proud to be included in it; and men
+of heart and sensibility were as hard as their master when they carried
+out his plans.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fate of the Carthusians would have touched Ralph if he had been a
+mere onlooker, as it touched so many others, but he had to play his part
+in the tragedy, and was astonished at the quick perceptions of Cromwell
+and his determined brutality towards these peaceful contemplatives whom
+he recognised as a danger-centre against the King's policy.
+
+He was present first in Cromwell's house when the three Carthusian
+priors of Beauvale, Axholme and London called upon him of their own
+accord to put their questions on the meaning of the King's supremacy:
+but their first question, as to how was it possible for a layman to hold
+the keys of the kingdom of heaven was enough, and without any further
+evidence they were sent to the Tower.
+
+Then, again, he was present in the Court of the Rolls a few days later
+when Dom Laurence, of Beauvale, and Dom Webster, of Axholme, were
+examined once more. There were seven or eight others present, laymen and
+ecclesiastics, and the priors were once more sent back to the Tower.
+
+And so examination after examination went on, and no answer could be got
+out of the monks, but that they could never reconcile it with their
+conscience to accept the King to be what the Act of Supremacy declared
+that he was.
+
+Ralph's curiosity took him down to the Charterhouse one day shortly
+before the execution of the priors; he had with him an order from
+Cromwell that carried him everywhere he wished to go; but he did not
+penetrate too deeply. He was astonished at the impression that the place
+made on him.
+
+As he passed up the Great Cloister there was no sound but from a bird or
+two singing in the afternoon sunlight of the garth; each cell-door, with
+its hatch for the passage of food, was closed and silent; and Ralph felt
+a curious quickening of his heart as he thought of the human life passed
+in the little houses, each with its tiny garden, its workshop, its two
+rooms, and its paved ambulatory, in which each solitary lived. How
+strangely apart this place was from the buzz of business from which he
+had come! And yet he knew very well that the whole was as good as
+condemned already.
+
+He wondered to himself how they had taken the news of the tragedy that
+was beginning--those white, demure men with shaved heads and faces, and
+downcast eyes. He reflected what the effect of that news must be; as it
+penetrated each day, like a stone dropped softly into a pool, leaving no
+ripple. There, behind each brown door, he fancied to himself, a strange
+alchemy was proceeding, in which each new terror and threat from outside
+was received into the crucible of a beating heart and transmuted by
+prayer and welcome into some wonderful jewel of glory--at least so these
+poor men believed; and Ralph indignantly told himself it was nonsense;
+they were idlers and dreamers. He reminded himself of a sneer he had
+heard against the barrels of Spanish wine that were taken in week by
+week at the monastery door; if these men ate no flesh too, at least they
+had excellent omelettes.
+
+But as he passed at last through the lay-brothers' choir and stood
+looking through the gates of the Fathers' choir up to the rich altar
+with its hangings and its posts on either side crowned with gilded
+angels bearing candles, to the splendid window overhead, against which,
+as in a glory, hung the motionless silk-draped pyx, the awe fell on him
+again.
+
+This was the place where they met, these strange, silent men; every
+panel and stone was saturated with the prayers of experts, offered three
+times a day--in the night-office of two or three hours when the world
+was asleep; at the chapter-mass; and at Vespers in the afternoon.
+
+His heart again stirred a little, superstitiously he angrily told
+himself, at the memory of the stories that were whispered about in town.
+
+Two years ago, men said, a comet had been seen shining over the house.
+As the monks went back from matins, each with his lantern in his hand,
+along the dark cloister, a ray had shot out from the comet, had glowed
+upon the church and bell-tower, and died again into darkness. Again, a
+little later, two monks, one in his cell-garden and the other in the
+cemetery, had seen a blood-red globe, high and menacing, hanging in the
+air over the house.
+
+Lastly, at Pentecost, at the mass of the Holy Ghost, offered at the end
+of a triduum with the intention of winning grace to meet any sacrifice
+that might be demanded, not one nor two, but the whole community,
+including the lay-brothers outside the Fathers' Choir, had perceived a
+soft whisper of music of inexpressible sweetness that came and went
+overhead at the Elevation. The celebrant bowed forward in silence over
+the altar, unable to continue the mass, the monks remained petrified
+with joy and awe in their stalls.
+
+Ralph stared once more at the altar as he remembered this tale; at the
+row of stalls on either side, the dark roof overhead, the glowing glass
+on either side and in front--and asked himself whether it was true,
+whether God had spoken, whether a chink of the heavenly gate had been
+opened here to let the music escape.
+
+It was not true, he told himself; it was the dream of a man mad with
+sleeplessness, foolish with fasting and discipline and vigils: one had
+dreamed it and babbled of it to the rest and none had liked to be less
+spiritual or perceptive of divine manifestations.
+
+A brown figure was by the altar now to light the candles for Vespers; a
+taper was in his hand, and the spot of light at the end moved like a
+star against the gilding and carving. Ralph turned and went out.
+
+Then on the fourth of May he was present at the execution of the three
+priors and the two other priests at Tyburn. There was an immense crowd
+there, nearly the whole Court being present; and it was reported here
+and there afterwards that the King himself was there in a group of five
+horsemen, who came in the accoutrements of Borderers, vizored and armed,
+and took up their position close to the scaffold. There fell a terrible
+silence as the monks were dragged up on the hurdles, in their habits,
+all three together behind one horse. They were cut down almost at once,
+and the butchery was performed on them while they were still alive.
+
+Ralph went home in a glow of resolution against them. A tragedy such as
+that which he had seen was of necessity a violent motive one way or the
+other, and it found him determined that the sufferers were in the wrong,
+and left him confirmed in his determination. Their very passivity
+enraged him.
+
+Meanwhile, he had of course heard nothing of his brother's presence in
+London, and it was with something of a shock that on the next afternoon
+he heard the news from Mr. Morris that Mr. Christopher was below and
+waiting for him in the parlour.
+
+As he went down he wondered what Chris was doing in London, and what he
+himself could say to him. He was expecting Beatrice, too, to call upon
+him presently with her maid to give him a message and a bundle of
+letters which he had promised to convey to Sir Thomas More. But he was
+determined to be kind to his brother.
+
+Chris was standing in his black monk's habit on the other side of the
+walnut table, beside the fire-place, and made no movement as Ralph came
+forward smiling and composed. His face was thinner than his brother
+remembered it, clean-shaven now, with hollows in the checks, and his
+eyes were strangely light.
+
+"Why, Chris!" said Ralph, and stopped, astonished at the other's
+motionlessness.
+
+Then Chris came round the table with a couple of swift steps, his hands
+raised a little from the wide, drooping sleeves.
+
+"Ah! brother," he said, "I have come to bring you away: this is a wicked
+place."
+
+Ralph was so amazed that he fell back a step.
+
+"Are you mad?" he said coldly enough, but he felt a twitch of
+superstitious fear at his heart.
+
+Chris seized the rich silk sleeve in both his hands, and Ralph felt them
+trembling and nervous.
+
+"You must come away," he said, "for Jesu's sake, brother! You must not
+lose your soul."
+
+Ralph felt the old contempt surge up and drown his fear. The familiarity
+of his brother's presence weighed down the religious suggestion of his
+habit and office. This is what he had feared and almost expected;--that
+the cloister would make a fanatic of this fantastic brother of his.
+
+He glanced round at the door that he had left open, but the house was
+silent. Then he turned again.
+
+"Sit down, Chris," he said, with a strong effort at self-command, and he
+pulled his sleeve away, went back and shut the door, and then came
+forward past where his brother was standing, to the chair that stood
+with its back to the window.
+
+"You must not be fond and wild," he said decidedly. "Sit down, Chris."
+
+The monk came past him to the other side of the hearth, and faced him
+again, but did not sit down. He remained standing by the fire-place,
+looking down at Ralph, who was in his chair with crossed legs.
+
+"What is this folly?" said Ralph again.
+
+Chris stared down at him a moment in silence.
+
+"Why, why--" he began, and ceased.
+
+Ralph felt himself the master of the situation, and determined to be
+paternal.
+
+"My dear lad," he said, "you have dreamed yourself mad at Lewes. When
+did you come to London?"
+
+"Yesterday," said Chris, still with that strange stare.
+
+"Why, then--" began Ralph.
+
+"Yes--you think I was too late, but I saw it," said Chris; "I was there
+in the evening and saw it all again."
+
+All his nervous tension seemed relaxed by the warm common-sense
+atmosphere of this trim little room, and his brother's composure. His
+lips were beginning to tremble, and he half turned and gripped the
+mantel-shelf with his right hand. Ralph noticed with a kind of
+contemptuous pity how the heavy girded folds of the frock seemed to
+contain nothing, and that the wrist from which the sleeve had fallen
+back was slender as a reed. Ralph felt himself so infinitely his
+brother's superior that he could afford to be generous and kindly.
+
+"Dear Chris," he said, smiling, "you look starved and miserable. Shall I
+tell Morris to bring you something? I thought you monks fared better
+than that."
+
+In a moment Chris was on his knees on the rushes; his hands gripped his
+brother's arms, and his wild eyes were staring up with a fanatical fire
+of entreaty in them. His words broke out like a torrent.
+
+"Ralph," he said, "dear brother! for Jesu's sake, come away! I have
+heard everything. I know that these streets are red with blood, and that
+your hands have been dipped in it. You must not lose your soul. I know
+everything; you must come away. For Jesu's sake!"
+
+Ralph tore himself free and stood up, pushing back his chair.
+
+"Godbody!" he said, "I have a fool for a brother. Stand up, sir. I will
+have no mumming in my house."
+
+He rapped his foot fiercely on the floor, staring down at Chris who had
+thrown himself back on his heels.
+
+"Stand up, sir," he said again.
+
+"Will you hear me, brother?"
+
+Ralph hesitated.
+
+"I will hear you if you will talk reason. I think you are mad."
+
+Chris got up again. He was trembling violently, and his hands twitched
+and clenched by his sides.
+
+"Then you shall hear me," he said, and his voice shook as he spoke. "It
+is this--"
+
+"You must sit down," interrupted Ralph, and he pointed to the chair
+behind.
+
+Chris went to it and sat down. Ralph took a step across to the door and
+opened it.
+
+"Morris," he called, and came back to his chair.
+
+There was silence a moment or two, till the servant's step sounded in
+the hall, and the door opened. Mr. Morris's discreet face looked
+steadily and composedly at his master.
+
+"Bring the pasty," said Ralph, "and the wine."
+
+He gave the servant a sharp look, seemed to glance out across the hall
+for a moment and back again. There was no answering look on Mr. Morris's
+face, but he slipped out softly, leaving the door just ajar.
+
+Then Ralph turned to Chris again.
+
+Chris had had time to recover himself by now, and was sitting very pale
+and composed after his dramatic outburst, his hands hidden under his
+scapular, and his fingers gripped together.
+
+"Now tell me," said Ralph, with his former kindly contempt. He had begun
+to understand now what his brother had come about, and was determined to
+be at once fatherly and decisive. This young fool must be taught his
+place.
+
+"It is this," said Chris, still in a trembling voice, but it grew
+steadier as he went on. "God's people are being persecuted--there is no
+longer any doubt. They were saints who died yesterday, and Master
+Cromwell is behind it all; and--and you serve him."
+
+Ralph jerked his head to speak, but his brother went on.
+
+"I know you think me a fool, and I daresay you are right. But this I
+know, I would sooner be a fool than--than--"
+
+--"than a knave" ended Ralph. "I thank you for your good opinion, my
+brother. However, let that pass. You have come to teach me my business,
+then?"
+
+"I have come to save your soul," said Chris, grasping the arms of his
+chair, and eyeing him steadily.
+
+"You are very good to me," said Ralph bitterly. "Now, I do not want any
+more play-acting--" He broke off suddenly as the door opened. "And here
+is the food. Chris, you are not yourself"--he gave a swift look at his
+servant again--"and I suppose you have had no food to-day."
+
+Again he glanced out through the open door as Mr. Morris turned to go.
+
+Chris paid no sort of attention to the food. He seemed not to have seen
+the servant's entrance and departure.
+
+"I tell you," he said again steadily, with his wide bright eyes fixed on
+his brother, "I tell you, you are persecuting God's people, and I am
+come, not as your brother only, but as a monk, to warn you."
+
+Ralph waved his hand, smiling, towards the dish and the bottle. It
+seemed to sting Chris with a kind of fury, for his eyes blazed and his
+mouth tightened as he stood up abruptly.
+
+"I tell you that if I were starving I would not break bread in this
+house: it is the house of God's enemy."
+
+He dashed out his left hand nervously, and struck the bottle spinning
+across the table; it crashed over on to the floor, and the red wine
+poured on to the boards.
+
+"Why, there is blood before your eyes," he screamed, mad with hunger and
+sleeplessness, and the horrors he had seen; "the ground cries out."
+
+Ralph had sprung up as the bottle fell, and stood trembling and glaring
+across at the monk; the door opened softly, and Mr. Morris stood alert
+and discreet on the threshold, but neither saw him.
+
+"And if you were ten times my brother," cried Chris, "I would not touch
+your hand."
+
+There came a knocking at the door, and the servant disappeared.
+
+"Let him come, if it be the King himself," shouted the monk, "and hear
+the truth for once."
+
+The servant was pushed aside protesting, and Beatrice came straight
+forward into the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A RECOVERY
+
+
+There was a moment of intense silence, only emphasized by the settling
+rustle of the girl's dress. The door had closed softly, and Mr. Morris
+stood within, in the shadow by the window, ready to give help if it were
+needed. Beatrice remained a yard inside the room, very upright and
+dignified, a little pale, looking from one to the other of the two
+brothers, who stared back at her as at a ghost.
+
+Ralph spoke first, swallowing once or twice in his throat before
+speaking, and trying to smile.
+
+"It is you then," he said.
+
+Beatrice moved a step nearer, looking at Chris, who stood white and
+tense, his eyes wide and burning.
+
+"Mr. Torridon," said Beatrice softly, "I have brought the bundle. My
+woman has it."
+
+Still she looked, as she spoke, questioningly at Chris.
+
+"Oh! this is my brother, the monk," snapped Ralph bitterly, glancing at
+him. "Indeed, he is."
+
+Then Chris lost his self-control again.
+
+"And this is my brother, the murderer; indeed, he is."
+
+Beatrice's lips parted, and her eyes winced. She put out her hand
+hesitatingly towards Ralph, and dropped it again as he moved a little
+towards her.
+
+"You hear him?" said Ralph.
+
+"I do not understand," said the girl, "your brother--"
+
+"Yes, I am his brother, God help me," snarled Chris.
+
+Beatrice's lips closed again, and a look of contempt came into her
+face.
+
+"I have heard enough, Mr. Torridon. Will you come with me?"
+
+Chris moved forward a step.
+
+"I do not know who you are, madam," he said, "but do you understand what
+this gentleman is? Do you know that he is a creature of Master
+Cromwell's?"
+
+"I know everything," said Beatrice.
+
+"And you were at Tyburn, too?" questioned Chris bitterly, "perhaps with
+this brother of mine?"
+
+Beatrice faced him defiantly.
+
+"What have you to say against him, sir?"
+
+Ralph made a movement to speak, but the girl checked him.
+
+"I wish to hear it. What have you to say?"
+
+"He is a creature of Cromwell's who plotted the death of God's saints.
+This brother of mine was at the examinations, I hear, and at the
+scaffold. Is that enough?"
+
+Chris had himself under control again by now, but his words seemed to
+burn with vitriol. His lips writhed as he spoke.
+
+"Well?" said Beatrice.
+
+"Well, if that is not enough; how of More and my Lord of Rochester?"
+
+"He has been a good friend to Mr. More," said Beatrice, "that I know."
+
+"He will get him the martyr's crown, surely," sneered Chris.
+
+"And you have no more to say?" asked the girl quietly.
+
+A shudder ran over the monk's body; his mouth opened and closed, and the
+fire in his eyes flared up and died; his clenched hands rose and fell.
+Then he spoke quietly.
+
+"I have no more to say, madam."
+
+Beatrice moved across to Ralph, and put her hand on his arm, looking
+steadily at Chris. Ralph laid his other hand on hers a moment, then
+raised it, and made an abrupt motion towards the door.
+
+Chris went round the table; Mr. Morris opened the door with an impassive
+face, and followed him out, leaving Beatrice and Ralph alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris had come back the previous evening from Tyburn distracted almost
+to madness. He had sat heavily all the evening by himself, brooding and
+miserable, and had not slept all night, but waking visions had moved
+continually before his eyes, as he turned to and fro on his narrow bed
+in the unfamiliar room. Again and again Tyburn was before him, peopled
+with phantoms; he had seen the thick ropes, and heard their creaking,
+and the murmur of the multitude; had smelt the pungent wood-smoke and
+the thick drifting vapour from the cauldron. Once it seemed to him that
+the very room was full of figures, white-clad and silent, who watched
+him with impassive pale faces, remote and unconcerned. He had flung
+himself on his knees again and again, had lashed himself with the
+discipline that he, too, might taste of pain; but all the serenity of
+divine things was gone. There was no heaven, no Saviour, no love. He was
+bound down here, crushed and stifled in this apostate city whose sounds
+and cries came up into his cell. He had lost the fiery vision of the
+conqueror's welcome; it was like a tale heard long ago. Now he was
+beaten down by physical facts, by the gross details of the tragedy, the
+strangling, the blood, the smoke, the acrid smell of the crowd, and
+heaven was darkened by the vapour.
+
+It was not until the next day, as he sat with the Prior and a stranger
+or two, and heard the tale once more, and the predictions about More and
+Fisher, that the significance of Ralph's position appeared to him
+clearly. He knew no more than before, but he suddenly understood what he
+knew.
+
+A monk had said a word of Cromwell's share in the matters, and the Prior
+had glanced moodily at Chris for a moment, turning his eyes only as he
+sat with his chin in his hand; and in a moment Chris understood.
+
+This was the work that his brother was doing. He sat now more distracted
+than ever: mental pictures moved before him of strange council-rooms
+with great men in silk on raised seats, and Ralph was among them. He
+seemed to hear his bitter questions that pierced to the root of the
+faith of the accused, and exposed it to the world, of their adherence to
+the Vicar of Christ, their uncompromising convictions.
+
+He had sat through dinner with burning eyes, but the Prior noticed
+nothing, for he himself was in a passion of absorption, and gave Chris a
+hasty leave as he rose from table to go and see his brother if he
+wished.
+
+Chris had walked up and down his room that afternoon, framing sentences
+of appeal and pity and terror, but it was useless: he could not fix his
+mind; and he had gone off at last to Westminster at once terrified for
+Ralph's soul, and blazing with indignation against him.
+
+And now he was walking down to the river again, in the cool of the
+evening, knowing that he had ruined his own cause and his right to speak
+by his intemperate fury.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was another strange evening that he passed in the Prior's chamber
+after supper. The same monk, Dom Odo, who had taken him to Tyburn the
+day before, was there again; and Chris sat in a corner, with the
+reaction of his fury on him, spent and feverish, now rehearsing the
+scene he had gone through with Ralph, and framing new sentences that he
+might have used, now listening to the talk, and vaguely gathering its
+meaning.
+
+It seemed that the tale of blood was only begun.
+
+Bedale, the Archdeacon of Cornwall, had gone that day to the
+Charterhouse; he had been seen driving there, and getting out at the
+door with a bundle of books under his arm, and he had passed in through
+the gate over which Prior Houghton's arm had been hung on the previous
+evening. It was expected that some more arrests would be made
+immediately.
+
+"As for my Lord of Rochester," said the monk, who seemed to revel in the
+business of bearing bad news, "and Master More, I make no doubt they
+will be cast. They are utterly fixed in their opinions. I hear that my
+lord is very sick, and I pray that God may take him to Himself. He is
+made Cardinal in Rome, I hear; but his Grace has sworn that he shall
+have no head to wear the hat upon."
+
+Then he went off into talk upon the bishop, describing his sufferings in
+the Tower, for he was over eighty years old, and had scarcely sufficient
+clothes to cover him.
+
+Now and again Chris looked across at his Superior. The Prior sat there
+in his great chair, his head on his hand, silent and absorbed; it was
+only when Dom Odo stopped for a moment that he glanced up impatiently
+and nodded for him to go on. It seemed as if he could not hear enough,
+and yet Chris saw him wince, and heard him breathe sharply as each new
+detail came out.
+
+The monk told them, too, of Prior Houghton's speech upon the cart.
+
+"They asked him whether even then he would submit to the King's laws,
+and he called God to witness that it was not for obstinacy or perversity
+that he refused, but that the King and the Parliament had decreed
+otherwise than our Holy Mother enjoins; and that for himself he would
+sooner suffer every kind of pain than deny a doctrine of the Church. And
+when he had prayed from the thirtieth Psalm, he was turned off."
+
+The Prior stared almost vacantly at the monk who told his story with a
+kind of terrified gusto, and once or twice his lips moved to speak; but
+he was silent, and dropped his chin upon his hand again when the other
+had done.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris scarcely knew how the days passed away that followed his arrival
+in London. He spent them for the most part within doors, writing for the
+Prior in the mornings, or keeping watch over the door as his Superior
+talked with prelates and churchmen within, for ecclesiastical London was
+as busy as a broken ant-hill, and men came and went continually--scared,
+furtive monks, who looked this way and that, an abbot or two up for the
+House of Lords, priors and procurators on business. There were continual
+communications going to and fro among the religious houses, for the
+prince of them, the contemplative Carthusian, had been struck at, and no
+one knew where the assault would end.
+
+Meanwhile, Chris had heard no further news from Ralph. He thought of
+writing to him, and even of visiting him again, but his heart sickened
+at the thought of it. It was impossible, he told himself, that any
+communication should pass between them until his brother had forsaken
+his horrible business; the first sign of regret must come from the one
+who had sinned. He wondered sometimes who the girl was, and, as a
+hot-headed monk, suspected the worst. A man who could live as Ralph was
+living could have no morals left. She had been so friendly with him, so
+ready to defend him, so impatient, Chris thought, of any possibility of
+wrong. No doubt she, too, was one of the corrupt band, one of the great
+ladies that buzzed round the Court, and sucked the blood of God's
+people.
+
+His own interior life, however, so roughly broken by his new
+experiences, began to mend slowly as the days went on.
+
+He had begun, like a cat in a new house, to make himself slowly at home
+in the hostel, and to set up that relation between outward objects and
+his own self that is so necessary to interior souls not yet living in
+detachment. He arranged his little room next the Prior's to be as much
+as possible like his cell, got rid of one or two pieces of furniture
+that distracted him, set his bed in another corner, and hung up his
+beads in the same position that they used to occupy at Lewes. Each
+morning he served the Prior's mass in the tiny chapel attached to the
+house, and did his best both then and at his meditation to draw in the
+torn fibres of his spirit. At moments of worship the supernatural world
+began to appear again, like points of living rock emerging through sand,
+detached and half stifled by external details, but real and abiding.
+Little by little his serenity came back, and the old atmosphere
+reasserted itself. After all, God was here as there; grace, penance, the
+guardianship of the angels and the sacrament of the altar was the same
+at Southwark as at Lewes. These things remained; while all else was
+accidental--the different height of his room, the unfamiliar angles in
+the passages, the new noises of London, the street cries, the clash of
+music, the disordered routine of daily life.
+
+Half-way through June, after a long morning's conversation with a
+stranger, the Prior sent for him.
+
+He was standing by the tall carved fire-place with his back to the door,
+his head and one hand leaning against the stone, and he turned round
+despondently as Chris came in. Chris could see he was deadly pale and
+that his lips twitched with nervousness.
+
+"Brother," he said, "I have a perilous matter to go through, and you
+must come with me."
+
+Chris felt his heart begin to labour with heavy sick beats.
+
+"I am to see my Lord of Rochester. A friend hath obtained the order. We
+are to go at five o'clock. See that you be ready. We shall take boat at
+the stairs."
+
+Chris waited, with his eyes deferentially cast down.
+
+"He is to be tried again on Thursday," went on the Prior, "and my
+friends wish me to see him, God knows--"
+
+He stopped abruptly, made a sign with his hand, and as Chris left the
+room he saw that he was leaning once more against the stone-work, and
+that his head was buried in his arms.
+
+Three more Carthusians had been condemned in the previous week, but the
+Bishop's trial, though his name was in the first indictment, was
+postponed a few days.
+
+He too, like Sir Thomas More, had been over a year in the Tower; he had
+been deprived of his see by an Act of Parliament, his palace had been
+broken into and spoiled, and he himself, it was reported, was being
+treated with the greatest rigour in the Tower.
+
+Chris was overcome with excitement at the thought that he was to see
+this man. He had heard of his learning, his holiness, and his
+austerities on all hands since his coming to London. When the bishop had
+left Rochester at his summons to London a year before there had been a
+wonderful scene of farewell, of which the story was still told in town.
+The streets had been thronged with a vast crowd weeping and praying, as
+he rode among them bare-headed, giving his blessing as he went. He had
+checked his horse by the city-gate, and with a loud voice had bidden
+them all stand by the old religion, and let no man take it from them.
+And now here he lay himself in prison for the Faith, a Cardinal of the
+Holy Roman Church, with scarcely clothes to cover him or food to eat. At
+the sacking of his palace, too, as the men ran from room to room tearing
+down the tapestries, and piling the plate together, a monk had found a
+great iron box hidden in a corner. They cried to one another that it
+held gold "for the bloody Pope"; and burst it open to find a hair shirt,
+and a pair of disciplines.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a long row down to the Tower from Southwark against the
+in-flowing tide. As they passed beneath the bridge Chris stared up at
+the crowding houses, the great gates at either end, and the faces
+craning down; and he caught one glimpse as they shot through the narrow
+passage between the piers, of the tall wall above the gate, the poles
+rising from it, and the severed heads that crowned them. Somewhere among
+that forest of grim stems the Carthusian priors looked down.
+
+As he turned in his seat he saw the boatman grinning to himself, and
+following his eyes observed the Prior beside him with a white fixed face
+looking steadily downwards towards his feet.
+
+They found no difficulty when they landed at the stairs, and showed the
+order at the gate. The warder called to a man within the guard-room who
+came out and went before them along the walled way that led to the
+inner ward. They turned up to the left presently and found themselves in
+the great court that surrounded the White Tower.
+
+The Prior walked heavily with his face downcast as if he wished to avoid
+notice, and Chris saw that he paid no attention to the men-at-arms and
+other persons here and there who saluted his prelate's insignia. There
+were plenty of people going about in the evening sunshine, soldiers and
+attendants, and here and there at the foot of a tower stood a halberdier
+in his buff jacket leaning on his weapon. There were many distinguished
+persons in the Tower now, both ecclesiastics and laymen who had refused
+to take one or both of the oaths, and Chris eyed the windows
+wonderingly, picturing to himself where each lay, and with what courage.
+
+But more and more as he went he wondered why the Prior and he were here,
+and who had obtained the order of admittance, for he had not had a sight
+of it.
+
+When they reached the foot of the prison-tower the warder said a word to
+the sentry, and took the two monks straight past, preceding them up the
+narrow stairs that wound into darkness. There were windows here and
+there, slits in the heavy masonry, through which Chris caught glimpses,
+now of the moat on the west, now of the inner ward with the White Tower
+huge and massive on the east.
+
+The Prior, who went behind the warder and in front of Chris, stopped
+suddenly, and Chris could hear him whispering to himself; and at the
+same time there sounded the creaking of a key in front.
+
+As the young monk stood there waiting, grasping the stone-work on his
+right, again the excitement surged up; and with it was mingled something
+of terror. It had been a formidable experience even to walk those few
+hundred yards from the outer gate, and the obvious apprehensiveness of
+the Prior who had spoken no audible word since they had landed, was far
+from reassuring.
+
+Here he stood now for the first time in his life within those terrible
+walls; he had seen the low Traitor's Gate on his way that was for so
+many the gate of death. Even now as he gripped the stone he could see
+out to the left through the narrow slit a streak of open land beyond the
+moat and the wall, and somewhere there he knew lay the little rising
+ground, that reddened week after week in an ooze of blood and slime. And
+now he was at the door of one who without doubt would die there soon for
+the Faith that they both professed.
+
+The Prior turned sharply round.
+
+"You!" he said, "I had forgotten: you must wait here till I call you
+in."
+
+There was a sounding of an opening door above; the Prior went up and
+forward, leaving him standing there; the door closed, but not before
+Chris had caught a glimpse of a vaulted roof; and then the warder stood
+by him again, waiting with his keys in his hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+PRISONER AND PRINCE
+
+
+The sun sank lower and had begun to throw long shadows before the door
+opened again and the Prior beckoned. As Chris had stood there staring
+out of the window at the green water of the moat and the shadowed wall
+beyond, with the warder standing a few steps below, now sighing at the
+delay, now humming a line or two, he had heard voices now and again from
+the room above, but it had been no more than a murmur that died once
+more into silence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris was aware of a dusty room as he stepped over the threshold, bare
+walls, one or two solid pieces of furniture, and of the Prior's figure
+very upright in the light from the tiny window at one side; and then he
+forgot everything as he looked at the man that was standing smiling by
+the table.
+
+It was a very tall slender figure, dressed in a ragged black gown
+turning green with age; a little bent now, but still dignified; the face
+was incredibly lean, with great brown eyes surrounded by wrinkles, and a
+little white hair, ragged, too, and long, hung down under the old
+flapped cap. The hand that Chris kissed seemed a bundle of reeds bound
+with parchment, and above the wrist bones the arm grew thinner still
+under the loose, torn sleeve.
+
+Then the monk stood up and saw those kindly proud eyes looking into his
+own.
+
+The Prior made a deferential movement and said a word or two, and the
+bishop answered him.
+
+"Yes, yes, my Lord Prior; I understand--God bless you, my son."
+
+The bishop moved across to the chair, and sat down, panting a little,
+for he was torn by sickness and deprivation, and laid his long hands
+together.
+
+"Sit down, brother," he said, "and you too, my Lord Prior."
+
+Chris saw the Prior move across to an old broken stool, but he himself
+remained standing, awed and almost terrified at that worn face in which
+the eyes alone seemed living; so thin that the cheekbones stood out
+hideously, and the line of the square jaw. But the voice was wonderfully
+sweet and penetrating.
+
+"My Lord Prior and I have been talking of the times, and what is best to
+be done, and how we must all be faithful. You will be faithful,
+brother?"
+
+Chris made an effort against the absorbing fascination of that face and
+voice.
+
+"I will, my lord."
+
+"That is good; you must follow your prior and be obedient to him. You
+will find him wise and courageous."
+
+The bishop nodded gently towards the Prior, and Chris heard a sobbing
+indrawn breath from the corner where the broken stool stood.
+
+"It is a time of great moment," went on the bishop; "much hangs on how
+we carry ourselves. His Grace has evil counsellors about him."
+
+There was silence for a moment or two; Chris could not take his eyes
+from the bishop's face. The frightful framework of skin and bones seemed
+luminous from within, and there was an extraordinary sweetness on those
+tightly drawn lips, and in the large bright eyes.
+
+"His Grace has been to the Tower lately, I hear, and once to the
+Marshalsea, to see Dom Sebastian Newdegate, who, as you know, was at
+Court for many years till he entered the Charterhouse; but I have had no
+visit from him, nor yet, I should think, Master More--you must not judge
+his Grace too hardly, my son; he was a good lad, as I knew very well--a
+very gallant and brave lad. A Frenchman said that he seemed to have come
+down from heaven. And he has always had a great faith and devotion, and
+a very strange and delicate conscience that has cost him much pain. But
+he has been counselled evilly."
+
+Chris remembered as in a dream that the bishop had been the King's tutor
+years before.
+
+"He is a good theologian too," went on the bishop, "and that is his
+misfortune now, though I never thought to say such a thing. Perhaps he
+will become a better one still, if God has mercy on him, and he will
+come back to his first faith. But we must be good Catholics ourselves,
+and be ready to die for our Religion, before we can teach him."
+
+Again, after another silence, he went on.
+
+"You are to be a priest, I hear, my son, and to take Christ's yoke more
+closely upon you. It is no easy one in these days, though love will make
+it so, as Himself said. I suppose it will be soon now?"
+
+"We are to get a dispensation, my lord, for the interstices," said the
+Prior.
+
+Chris had heard that this would be done, before he left Lewes, and he
+was astonished now, not at the news, but at the strange softness of the
+Prior's voice.
+
+"That is very well," went on the bishop. "We want all the faithful
+priests possible. There is a great darkness in the land, and we need
+lights to lighten it. You have a brother in Master Cromwell's service,
+sir, I hear?"
+
+Chris was silent.
+
+"You must not grieve too much. God Almighty can set all right. It may be
+he thinks he is serving Him. We are not here to judge, but to give our
+own account."
+
+The bishop went on presently to ask a few questions and to talk of
+Master More, saying that he had managed to correspond with him for a
+while, but that now all the means for doing so had been taken away from
+them both, as well as his own books.
+
+"It is a great grief to me that I cannot say my office, nor say nor hear
+mass: I must trust now to the Holy Sacrifice offered by others."
+
+He spoke so tenderly and tranquilly that Chris was hardly able to keep
+back his tears. It seemed that the soul still kept its serene poise in
+that wasted body, and was independent of it. There was no weakness nor
+peevishness anywhere. The very room with its rough walls, its cobwebbed
+roof, its uneven flooring, its dreadful chill and gloom, seemed alive
+with a warm, redolent, spiritual atmosphere generated by this keen, pure
+soul. Chris had never been near so real a sanctity before.
+
+"You have seen nothing of my Rochester folk, I suppose?" went on the
+bishop to the Prior.
+
+The Prior shook his head.
+
+"I am very downcast about them sometimes; I saw many of them at the
+court the other day. I forget that the Good Shepherd can guard His own
+sheep. And they were so faithful to me that I know they will be faithful
+to Him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There came a sound of a key being knocked upon the door outside, and the
+bishop stood up, slowly and painfully.
+
+"That will be Mr. Giles," he said, "hungry for supper."
+
+The two monks sank down on their knees, and as Chris closed his eyes he
+heard a soft murmur of blessing over his head.
+
+Then each kissed his hand and Chris went to the door, half blind with
+tears.
+
+He heard a whisper from the bishop to the Prior, who still lingered a
+moment, and a half sob--
+
+"God helping me!"--said the Prior.
+
+There was no more spoken, and the two went down the stairs together into
+the golden sunshine with the warder behind them.
+
+Chris dared not look at the other. He had had a glimpse of his face as
+he stood aside on the stairs to let him pass, and what he saw there told
+him enough.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were plenty of boats rocking on the tide at the foot of the river
+stairs outside the Tower, and they stepped into one, telling the man to
+row to Southwark.
+
+It was a glorious summer evening now. The river lay bathed in the level
+sunshine that turned it to molten gold, and it was covered with boats
+plying in all directions. There were single wherries going to and from
+the stairs that led down on all sides into the water, and barges here
+and there, of the great merchants or nobles going home to supper, with a
+line of oars on each side, and a glow of colour gilding in the stem and
+prow, were moving up stream towards the City. London Bridge stood out
+before them presently, like a palace in a fairy-tale, blue and romantic
+against the western glow, and above it and beyond rose up the tall spire
+of the Cathedral. On the other side a fringe of houses began a little to
+the east of the bridge, and ran up to the spires of Southwark on the
+other side, and on them lay a glory of sunset with deep shadows barring
+them where the alleys ran down to the water's edge. Here and there
+behind rose up the heavy masses of the June foliage. A troop of swans,
+white patches on the splendour, were breasting up against the
+out-flowing tide.
+
+The air was full of sound; the rattle and dash of oars, men's voices
+coming clear and minute across the water; and as they got out near
+mid-stream the bell of St. Paul's boomed far from away, indescribably
+solemn and melodious; another church took it up, and a chorus of mellow
+voices tolled out the Angelus.
+
+Chris was half through saying it to himself, when across the soft murmur
+sounded the clash of brass far away beyond the bridge.
+
+The boatman paused at his oars, turned round a moment, grasping them in
+one hand, and stared up-stream under the other. Chris could see a
+movement among the boats higher up, and there seemed to break out a
+commotion at the foot of the houses on London Bridge, and then far away
+came the sound of cheering.
+
+"What is it?" asked the Prior sharply, lifting his head, as the boatman
+gave an exclamation and laid furiously to his oars again.
+
+The man jerked his head backwards.
+
+"The King's Grace," he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a minute or two nothing more was to be seen. A boat or two near them
+was seen making off to the side from mid-stream, to leave a clear
+passage, and there were cries from the direction of the bridge where
+someone seemed to be in difficulties with the strong stream and the
+piers. A wherry that was directly between them and the bridge moved
+off, and the shining water-way was left for the King's Grace to come
+down.
+
+Then, again, the brass horns sounded nearer.
+
+Chris was conscious of an immense excitement. The dramatic contrast of
+the scene he had just left with that which he was witnessing overpowered
+him. He had seen one end of the chain of life, the dying bishop in the
+Tower, in his rags; now he was to see the other end, the Sovereign at
+whose will he was there, in all the magnificence of a pageant. The Prior
+was sitting bolt upright on the seat beside him; one hand lay on his
+knee, the knuckles white with clenching, the other gripped the side of
+the boat.
+
+Then, again, the fierce music sounded, and the first boat appeared under
+one of the wider spans of the bridge, a couple of hundred yards away.
+
+The stream was running out strongly by now, and the boatman tugged to
+get out of it into the quieter water at the side, and as he pulled an
+oar snapped. The Prior half started up as the man burst out into an
+exclamation, and began to paddle furiously with the other oar, but the
+boat revolved helplessly, and he was forced to change it to the opposite
+side.
+
+Meanwhile the boats were beginning to stream under the bridge, and
+Chris, seeing that the boat in which he sat was sufficiently out of the
+way to allow a clear passage in mid-stream even if not far enough
+removed for proper deference, gave himself up to watching the splendid
+sight.
+
+The sun had now dropped behind the high houses by the bridge, and a
+shadow lay across the water, but nearer at hand the way was clear, and
+in a moment more the leading boat had entered the sunlight.
+
+There was no possibility of mistake as to whether this were the royal
+barge or no. It was a great craft, seventy feet from prow to stem at
+the very least, and magnificent with colour. As it burst out into the
+sun, it blazed blindingly with gold; the prow shone with blue and
+crimson; the stern, roofed in with a crimson canopy with flying tassels,
+trailed brilliant coarse tapestries on either side; and the Royal
+Standard streamed out behind.
+
+Chris tried to count the oars, as they swept into the water with a
+rhythmical throb and out again, flashing a fringe of drops and showing a
+coat painted on each blade. There seemed to be eight or ten a side. A
+couple of trumpeters stood in the bows, behind the gilded carved
+figurehead, their trumpets held out symmetrically with the square
+hangings flapping as they came.
+
+He could see now the heads of the watermen who rowed, with the caps of
+the royal livery moving together like clockwork at the swing of the
+oars.
+
+Behind followed the other boats, some half dozen in all; and as each
+pair burst out into the level sunlight with a splendour of gold and
+colour, and the roar from London Bridge swelled louder and louder, for a
+moment the young monk forgot the bitter underlying tragedy of all that
+he had seen and knew--forgot oozy Tower-hill and trampled Tyburn and the
+loaded gallows--forgot even the grim heads that stared out with dead
+tortured eyes from the sheaves of pikes rising high above him at this
+moment against the rosy sky--forgot the monks of the Charterhouse and
+their mourning hearts; the insulted queen, repudiated and declared a
+concubine--forgot all that made life so hard to live and understand at
+this time--as this splendid vision of the lust of the eyes broke out in
+pulsating sound and colour before him.
+
+But it was only for a moment.
+
+There was a group of half-a-dozen persons under the canopy of the
+seat-of-state of the leading boat; the splendid centre of the splendid
+show, brilliant in crimson and gold and jewels.
+
+On the further side sat two men. Chris did not know their faces, but as
+his eyes rested on them a moment he noticed that one was burly and
+clean-shaven, and wore some insignia across his shoulders. At the near
+side were the backs of two ladies, silken clad and slashed with crimson,
+their white jewelled necks visible under their coiled hair and tight
+square cut caps. And in the centre sat a pair, a man and a woman; and on
+these he fixed his eyes as the boat swept up not twenty yards away, for
+he knew who they must be.
+
+The man was leaning back, looking gigantic in his puffed sleeves and
+wide mantle; one great arm was flung along the back of the tapestried
+seat, and his large head, capped with purple and feathers, was bending
+towards the woman who sat beyond. Chris could make out a fringe of
+reddish hair beneath his ear and at the back of the flat head between
+the high collar and the cap. He caught a glimpse, too, of a sedate face
+beyond, set on a slender neck, with downcast eyes and red lips. And then
+as the boat came opposite, and the trumpeters sent out a brazen crash
+from the trumpets at their lips, the man turned his head and stared
+straight at the boat.
+
+It was an immensely wide face, fringed with reddish hair, scanty about
+the lips and more full below; and it looked the wider from the narrow
+drooping eyes set near together and the small pursed mouth. Below, his
+chin swelled down fold after fold into his collar, and the cheeks were
+wide and heavy on either side.
+
+It was the most powerful face that Chris had ever seen or dreamed
+of--the animal brooded in every line and curve of it--it would have
+been brutish but for the steady pale stare of the eyes and the tight
+little lips. It fascinated and terrified him.
+
+The flourish ended, the roar of the rowlocks sounded out again like the
+beating of a furious heart; the King turned his head again and said
+something, and the boat swept past.
+
+Chris found that he had started to his feet, and sat down again,
+breathing quickly and heavily, with a kind of indignant loathing that
+was new to him.
+
+This then was the master of England, the heart of all their
+troubles--that gorgeous fat man with the broad pulpy face, in his
+crimson and jewels; and that was his concubine who sat demure beside
+him, with her white folded ringed hands on her lap, her beautiful eyes
+cast down, and her lord's hot breath in her ear! It was these that were
+purifying the Church of God of such men as the Cardinal-bishop in the
+Tower, and the witty holy lawyer! It was by the will of such as these
+that the heads of the Carthusian Fathers, bound brow and chin with
+linen, stared up and down with dead eyes from the pikes overhead.
+
+He sat panting and unseeing as the other boats swept past, full of the
+King's friends all going down to Greenwich.
+
+There broke out a roar from the Tower behind, and he started and turned
+round to see the white smoke eddying up from the edge of the wall beside
+the Traitor's gate; a shrill cheer or two, far away and thin, sounded
+from the figures on the wharf and the boatmen about the stairs.
+
+The wherryman sat down again and put on his cap.
+
+"Body of God!" he said, "there was but just time."
+
+And he began to pull again with his single oar towards the shore.
+
+Chris looked at the Prior a moment and down again. He was sitting with
+tight lips, and hands clasped in his lap, and his eyes were wild and
+piteous.
+
+They borrowed an oar presently from another boat, and went on up towards
+Southwark. The wherryman pawed once to spit on his hands as they neared
+the rush of the current below the bridge.
+
+"That was Master Cromwell with His Grace," he said.
+
+Chris looked at him questioningly.
+
+"Him with the gold collar," he added, "and that was Audley by him."
+
+The Prior had glanced at Chris as Cromwell's name was mentioned; but
+said nothing for the present. And Chris himself was lost again in
+musing. That was Ralph's master then, the King's right-hand man, feared
+next in England after the King himself--and Chancellor Audley, too, and
+Anne, all in one wooden boat. How easy for God to put out His hand and
+finish them! And then he was ashamed at his own thought, so faithless
+and timid; and he remembered Fisher once more and his gallant spirit in
+that broken body.
+
+A minute or two later they had landed at the stairs, and were making
+their way up to the hostel.
+
+The Prior put out his hand and checked him as he stepped ahead to knock.
+
+"Wait," he said. "Do you know who signed the order we used at the
+Tower?"
+
+Chris shook his head.
+
+"Master Cromwell," said the Prior. "And do you know by whose hand it
+came?"
+
+Chris stared in astonishment.
+
+"It was by your brother," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE SACRED PURPLE
+
+
+It was a bright morning a few days later when the Bishop of Rochester
+suffered on Tower Hill.
+
+Chris was there early, and took up his position at the outskirts of the
+little crowd, facing towards the Tower itself; and for a couple of hours
+watched the shadows creep round the piles of masonry, and the light
+deepen and mellow between him and the great mass of the White Tower a
+few hundred yards away. There was a large crowd there a good while
+before nine o'clock, and Chris found himself at the hour no longer on
+the outskirts but in the centre of the people.
+
+He had served the Prior's mass at six o'clock, and had obtained leave
+from him the night before to be present at the execution; but the Prior
+himself had given no suggestion of coming. Chris had begun to see that
+his superior was going through a conflict, and that he wished to spare
+himself any further motives of terror; he began too to understand that
+the visit to the bishop had had the effect of strengthening the Prior's
+courage, whatever had been the intention on the part of the authorities
+in allowing him to go. He was still wondering why Ralph had lent himself
+to the scheme; but had not dared to press his superior further.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The bishop had made a magnificent speech at his trial, and had
+protested with an extraordinary pathos, that called out a demonstration
+from the crowd in court, against Master Rich's betrayal of his
+confidence. Under promise of the King that nothing that he said to his
+friend should be used against him, the bishop had shown his mind in a
+private conversation on the subject of the Supremacy Act, and now this
+had been brought against him by Rich himself at the trial.
+
+"Seeing it pleased the King's Highness," said the bishop, "to send to me
+thus secretly to know my poor advice and opinion, which I most gladly
+was, and ever will be, ready to offer to him when so commanded, methinks
+it very hard to allow the same as sufficient testimony against me, to
+prove me guilty of high treason."
+
+Rich excused himself by affirming that he said or did nothing more than
+what the King commanded him to do; and the trial ended by the bishop's
+condemnation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Chris waited by the scaffold he prayed almost incessantly. There was
+sufficient spur for prayer in the menacing fortress before him with its
+hundred tiny windows, and the new scaffold, some five or six feet high,
+that stood in the foreground. He wondered how the bishop was passing his
+time and thought he knew. The long grey wall beyond the moat, and the
+towers that rose above it, were suggestive in their silent strength.
+From where he stood too he could catch a glimpse of the shining reaches
+of the river with the green slopes on the further side; and the freedom
+and beauty of the sight, the delicate haze that hung over the water, the
+birds winging their way across, the boats plying to and fro, struck a
+vivid contrast to the grim fatality of the prison and the scaffold.
+
+A bell sounded out somewhere from the Tower, and a ripple ran through
+the crowd. There was an immensely tall man a few yards from Chris, and
+Chris could see his face turn suddenly towards the lower ground by the
+river where the gateway rose up dark against the bright water. The man's
+face suddenly lighted with interest, and Chris saw his lips move and his
+eyes become intent. Then a surging movement began, and the monk was
+swept away to the left by the packed crowd round him. There were faces
+lining the wall and opposite, and all were turned one way. A great
+murmur began to swell up, and a woman beside him turned white and began
+to sob quietly.
+
+His eyes caught a bright point of light that died again, flashed out,
+and resolved itself into a gleaming line of halberds, moving on towards
+the right above the heads, up the slope to the scaffold. He saw a horse
+toss his head; and then a feathered cap or two swaying behind.
+
+Then for one instant between the shifting heads in front he caught sight
+of a lean face framed in a flapped cap swaying rhythmically as if borne
+on a chair. It vanished again.
+
+The flashing line of halberds elongated itself, divided, and came
+between the scaffold and him; and the murmur of the crowd died to a
+heart-shaking silence. A solemn bell clanged out again from the interior
+of the prison, and Chris, his wet hands knit together, began to count
+the strokes mechanically, staring at the narrow rail of the scaffold,
+and waiting for the sight that he knew would come. Then again he was
+swept along a yard or two to the right, and when he had recovered his
+feet a man was on the scaffold, bending forwards and gesticulating.
+Another head rose into the line of vision, and this man too turned
+towards the steps up which he had come, and stood, one hand
+outstretched.
+
+Again a murmur and movement began; Chris had to look to his foothold,
+and when he raised his head again a solemn low roar was rising up and
+swelling, of pity and excitement, for, silhouetted against the sunlit
+Tower behind, stood the man for whose sake all were there.
+
+He was in a black gown and tippet, and carried his two hands clasped to
+his breast; and in them was a book and a crucifix. His cap was on his
+head, and the white face, incredibly thin, looked out over the heads of
+the crowd.
+
+Chris hardly noticed that the scaffold was filling with people, until a
+figure came forward, in black, with a masked face, and bowed
+deferentially to the bishop; and in an instant silence fell again.
+
+He saw the bishop turn and bow slightly in return, and in the stillness
+that wonderful voice sounded out, with the clear minuteness of words
+spoken in the open air, clear and penetrating over the whole ground.
+
+"I forgive you very heartily; and I hope you will see me overcome this
+storm lustily."
+
+The black figure fell back, and the bishop stood hesitating, looking
+this way and that as if for direction.
+
+The Lieutenant of the Tower came forward; but Chris could only see his
+lips move, as a murmur had broken out again at the bishop's answer; but
+he signed with his hand and stepped behind the prisoner.
+
+The bishop nodded, lifted his hand and took off his cap; and his white
+hair appeared; then he fumbled at his throat, holding the book and
+crucifix in his other hand; and, with the Lieutenant's help, slipped off
+his tippet and loose gown; and as he freed himself, and stood in his
+doublet and hose, a great sobbing cry of horror and compassion rose from
+the straining faces, for he seemed scarcely to be a living man, so
+dreadful was his emaciation. Above that lean figure of death looked out
+the worn old face, serene and confident. He was again holding the book
+and crucifix clasped to his breast, as he stepped to the edge of the
+scaffold.
+
+The cry died to a murmur and ceased abruptly as he began his speech,
+every word of which was audible.
+
+"Christian people," he began, "I am come hither to die for the faith of
+Christ's holy Catholic Church." He raised his voice a little, and it
+rang out confidently. "And I thank God that hitherto my stomach hath
+served me very well thereunto, so that yet I have not feared death.
+Wherefore I desire you all to help and assist with your prayers, that at
+the very point and instant of death's stroke I may in that very moment
+stand steadfast, without fainting in any one point of the Catholic
+Faith, free from any fear."
+
+He paused again; his hands closed one on the other. He glanced up.
+
+"And I beseech the Almighty God of His infinite goodness and mercy, to
+save the King and this realm; and that it may please Him to hold His
+hand over it, and send the King's Highness good counsel."
+
+He ceased abruptly; and dropped his head.
+
+A gentle groan ran through the crowd.
+
+Chris felt his throat contract, and a mist blinded his eyes for a
+moment.
+
+Then he saw the bishop slip the crucifix into his other hand, and open
+the book, apparently at random. His lean finger dropped upon the page;
+and he read aloud softly, as if to himself.
+
+"This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the one true God, and
+Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the earth; I
+have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do."
+
+Again there was silence, for it seemed as if he was going to make a
+sermon, but he looked down at the book a moment or two. Then he closed
+it gently.
+
+"Here is learning enough for me," he said, "to my life's end."
+
+There was a movement among the silent figures at the back of the
+scaffold; and the Lieutenant stepped forward once more. The bishop
+turned to meet him and nodded; handing him the book; and then with the
+crucifix still in his hands, and with the officer's help, sank on to his
+knees.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It seemed to Chris as if he waited an eternity; but he could not take
+his eyes off him. Round about was the breathing mass of the crowd,
+overhead the clear summer sky; up from the river came the sounds of
+cries and the pulse of oars, and from the Tower now and again the call
+of a horn and the stroke of a bell; but all this was external, and
+seemed to have no effect upon the intense silence of the heart that
+radiated from the scaffold, and in which the monk felt himself
+enveloped. The space between himself and the bishop seemed annihilated;
+and Chris found himself in company with a thousand others close beside
+the man's soul that was to leave the world so soon. He could not pray;
+but he had the sensation of gripping that imploring spirit, pulsating
+with it, furthering with his own strained will that stream of effort
+that he knew was going forth.
+
+Meanwhile his eyes stared at him; and saw without seeing how the old man
+now leaned back with closed eyes and moving lips; now he bent forward,
+and looked at the crucified figure that he held between his hands, now
+lifted it and lingeringly kissed the pierced feet. Behind stood the
+stiff line of officers, and in front below the rail rose the glitter of
+the halberds.
+
+The minutes went by and there was no change. The world seemed to have
+grown rigid with expectancy; it was as if time stood still. There fell
+upon the monk's soul, not suddenly but imperceptibly, something of that
+sense of the unseen that he had experienced at Tyburn. For a certain
+space all sorrow and terror left him; he knew tangibly now that to which
+at other times his mere faith assented; he knew that the world of spirit
+was the real one; that the Tower, the axe, the imminent shadow of death,
+were little more than illusions; they were part of the staging,
+significant and necessary, but with no substance of reality. The eternal
+world in which God was all, alone was a fact. He felt no longer pity or
+regret. Nothing but the sheer existence of a Being of which all persons
+there were sharers, poised in an eternal instant, remained with him.
+
+This strange sensation was scarcely disturbed by the rising of the lean
+black figure from its knees; Chris watched him as he might have watched
+the inevitable movement of an actor performing his pre-arranged part.
+The bishop turned eastward, to where the sun was now high above the
+Tower gate, and spoke once more.
+
+"_Accedite ad eum, et illuminamini; et facies vestr� non confundentur_."
+
+Then once more in the deathly stillness he turned round; and his eyes
+ran over the countless faces turned up to his own. But there was a
+certain tranquil severity in his face--the severity of one who has taken
+a bitter cup firmly into his hand; his lips were tightly compressed, and
+his eyes were deep and steady.
+
+Then very slowly he lifted his right hand, touched his forehead, and
+enveloped himself in a great sign of the cross, still looking out
+unwaveringly over the faces; and immediately, without any hesitation,
+sank down on his knees, put his hands before him on to the scaffold, and
+stretched himself flat.
+
+He was now invisible to Chris; for the low block on which he had laid
+his neck was only a few inches high.
+
+There was again a surge and a murmur as the headsman stepped forward
+with the huge-headed axe over his shoulder, and stood waiting.
+
+Then again the moments began to pass.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris lost all consciousness of his own being; he was aware of nothing
+but the objective presence of the scaffold, of an overpowering
+expectancy. It seemed as if something were stretched taut in his brain,
+at breaking point; as if some vast thing were on the point of
+revelation. All else had vanished,--the scene round him, the sense of
+the invisible; there was but the point of space left, waiting for an
+explosion.
+
+There was a sense of wrenching torture as the headsman lifted the axe,
+bringing it high round behind him; the motion seemed shockingly slow,
+and to wring the strained nerves to agony....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then in a blinding climax the axe fell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE KING'S FRIEND
+
+
+Overfield Court was mildly stirred at the news that Master Christopher
+would stay there a few days on his way back from London to Lewes. It was
+not so exciting as when Master Ralph was to come, as the latter made
+more demands than a mere monk; for the one the horses must be in the
+pink of condition, the game neither too wild nor too tame, his rooms
+must be speckless, neither too full nor too empty of furniture; for the
+other it did not matter so much, for he was now not only a younger
+brother, but a monk, and therefore accustomed to contradiction and
+desirous to acquiesce in arrangements.
+
+Lady Torridon indeed took no steps at all when she heard that Chris was
+coming, beyond expressing a desire that she might not be called upon to
+discuss the ecclesiastical situation at every meal; and when Chris
+finally arrived a week after Bishop Fisher's execution, having parted
+with the Prior at Cuckfield, she was walking in her private garden
+beyond the moat.
+
+Sir James was in a very different state. He had caused two rooms to be
+prepared, that his son might take his choice, one next to Mr. Carleton's
+and therefore close to the chapel, and the other the old chamber that
+Chris had occupied before he went to Lewes; and when the monk at last
+rode up on alone on his tired mule with his little bag strapped to the
+crupper, an hour before sunset, his father was out at the gatehouse to
+meet him, and walked up beside him to the house, with his hand laid on
+his son's knee.
+
+They hardly spoke a word as they went; Sir James had looked up at
+Chris's white strained face, and had put one question; and the other had
+nodded; and the hearts of both were full as they went together to the
+house.
+
+The father and son supped together alone that night in the private
+parlour, for no one had dared to ask Lady Torridon to postpone her usual
+supper hour; and as soon as that was over and Chris had told what he had
+seen, with many silences, they went into the oak-room where Lady
+Torridon and Mr. Carleton were awaiting them by the hearth with the
+Flemish tiles.
+
+The mother was sitting as usual in her tall chair, with her beautiful
+hands on her lap, and smiled with a genial contempt as she ran her eyes
+up and down her son's figure.
+
+"The habit suits you very well, my son--in every way," she added,
+looking at him curiously.
+
+Chris had greeted her an hour before at his arrival, so there was no
+ceremony of salute to be gone through now. He sat down by his father.
+
+"You have seen Ralph, I hear," observed Lady Torridon.
+
+Chris did not know how much she knew, and simply assented. He had told
+his father everything.
+
+"I have some news," she went on in an unusually talkative mood, "for you
+both. Ralph is to marry Beatrice Atherton--the girl you saw in his
+rooms, Christopher."
+
+Sir James gave an exclamation and leant forward; and Chris tightened his
+lips.
+
+"She is a friend of Mr. More's," went on Lady Torridon, apparently
+unconscious of the sensation she was making, "but that is Ralph's
+business, I suppose."
+
+"Why did Ralph not write to me?" asked his father, with a touch of
+sternness.
+
+Lady Torridon answered him by a short pregnant silence, and then went
+on--
+
+"I suppose he wished me to break it to you. It will not be for two or
+three years. She says she cannot leave Mrs. More for the present."
+
+Chris's brain was confused by the news, and yet it all seemed external
+to him. As he had ridden up to the house in the evening he had
+recognised for the first time how he no longer belonged to the place;
+his two years at Lewes had done their work, and he came to his home now
+not as a son but as a guest. He had even begun to perceive the
+difference after his quarrel with Ralph, for he had not been conscious
+of the same personal sting at his brother's sins that he would have felt
+five years ago. And now this news, while it affected him, did not
+penetrate to the still sanctuary that he had hewn out of his heart
+during those months of discipline.
+
+But his father was roused.
+
+"He should have written to me," he said sternly. "And, my wife, I will
+beg you to remember that I have a right to my son's business."
+
+Lady Torridon did not move or answer. He leaned back again, and passed
+his hand tenderly through Chris's arm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was very strange to the younger son to find himself a few minutes
+later up again in the west gallery of the chapel, where he had knelt two
+years before; and for a few moments he almost felt himself at home. But
+the mechanical shifting of his scapular aside as he sat down for the
+psalms, recalled facts. Then he had been in his silk suit, his hands had
+been rough with his cross-bow, his beard had been soft on his chin, and
+the blood hot in his cheeks. Now he was in his habit, smooth-faced and
+shaven, tired and oppressed, still weak from the pangs of soul-birth. He
+was further from human love, but nearer the Divine, he thought.
+
+He sat with his father a few minutes after compline; and Sir James spoke
+more frankly of the news that they had heard.
+
+"If she is really a friend of Mr. More's," he said, "she may be his
+salvation. I am sorely disappointed in him. I did not know Master
+Cromwell when I sent him to him, as I do now. Is it my fault, Chris?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris told his father presently of what the Prior had said as to Ralph's
+assistance in the matter of the visit that the two monks had paid to the
+Tower; and asked an interpretation.
+
+Sir James sat quiet a minute or two, stroking his pointed grey beard
+softly, and looking into the hearth.
+
+"God forgive me if I am wrong, my son," he said at last, "but I wonder
+whether they let the my Lord Prior go to the Tower in order to shake the
+confidence of both. Do you think so, Chris?"
+
+Chris too was silent a moment; he knew he must not speak evil of
+dignities.
+
+"It may be so. I know that my Lord Prior--"
+
+"Well, my son?"
+
+"My Lord Prior has been very anxious--"
+
+Sir James patted his son on the knee, and reassured him.
+
+"Prior Crowham is a very holy man, I think; but--but somewhat delicate.
+However their designs have come to nothing. The bishop is in glory; and
+the other more courageous than he was."
+
+Chris also had a few words with Mr. Carleton before he went to bed,
+sitting where he had sat in the moonlight two years before.
+
+"If they have done so much," said the priest, "they will do more. When a
+man has slipped over a precipice he cannot save his fall. Master More
+will be the next to go; I make no doubt of that. You are to be a priest
+soon, Chris?"
+
+"They have applied for leave," said the monk shortly. "In two years I
+shall be a priest, no doubt, if God wills."
+
+"You are happy?" asked the other.
+
+Chris made a little gesture.
+
+"I do not know what that means," he said, "but I know I have done right.
+I feel nothing. God's ways and His world are too strange."
+
+The priest looked at him oddly, without speaking.
+
+"Well, father?" asked Chris, smiling.
+
+"You are right," said the chaplain brusquely. "You have done well. You
+have crossed the border."
+
+Chris felt the blood surge in his temples.
+
+"The border?" he asked.
+
+"The border of dreams. They surround the Religious Life; and you have
+passed through them."
+
+Chris still looked at him with parted lips. This praise was sweet, after
+the bitterness of his failure with Ralph. The priest seemed to know what
+was passing in his mind.
+
+"Oh! you will fail sometimes," he said, "but not finally. You are a
+monk, my son, and a man."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lady Torridon retired into her impregnable silence again after her
+sallies of speech on the previous evening; but as the few days went on
+that Chris had been allowed to spend with his parents he was none the
+less aware that her attitude towards him was one of contempt. She
+showed it in a hundred ways--by not appearing to see him, by refusing to
+modify her habits in the smallest particular for his convenience, by a
+rigid silence on the subject that was in the hearts of both him and his
+father. She performed her duties as punctually and efficiently as ever,
+dealt dispassionately and justly with an old servant who had been
+troublesome, and with regard to whom her husband was both afraid and
+tender; but never asked for confidences or manifested the minutest
+detail of her own accord.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the fourth day after Chris's arrival news came that Sir Thomas More
+had been condemned, but it roused no more excitement than the fall of a
+threatening rod. It had been known to be inevitable. And then on Chris's
+last evening at home came the last details.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir James and Chris had been out for a long ride up the estate, talking
+but little, for each knew what was in the heart of the other; and they
+were just dismounting at the terrace-steps when there was a sound of
+furious galloping; and a couple of riders burst through the gateway a
+hundred yards away.
+
+Chris felt his heart leap and hammer in his throat, but stood passively
+awaiting what he knew was coming; and a few seconds later, Nicholas
+Maxwell checked his horse passionately at the steps.
+
+"God damn them!" he cried, with a crimson quivering face.
+
+Sir James stepped up at once and took him by the arm.
+
+"Nick," he said, and glanced at the staring grooms.
+
+Nicholas showed his teeth like a dog.
+
+"God damn them!" he said again.
+
+The other rider had come up by now; he was dusty and seemed spent. He
+was a stranger to the father and son who waited on the steps; but he
+looked like a groom, and slipped off his horse deftly and took Sir
+Nicholas's bridle.
+
+"Come in Nick," said Sir James. "We can talk in the house."
+
+As the three went up together, with the strange rider at a respectful
+distance behind, Nicholas broke out again in one sentence.
+
+"They have done it," he said, "he is dead. Mother of God!"
+
+His whip twitched in his clenching hand. He turned and jerked his head
+beckoningly to the man who followed; and the four went on together,
+through the hall and into Sir James's parlour. Sir James shut the door.
+
+"Tell us, Nick."
+
+Nicholas stood at the hearth, glaring and shifting.
+
+"This fellow knows--he saw it; tell them, Dick."
+
+The man gave his account. He was one of the servants of Sir Nicholas'
+younger brother, who lived in town, and had been sent down to Great
+Keynes immediately after the execution that had taken place that
+morning. He was a man of tolerable education, and told his story well.
+
+Sir James sat as he listened, with his hand shading his eyes; Nicholas
+was fidgetting at the hearth, interrupting the servant now and again
+with questions and reminders; and Chris leaned in the dark corner by the
+window. There floated vividly before his mind as he listened the setting
+of the scene that he had looked upon a few days ago, though there were
+new actors in it now.
+
+"It was this morning, sir, on Tower Hill. There was a great company
+there long before the time. He came out bravely enough, walking with
+the Lieutenant that was his friend, and with a red cross in his hand."
+
+"You were close by," put in Nicholas
+
+"Yes, sir; I was beside the stairs. They shook as he went up; they were
+crazy steps, and he told the Lieutenant to have a care to him."
+
+"The words, man, the words!"
+
+"I am not sure, sir; but they were after this fashion: 'See me safe up,
+Master Lieutenant; I will shift for myself at the coming down.' So he
+got up safe, and stamped once or twice merrily to see if all were firm.
+Then he made a speech, sir, and begged all there to pray for him. He
+told them that he was to die for the faith of the Catholic Church, as my
+Lord of Rochester did."
+
+"Have you heard of my lord's head being taken to Nan Boleyn?" put in
+Nicholas fiercely.
+
+Sir James looked up.
+
+"Presently, Nick," he said.
+
+The man went on.
+
+"Master More kneeled down presently at his prayers; and all the folk
+kept very quiet. There was not one that cried against him. Then he stood
+up again, put off his gown, so that his neck was bare; and passed his
+hand over it smiling. Then he told the headsman that it was but a short
+one, and bade him be brave and strike straight, lest his good name
+should suffer. Then he laid himself down to the block, and put his neck
+on it; but he moved again before he gave the sign, and put his beard out
+in front--for he had grown one in prison"--
+
+"Give us the words," snarled Nicholas.
+
+"He said, sir, that his beard had done no treason, and need not
+therefore suffer as he had to do. And then he thrust out his hand for a
+sign--and 'twas done at a stroke."
+
+"God damn them!" hissed Nicholas again as a kind of Amen, turning
+swiftly to the fire-place so that his face could not be seen.
+
+There was complete silence for a few seconds. The groom had his eyes
+cast down, and stood there--then again he spoke.
+
+"As to my Lord of Rochester's head, that was taken off to the--the
+Queen, they say, in a white bag, and she struck it on the mouth."
+
+Nicholas dropped his head against his hand that rested on the wood-work.
+
+"And the body rested naked all day on the scaffold, with the halberd-men
+drinking round about; and 'twas tumbled into a hole in Barking
+Churchyard that night."
+
+"At whose orders?"
+
+"At Master Cromwell's, sir."
+
+Again there was silence; and again the groom broke it.
+
+"There was more said, sir--" and hesitated.
+
+The old man signed to him to go on.
+
+"They say that my lord's head shone with light each night on the
+bridge," said the man reverently; "there was a great press there, I
+know, all day, so that the streets were blocked, and none could come or
+go. And so they tumbled that into the river at last; at least 'tis
+supposed so--for 'twas gone when I looked."
+
+Nicholas turned round; and his eyes were bright and his face fiery and
+discoloured.
+
+Sir James stood up, and his voice was broken as he spoke.
+
+"Thank you, my man. You have told your story well."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the groom turned to go out, Sir Nicholas wheeled round swiftly to the
+hearth, and buried his face on his arm; and Chris saw a great heaving
+begin to shake his broad shoulders.
+
+
+
+
+THE KING'S TRIUMPH--BOOK II
+
+
+
+
+PART I--THE SMALLER HOUSES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+AN ACT OF FAITH
+
+
+Towards the end of August Beatrice Atherton was walking up the north
+bank of the river from Charing to Westminster to announce to Ralph her
+arrival in town on the previous night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She had gone through horrors since the June day on which she had seen
+the two brothers together. With Margaret beside her she had watched
+Master More in court, in his frieze gown, leaning on his stick, bent and
+grey with imprisonment, had heard his clear answers, his searching
+questions, and his merry conclusion after sentence had been pronounced;
+she had stayed at home with the stricken family on the morning of the
+sixth of July, kneeling with them at her prayers in the chapel of the
+New Building, during the hours until Mr. Roper looked in grey-faced and
+trembling, and they knew that all was over. She went with them to the
+burial in St. Peter's Chapel in the Tower; and last, which was the most
+dreadful ordeal of all, she had stood in the summer darkness by the
+wicket-gate, had heard the cautious stroke of oars, and the footsteps
+coming up the path, and had let Margaret in bearing her precious burden
+robbed from the spike on London Bridge.
+
+Then for a while she had gone down to the country with Mrs. More and
+her daughters; and now she was back once more, in a kind of psychical
+convalescence, at her aunt's new house on the river-bank at Charing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Her face was a little paler than it used to be, but there was a
+quickening brightness in her eyes as she swept along in her blue mantle,
+with her maid beside her, in the rear of the liveried servant, who
+carried a silver-headed wand a few yards in front.
+
+She was rehearsing to herself the scene in which Ralph had asked her to
+be his wife.
+
+Where Chris had left the room the two had remained perfectly still until
+the street-door had closed; and then Ralph had turned to her with a
+question in his steady eyes.
+
+She had told him then that she did not believe one word of what the monk
+had insinuated; but she had been conscious even at the time that she was
+making what theologians call an act of faith. It was not that there were
+not difficulties to her in Ralph's position--there were plenty--but she
+had determined by a final and swift decision to disregard them and
+believe in him. It was a last step in a process that continued ever
+since she had become interested by this strong brusque man; and it had
+been precipitated by the fanatical attack to which she had just been a
+witness. The discord, as she thought it, of Ralph's character and
+actions had not been resolved; yet she had decided in that moment that
+it need not be; that her data as concerned those actions were
+insufficient; and that if she could not explain, at least she could
+trust.
+
+Ralph had been very honest, she told herself now. He had reminded her
+that he was a servant of Cromwell's whom many believed to be an enemy
+of Church and State. She had nodded back to him steadily and silently,
+knowing what would follow from the paleness of his face, and his bright
+eyes beneath their wide lids. She had felt her own breast rise and fall
+and a pulse begin to hammer at the spring of her throat. Even now as she
+thought of it her heart quickened, and her hands clenched themselves.
+
+And then in one swift moment it had come. She had found her hands caught
+fiercely, and her eyes imprisoned by his; and then all was over, and she
+had given him an answer in a word.
+
+It had not been easy even after that. Cecily had questioned her more
+than once. Mrs. More had said a few indiscreet things that had been hard
+to bear; her own aunt had received the news in silence.
+
+But that was over now. The necessary consent on both sides had been
+given; and here she was once more walking up the road to Westminster
+with Ralph's image before her eyes, and Ralph himself a hundred yards
+away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She turned the last corner from the alley, passed up the little street,
+and turned again across the little cobbled yard that lay before the
+house.
+
+Mr. Morris was at the door as she came up, and he now stood aside. He
+seemed doubtful.
+
+"Mr. Torridon has gentlemen with him, madam."
+
+"Then I will wait," said Beatrice serenely, and made a motion to come
+in. The servant still half-hesitating opened the door wider; and
+Beatrice and her maid went through into the little parlour on the right.
+
+As she passed in she heard voices from the other door. Mr. Morris's
+footsteps went down the passage.
+
+She had not very long to wait. There was the sound of a carriage
+driving up to the door presently, and her maid who sat in view of the
+window glanced out. Her face grew solemn.
+
+"It is Master Cromwell's carriage," she said.
+
+Beatrice was conscious of a vague discomfort; Master Cromwell, in spite
+of her efforts, was the shadowed side of Ralph's life.
+
+"Is he coming in?" she said.
+
+The maid peeped again.
+
+"No, madam."
+
+The door of the room they were in was not quite shut, and there was
+still a faint murmur of voices from across the hall; but almost
+immediately there was the sound of a lifted latch, and then Ralph's
+voice clear and distinct.
+
+"I will see to it, my lord."
+
+Beatrice stood up, feeling a little uneasy. She fancied that perhaps she
+ought not to be here; she remembered now the servant's slight air of
+unwillingness to let her in. There was a footfall in the hall, and the
+sound of talking; and as Mr. Morris's hasty step came up the passage,
+the door was pushed abruptly open, and Ralph was looking into the room,
+with one or two others beyond him.
+
+"I did not know," he began, and flushed a little, smiling and making as
+if to close the door. But Cromwell's face, with its long upper lip and
+close-set grey eyes, appeared over his shoulder, and Ralph turned round,
+almost deprecatingly.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir; this is Mistress Atherton, and her woman."
+
+Cromwell came forward into the room, with a kind of keen smile, in his
+rich dress and chain.
+
+"Mistress Beatrice Atherton?" he said with a questioning deference; and
+Ralph introduced them to one another. Beatrice was conscious of a good
+deal of awkwardness. It was uncomfortable to be caught here, as if she
+had come to spy out something. She felt herself flushing as she
+explained that she had had no idea who was there.
+
+Cromwell looked at her very pleasantly.
+
+"There is nothing to ask pardon for, Mistress," he said. "I knew you
+were a friend of Mr. Torridon. He has told me everything."
+
+Ralph seemed strangely ill-at-ease, Beatrice thought, as Cromwell
+congratulated them both with a very kindly air, and then turned towards
+the hall again.
+
+"My lord," he called, "my lord--"
+
+Then Beatrice saw a tall ecclesiastic, clean-shaven, with a strangely
+insignificant but kindly face, with square drooping lip and narrow hazel
+eyes, come forward in his prelate's dress; and at the sight of him her
+eyes grew hard and her lips tight.
+
+"My lord," said Cromwell, "this is Mistress Beatrice Torridon."
+
+The prelate put out his hand, smiling faintly, with the ring uppermost
+to be kissed. Beatrice stood perfectly still. She could see Ralph at an
+angle looking at her imploringly.
+
+"You know my Lord of Canterbury," said Cromwell, in an explanatory
+voice.
+
+"I know my Lord of Canterbury," said Beatrice.
+
+There was a dead silence for a moment, and then a faint whimper from the
+maid.
+
+Cranmer dropped his hand, but still smiled, turning to Ralph.
+
+"We must be gone, Mr. Torridon. Master Cromwell has very kindly--"
+
+Cromwell who had stood amazed for a moment, turned round at his name.
+
+"Yes," he said to Ralph, "my lord is to come with me. And you will be
+at my house to-morrow."
+
+He said good-day to the girl, looking at her with an amused interest
+that made her flush; and as Dr. Cranmer passed out of the street-door to
+the carriage with Ralph bare-headed beside him, he spoke very softly.
+
+"You are like the others, mistress," he said; and shook his heavy head
+at her like an indulgent father. Then he too turned and went out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Beatrice went across at once to the other room, leaving her maid behind,
+and stood by the hearth as Ralph came in. She heard the door close and
+his footstep come across the floor beside her.
+
+"Beatrice," said Ralph.
+
+She turned round and looked at him.
+
+"You must not scold me," she said with great serenity. "You must leave
+me my conscience." Ralph's face cleared instantly.
+
+"No, no," he said. "I feared it would be the other way."
+
+"A married priest, they say!" remarked the girl, but without bitterness.
+
+"I daresay, my darling,--but--but I have more tenderness for marriage
+than I had."
+
+Beatrice's black eyes just flickered with amusement.
+
+"Yes; but priests!" she said.
+
+"Yes--even priests--" said Ralph, smiling back.
+
+Beatrice turned to a chair and sat down.
+
+"I suppose I must not ask any questions," she said, glancing up for a
+moment at Ralph's steady eyes. She thought he looked a little uneasy
+still.
+
+"Oh! I scarcely know," said Ralph; and he took a turn across the room
+and came back. She waited, knowing that she had already put her
+question, and secretly pleased that he knew it, and was perplexed by it.
+
+"I scarcely know," he said again, standing opposite her.
+"Well,--yes--all will know it soon."
+
+"Oh! I can wait till then," said Beatrice quickly, not sure whether she
+were annoyed or not by being told a secret of such a common nature.
+Ralph glanced at her, not sure either.
+
+"I am afraid--" he began.
+
+"No--no," she said, ashamed of her doubt. "I do not wish to know; I can
+wait."
+
+"I will tell you," said Ralph. He went and sat down in the chair
+opposite, crossing his legs.
+
+"It is about the Visitation of the Religious Houses. I am to go with the
+Visitors in September."
+
+Beatrice felt a sudden and rather distressed interest; but she showed no
+sign of it.
+
+"Ah, yes!" she said softly, "and what will be your work?"
+
+Ralph was reassured by her tone.
+
+"We are to go to the southern province. I am with Dr. Layton's party. We
+shall make enquiries of the state of Religion, how it is observed and so
+forth; and report to Master Cromwell."
+
+Beatrice looked down in a slightly side-long way.
+
+"I know what you are thinking," said Ralph, his tone a mixture of
+amusement and pride. She looked up silently.
+
+"Yes I knew it was so," he went on, smiling straight at her. "You are
+wondering what in the world I know about Religious Houses. But I have a
+brother--"
+
+A shadow went over her face; Ralph saw she did not like the allusion.
+
+"Besides," he went on again, "they need intelligent men, not
+ecclesiastics, for this business."
+
+"But Dr. Layton?" questioned Beatrice.
+
+"Well, you might call him an ecclesiastic; but you would scarcely guess
+it from himself. And no man could call him a partisan on that side."
+
+"He would do better in one of his rectories, I should think," said
+Beatrice.
+
+"Well, that is not my business," observed Ralph.
+
+"And what is your business?"
+
+"Well, to ride round the country; examine the Religious, and make
+enquiries of the country folk."
+
+Beatrice began to tap her foot very softly. Ralph glanced down at the
+bright buckle and smiled in spite of himself.
+
+The girl went on.
+
+"And by whose authority?"
+
+"By his Grace's authority."
+
+"And Dr. Cranmer's?"
+
+"Well, yes; so far as he has any."
+
+"I see," said Beatrice; and cast her eyes down again.
+
+There was silence for a moment or two.
+
+"You see too that I cannot withdraw," explained Ralph, a little
+distressed at her air. "It is part of my duty."
+
+"Oh! I understand that," said Beatrice.
+
+"And so long as I act justly, there is no harm done."
+
+The girl was silent.
+
+"You understand that?" he asked.
+
+"I suppose I do," said Beatrice slowly.
+
+Ralph made a slight impatient movement.
+
+"No--wait," said the girl, "I do understand. If I cannot trust you, I
+had better never have known you. I do understand that I can trust you;
+though I cannot understand how you can do such work."
+
+She raised her eyes slowly to his; and Ralph as he looked into them saw
+that she was perfectly sincere, and speaking without bitterness.
+
+"Sweetheart," he said. "I could not have taken that from any but you;
+but I know that you are true, and mean no more nor less than your words.
+You do trust me?"
+
+"Why, yes," said the girl; and smiled at him as he took her in his arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When she had gone again Ralph had a difficult quarter of an hour.
+
+He knew that she trusted him, but was it not simply because she did not
+know? He sat and pondered the talk he had had with Cromwell and the
+Archbishop. Neither had expressly said that what was wanted was adverse
+testimony against the Religious Houses; but that, Ralph knew very well,
+was what was asked of him. They had talked a great deal about the
+corruptions that the Visitors would no doubt find, and Cranmer had told
+a story or two, with an appearance of great distress, of scandalous
+cases that had come under his own notice. Cromwell too had pointed out
+that such corruptions did incalculable evil; and that an immoral monk
+did far more harm in a countryside than his holy brethren could do of
+good. Both had said a word too about the luxury and riches to be found
+in the houses of those who professed poverty, and of the injury done to
+Christ's holy religion by such insincere pretences.
+
+Ralph knew too, from previous meetings with the other Visitors, the kind
+of work for which such men would be likely to be selected.
+
+There was Dr. Richard Layton first, whom Ralph was to join in Sussex at
+the end of September, a priest who had two or three preferments and
+notoriously neglected them; Ralph had taken a serious dislike to him. He
+was a coarse man who knew how to cringe effectively; and Ralph had
+listened to him talking to Cromwell, with some dismay. But he would be
+to a large extent independent of him, and only in his company at some of
+the larger houses that needed more than one Visitor. Thomas Legh, too, a
+young doctor of civil law, was scarcely more attractive. He was a man of
+an extraordinary arrogance, carrying his head high, and looking about
+him with insolently drooping eyes. Ralph had been at once amused and
+angry to see him go out into the street after his interview with
+Cromwell, where his horse and half-a-dozen footmen awaited him, and to
+watch him ride off with the airs of a vulgar prince. The Welshman Ap
+Rice too, and the red-faced bully, Dr. London, were hardly persons whom
+he desired as associates, and the others were not much better; and Ralph
+found himself feeling a little thankful that none of these men had been
+in his house just now, when Cromwell and the Archbishop had called in
+the former's carriage, and when Beatrice had met them there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph had a moment, ten minutes after Beatrice had left, when he was
+inclined to snatch up his hat and go after Cromwell to tell him to do
+his own dirty work; but his training had told, and he had laughed at the
+folly of the thought. Why, of course, the work had to be done! England
+was rotten with dreams and superstition. Ecclesiasticism had corrupted
+genuine human life, and national sanity could not be restored except by
+a violent process. Innocent persons would no doubt suffer--innocent
+according to conscience, but guilty against the commonwealth. Every
+great movement towards good was bound to be attended by individual
+catastrophes; but it was the part of a strong man to carry out
+principles and despise details.
+
+The work had to be done; it was better then that there should be at
+least one respectable workman. Of course such a work needed coarse men
+to carry it out; it was bound to be accompanied by some brutality; and
+his own presence there might do something to keep the brutality within
+limits.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And as for Beatrice--well, Beatrice did not yet understand. If she
+understood all as he did, she would sympathise, for she was strong too.
+Besides--he had held her in his arms just now, and he knew that love was
+king.
+
+But he sat for ten minutes more in silence, staring with unseeing eyes
+at the huddled roofs opposite and the clear sky over them; and the point
+of the quill in his fingers was split and cracked when Mr. Morris looked
+in to see if his master wanted anything.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE VISITATION
+
+
+It was on a wet foggy morning in October that Ralph set out with Mr.
+Morris and a couple more servants to join Dr. Layton in the Sussex
+visitation. He rode alone in front; and considered as he went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Visitation itself, Cromwell had told him almost explicitly, was in
+pursuance of the King's policy to get the Religious Houses, which were
+considered to be the strongholds of the papal power in England, under
+the authority of the Crown; and also to obtain from them reinforcements
+of the royal funds which were running sorely low. The crops were most
+disappointing this year, and the King's tenants were wholly unable to
+pay their rents; and it had been thought wiser to make up the deficit
+from ecclesiastical wealth rather than to exasperate the Commons by a
+direct call upon their resources.
+
+So far, he knew very well, the attempt to get the Religious Houses into
+the King's power had only partially succeeded. Bishop Fisher's influence
+had availed to stave off the fulfilment of the royal intentions up to
+the present; and the oath of supremacy, in which to a large extent the
+key of the situation lay, had been by no means universally accepted.
+Now, however, the scheme was to be pushed forward; and as a preparation
+for it, it was proposed to visit every monastery and convent in the
+kingdom, and to render account first of the temporal wealth of each,
+and then of the submissiveness of its inmates; and, as Cromwell had
+hinted to Ralph, anything that could damage the character of the
+Religious would not be unacceptable evidence.
+
+Ralph was aware that the scheme in which he was engaged was supported in
+two ways; first, by the suspension of episcopal authority during the
+course of the visitation, and secondly by the vast powers committed to
+the visitors. In one of the saddle-bags strapped on to Mr. Morris's
+horse was a sheaf of papers, containing eighty-six articles of enquiry,
+and twenty-five injunctions, as well as certificates from the King
+endowing Ralph with what was practically papal jurisdiction. He was
+authorised to release from their vows all Religious who desired it, and
+ordered to dismiss all who had been professed under twenty years of age,
+or who were at the present date under twenty-four years old. Besides
+this he was commissioned to enforce the enclosure with the utmost
+rigour, to set porters at the doors to see that it was observed, and to
+encourage all who had any grievance against their superiors to forward
+complaints through himself to Cromwell.
+
+Ralph understood well enough the first object of these regulations,
+namely to make monastic life impossible. It was pretty evident that a
+rigorous confinement would breed discontent; which in its turn would be
+bound to escape through the vent-hole which the power of appeal
+provided; thus bringing about a state of anarchy within the house, and
+the tightening of the hold of the civil authority upon the Religious.
+
+Lastly the Visitors were authorised to seize any church furniture or
+jewels that they might judge would be better in secular custody.
+
+Once more, he had learned both from Cromwell, and from his own
+experience at Paul's Cross, how the laity itself was being carefully
+prepared for the blow that was impending, by an army of selected
+preachers who could be trusted to say what they were told. Only a few
+days before Ralph had halted his horse at the outskirts of a huge crowd
+gathered round Paul's Cross, and had listened to a torrent of
+vituperation poured out by a famous orator against the mendicant friars;
+and from the faces and exclamations of the people round him he had
+learned once more that greed was awake in England.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a somewhat dismal ride that he had this day. The sky was heavy
+and overcast, it rained constantly, and the roads were in a more dreary
+condition even than usual. He splashed along through the mud with his
+servants behind him, wrapped in his cloak; and his own thoughts were not
+of a sufficient cheerfulness to compensate for the external discomforts.
+His political plane of thought was shot by a personal idea. He guessed
+that he would have to commit himself in a manner that he had never done
+before; and was not wholly confident that he would be able to explain
+matters satisfactorily to Beatrice. Besides, the particular district to
+which he was appointed included first Lewes, where Chris would have an
+eye on his doings, and secondly the little Benedictine house of Rusper,
+where his sister Margaret had been lately professed; and he wondered
+what exactly would be his relation with his own family when his work was
+done.
+
+But for the main object of his visitation he had little but sympathy. It
+was good, he thought, that a scouring should be made of these idle
+houses, and their inmates made more profitable to the commonwealth. And
+lastly, whether or no he sympathised, it would be fatal to his career
+to refuse the work offered to him.
+
+As he did not feel very confident at first, he had arranged to meet with
+Dr. Layton's party at the Premonstratension Abbey of Durford, situated
+at the borders of Sussex and Hampshire, and there learn the exact
+methods to be employed in the visitation; but it was a long ride, and he
+took two days over it, sleeping on the way at Waverly in the Cistercian
+House. This had not yet been visited, as Dr. Layton was riding up
+gradually from the west country, but the rumour of his intentions had
+already reached there, and Ralph was received with a pathetic deference
+as one of the representatives of the Royal Commission.
+
+The Abbot was a kindly nervous man, and welcomed Ralph with every sign
+of respect at the gate of the abbey, giving contradictory orders about
+the horses and the entertainment of the guests to his servants who
+seemed in very little awe of him.
+
+After mass and breakfast on the following morning the Abbot came into
+the guest-house and begged for a short interview.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He apologised first for the poorness of the entertainment, saying that
+he had done his best. Ralph answered courteously; and the other went on
+immediately, standing deferentially before the chair where Ralph was
+seated, and fingering his cross.
+
+"I hope, Mr. Torridon, that it will be you who will visit us; you have
+found us all unprepared, and you know that we are doing our best to keep
+our Rule. I hope you found nothing that was not to your liking."
+
+Ralph bowed and smiled.
+
+"I would sooner that it were you," went on the Abbot, "and not another
+that visited us. Dr. Layton--"
+
+He stopped abruptly, embarrassed.
+
+"You have heard something of him?" questioned Ralph.
+
+"I know nothing against him," said the other hastily, "except that they
+say that he is sharp with us poor monks. I fear he would find a great
+deal here not to his taste. My authority has been so much weakened of
+late; I have some discontented brethren--not more than one or two, Mr.
+Torridon--and they have learned that they will be able to appeal now to
+the King's Grace, and get themselves set free; and they have ruined the
+discipline of the house. I do not wish to hide anything, sir, you see;
+but I am terribly afraid that Dr. Layton may be displeased."
+
+"I am very sorry, my lord," said Ralph, "but I fear I shall not be
+coming here again."
+
+The Abbot's face fell.
+
+"But you will speak for us, sir, to Dr. Layton? I heard you say you
+would be seeing him to-night."
+
+Ralph promised to do his best, and was overwhelmed with thanks.
+
+He could not help realising some of the pathos of the situation as he
+rode on through the rain to Durford. It was plain that a wave of terror
+and apprehensiveness was running through the Religious Houses, and that
+it brought with it inevitable disorder. Lives that would have been
+serene and contented under other circumstances were thrown off their
+balance by the rumours of disturbance, and authority was weakened. If
+the Rule was hard of observance in tranquil times, it was infinitely
+harder when doors of escape presented themselves on all sides.
+
+And yet he was impatient too. Passive or wavering characters irritated
+his own strong temperament, and he felt a kind of anger against the
+Abbot and his feeble appeal. Surely men who had nothing else to do might
+manage to keep their own subjects in order, and a weak crying for pity
+was in itself an argument against their competence. And meanwhile, if he
+had known it, he would have been still more incensed, for as he rode on
+down towards the south west, the Abbot and his monks in the house he had
+left were prostrate before the high altar in the dark church, each in
+his stall, praying for mercy.
+
+"O God, the heathens are come into thine inheritance," they murmured,
+"they have defiled thy holy temple."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not until the sun was going down in the stormy west that Ralph
+rode up to Durford abbey. The rain had ceased an hour before sunset, and
+the wet roofs shone in the evening light.
+
+There were certain signs of stir as he came up. One or two idlers were
+standing outside the gate-house; the door was wide open, and a couple of
+horses were being led away round the corner.
+
+Inside the court as he rode through he saw further signs of confusion.
+Half a dozen packhorses were waiting with hanging heads outside the
+stable door, and an agitated lay brother was explaining to a canon in
+his white habit, rochet and cap, that there was no more room. He threw
+out his hands with a gesture of despair towards Ralph as he came in.
+
+"Mother of God!" he said, "here is another of them."
+
+The priest frowned at him, and hurried up to Ralph.
+
+"Yes, father," said Ralph, "I am another of them."
+
+The canon explained that the stable was full, that they were
+exceedingly sorry, but that they were but a poor house; and that he was
+glad to say there was an outhouse round the corner outside where the
+beasts could be lodged.
+
+"But as for yourself, sir," he said, "I know not what to do. We have
+every room full. You are a friend of Dr. Layton's, sir?"
+
+"I am one of the Visitors," said Ralph. "You must make room."
+
+The priest sucked his lips in.
+
+"I see nothing for it," he said, "Dr. Layton and you, sir, must share a
+room."
+
+Ralph threw a leg over the saddle and slipped to the ground.
+
+"Where is he?" he asked.
+
+"He is with my Lord Abbot, sir," he said. "Will you come with me?"
+
+The canon led the way across the court, his white fur tails swinging as
+he went, and took Ralph through the cloister into one of the parlours.
+There was a sound of a high scolding voice as he threw open the door.
+
+"What in God's name are ye for then, if ye have not hospitality?"
+
+Dr. Layton turned round as Ralph came in. He was flushed with passion;
+his mouth worked, and his eyes were brutal.
+
+"See this, Mr. Torridon," he said. "There is neither room for man or
+beast in this damned abbey. The guest house has no more than half a
+dozen rooms, and the stable--why, it is not fit for pigs, let alone the
+horses of the King's Visitors."
+
+The Abbot, a young man with a delicate face, very pale now and
+trembling, broke in deprecatingly.
+
+"I am very sorry, gentlemen," he said, looking from one to the other,
+"but it is not my fault. It is in better repair than when I came to it.
+I have done my best with my Lord Abbot of Welbeck; but we are very poor,
+and he can give me no more."
+
+Layton growled at him.
+
+"I don't say it's you, man; we shall know better when we have looked
+into your accounts; but I'll have a word to say at Welbeck."
+
+"We are to share a room, Dr. Layton," put in Ralph "At least--"
+
+The doctor turned round again at that, and stormed once more.
+
+"I cannot help it, gentlemen," retorted the Abbot desperately. "I have
+given up my own chamber already. I can but do my best."
+
+Ralph hastened to interpose. His mind revolted at this coarse bullying,
+in spite of his contempt at this patient tolerance on the part of the
+Abbot.
+
+"I shall do very well, my Lord Abbot," he said. "I shall give no
+trouble. You may put me where you please."
+
+The young prelate looked at him gratefully.
+
+"We will do our best, sir," he said. "Will you come, gentlemen, and see
+your chambers?"
+
+Layton explained to Ralph as they went along the poor little cloister
+that he himself had only arrived an hour before.
+
+"I had a rare time among the monks," he whispered, "and have some tales
+to make you laugh."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He grew impatient again presently at the poor furnishing of the rooms,
+and kicked over a broken chair.
+
+"I will have something better than that," he said. "Get me one from the
+church."
+
+The young Abbot faced him.
+
+"What do you want of us, Dr. Layton? Is it riches or poverty? Which
+think you that Religious ought to have?"
+
+The priest gave a bark of laughter.
+
+"You have me there, my lord," he said; and nudged Ralph.
+
+They sat down to supper presently in the parlour downstairs, a couple of
+dishes of meat, and a bottle of Spanish wine. Dr. Layton grew voluble.
+
+"I have a deal to tell you, Mr. Torridon," he said, "and not a few
+things to show you,--silver crosses and such like; but those we will
+look at to-morrow. I doubt whether we shall add much to it here, though
+there is a relic-case that would look well on Master Cromwell's table;
+it is all set with agates. But the tales you shall have now. My servant
+will be here directly with the papers."
+
+A man came in presently with a bag of documents, and Layton seized them
+eagerly.
+
+"See here, Mr. Torridon," he said, shaking the papers on to the table,
+"here is a story-box for the ladies. Draw your chair to the fire."
+
+Ralph felt an increasing repugnance for the man; but he said nothing;
+and brought up his seat to the wide hearth on which the logs burned
+pleasantly in the cold little room.
+
+The priest lifted the bundle on to his lap, crossed his legs
+comfortably, with a glass of wine at his elbow, and began to read.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a while Ralph wondered how the man could have the effrontery to call
+his notes by the name of evidence. They consisted of a string of obscene
+guesses, founded upon circumstances that were certainly compatible with
+guilt, but no less compatible with innocence. There was a quantity of
+gossip gathered from country-people and coloured by the most flagrant
+animus, and even so the witnesses did not agree. Such sentences as "It
+is reported in the country round that the prior is a lewd man" were
+frequent in the course of the reading, and were often the chief evidence
+offered in a case.
+
+In one of the most categorical stories, Ralph leaned forward and
+interrupted.
+
+"Forgive me, Master Layton," he said, "but who is Master What's-his-name
+who says all this?"
+
+The priest waved the paper in the air.
+
+"A monk himself," he said, "a monk himself! That is the cream of it."
+
+"A monk!" exclaimed Ralph.
+
+"He was one till last year," explained the priest.
+
+"And then?" said the other.
+
+"He was expelled the monastery. He knew too much, you see."
+
+Ralph leaned back.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half an hour later there was a change in his attitude: his doubts were
+almost gone; the flood of detail was too vast to be dismissed as wholly
+irrelevant; his imagination was affected by the evidence from without
+and his will from within, and he listened without hostility, telling
+himself that he desired only truth and justice.
+
+There were at least half a dozen stories in the mass of filthy suspicion
+that the priest exultingly poured out which appeared convincing;
+particularly one about which Ralph put a number of questions.
+
+In this there was first a quantity of vague evidence gathered from the
+country-folk, who were, unless Layton lied quite unrestrainedly,
+convinced of the immoral life of a certain monk. The report of his sin
+had penetrated ten miles from the house where he lived. There was
+besides definite testimony from one of his fellows, precise and
+detailed; and there was lastly a half admission from the culprit
+himself. All this was worked up with great skill--suggestive epithets
+were plastered over the weak spots in the evidence; clever theories put
+forward to account for certain incompatibilities; and to Ralph at least
+it was convincing.
+
+He found himself growing hot with anger at the thought of the hypocrisy
+of this monk's life. Here the fellow had been living in gross sin month
+after month, and all the while standing at the altar morning by morning,
+and going about in the habit of a professed servant of Jesus Christ!
+
+"But I have kept the cream till the last," put in Dr. Layton. And he
+read out a few more hideous sentences, that set Ralph's heart heaving
+with disgust.
+
+He began now to feel the beginnings of that fury against white-washed
+vice with which worldly souls are so quick to burn. He would have said
+that he himself professed no holiness beyond the average, and would have
+acknowledged privately at least that he was at any rate uncertain of the
+whole dogmatic scheme of religion; but that he could not tolerate a man
+whose whole life was on the outside confessedly devoted to both sides of
+religion, faith and morals, and who claimed the world's reverence for
+himself on the score of it. He knit his forehead in a righteous fury,
+and his fingers began to drum softly on his chair-arms.
+
+Dr. Layton now began to recur to some of the first stories he had told,
+and to build up their weak places; and now that Ralph was roused his
+critical faculty subsided. They appeared more convincing than before in
+the light of this later evidence. _Ex pede Herculem_--from the fellow
+who had confessed he interpreted the guilt of those who had not. The
+seed of suspicion sprang quickly in the soil that hungered for it.
+
+This then was the fair religious system that was dispersed over England;
+and this the interior life of those holy looking roofs and buildings
+surmounted by the sign of the Crucified, visible in every town to point
+men to God. When he saw a serene monk's face again he would know what
+kind of soul it covered; he would understand as never before how vice
+could wear a mask of virtue.
+
+The whole of that flimsy evidence that he had heard before took a new
+colour; those hints and suspicions and guesses grew from shadow to
+substance. Those dark spots were not casual filth dropped from above,
+they were the symptoms of a deep internal infection.
+
+As Dr. Layton went on with his tales, gathered and garnered with
+devilish adroitness, and presented as convincingly as a clever brain
+could do it, the black certainty fell deeper and deeper on Ralph's soul,
+and by the time that the priest chuckled for the last time that evening,
+and gathered up his papers from the boards where they had fallen one by
+one, he had done his work in another soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A HOUSE OF LADIES
+
+
+They parted the next day, Dr. Layton to Waverly, where he proposed to
+sleep on Saturday night, and Ralph to the convent at Rusper.
+
+He had learnt now how the work was to be done; and he had been equipped
+for it in a way that not even Dr. Layton himself suspected; for he had
+been set aflame with that filth-fed fire with which so many hearts were
+burning at this time. He had all the saint's passion for purity, without
+the charity of his holiness.
+
+He had learnt too the technical details of his work--those rough methods
+by which men might be coerced, and the high-sounding phrases with which
+to gild the coercion. All that morning he had sat side by side with Dr.
+Layton in the chapter-house, inspecting the books, comparing the
+possessions of the monastery with the inventories of them, examining
+witnesses as to the credibility of the lists offered, and making
+searching enquiries as to whether any land or plate had been sold. After
+that, when a silver relic-case had been added to Dr. Layton's
+collection, the Religious and servants and all else who cared to offer
+evidence on other matters, were questioned one by one and their answers
+entered in a book. Lastly, when the fees for the Visitation had been
+collected, arrangements had been made, which in the Visitors' opinion,
+would be most serviceable to the carrying out of the injunctions; fresh
+officials were appointed to various posts, and the Abbot himself
+ordered to go up to London and present himself to Master Cromwell; but
+he was furnished with a letter commending his zeal and discretion, for
+the Visitors had found that he had done his duty to the buildings and
+lands; and stated that they had nothing to complain of except the
+poverty of the house.
+
+"And so much for Durford," said Layton genially, as he closed the last
+book just before dinner-time, "though it had been better called
+Dirtyford." And he chuckled at his humour.
+
+After dinner he had gone out with Ralph to see him mount; had thanked
+him for his assistance, and had reminded him that they would meet again
+at Lewes in the course of a month or so.
+
+"God speed you!" he cried as the party rode off.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph's fury had died to a glow, but it was red within him; the reading
+last night had done its work well, driven home by the shrewd conviction
+of a man of the world, experienced in the ways of vice. It had not died
+with the dark. He could not say that he was attracted to Dr. Layton; the
+priest's shocking familiarity with the more revolting forms of sin, as
+well as his under-breeding and brutality, made him a disagreeable
+character; but Ralph had very little doubt now that his judgment on the
+religious houses was a right one. Even the nunneries, it seemed, were
+not free from taint; there had been one or two terrible tales on the
+previous evening; and Ralph was determined to spare them nothing, and at
+any rate to remove his sister from their power. He remembered with
+satisfaction that she was below the age specified, and that he would
+have authority to dismiss her from the home.
+
+He knew very little of Margaret; and had scarcely seen her once in two
+years. He had been already out in the world before she had ceased to be
+a child, and from what little he had seen of her he had thought of her
+but as little more than a milk-and-water creature, very delicate and
+shy, always at her prayers, or trailing about after nuns with a pale
+radiant face. She had been sent to Rusper for her education, and he
+never saw her except now and then when they chanced to be at home
+together for a few days. She used to look at him, he remembered, with
+awe-stricken eyes and parted lips, hardly daring to speak when he was in
+the room, continually to be met with going from or to the tall quiet
+chapel.
+
+He had always supposed that she would be a nun, and had acquiesced in it
+in a cynical sort of way; but he was going to acquiesce no longer now.
+Of course she would sob, but equally of course she would not dare to
+resist.
+
+He called Morris up to him presently as they emerged from one of the
+bridle paths on to a kind of lane where two could ride abreast. The
+servant had seemed oddly silent that morning.
+
+"We are going to Rusper," said Ralph.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Mistress Margaret is there."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"She will come away with us. I may have to send you on to Overfield with
+her. You must find a horse for her somehow."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+There was silence between the two for a minute or two. Mr. Morris had
+answered with as much composure as if he had been told to brush a coat.
+Ralph began to wonder what he really felt.
+
+"What do you think of all this, Morris?" he asked in a moment or two.
+
+The servant was silent, till Ralph glanced at him impatiently.
+
+"It is not for me to have an opinion, sir," said Mr Morris.
+
+Ralph gave a very short laugh.
+
+"You haven't heard what I have," he said, "or you would soon have an
+opinion."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Morris as impassively as before.
+
+"I tell you--" and then Ralph broke off, and rode on silent and moody.
+Mr. Morris gradually let his horse fall back behind his master.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They began to come towards Rusper as the evening drew in, by a bridle
+path that led from the west, and on arriving at the village found that
+they had overshot their mark, and ought to have turned sooner. The
+nunnery, a man told them, was a mile away to the south-west. Ralph made
+a few enquiries, and learnt that it was a smallish house, and that it
+was scarcely likely that room could be found for his party of four; so
+he left Morris to make enquiries for lodgings in the village, and
+himself rode on alone to the nunnery, past the church and the
+timberhouses.
+
+It was a bad road, and his tired horse had to pick his way very slowly,
+so that it was nearly dark before he came to his destination, and the
+pointed roofs rose before him against the faintly luminous western sky.
+There were lights in one or two windows as he came up that looked warm
+and homely in the chill darkness; and as he sat on his horse listening
+to the jangle of the bell within, just a breath of doubtfulness touched
+his heart for a moment as he thought of the peaceful home-life that lay
+packed within those walls, and of the errand on which he had come.
+
+But the memory of the tales he had heard, haunted him still; and he
+spoke in a harsh voice as the shutter slid back, and a little
+criss-crossed square of light appeared in the black doorway.
+
+"I am one of the King's Visitors," he said. "Let my Lady Abbess know I
+am here. I must speak with her."
+
+There was a stifled sound behind the grating; and Ralph caught a glimpse
+of a pair of eyes looking at him. Then the square grew dark again. It
+was a minute or two before anything further happened, and Ralph as he
+sat cold and hungry on his horse, began to grow impatient. His hand was
+on the twisted iron handle to ring again fiercely, when there was a step
+within, and a light once more shone out.
+
+"Who is it?" said an old woman's voice, with a note of anxiety in it.
+
+"I have sent word in," said Ralph peevishly, "that I am one of the
+King's Visitors. I should be obliged if I might not be kept here all
+night."
+
+There was a moment's silence; the horse sighed sonorously.
+
+"How am I to know, sir?" said the voice again.
+
+"Because I tell you so," snapped Ralph. "And if more is wanted, my name
+is Torridon. You have a sister of mine in there."
+
+There was an exclamation from within; and the sound of whispering; and
+then hasty footsteps went softly across the paved court inside.
+
+The voice spoke again.
+
+"I ask your pardon, sir; but have you any paper--or--"
+
+Ralph snatched out a document of identification, and leaned forward
+from his horse to pass it through the opening. He felt trembling fingers
+take it from him; and a moment later heard returning footsteps.
+
+There was a rustle of paper, and then a whisper within.
+
+"Well, my dear?"
+
+Something shifted in the bright square, and it grew gloomy as a face
+pressed up against the bars. Then again it shifted and the light shone
+out, and a flutter of whispers followed.
+
+"Really, madam--" began Ralph; but there was the jingle of keys, and the
+sound of panting, and almost immediately a bolt shot back, followed by
+the noise of a key turning. A chorus of whispers broke out and a scurry
+of footsteps, and then the door opened inwards and a little old woman
+stood there in a black habit, her face swathed in white above and below.
+The others had vanished.
+
+"I am very sorry, Mr. Torridon, to have kept you at the door; but we
+have to be very careful. Will you bring your horse in, sir?"
+
+Ralph was a little abashed by the sudden development of the situation,
+and explained that he had only come to announce his arrival; he had
+supposed that there would not be room at the nunnery.
+
+"But we have a little guest-house here," announced the old lady with a
+dignified air, "and room for your horse."
+
+Ralph hesitated; but he was tired and hungry.
+
+"Come in, Mr. Torridon. You had better dismount and lead your horse in.
+Sister Anne will see to it."
+
+"Well, if you are sure--" began Ralph again, slipping a foot out of the
+stirrup.
+
+"I am sure," said the Abbess; and stood aside for him and his beast to
+pass.
+
+There was a little court, lighted by a single lamp burning within a
+window, with the nunnery itself on one side, and a small cottage on the
+other. Beyond the latter rose the roofs of an outhouse.
+
+As Ralph came in, the door from the nunnery opened again, and a lay
+sister came out hastily; she moved straight across and took the horse by
+the bridle.
+
+"Give him a good meal, sister," said the Abbess; and went past Ralph to
+the door of the guest-house.
+
+"Come in, Mr. Torridon; there will be lights immediately."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In half an hour Ralph found himself at supper in the guest-parlour; a
+bright fire crackled on the hearth, a couple of candles burned on the
+table, and a pair of old darned green curtains hung across the low
+window.
+
+The Abbess came in when he had finished, dismissed the lay-sister who
+had waited on him, and sat down herself.
+
+"You shall see your sister to-morrow, Mr. Torridon," she said, "it is a
+little late now. I have sent the boy up to the village for your servant;
+he can sleep in this room if you wish. I fear we have no room for more."
+
+Ralph watched her as she talked. She was very old, with hanging cheeks,
+and solemn little short-sighted eyes, for she peered at him now and
+again across the candles. Her upper lip was covered with a slight growth
+of dark hair. She seemed strangely harmless; and Ralph had another prick
+of compunction as he thought of the news he had to give her on the
+morrow. He wondered how much she knew.
+
+"We are so glad it is you, Mr. Torridon, that have come to visit us. We
+feared it might be Dr. Layton; we have heard sad stories of him."
+
+Ralph hardened his heart.
+
+"He has only done his duty, Reverend Mother," he said.
+
+"Oh! but you cannot have heard," exclaimed the old lady. "He has robbed
+several of our houses we hear--even the altar itself. And he has turned
+away some of our nuns."
+
+Ralph was silent; he thought he would at least leave the old lady in
+peace for this last night. She seemed to want no answer; but went on
+expatiating on the horrors that were happening round them, the wicked
+accusations brought against the Religious, and the Divine vengeance that
+would surely fall on those who were responsible.
+
+Finally she turned and questioned him, with a mingling of deference and
+dignity.
+
+"What do you wish from us, Mr. Torridon? You must tell me, that I may
+see that everything is in order."
+
+Ralph was secretly amused by her air of innocent assurance.
+
+"That is my business, Reverend Mother. I must ask for all the books of
+the house, with the account of any sales you may have effected, properly
+recorded. I must have a list of the inmates of the house, with a
+statement of any corrodies attached; and the names and ages and dates of
+profession of all the Religious."
+
+The Abbess blinked for a moment.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Torridon. You will allow me of course to see all your papers
+to-morrow; it is necessary for me to be certified that all your part is
+in order."
+
+Ralph smiled a little grimly.
+
+"You shall see all that," he said. "And then there is more that I must
+ask; but that will do for a beginning. When I have shown you my papers
+you will see what it is that I want."
+
+There was a peal at the bell outside; the Abbess turned her head and
+waited till there was a noise of bolts and unlocking.
+
+"That will be your man, sir. Will you have him in now, Mr. Torridon?"
+
+Ralph assented.
+
+"And then he must look at the horses to see that all is as you wish."
+
+Mr. Morris came in a moment later, and bowed with great deference to the
+little old lady, who enquired his name.
+
+"When you have finished with your man, Mr. Torridon, perhaps you will
+allow him to ring for me at the door opposite. I will go with him to see
+the horses."
+
+Mr. Morris had brought with him the mass of his master's papers, and
+when he had set these out and prepared the bedroom that opened out of
+the guest-parlour, he asked leave to go across and fetch the Abbess.
+
+Ralph busied himself for half-an-hour or so in running over the Articles
+and Injunctions once more, and satisfying himself that he was perfect in
+his business; and he was just beginning to wonder why his servant had
+not reappeared when the door opened once more, and Mr. Morris slipped
+in.
+
+"My horse is a little lame, sir," he said. "I have been putting on a
+poultice."
+
+Ralph glanced up.
+
+"He will be fit to travel, I suppose?"
+
+"In a day or two, Mr. Ralph."
+
+"Well; that will do. We shall be here till Monday at least."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph could not sleep very well that night. The thought of his business
+troubled him a little. It would have been easier if the Abbess had been
+either more submissive or more defiant; but her air of mingled courtesy
+and dignity affected him. Her innocence too had something touching in
+it, and her apparent ignorance of what his visit meant. He had supped
+excellently at her expense, waited on by a cheerful sister, and well
+served from the kitchen and cellar; and the Reverend Mother herself had
+come in and talked sensibly and bravely. He pictured to himself what
+life must be like through the nunnery wall opposite--how brisk and
+punctual it must be, and at the same time homely and caressing.
+
+And it was his hand that was to pull down the first prop. There would no
+doubt be three or four nuns below age who must be dismissed, and
+probably there would be a few treasures to be carried off, a
+processional crucifix perhaps, such as he had seen in Dr. Layton's
+collection, and a rich chalice or two, used on great days. His own
+sister too must be one of those who must go. How would the little old
+Abbess behave herself then? What would she say? Yet he comforted
+himself, as he lay there in the clean, low-ceilinged room, staring at
+the tiny crockery stoup gleaming against the door-post, by recollecting
+the principle on which he had come. Possibly a few innocents would have
+to suffer, a few old hearts be broken; but it was for a man to take such
+things in his day's work.
+
+And then as he remembered Dr. Layton's tales, his heart grew hot and
+hard again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
+
+
+The enquiry was to be made in the guest-parlour on the next morning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph went to mass first at nine o'clock, which was said by a priest
+from the parish church who acted as chaplain to the convent; and had a
+chair set for him outside the nuns' choir from which he could see the
+altar and the tall pointed window; and then, after some refreshment in
+the guest-parlour, spread out his papers, and sat enthroned behind a
+couple of tables, as at a tribunal. Mr. Morris stood deferentially by
+his chair as the examination was conducted.
+
+Ralph was a little taken aback by the bearing of the Abbess. In the
+course of the enquiry, when he was perplexed by one or two of the
+records, she rose from her chair before the table, and came round to his
+side, drawing up a seat as she did so; Ralph could hardly tell her to go
+back, but his magisterial air was a little affected by having one whom
+he almost considered as a culprit sitting judicially beside him.
+
+"It is better for me to be here," she said. "I can explain more easily
+so."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a little orchard that the nuns had sold in the previous year;
+and Ralph asked for an explanation.
+
+"It came from the Kingsford family," she said serenely; "it was useless
+to us."
+
+"But--" began the inquisitor.
+
+"We needed some new vestments," she went on. "You will understand, Mr.
+Torridon, that it was necessary for us to sell it. We are not rich
+at all."
+
+There was nothing else that called for comment; except the manner in
+which the books were kept. Ralph suggested some other method.
+
+"Dame Agnes has her own ways," said the old lady. "We must not disturb
+her."
+
+And Dame Agnes assumed a profound and financial air on the other side of
+the table.
+
+Presently Ralph put a mark in the inventory against a "cope of gold
+bawdekin," and requested that it might be brought.
+
+The sister-sacristan rose at a word from the Abbess and went out,
+returning presently with the vestment. She unfolded the coverings and
+spread it out on the table before Ralph.
+
+It was a magnificent piece of work, of shimmering gold, with orphreys
+embroidered with arms; and she stroked out its folds with obvious pride.
+
+"These are Warham's arms," observed the Abbess. "You know them, Mr.
+Torridon? We worked these the month before his death."
+
+Ralph nodded briskly.
+
+"Will you kindly leave it here, Reverend Mother," he said. "I wish to
+see it again presently."
+
+The Abbess gave no hint of discomposure, but signed to the sacristan to
+place it over a chair at one side.
+
+There were a couple of other things that Ralph presently caused to be
+fetched and laid aside--a precious mitre with a couple of cameos in
+front, and bordered with emeralds, and a censer with silver filigree
+work.
+
+Then came a more difficult business.
+
+"I wish to see the nuns one by one, Reverend Mother," he said. "I must
+ask you to withdraw."
+
+The Abbess gave him a quick look, and then rose.
+
+"Very well, sir, I will send them in." And she went out with Mr. Morris
+behind her.
+
+They came in one by one, and sat down before the table, with downcast
+eyes, and hands hidden beneath their scapulars; and all told the same
+tale, except one. They had nothing to complain of; they were happy; the
+Rule was carefully observed; there were no scandals to be revealed; they
+asked nothing but to be left in peace. But there was one who came in
+nervously and anxiously towards the end, a woman with quick black eyes,
+who glanced up and down and at the door as she sat down. Ralph put the
+usual questions.
+
+"I wish to be released, sir," she said. "I am weary of the life, and
+the--" she stopped and glanced swiftly up again at the commissioner.
+
+"Well?" said Ralph.
+
+"The papistical ways," she said.
+
+Ralph felt a sudden distrust of the woman; but he hardened his heart. He
+set a mark opposite her name; she had been professed ten years, he saw
+by the list.
+
+"Very well," he said; "I will tell my Lady Abbess." She still hesitated
+a moment.
+
+"There will be a provision for me?" she asked
+
+"There will be a provision," said Ralph a little grimly. He was
+authorised to offer in such cases a secular dress and a sum of five
+shillings.
+
+Lastly came in Margaret herself.
+
+Ralph hardly knew her. He had been unable to distinguish her at mass,
+and even now as she faced him in her black habit and white head-dress it
+was hard to be certain of her identity. But memory and sight were
+gradually reconciled; he remembered her delicate eyebrows and thin
+straight lips; and when she spoke he knew her voice.
+
+They talked a minute or two about their home; but Ralph did not dare to
+say too much, considering what he had yet to say.
+
+"I must ask you the questions," he said at last, smiling at her.
+
+She looked up at him nervously, and dropped her eyes once more.
+
+She nodded or shook her head in silence at each enquiry, until at last
+one bearing upon the morals of the house came up; then she looked
+swiftly up once more, and Ralph saw that her grey eyes were terrified.
+
+"You must tell me," he said; and put the question again.
+
+"I do not know what you mean," she answered, staring at him bewildered.
+
+Ralph went on immediately to the next.
+
+At last he reached the crisis.
+
+"Margaret," he said, "I have something to tell you." He stopped and
+began to play with his pen. He had seldom felt so embarrassed as now in
+the presence of this shy sister of his of whom he knew so little. He
+could not look at her.
+
+"Margaret, you know, you--you are under age. The King's Grace has
+ordered that all under twenty years of age are to leave their convents."
+
+There was a dead silence.
+
+Ralph was enraged with his own weakness. He had begun the morning's work
+with such determination; but the strange sweet atmosphere of the house,
+the file of women coming in one by one with their air of innocence and
+defencelessness had affected him. In spite of himself his religious side
+had asserted itself, and he found himself almost tremulous now.
+
+He made a great effort at self-repression, and looked up with hard
+bright eyes at his sister.
+
+"There must be no crying or rebellion," he said. "You must come with me
+to-morrow. I shall send you to Overfield."
+
+Still Margaret said nothing. She was staring at him now, white-faced
+with parted lips.
+
+"You are the last?" he said with a touch of harshness, standing up with
+his hands on the table. "Tell the Reverend Mother I have done."
+
+Then she rose too.
+
+"Ralph," she cried, "my brother! For Jesu's sake--"
+
+"Tell the Reverend Mother," he said again, his eyes hard with decision.
+
+She turned and went out without a word.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph found the interview with the Abbess even more difficult than he
+had expected.
+
+Once her face twitched with tears; but she drove them back bravely and
+faced him again.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Torridon, that you intend to take your
+sister away?"
+
+Ralph bowed.
+
+"And that Dame Martha has asked to be released?"
+
+Again he bowed.
+
+"Are you not afraid, sir, to do such work?"
+
+Ralph smiled bitterly.
+
+"I am not, Reverend Mother," he said. "I know too much."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"Oh! not from your nuns," he said sharply, "they of course know nothing,
+or at least will tell me nothing. It was from Dr. Layton."
+
+"And what did Dr. Layton tell you?"
+
+"I can hardly tell you that, Reverend Mother; it is not fit for your
+ears."
+
+She looked at him steadily.
+
+"And you believe it?"
+
+Ralph smiled.
+
+"That makes no difference," he said. "I am acting by his Grace's
+orders."
+
+There was silence for a moment.
+
+"Then may our Lord have mercy on you!" she said.
+
+She turned to where the gold cope gleamed over the chair, with the mitre
+and censer lying on its folds.
+
+"And those too?" she asked.
+
+"Those too," said Ralph.
+
+She turned towards the door without a word.
+
+"There are the fees as well," remarked Ralph. "We can arrange those this
+evening, Reverend Mother."
+
+The little stiff figure turned and waited at the door. "And at what time
+will you dine, sir?"
+
+"Immediately," said Ralph.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was served at dinner with the same courtesy as before; but the lay
+sister's eyes were red, and her hands shook as she shifted the plates.
+Neither spoke a word till towards the end of the meal.
+
+"Where is my man?" asked Ralph, who had not seen him since he had gone
+out with the Abbess a couple of hours before.
+
+The sister shook her head.
+
+"Where is the Reverend Mother?"
+
+Again she shook her head.
+
+Ralph enquired the hour of Vespers, and when he had learnt it, took his
+cap and went out to look for Mr. Morris. He went first to the little
+dark outhouse, and peered in over the bottom half of the door, but there
+was no sign of him there. He could see a horse standing in a stall
+opposite, and tried to make out the second horse that he knew was there;
+but it was too dark, and he turned away.
+
+It was a warm October afternoon as he went out through the gatehouse,
+still and bright, with the mellow smell of dying leaves in the air; the
+fields stretched away beyond the road into the blue distance as he went
+along, and were backed by the thinning woods, still ruddy with the last
+flames of autumn. Overhead the blue sky, washed with recent rains,
+arched itself in a great transparent vault, and a stream of birds
+crossed it from east to west.
+
+He went round the corner of the convent buildings and turned up into a
+meadow beside a thick privet hedge that divided it from the garden, and
+as he moved along he heard a low humming noise sounding from the other
+side.
+
+There was a door in the hedge at the point, and at either side the
+growth was a little thin, and he could look through without being
+himself seen.
+
+The grass was trim and smooth inside; there was a mass of autumn
+flowers, grown no doubt for the altar, running in a broad bed across the
+nearer side of the garden, and beyond it rose a grey dial, round which
+sat a circle of nuns.
+
+Ralph pressed his face to the hedge and watched.
+
+There they were, each with her wheel before her, spinning in silence.
+The Abbess sat in the centre, immediately below the dial, with a book in
+her hand, and was turning the pages.
+
+He could see a nun's face steadily bent on her wheel--that was Dame
+Agnes who had fetched the cope for him in the morning. She seemed
+perfectly quiet and unaffected, watching her thread, and putting out a
+deft hand now and again to the machinery. Beside her sat another, whose
+face he remembered well; she had stammered a little as she gave her
+answers in the morning, and even as he looked the face twitched
+suddenly, and broke into tears. He saw the Abbess turn from her book and
+lay her hand, with a kind of tender decision on the nun's arm, and saw
+her lips move, but the hum and rattle of the spinning-wheels was too
+loud to let him hear what she said; he saw now the other nun lift her
+face again from her hands, and wink away her tears as she laid hold of
+the thread once more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph had a strange struggle with himself that afternoon as he walked on
+in the pleasant autumn weather through meadow and copse. The sight of
+the patient women had touched him profoundly. Surely it was almost too
+much to ask him to turn away his own sister from the place she loved! If
+he relented, it was certain that no other Visitor would come that way
+for the present; she might at least have another year or two of peace.
+Was it too late?
+
+He reminded himself again how such things were bound to happen; how
+every change, however beneficial, must bring sorrow with it, and that to
+turn back on such work because a few women suffered was not worthy of a
+man. It was long before he could come to any decision, and the evening
+was drawing on, and the time for Vespers come and gone before he turned
+at last into the village to enquire for his servant.
+
+The other men had seen nothing of Mr. Morris that day; he had not been
+back to the village.
+
+A group or two stared awefully at the fine gentleman with the strong
+face and steady intolerant eyes, as he strode down the tiny street in
+his rich dress, swinging his long silver-headed cane. They had learnt
+who he was now, but were so overcome by seeing the King's Commissioner
+that they forgot to salute him. As he turned the corner again he looked
+round once more, and there they were still watching him. A few women had
+come to the doors as well, and dropped their arched hands hastily and
+disappeared as he turned.
+
+The convent seemed all as he had left it earlier in the afternoon, as he
+came in sight of it again. The high chapel roof rose clear against the
+reddening sky, with the bell framed in its turret distinct as if carved
+out of cardboard against the splendour.
+
+He was admitted instantly when he rang on the bell, but the portress
+seemed to look at him with a strange air of expectancy, and stood
+looking after him as he went across the paved court to the door of the
+guest-house.
+
+There was a murmur of voices in the parlour as he paused in the entry,
+and he wondered who was within, but as his foot rang out the sound
+ceased.
+
+He opened the door and went in; and then stopped bewildered.
+
+In the dim light that passed through the window stood his father and
+Mary Maxwell, his sister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+FATHER AND SON
+
+
+None of the three spoke for a moment.
+
+Then Mary drew her breath sharply as she saw Ralph's face, for it had
+hardened during that moment into a kind of blind obstinacy which she had
+only seen once or twice in her life before.
+
+As he stood there he seemed to stiffen into resistance. His eyelids
+drooped, and little lines showed themselves suddenly at either side of
+his thin mouth. His father saw it too, for the hand that he had lifted
+entreatingly sank again, and his voice was tremulous as he spoke.
+
+"Ralph--Ralph, my son!" he said.
+
+Still the man said nothing; but stood frozen, his face half-turned to
+the windows.
+
+"Ralph, my son," said the other again, "you know why we have come."
+
+"You have come to hinder my business."
+
+His voice was thin and metallic, as rigid as steel.
+
+"We have come to hinder a great sin against God," said Sir James.
+
+Ralph opened his eyes wide with a sort of fury, and thrust his chin out.
+
+"She should pack a thousand times more now than before," he said.
+
+The father's face too deepened into strength now, and he drew himself
+up.
+
+"Do you know what you are doing?" he said.
+
+"I do, sir."
+
+There was an extraordinary insolence in his voice, and Mary took a step
+forward.
+
+"Oh! Ralph," she said, "at least do it like a gentleman!"
+
+Ralph turned on her sharply, and the obstinacy vanished in anger.
+
+"I will not be pushed like this," he snarled. "What right is it of yours
+to come between me and my work?"
+
+Sir James made a quick imperious gesture, and his air of entreaty fell
+from him like a cloak.
+
+"Sit down, sir," he said, and his voice rang strongly. "We have a right
+in Margaret's affairs. We will say what we wish."
+
+Mary glanced at him: she had never seen her father like this before as
+he stood in three quarter profile, rigid with decision. When she looked
+at Ralph again, his face had tightened once more into obstinacy. He
+answered Sir James with a kind of silky deference.
+
+"Of course, I will sit down, sir, and you shall say what you will."
+
+He went across the room and drew out a couple of chairs before the cold
+hearth where the white ashes and logs of last night's fire still rested.
+Sir James sat down with his back to the window so that Mary could not
+see his face, and Ralph stood by the other chair a moment, facing her.
+
+"Sit down, Mary," he said. "Wait, I will have candles."
+
+He stepped back to the door and called to the portress, and then
+returned, and seated himself deliberately, setting his cane in the
+corner beside him.
+
+None of the three spoke again until the nun had come in with a couple of
+candles that she set in the stands and lighted; then she went out
+without glancing at anyone. Mary was sitting in the window seat, so the
+curtains remained undrawn, and there was a mystical compound of twilight
+and candle-light in the room.
+
+She had a flash of metaphor, and saw in it the meeting of the old and
+new religions; the type of these two men, of whom the light of one was
+fading, and the other waxing. The candlelight fell full on Ralph's face
+that stood out against the whitewashed wall behind.
+
+Then she listened and watched with an intent interest.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"It is this," said Sir James, "we heard you were here--"
+
+Ralph smiled with one side of his mouth, so that his father could see
+it.
+
+"I do not wish to do anything I should not," went on the old man, "or to
+meddle in his Grace's matters--"
+
+"And you wish me not to meddle either, sir," put in Ralph.
+
+"Yes," said his father. "I am very willing to receive you and your wife
+at home; to make any suitable provision; to give you half the house if
+you wish for it; if you will only give up this accursed work."
+
+He was speaking with a tranquil deliberation; all the emotion and
+passion seemed to have left his voice; but Mary, from behind, could see
+his right hand clenched like a vice upon the knob of his chair-arm. It
+seemed to her as if the two men had suddenly frozen into
+self-repression. Their air was one of two acquaintances talking, not of
+father and son.
+
+"And if not, sir?" asked Ralph with the same courtesy.
+
+"Wait," said his father, and he lifted his hand a moment and dropped it
+again. He was speaking in short, sharp sentences. "I know that you have
+great things before you, and that I am asking much from you. I do not
+wish you to think that I am ignorant of that. If nothing else will do I
+am willing to give up the house altogether to you and your wife. I do
+not know about your mother."
+
+Mary drew her breath hard. The words were like an explosion in her soul,
+and opened up unsuspected gulfs. Things must be desperate if her father
+could speak like that. He had not hinted a word of this during that
+silent strenuous ride they had had together when he had called for her
+suddenly at Great Keynes earlier in the afternoon. She saw Ralph give a
+quick stare at his father, and drop his eyes again.
+
+"You are very generous, sir," he said almost immediately, "but I do not
+ask for a bribe."
+
+"You--you are unlike your master in that, then," said Sir James by an
+irresistible impulse.
+
+Ralph's face stiffened yet more.
+
+"Then that is all, sir?" he asked.
+
+"I beg your pardon for saying that," added his father courteously. "It
+should not have been said. It is not a bribe, however; it is an offer to
+compensate for any loss you may incur."
+
+"Have you finished, sir?"
+
+"That is all I have to say on that point," said Sir James, "except--"
+
+"Well, sir?"
+
+"Except that I do not know how Mistress Atherton will take this story."
+
+Ralph's face grew a shade paler yet. But his lips snapped together,
+though his eyes flinched.
+
+"That is a threat, sir."
+
+"That is as you please."
+
+A little pulse beat sharply in Ralph's cheek. He was looking with a
+kind of steady fury at his father. But Mary thought she saw indecision
+too in his eye-lids, which were quivering almost imperceptibly.
+
+"You have offered me a bribe and a threat, sir. Two insults. Have you a
+third ready?"
+
+Mary heard a swift-drawn breath from her father, but he spoke quietly.
+
+"I have no more to say on that point," he said.
+
+"Then I must refuse," said Ralph instantly. "I see no reason to give up
+my work. I have very hearty sympathy with it."
+
+The old man's hand twitched uncontrollably on his chair-arm for a
+moment; he half lifted his hand, but he dropped it again.
+
+"Then as to Margaret," he went on in a moment. "I understand you had
+intended to dismiss her from the convent?"
+
+Ralph bowed.
+
+"And where do you suggest that she should go?"
+
+"She must go home," said Ralph.
+
+"To Overfield?"
+
+Ralph assented.
+
+"Then I will not receive her," said Sir James.
+
+Mary started up.
+
+"Nor will Mary receive her," he added, half turning towards her.
+
+Mary Maxwell sat back at once. She thought she understood what he meant
+now.
+
+Ralph stared at his father a moment before he too understood. Then he
+saw the point, and riposted deftly. He shrugged his shoulders
+ostentatiously as if to shake off responsibility.
+
+"Well, then, that is not my business; I shall give her a gown and five
+shillings to-morrow, with the other one."
+
+The extraordinary brutality of the words struck Mary like a whip, but
+Sir James met it.
+
+"That is for you to settle then," he said. "Only you need not send her
+to Overfield or Great Keynes, for she will be sent back here at once."
+
+Ralph smiled with an air of tolerant incredulity. Sir James rose
+briskly.
+
+"Come, Mary," he said, and turned his back abruptly on Ralph, "we must
+find lodgings for to-night. The good nuns will not have room."
+
+As Mary looked at his face in the candlelight she was astonished by its
+decision; there was not the smallest hint of yielding. It was very pale
+but absolutely determined, and for the last time in her life she noticed
+how like it was to Ralph's. The line of the lips was identical, and his
+eyelids drooped now like his son's.
+
+Ralph too rose and then on a sudden she saw the resolute obstinacy fade
+from his eyes and mouth. It was as if the spirit of one man had passed
+into the other.
+
+"Father--" he said.
+
+She expected a rush of emotion into the old man's face, but there was
+not a ripple. He paused a moment, but Ralph was silent.
+
+"I have no more to say to you, sir. And I beg that you will not come
+home again."
+
+As they passed out into the entrance passage she turned again and saw
+Ralph dazed and trembling at the table. Then they were out in the road
+through the open gate and a long moan broke from her father.
+
+"Oh! God forgive me," he said, "have I failed?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A NUN'S DEFIANCE
+
+
+It was a very strange evening that Mary and her father passed in the
+little upstairs room looking on to the street at Rusper.
+
+Sir James had hardly spoken, and after supper had sat near the window,
+with a curious alertness in his face. Mary knew that Chris was expected,
+and that Mr. Morris had ridden on to fetch him after he had called at
+Overfield, but from her short interview with Margaret she had seen that
+his presence would not be required. The young nun, though bewildered and
+stunned by the news that she must go, had not wavered for a moment as
+regards her intention to follow out her Religious vocation in some
+manner; and it was to confirm her in it, in case she hesitated, that Sir
+James had sent on the servant to fetch Chris.
+
+It was all like a dreadful dream to Mary.
+
+She had gone out from dinner at her own house into the pleasant October
+sunshine with her cheerful husband beside her, when her father had come
+out through the house with his riding-whip in his hand; and in a few
+seconds she had found herself plunged into new and passionate relations,
+first with him, for she had never seen him so stirred, and then with her
+brothers and sister. Ralph, that dignified man of affairs, suddenly
+stepped into her mind as a formidable enemy of God and man; Chris
+appeared as a spiritual power, and the quiet Margaret as the very centre
+of the sudden storm.
+
+She sat here now by the fire, shading her face with her hand and
+watching that familiar face set in hard and undreamed lines of passion
+and resolution and expectancy.
+
+Once as footsteps came up the street he had started up and sat down
+trembling.
+
+She waited till the steps went past, and then spoke.
+
+"Chris will be riding, father."
+
+He nodded abruptly, and she saw by his manner that it was not Chris he
+was expecting. She understood then that he still had hopes of his other
+son, but they sat on into the night in the deep stillness, till the fire
+burned low and red, and the stars she had seen at the horizon wheeled up
+and out of sight above the window-frame.
+
+Then he suddenly turned to her.
+
+"You must go to bed, Mary," he said. "I will wait for Chris."
+
+She lay long awake in the tiny cupboard-room that the labourer and his
+wife had given up to her, hearing the horses stamp in the cold shed at
+the back of the house, and the faces moved and turned like the colours
+of a kaleidoscope. Now her father's eyes and mouth hung like a mask
+before her, with that terrible look that had been on them as he faced
+Ralph at the end; now Ralph's own face, defiant, icy, melting in turns;
+now Margaret's with wide terrified eyes, as she had seen it in the
+parlour that afternoon; now her own husband's. And the sweet autumn
+woods and meadows lay before her as she had seen them during that silent
+ride; the convent, the village, her own home with its square windows and
+yew hedge--a hundred images.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a talking when she awoke for the last time and through the
+crazy door glimmered a crack of grey dawn, and as she listened she knew
+that Chris was come.
+
+It was a strange meeting when she came out a few minutes later. There
+was the monk, unshaven and pale under the eyes, with his thinned face
+that gave no smile as she came in; her father desperately white and
+resolved; Mr. Morris, spruce and grave as usual sitting with his hat
+between his knees behind the others;--he rose deferentially as she came
+in and remained standing.
+
+Her father began abruptly as she appeared.
+
+"He can do nothing," he said, "he can but turn her on to the road. And I
+do not think he will dare."
+
+"Ah! Beatrice Atherton?" questioned Mary, who had a clearer view of the
+situation now.
+
+"Yes--Beatrice Atherton. He fears that we shall tell her. He cannot send
+Margaret to Overfield or Great Keynes now."
+
+"And if he turns her out after all?"
+
+Sir James looked at her keenly.
+
+"We must leave the rest to God," he said.
+
+The village was well awake by the time that they had finished their talk
+and had had something to eat. The drama at the convent had leaked out
+through the boy who served the altar there, and a little group was
+assembled opposite the windows of the cottage to which the monk had been
+seen to ride up an hour or two before. It seemed strange that no priest
+had been near them, but it was fairly evident that the terror was too
+great.
+
+As the four came out on to the road, a clerical cap peeped for a moment
+from the churchyard wall and disappeared again.
+
+They went down towards the convent along the grey road, in the pale
+autumn morning air. Mary still seemed to herself to walk in a dream,
+with her father and brother on either side masquerading in strange
+character; the familiar atmosphere had been swept from them, the
+background of association was gone, and they moved now in a new scene
+with new parts to play that were bringing out powers which she had never
+suspected in them. It seemed as if their essential souls had been laid
+bare by a catastrophe, and that she had never known them before.
+
+For herself, she felt helpless and dazed; her own independence seemed
+gone, and she was aware that her soul was leaning on those of the two
+who walked beside her, and who were masculine and capable beyond all her
+previous knowledge of them.
+
+Behind she heard a murmur of voices and footsteps of three or four
+villagers who followed to see what would happen.
+
+She had no idea of what her father meant to do; it was incredible that
+he should leave Margaret in the road with her gown and five shillings;
+but it was yet more incredible that all his threats should be idle. Only
+one thing emerged clearly, that he had thrown a heavier responsibility
+upon Ralph than the latter had foreseen. Perhaps the rest must indeed be
+left to God. She did not even know what he meant to do now, whether to
+make one last effort with Ralph, or to leave him to himself; and she had
+not dared to ask.
+
+They passed straight down together in silence to the convent-gate; and
+were admitted immediately by the portress whose face was convulsed and
+swollen.
+
+"They are to go," she sobbed.
+
+Sir James made a gesture, and passed in to the tiny lodge on the left
+where the portress usually sat; Chris and Mary followed him in, and Mr.
+Morris went across to the guest-house.
+
+The bell sounded out overhead for mass as they sat there in the dim
+morning light, twenty or thirty strokes, and ceased; but there was no
+movement from the little door of the guest-house across the court. The
+portress had disappeared through the second door that led from the tiny
+room in which they sat, into the precincts of the convent itself.
+
+Mary looked distractedly round her; at the little hatch that gave on to
+the entrance gate, and the chain hanging by it that communicated with
+one of the bolts, at the little crucifix that hung beside it, the
+devotional book that lay on the shelf, the door into the convent with
+the title "_Clausura_" inscribed above it. She glanced at her father and
+brother.
+
+Sir James was sitting with his grey head in his hands, motionless and
+soundless; Chris was standing upright and rigid, staring steadily out
+through the window into the court.
+
+Then through the window she too saw Mr. Morris come out from the
+guest-house and pass along to the stable.
+
+Again there was silence.
+
+The minutes went by, and the Saunce bell sounded three strokes from the
+turret. Chris sank on to his knees, and a moment later Mary and her
+father followed his example, and so the three remained in the dark
+silent lodge, with no sound but their breathing, and once a sharp
+whispered word of prayer from the old man.
+
+As the sacring bell sounded there was a sudden noise in the court, and
+Mary lifted her head.
+
+From where she knelt she could see the two doors across the court, those
+of the guest-house and the stable beyond, and simultaneously, out of the
+one came Ralph, gloved and booted, with his cap on his head, and Mr.
+Morris leading his horse out of the other.
+
+The servant lifted his cap at the sound of the bell, and dropped on to
+his knees, still holding the bridle; his master stood as he was, and
+looked at him. Mary could only see the latter's profile, but even that
+was scornful and hard.
+
+Again the bell sounded; the mystery was done; and the servant stood up.
+
+As her father and Chris rose, Mary rose with them; and the three
+remained in complete silence, watching the little scene in the court.
+
+Ralph made a sign; and the servant attached the bridle of the horse to a
+ring beside the stable-door, and went past his master into the
+guest-house with a deferential stoop of the shoulders. Ralph stood a
+moment longer, and then followed him in.
+
+Then again the minutes went by.
+
+There was a sound of horse-hoofs on the road presently, and of talking
+that grew louder. The hoofs ceased; there was a sharp peal on the bell;
+and the talking began again.
+
+Chris glanced across at his father; but the old man shook his head; and
+the three remained as they were, watching and listening. As the bell
+rang out again impatiently, the door behind opened, and the portress
+came swiftly through, followed by the Abbess.
+
+"Come quickly," the old lady whispered. "Sister Susan is going to let
+them in."
+
+She stood aside, and made a motion to them to come through, and a moment
+late the four were in the convent, and the door was shut behind them.
+
+"They are Mr. Torridon's men," whispered the Abbess, her eyes round with
+excitement; "they are come to pack the things."
+
+She led them on through the narrow passage, up a stone flight of stairs
+to the corridor that ran over the little cloister, and pushed open the
+door of a cell.
+
+"Wait here," she said. "You can do no more. I will go down to them. You
+are in the enclosure, but I cannot help it."
+
+And she had whisked out again, with an air of extraordinary composure,
+shutting the door behind her.
+
+The three went across to the window, still speaking no word, and looked
+down.
+
+The tiny court seemed half full of people now. There were three horses
+there, besides Ralph's own marked by its rich saddle, and still attached
+to the ring by the stable door, and a couple of men were busy loading
+one of them with bundles. From one of these, which was badly packed, a
+shimmering corner of gold cloth projected.
+
+Ralph was standing by the door of the guest-house watching, and making a
+sign now and again with his whip. They could not see his face as he
+stood so directly below them, only his rich cap and feather, and his
+strong figure beneath. Mr. Morris was waiting now by his master's horse;
+the portress was by her door.
+
+As they looked the little black and white figure of the Abbess came out
+beneath them, and stood by the portress.
+
+The packing went on in silence. It was terrible to Mary to stand there
+and watch the dumb-show tragedy, the wrecking and robbing of this
+peaceful house; and yet there was nothing to be done. She knew that the
+issues were in stronger hands than hers; she glanced piteously at her
+father and brother on either side, but their faces were set and white,
+and they did not turn at her movement.
+
+There was the sound of an opening door, and two women came out from the
+convent at one side and stood waiting. One was in secular dress; the
+other was still in her habit, but carried a long dark mantle across her
+arm, and Mary caught her breath and bit her lip fiercely as she
+recognised the second to be her sister.
+
+She felt she must cry out, and denounce the sacrilege, and made an
+instinctive movement nearer the window, but in a moment her father's
+hand was on her arm.
+
+"Be still, Mary: it is all well."
+
+One of the horses was being led away by now through the open door; and
+the two others followed almost immediately; but the principal actors
+were still in their places; the Abbess and the portress together on this
+side; Ralph on that; and the two other women, a little apart from one
+another, at the further end of the court.
+
+Then Ralph beckoned abruptly with his whip, and Mary saw her sister move
+out towards the gate; she caught a glance of her face, and saw that her
+lips were white and trembling, and her eyes full of agony. The other
+woman followed briskly, and the two disappeared through to the road
+outside.
+
+Again Ralph beckoned, and Mr. Morris brought up the horse that he had
+now detached from the ring, and stood by its head, holding the
+off-stirrup for his master to mount. Ralph gathered the reins into his
+left hand, and for a moment they saw his face across the back of the
+horse fierce and white; then he was up, and settling his right foot into
+the stirrup.
+
+Mr. Morris let go, and stood back; and simultaneously Ralph struck him
+with his riding-whip across the face, a furious back-handed slash.
+
+Mary cried out uncontrollably and shrank back; and a moment later her
+father was leaning from the window, and she beside him.
+
+"You damned coward!" he shouted. "Morris, you are my servant now."
+
+Ralph did not turn his head an inch, and a moment later disappeared on
+horse-back through the gate, and the portress had closed it behind him.
+
+The little court was silent now, and empty except for the Abbess'
+motionless figure behind, with Mr. Morris beside her, and the lay sister
+by the gate, her hand still on the key that she had turned, and her eyes
+intent and expectant fixed on her superior. Mr. Morris lifted a
+handkerchief now and again gently to his face, and Mary as she leaned
+half sobbing from above saw that there were spots of crimson on the
+white.
+
+"Oh! Morris!" she whispered.
+
+The servant looked up, with a great weal across one cheek, and bowed a
+little, but he could not speak yet. Outside they could hear the jingle
+of bridle-chains; and then a voice begin; but they could not distinguish
+the words.
+
+It was Ralph speaking; but they could only guess what it was that he was
+saying. Overhead the autumn sky was a vault of pale blue; and a bird or
+two chirped briskly from the roof opposite.
+
+The voice outside grew louder, and ceased, and the noise of horse hoofs
+broke out.
+
+Still there was no movement from any within. The Abbess was standing now
+with one hand uplifted as if for silence, and Mary heard the hoofs sound
+fainter up the road; they grew louder again as they reached higher
+ground; and then ceased altogether.
+
+The old man touched Mary on the arm, and the three went out along the
+little corridor, and down the stone stairs.
+
+As they passed through the lodge and came into the court Mary saw that
+the Abbess had moved from her place, and was standing with the portress
+close by the gate; her face was towards them, a little on one side, and
+she seemed to be listening intently, her ear against the door, her lower
+lip sucked in, and her eyes bright and vacant; she still held one hand
+up for silence.
+
+Then there came a tiny tapping on the wood-work, and she instantly
+turned and snatched at the key, and a moment later the door was wide.
+
+"Come in, my poor child," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ST PANCRAS PRIORY
+
+
+It was a little more than a month later that Ralph met his
+fellow-Visitor at Lewes Priory.
+
+He had left Rusper in a storm of angry obstinacy, compelled by sheer
+pride to do what he had not intended. The arrival of his father and Mary
+there had had exactly the opposite effect to that which they hoped, and
+Ralph had turned Margaret out of the convent simply because he could not
+bear that they should think that he could be frightened from his
+purpose.
+
+As he had ridden off on that October morning, leaving Margaret standing
+outside with her cloak over her arm he had had a very sharp suspicion
+that she would be received back again; but he had not felt himself
+strong enough to take any further steps; so he contented himself with
+sending in his report to Dr. Layton, knowing well that heavy punishment
+would fall on the convent if it was discovered that the Abbess had
+disobeyed the Visitors' injunctions.
+
+Then for a month or so he had ridden about the county, carrying off
+spoils, appointing new officials, and doing the other duties assigned to
+him; he was offered bribes again and again by superiors of Religious
+Houses, but unlike his fellow-Visitors always refused them, and fell the
+more hardly on those that offered them; he turned out numbers of young
+Religious and released elder ones who desired it, and by the time that
+he reached Lewes was fairly practised in the duties of his position.
+
+But the thought of the consequences of his action with regard to his
+future seldom left him. He had alienated his family, and perhaps
+Beatrice. As he rode once through Cuckfield, and caught a glimpse of the
+woods above Overfield, glorious in their autumn livery, he wondered
+whether he would ever find himself at home there again. It was a good
+deal to give up; but he comforted himself with the thought of his own
+career, and with the pleasant prospect of possessing some such house in
+his own right when the work that he now understood had been
+accomplished, and the monastic buildings were empty of occupants.
+
+He had received one letter, to his surprise, from his mother; that was
+brought to him by a messenger in one of the houses where he stayed. It
+informed him that he had the writer's approval, and that she was
+thankful to have one son at least who was a man, and described further
+how his father and Mary had come back, and without Margaret, and that
+she supposed that the Abbess of Rusper had taken her back.
+
+"Go on, my son," she ended, "it will be all well. You cannot come home,
+I know, while your father is in his present mind; but it is a dull place
+and you lose nothing. When you are married it will be different. Mr.
+Carleton is very tiresome, but it does not matter."
+
+Ralph smiled to himself as he thought of the life that must now be
+proceeding at his home.
+
+He had written once to Beatrice, in a rather tentative tone, assuring
+her that he was doing his best to be just and merciful, and professing
+to take it for granted that she knew how to discount any exaggerated
+stories of the Visitors' doings that might come to her ears. But he had
+received no answer, and indeed had told her that he did not expect one,
+for he was continually on the move and could give no fixed address.
+
+As he came up over the downs above Lewes he was conscious of a keen
+excitement; this would be the biggest work he had undertaken, and it had
+the additional zest of being a means of annoying his brother who had
+provoked him so often. Since his quarrel with Chris in his own rooms in
+the summer he had retained an angry contempt towards him. Chris had been
+insolent and theatrical, he told himself, and had thrown off all claims
+to tenderness, and Ralph's feelings towards him were not improved by the
+information given him by one of his men that his brother had been
+present at the scene at Rusper, no doubt summoned there by Morris, who
+had proved such a desperate traitor to his master by slipping off to
+Overfield on the morning of the Sunday.
+
+Ralph was very much puzzled at first by Morris's behaviour; the man had
+always been respectful and obedient, but it was now evident to him that
+he had been half-hearted all along, and still retained a superstitious
+reverence for ecclesiastical things and persons; and although it was
+very inconvenient and tiresome to lose him, yet it was better to be
+inadequately than treacherously served.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lewes Priory was a magnificent sight as Ralph came up on to the top of
+the last shoulder below Mount Harry. The town lay below him in the deep,
+cup-like hollow, piled house above house along the sides. Beyond it in
+the evening light, against the rich autumn fields and the gleam of
+water, towered up the tall church with the monastic buildings nestling
+behind.
+
+The thought crossed his mind that it would do very well for himself;
+the town was conveniently placed between London and the sea, within a
+day's ride from either; there would be shops and company there, and the
+priory itself would be a dignified and suitable house, when it had been
+properly re-arranged. The only drawback would be Beatrice's
+scrupulousness; but he had little doubt that ultimately that could be
+overcome. It would be ridiculous for a single girl to set herself up
+against the conviction of a country, and refuse to avail herself of the
+advantages of a reform that was so sorely needed. She trusted him
+already; and it would not need much persuasion he thought to convince
+her mind as well as her heart.
+
+Of course Lewes Priory would be a great prize, and there would be many
+applicants for it, and he realized that more than ever as he came up to
+its splendid gateway and saw the high tower overhead, and the long tiled
+roofs to the right; but his own relations with Cromwell were of the
+best, and he decided that at least no harm could result from asking.
+
+It was with considerable excitement that he dismounted in the court, and
+saw the throng of Dr. Layton's men going to and fro. As at Durford, so
+here, his superior had arrived before him, and the place was already
+astir. The riding-horses had been bestowed in the stables, and the
+baggage-beasts were being now unloaded before the door of the
+guest-house; there were servants going to and fro in Dr. Layton's
+livery, with an anxious-faced monk or two here and there among them, and
+a buzz and clatter rose on all sides. One of Dr. Layton's secretaries
+who had been at Durford, recognised Ralph and came up immediately,
+saluting him deferentially.
+
+"The doctor is with the Sub-Prior, sir," he said. "He gave orders that
+you were to be brought to him as soon as you arrived, Mr. Torridon."
+
+Ralph followed him into the guest-house, and up the stairs up which
+Chris had come at his first arrival, and was shown into the parlour.
+There was a sound of voices as they approached the door, and as Ralph
+entered he saw at once that Dr. Layton was busy at his work.
+
+"Come in, sir," he cried cheerfully from behind the table at which he
+sat. "Here is desperate work for you and me. No less than rank treason,
+Mr. Torridon."
+
+A monk was standing before the table, who turned nervously as Ralph came
+in; he was a middle-aged man, grey-haired and brown-faced like a
+foreigner, but his eyes were full of terror now, and his lips trembling
+piteously.
+
+Ralph greeted Dr. Layton shortly, and sat down beside him.
+
+"Now, sir," went on the other, "your only hope is to submit yourself to
+the King's clemency. You have confessed yourself to treason in your
+preaching, and even if you did not, it would not signify, for I have the
+accusation from the young man at Farley in my bag. You tell me you did
+not know it was treason; but are you ready, sir, to tell the King's
+Grace that?"
+
+The monk's eyes glanced from one to the other anxiously. Ralph could see
+that he was desperately afraid.
+
+"Tell me that, sir," cried the doctor again, rapping the table with his
+open hand.
+
+"I--I--what shall I do, sir?" stammered the monk.
+
+"You must throw yourself on the King's mercy, reverend father. And as a
+beginning you must throw yourself on mine and Mr. Torridon's here. Now,
+listen to this."
+
+Dr. Layton lifted one of the papers that lay before him and read it
+aloud, looking severely at the monk over the top of it between the
+sentences. It was in the form of a confession, and declared that on such
+a date in the Priory Church of St Pancras at Lewes the undersigned had
+preached treason, although ignorant that it was so, in the presence of
+the Prior and community; and that the Prior, although he knew what was
+to be said, and had heard the sermon in question, had neither forbidden
+it beforehand nor denounced it afterwards, and that the undersigned
+entreated the King's clemency for the fault and submitted himself
+entirely to his Grace's judgment.
+
+"I--I dare not accuse my superior," stammered the monk.
+
+Dr. Layton glared at him, laying the paper down.
+
+"The question is," he cried, "which would you sooner offend--your Prior,
+who will be prior no longer presently, or the King's Grace, who will
+remain the King's Grace for many years yet, by the favour of God, and
+who has moreover supreme rights of life and death. That is your choice,
+reverend father."--He lifted the paper by the corners.--"You have only
+to say the word, sir, and I tear up this paper, and write my own report
+of the matter."
+
+The monk again glanced helplessly at the two men. Ralph had a touch of
+contentment at the thought that this was Christopher's superior, ranged
+like a naughty boy at the table, and looked at him coldly. Dr. Layton
+made a swift gesture as if to tear the paper, and the Sub-Prior threw
+out his hands.
+
+"I will sign it, sir," he said, "I will sign it."
+
+When the monk had left the room, leaving his signed confession behind
+him, Dr. Layton turned beaming to Ralph.
+
+"Thank God!" he said piously. "I do not know what we should have done if
+he had refused; but now we hold him and his prior too. How have you
+fared, Mr. Torridon?"
+
+Ralph told him a little of his experiences since his last report, of a
+nunnery where all but three had been either dismissed or released; of a
+monastery where he had actually caught a drunken cellarer unconscious by
+a barrel, and of another where he had reason to fear even worse crimes.
+
+"Write it all down, Mr. Torridon," cried the priest, "and do not spare
+the adjectives. I have some fine tales for you myself. But we must
+despatch this place first. We shall have grand sport in the
+chapter-house to-morrow. This prior is a poor timid fellow, and we can
+do what we will with him. Concealed treason is a sharp sword to threaten
+him with."
+
+Ralph remarked presently that he had a brother a monk here.
+
+"But you can do what you like to him," he said. "I have no love for him.
+He is an insolent fellow."
+
+Dr. Layton smiled pleasantly.
+
+"We will see what can be done," he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph slept that night in the guest-house, in the same room that Chris
+had occupied on his first coming. He awoke once at the sound of the
+great bell from the tower calling the monks to the night-office, and
+smiled at the fantastic folly of it all. His work during the last month
+had erased the last remnants of superstitious fear, and to him now more
+than ever the Religious Houses were but noisy rookeries, clamant with
+bells and chanting, and foul with the refuse of idleness. The sooner
+they were silenced and purged the better.
+
+He did not trouble to go to mass in the morning, but lay awake in the
+white-washed room, hearing footsteps and voices below, and watching the
+morning light brighten on the wall. He found himself wondering once or
+twice what Chris was doing, and how he felt; he did not rise till one of
+his men looked in to tell him that Dr. Layton would be ready for him in
+half-an-hour, if he pleased.
+
+The chapter-house was a strange sight as he entered it from the
+cloister. It was a high oblong chamber some fifty feet long, with arched
+roof like a chapel, and a paved floor. On a dozen stones or so were cut
+inscriptions recording the presence of bodies entombed below, among them
+those of Earl William de Warenne and Gundrada, his wife, founders of the
+priory five centuries ago. Ralph caught sight of the names as he strode
+through the silent monks at the door and entered the chamber, talking
+loudly with his fellow-Visitor. The tall vaulted room looked bare and
+severe; the seats ran round it, raised on a step, and before the Prior's
+chair beneath the crucifix stood a large table covered with papers.
+Beneath it, and emerging on to the floor lay a great heap of vestments
+and precious things which Dr. Layton had ordered to be piled there for
+his inspection, and on the table itself for greater dignity burned two
+tapers in massive silver candlesticks.
+
+"Sit here, Mr. Torridon," said the priest, himself taking the Prior's
+chair, "we represent the supreme head of the Church of England now, you
+must remember."
+
+And he smiled at the other with a solemn joy.
+
+He glanced over his papers, settled himself judicially, and then signed
+to one of his men to call the monks in. His two secretaries seated
+themselves at either end of the table that stood before their master.
+
+Then the two lines began to file in, in reverse order, as the doctor had
+commanded; black silent figures with bowed heads buried in their hoods,
+and their hands invisible in the great sleeves of their cowls.
+
+Ralph ran his eyes over them; there were men of all ages there, old
+wrinkled faces, and smooth ones; but it was not until they were all
+standing in their places that he recognised Chris.
+
+There stood the young man, at a stall near the door, his eyes bent down,
+and his face deadly pale, his figure thin and rigid against the pale oak
+panelling that rose up some eight feet from the floor. Ralph's heart
+quickened with triumph. Ah! it was good to be here as judge, with that
+brother of his as culprit!
+
+The Prior and Sub-prior, whose places were occupied, stood together in
+the centre of the room, as the doctor had ordered. It was their case
+that was to come first.
+
+There was an impressive silence; the two Visitors sat motionless,
+looking severely round them; the secretaries had their clean paper
+before them, and their pens, ready dipped, poised in their fingers.
+
+Then Dr. Layton began.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was an inexpressibly painful task, he said, that he had before him;
+the monks were not to think that he gloried in it, or loved to find
+fault and impose punishments; and, in fact, nothing but the knowledge
+that he was there as the representative of the supreme authority in
+Church and State could have supplied to him the fortitude necessary for
+the performance of so sad a task.
+
+Ralph marvelled at him as he listened. There was a solemn sound in the
+man's face and voice, and dignity in his few and impressive gestures. It
+could hardly be believed that he was not in earnest; and yet Ralph
+remembered too the relish with which the man had dispersed his foul
+tales the evening before, and the cackling laughter with which their
+recital was accompanied. But it was all very wholesome for Chris, he
+thought.
+
+"And now," said Dr. Layton, "I must lay before you this grievous matter.
+It is one of whose end I dare not think, if it should come before the
+King's Grace; and yet so it must come. It is no less a matter than
+treason."
+
+His voice rang out with a melancholy triumph, and Ralph, looking at the
+two monks who stood in the centre of the room, saw that they were both
+as white as paper. The lips of the Prior were moving in a kind of
+agonised entreaty, and his eyes rolled round.
+
+"You, sir," cried the doctor, glaring at the Sub-Prior, who dropped his
+beseeching eyes at the fierce look, "you, sir, have committed the
+crime--in ignorance, you tell me--but at least the crime of preaching in
+this priory-church in the presence of his Grace's faithful subjects a
+sermon attacking the King's most certain prerogatives. I can make
+perhaps allowances for this--though I do not know whether his Grace will
+do so--but I can make allowances for one so foolish as yourself carried
+away by the drunkenness of words; but I can make none--none--" he
+shouted, crashing his hand upon the table, "none for your superior who
+stands beside you, and who forebore either to protest at the treason at
+the time or to rebuke it afterwards."
+
+The Prior's hands rose and clasped themselves convulsively, but he made
+no answer.
+
+Dr. Layton proceeded to read out the confession that he had wrung from
+the monk the night before, down to the signature; then he called upon
+him to come up.
+
+"Is this your name, sir?" he asked slowly.
+
+The Sub-Prior took the paper in his trembling hands.
+
+"It is sir," he said.
+
+"You hear it," cried the doctor, staring fiercely round the faces, "he
+tells you he has subscribed it himself. Go back to your place, reverend
+father, and thank our Lord that you had courage to do so.
+
+"And now, you, sir, Master Prior, what have you to say?"
+
+Dr. Layton dropped his voice as he spoke, and laid his fat hands
+together on the table. The Prior looked up with the same dreadful
+entreaty as before; his lips moved, but no sound came from them. The
+monks round were deadly still; Ralph saw a swift glance or two exchanged
+beneath the shrouding hoods, but no one moved.
+
+"I am waiting, my Lord Prior," cried Layton in a loud terrible voice.
+
+Again the Prior writhed his lips to speak.
+
+Dr. Layton rose abruptly and made a violent gesture.
+
+"Down on your knees, Master Prior, if you need mercy."
+
+There was a quick murmur and ripple along the two lines as the Prior
+dropped suddenly on to his knees and covered his face with his hands.
+
+Dr. Layton threw out his hand with a passionate gesture and began to
+speak--.
+
+"There, reverend fathers and brethren," he cried, "you see how low sin
+brings a man. This fellow who calls himself prior was bold enough, I
+daresay, in the church when treason was preached; and, I doubt not, has
+been bold enough in private too when he thought none heard him but his
+friends. But you see how treachery,--heinous treachery,--plucks the
+spirit from him, and how lowly he carries himself when he knows that
+true men are sitting in judgment over him. Take example from that, you
+who have served him in the past; you need never fear him more now."
+
+Dr. Layton dropped his hand and sat down. For one moment Ralph saw the
+kneeling man lift that white face again, but the doctor was at him
+instantly.
+
+"Do not dare to rise, sir, till I give you leave," he roared. "You had
+best be a penitent. Now tell me, sir, what you have to say. It shall not
+be said that we condemned a man unheard. Eh! Mr. Torridon?"
+
+Ralph nodded sharply, and glanced at Chris; but his brother was staring
+at the Prior.
+
+"Now then, sir," cried the doctor again.
+
+"I entreat you, Master Layton--"
+
+The Prior's voice was convulsed with terror as he cried this with
+outstretched hands.
+
+"Yes, sir, I will hear you."
+
+"I entreat you, sir, not to tell his Grace. Indeed I am innocent"--his
+voice rose thin and high in his panic--indeed, I did not know it was
+treason that was preached."
+
+"Did not know?" sneered the doctor, leaning forward over the table.
+"Why, you know your Faith, man--"
+
+"Master Layton, Master Layton; there be so many changes in these days--"
+
+"Changes!" shouted the priest; "there be no changes, except of such
+knaves as you, Master-Prior; it is the old Faith now as ever. Do you
+dare to call his Grace a heretic? Must that too go down in the charges?"
+
+"No, no, Master Layton," screamed the Prior, with his hands strained
+forward and twitching fingers. "I did not mean that--Christ is my
+witness!"
+
+"Is it not the same Faith, sir?"
+
+"Yes, Master Layton--yes--indeed, it is. But I did not know--how could I
+know?"
+
+"Then why are you Prior," cried the doctor with a dramatic gesture, "if
+it is not to keep your subjects true and obedient? Do you mean to tell
+me--?"
+
+"I entreat you, sir, for the love of Mary, not to tell his Grace--"
+
+"Bah!" shouted Dr. Layton, "you may keep your breath till you tell his
+Grace that himself. There is enough of this." Again he rose, and swept
+his eyes round the white-faced monks. "I am weary of this work. The
+fellow has not a word to say--"
+
+"Master Layton, Master Layton," cried the kneeling man once more,
+lifting his hands on one of which gleamed the prelatical ring.
+
+"Silence, sir," roared the doctor. "It is I who am speaking now. We have
+had enough of this work. It seems that there be no true men left, except
+in the world; these houses are rotten with crime. Is it not so, Master
+Torridon?--rotten with crime! But of all the knaves that I did ever
+meet, and they are many and strong ones, I do believe Master Prior, that
+you are the worst. Here is my sentence, and see that it be carried out.
+You, Master Prior, and you Master Sub-Prior, are to appear before Master
+Cromwell in his court on All-Hallows' Eve, and tell your tales to him.
+You shall see if he be so soft as I; it may be that he will send you
+before the King's Grace--that I know not--but at least he will know how
+to get the truth out of you, if I cannot--"
+
+Once more the Prior broke in, in an agony of terror; but the doctor
+silenced him in a moment.
+
+"Have I not given my sentence, sir? How dare you speak?"
+
+A murmur again ran round the room, and he lifted his hand furiously.
+
+"Silence," he shouted, "not one word from a mother's son of you. I have
+had enough of sedition already. Clear the room, officer, and let not one
+shaveling monk put his nose within again, until I send for him. I am
+weary of them all--weary and broken-hearted."
+
+The doctor dropped back into his seat, with a face of profound disgust,
+and passed his hand over his forehead.
+
+The monks turned at the signal from the door, and Ralph watched the
+black lines once more file out.
+
+"There, Mr. Torridon," whispered the doctor behind his hand. "Did I not
+tell you so? Master Cromwell will be able to do what he will with him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+RALPH'S RETURN
+
+
+The Visitation of Lewes Priory occupied a couple of days, as the estates
+were so vast, and the account-books so numerous.
+
+In the afternoon following the scene in the chapter-house, Dr. Layton
+and Ralph rode out to inspect some of the farms that were at hand,
+leaving orders that the stock was to be driven up into the court the
+next day, and did not return till dusk. The excitement in the town was
+tremendous as they rode back through the ill-lighted streets, and as the
+rumour ran along who the great gentlemen were that went along so gaily
+with their servants behind them; and by the time that they reached the
+priory-gate there was a considerable mob following in their train,
+singing and shouting, in the highest spirits at the thought of the
+plunder that would probably fall into their hands.
+
+Layton turned in his saddle at the door, and made them a little speech,
+telling them how he was there with the authority of the King's Grace,
+and would soon make a sweep of the place.
+
+"And there will be pickings," he cried, "pickings for us all! The widow
+and the orphan have been robbed long enough; it is time to spoil the
+fathers."
+
+There was a roar of amusement from the mob; and a shout or two was
+raised for the King's Grace.
+
+"You must be patient," cried Dr. Layton, "and then no more taxes. You
+can trust us, gentlemen, to do the King's work as it should be done."
+
+As he passed in through the lamp-lit entrance he turned to Ralph again.
+
+"You see, Mr. Torridon, we have the country behind us."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was that evening that Ralph for the first time since the quarrel met
+his brother face to face.
+
+He was passing through the cloister on his way to Dr. Layton's room, and
+came past the refectory door just as the monks were gathering for
+supper. He glanced in as he went, and had a glimpse of the clean solemn
+hall, lighted with candles along the panelling, the long bare tables
+laid ready, the Prior's chair and table at the further end and the great
+fresco over it. A lay brother or two in aprons were going about their
+business silently, and three or four black figures, who had already
+entered, stood motionless along the raised dais on which the tables
+stood.
+
+The monks had all stopped instantly as Ralph came among them, and had
+lowered their hoods with their accustomed courtly deference to a guest;
+and as he turned from his momentary pause at the refectory door in the
+full blaze of light that shone from it, he met Chris face to face.
+
+The young monk had come up that instant, not noticing who was there, and
+his hood was still over his head. There was a second's pause, and then
+he lifted his hand and threw the hood back in salutation; and as Ralph
+bowed and passed on he had a moment's sight of that thin face and the
+large grey eyes in which there was not the faintest sign of recognition.
+
+Ralph's heart was hot with mingled emotion as he went up the cloister.
+He was more disturbed by the sudden meeting, the act of courtesy, and
+the cold steady eyes of this young fool of a brother than he cared to
+recognise.
+
+He saw no more of him, except in the distance among his fellows; and he
+left the house the next day when the business was done.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Matters in the rest of England were going forward with the same
+promptitude as in Sussex. Dr. Layton himself had visited the West
+earlier in the autumn, and the other Visitors were busy in other parts
+of the country. The report was current now that the resources of all the
+Religious Houses were to be certainly confiscated, and that those of the
+inmates who still persisted in their vocation would have to do so under
+the most rigorous conditions imaginable. The results were to be seen in
+the enormous increase of beggars, deprived now of the hospitality they
+were accustomed to receive; and the roads everywhere were thronged with
+those who had been holders of corrodies, or daily sustenance in the
+houses; as well as with the evicted Religious, some of whom, dismissed
+against their will, were on their way to the universities, where, in
+spite of the Visitation, it was thought that support was still to be
+had; and others, less reputable, who preferred freedom to monastic
+discipline. Yet others were to be met with, though not many in number,
+who were on their way to London to lay complaints of various kinds
+against their superiors.
+
+From these and like events the whole country was astir. Men gathered in
+groups outside the village inns and discussed the situation, and feeling
+ran high on the movements of the day. What chiefly encouraged the
+malcontents was the fact that the benefits to be gained by the
+dissolution of the monasteries were evident and present, while the
+ill-results lay in the future. The great Religious Houses, their farms
+and stock, the jewels of the treasury, were visible objects; men
+actually laid eyes on them as they went to and from their work or knelt
+at mass on Sundays; it was all so much wealth that did not belong to
+them, and that might do so, while the corrodies, the daily hospitality,
+the employment of labour, and such things, lay either out of sight, or
+affected only certain individuals. Characters too that were chiefly
+stirred by such arguments, were those of the noisy and self-assertive
+faction; while those who saw a little deeper into things, and understood
+the enormous charities of the Religious Houses and the manner in which
+extreme poverty was kept in check by them,--even more, those who valued
+the spiritual benefits that flowed from the fact of their existence, and
+saw how life was kindled and inspired by these vast homes of
+prayer--such, then as always, were those who would not voluntarily put
+themselves forward in debate, or be able, when they did so, to use
+arguments that would appeal to the village gatherings. Their natural
+leaders too, the country clergy, who alone might have pointed out
+effectively the considerations that lay beneath the surface had been
+skilfully and peremptorily silenced by the episcopal withdrawing of all
+preaching licenses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the course of Ralph's travels he came across, more than once, a hot
+scene in the village inn, and was able to use his own personality and
+prestige as a King's Visitor in the direction that he wished.
+
+He came for example one Saturday night to the little village of
+Maresfield, near Fletching, and after seeing his horses and servants
+bestowed, came into the parlour, where the magnates were assembled.
+There were half a dozen there, sitting round the fire, who rose
+respectfully as the great gentleman strode in, and eyed him with a
+sudden awe as they realised from the landlord's winks and whispers that
+he was of a very considerable importance.
+
+From the nature of his training Ralph had learnt how to deal with all
+conditions of men; and by the time that he had finished supper, and
+drawn his chair to the fire, they were talking freely again, as indeed
+he had encouraged them to do, for they did not of course, any more than
+the landlord, guess at his identity or his business there.
+
+Ralph soon brought the talk round again to the old subject, and asked
+the opinions of the company as to the King's policy in the visitation of
+the Religious Houses There was a general silence when he first opened
+the debate, for they were dangerous times; but the gentleman's own
+imperturbable air, his evident importance, and his friendliness,
+conspired with the strong beer to open their mouths, and in five minutes
+they were at it.
+
+One, a little old man in the corner who sat with crossed legs, nursing
+his mug, declared that to his mind the whole thing was sacrilege; the
+houses, he said, had been endowed to God's glory and service, and that
+to turn them to other uses must bring a curse on the country. He went on
+to remark--for Ralph deftly silenced the chorus of protest--that his own
+people had been buried in the church of the Dominican friars at Arundel
+for three generations, and that he was sorry for the man who laid hands
+on the tomb of his grandfather--known as Uncle John--for the old man had
+been a desperate churchman in his day, and would undoubtedly revenge
+himself for any indignity offered to his bones.
+
+Ralph pointed out, with a considerate self-repression, that the
+illustration was scarcely to the point, for the King's Grace had no
+intention, he believed, of disturbing any one's bones; the question at
+issue rather regarded flesh and blood. Then a chorus broke out, and the
+hunt was up.
+
+One, the butcher, with many blessings invoked on King Harry's head,
+declared that the country was being sucked dry by these rapacious
+ecclesiastics; that the monks encroached every year on the common land,
+absorbed the little farms, paid inadequate wages, and--which appeared
+his principal grievance--killed their own meat.
+
+Ralph, with praiseworthy tolerance, pushed this last argument aside, but
+appeared to reflect on the others as if they were new to him, though he
+had heard them a hundred times, and used them fifty; and while he
+weighed them, another took up the tale; told a scandalous story or two,
+and asked how men who lived such lives as these which he related, could
+be examples of chastity.
+
+Once more the little old man burst into the fray, and waving his pot in
+an access of religious enthusiasm, rebuked the last speaker for his
+readiness to pick up dirt, and himself instanced five or six Religious
+known to him, whose lives were no less spotless than his own.
+
+Again Ralph interposed in his slow voice, and told them that that too
+was not the point at issue. The question was not as to whether here and
+there monks lived good lives or bad, for no one was compelled to imitate
+either, but as to whether on the whole the existence of the Religious
+Houses was profitable in such practical matters as agriculture, trade,
+and the relief of the destitute.
+
+And so it went on, and Ralph began to grow weary of the inconsequence of
+the debaters, and their entire inability to hold to the salient points;
+but he still kept his hand on the rudder of the discussion, avoided the
+fogs of the supernatural and religious on the one side towards which the
+little old man persisted in pushing, and, on the other, the blunt views
+of the butcher and the man who had told the foul stories; and contented
+himself with watching and learning the opinion of the company rather
+than contributing his own.
+
+Towards the end of the evening he observed two of his men, who had
+slipped in and were sitting at the back of the little stifling room,
+hugely enjoying the irony of the situation, and determined on ending the
+discussion with an announcement of his own identity.
+
+Presently an opportunity occurred. The little old man had shown a
+dangerous tendency to discourse on the suffering souls in purgatory, and
+on the miseries inflicted on them by the cessation of masses and
+suffrages for their welfare; and an uncomfortable awe-stricken silence
+had fallen on the others.
+
+Ralph stood up abruptly, and began to speak, his bright tired eyes
+shining down on the solemn faces, and his mouth set and precise.
+
+"Well, gentlemen," he said, "your talk has pleased me very much. I have
+learned a great deal, and I hope shall profit by it. Some of you have
+talked a quantity of nonsense; and you, Mr. Miggers, have talked the
+most, about your uncle John's soul and bones."
+
+A deadly silence fell as these startling words were pronounced; for his
+manner up to now had been conciliatory and almost apologetic. But he
+went on imperturbably.
+
+"I am quite sure that Almighty God knows His business better than you or
+I, Mr. Miggers; and if He cannot take care of Uncle John without the aid
+of masses or dirges sung by fat-bellied monks--"
+
+He stopped abruptly, and a squirt of laughter burst from the butcher.
+
+"Well, this is my opinion," went on Ralph, "if you wish to know it. I
+do not think, or suspect, as some of you do--but I _know_--as you will
+allow presently that I do, when I tell you who I am--I _know_ that these
+houses of which we have been speaking, are nothing better than
+wasps'-nests. The fellows look holy enough in their liveries, they make
+a deal of buzz, they go to and fro as if on business; but they make no
+honey that is worth your while or mine to take. There is but one thing
+that they have in their holes that is worth anything: and that is their
+jewels and their gold, and the lead on their churches and the bells in
+their towers. And all that, by the Grace of God we will soon have out of
+them."
+
+There was a faint murmur of mingled applause and dissent. Mr. Miggers
+stared vacant-faced at this preposterous stranger, and set his mug
+resolutely down as a preparation for addressing him, but he had no
+opportunity. Ralph was warmed now by his own eloquence, and swept on.
+
+"You think I do not know of what I am speaking? Well, I have a brother a
+monk at Lewes, and a sister a nun at Rusper; and I have been brought up
+in this religion until I am weary of it. My sister--well, she is like
+other maidens of her kind--not a word to speak of any matter but our
+Lady and the Saints and how many candles Saint Christopher likes. And my
+brother!--Well, we can leave that.
+
+"I know these houses as none of you know them; I know how much wine they
+drink, how much they charge for their masses, how much treasonable
+chatter they carry on in private--I know their lives as I know my own;
+and I know that they are rotten and useless altogether. They may give a
+plateful or two in charity and a mug of beer; they gorge ten dishes
+themselves, and swill a hogshead. They give a penny to the poor man, and
+keep twenty nobles for themselves. They take field after field, house
+after house; turn the farmer into the beggar, and the beggar into their
+bedesman. And, by God! I say that the sooner King Henry gets rid of the
+crew, the better for you and me!"
+
+Ralph snapped out the last words, and stared insolently down on the
+gaping faces. Then he finished, standing by the door as he did so, with
+his hand on the latch.
+
+"If you would know how I know all this, I will tell you. My name is
+Torridon, of Overfield; and I am one of the King's Visitors. Good-night,
+gentlemen."
+
+There was the silence of the grave within, as Ralph went upstairs
+smiling to himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph had intended returning home a week or two after the Lewes
+visitation, but there was a good deal to be done, and Layton had pointed
+out to him that even if some houses were visited twice over it would do
+no harm to the rich monks to pay double fees; so it was not till
+Christmas was a week away that he rode at last up to his house-door at
+Westminster.
+
+His train had swelled to near a dozen men and horses by now, for he had
+accumulated a good deal of treasure beside that which he had left in
+Layton's hands, and it would not have been safe to travel with a smaller
+escort; so it was a gay and imposing cavalcade that clattered through
+the narrow streets. Ralph himself rode in front, in solitary dignity,
+his weapon jingling at his stirrup, his feather spruce and bright above
+his spare keen face; a couple of servants rode behind, fully armed and
+formidable looking, and then the train came behind--beasts piled with
+bundles that rustled and clinked suggestively, and the men who guarded
+them gay with scraps of embroidery and a cheap jewel or two here and
+there in their dress.
+
+But Ralph did not feel so gallant as he looked. During these long
+country rides he had had too much time to think, and the thought of
+Beatrice and of what she would say seldom left him. The very harshness
+of his experiences, the rough faces round him, the dialect of the stable
+and the inn, the coarse conversation--all served to make her image the
+more gracious and alluring. It was a kind of worship, shot with passion,
+that he felt for her. Her grave silences coincided with his own, her
+tenderness yielded deliciously to his strength.
+
+As he sat over his fire with his men whispering behind him, planning as
+they thought new assaults on the rich nests that they all hated and
+coveted together, again and again it was Beatrice's face, and not that
+of a shrewd or anxious monk, that burned in the red heart of the hearth.
+He had seen it with downcast eyes, with the long lashes lying on the
+cheek, and the curved red lips discreetly shut beneath; the masses of
+black hair shadowed the forehead and darkened the secret that he wished
+to read. Or he had watched her, like a jewel in a pig-sty, looking
+across the foul-littered farm where he had had to sleep more than once
+with his men about him; her black eyes looking into his own with tender
+gravity, and her mouth trembling with speech. Or best of all, as he rode
+along the bitter cold lanes at the fall of the day, the crowding yews
+above him had parted and let her stand there, with her long skirts
+rustling in the dry leaves, her slender figure blending with the
+darkness, and her sweet face trusting and loving him out of the gloom.
+
+And then again, like the prick of a wound, the question had touched him,
+how would she receive him when he came back with the monastic spoils on
+his beasts' shoulders, and the wail of the nuns shrilling like the wind
+behind?
+
+But by the time that he came back to London he had thought out his
+method of meeting her. Probably she had had news of the doings of the
+Visitors, perhaps of his own in particular; it was hardly possible that
+his father had not written; she would ask for an explanation, and she
+should have instead an appeal to her confidence. He would tell her that
+sad things had indeed happened, that he had been forced to be present at
+and even to carry out incidents which he deplored; but that he had done
+his utmost to be merciful. It was rough work, he would say; but it was
+work that had to be done; and since that was so--and this was Cromwell's
+teaching--it was better that honourable gentlemen should do it. He had
+not been able always to restrain the violence of his men--and for that
+he needed forgiveness from her dear lips; and it would be easy enough to
+tell stories against him that it would be hard to disprove; but if she
+loved and trusted him, and he knew that she did, let her take his word
+for it that no injustice had been deliberately done, that on the other
+hand he had been the means under God of restraining many such acts, and
+that his conscience was clear.
+
+It was a moving appeal, Ralph thought, and it almost convinced himself.
+He was not conscious of any gross insincerity in the defence; of course
+it was shaded artistically, and the more brutal details kept out of
+sight, but in the main it was surely true. And, as he rehearsed its
+points to himself once more in the streets of Westminster, he felt that
+though there might be a painful moment or two, yet it would do his work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He had sent a message home that he was coming, and the door of his home
+was wide as he dismounted, and the pleasant light of candles shone out,
+for the evening was smouldering to dark in the west.
+
+A crowd had collected as he went along; from every window faces were
+leaning; and as he stood on the steps directing the removal of the
+treasure into the house, he saw that the mob filled the tiny street, and
+the cobbled space, from side to side. They were chiefly of the idling
+class, folks who had little to do but to follow up excitements and
+shout; and there were a good many cries raised for the King's Grace and
+his Visitors, for such people as these were greedy for any movement that
+might bring them gain, and the Religious Houses were beginning to be
+more unpopular in town than ever.
+
+One of the bundles slipped as it was shifted, the cord came off, and in
+a moment the little space beyond the mule before the door was covered
+with gleaming stuff and jewels.
+
+There was a fierce scuffle and a cry, and Ralph was in a moment beyond
+the mule with his sword out. He said nothing but stood there fierce and
+alert as the crowd sucked back, and the servant gathered up the things.
+There was no more trouble, for it had only been a spasmodic snatch at
+the wealth, and a cheer or two was raised again among the grimy faces
+that stared at the fine gentleman and the shining treasure.
+
+Ralph thought it better, however, to say a conciliatory word when the
+things had been bestowed in the house, and the mules led away; and he
+stood on the steps a moment alone before entering himself.
+
+The crowd listened complacently enough to the statements which they had
+begun to believe from the fact of the incessant dinning of them into
+their ears by the selected preachers at Paul's Cross and elsewhere; and
+there was loud groan at the Pope's name.
+
+Ralph was ending with an incise peroration that he had delivered more
+than once before.
+
+"You know all this, good people; and you shall know it better when the
+work is done. Instead of the rich friars and monks we will have godly
+citizens, each with his house and land. The King's Grace has promised
+it, and you know that he keeps his word. We have had enough of the
+jackdaws and their stolen goods; we will have honest birds instead. Only
+be patient a little longer--"
+
+The listening silence was broken by a loud cry--
+
+"You damned plundering hound--"
+
+A stone suddenly out of the gloom whizzed past Ralph and crashed through
+the window behind. A great roaring rose in a moment, and the crowd
+swayed and turned.
+
+Ralph felt his heart suddenly quicken, and his hand flew to his hilt
+again, but there was no need for him to act. There were terrible screams
+already rising from the seething twilight in front, as the stone-thrower
+was seized and trampled. He stayed a moment longer, dropped his hilt and
+went into the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+RALPH'S WELCOME
+
+
+"You will show Mistress Atherton into the room below," said Ralph to his
+man, "as soon as she comes."
+
+He was sitting on the morning following his arrival in his own chamber
+upstairs. His table was a mass of papers, account-books, reckonings,
+reports bearing on his Visitation journey, and he had been working at
+them ever since he was dressed; for he had to present himself before
+Cromwell in the course of a day or two, and the labour would be
+enormous.
+
+The room below, opposite that in which he intended to see Beatrice and
+where she had waited herself a few months before while he talked with
+Cromwell and the Archbishop, was now occupied by his collection of plate
+and vestments, and the key was in his own pocket.
+
+He had heard from his housekeeper on the previous evening that Beatrice
+had called at the house during the afternoon, and had seemed surprised
+to hear that he was to return that night; but she had said very little,
+it appeared, and had only begged the woman to inform her master that she
+would present herself at his house the next morning.
+
+And now Ralph was waiting for her.
+
+He was more ill-at-ease than he had expected to be. The events of the
+evening before had given him a curious shock; and he cursed the whole
+business--the snapping of the cord round the bundle, his own action and
+words, the outrage that followed, and the death of the fellow that had
+thrown the stone--for the body had been rescued by the watch a few
+minutes later, a tattered crushed thing, beaten out of all likeness to a
+man. One of the watch had stepped in to see Ralph as he sat at supper,
+and had gone again saying the dog deserved it for daring to lift his
+voice against the King and his will.
+
+But above all Ralph repented of his own words. There was no harm in
+saying such things in the country; but it was foolish and rash to do so
+in town. Cromwell's men should be silent and discreet, he knew, not
+street-orators; and if he had had time to think he would not have
+spoken. However the crowd was with him; there was plainly no one of any
+importance there; it was unlikely that Cromwell himself would hear of
+the incident; and perhaps after all no harm was done.
+
+Meanwhile there was Beatrice to reckon with, and Ralph laid down his pen
+a dozen times that morning and rehearsed once more what he would have to
+say to her.
+
+He was shrewd enough to know that it was his personality and not his
+virtues or his views that had laid hold of this girl's soul. As it was
+with him, so it was with her; each was far enough apart from the other
+in all external matters; such things had been left behind a year ago; it
+was not an affair of consonant tastes, but of passion. From each there
+had looked deep inner eyes; there had been on either side a steady and
+fearless scrutiny, and then the two souls had leapt together in a bright
+flame of desire, knowing that each was made for the other. There had
+been so little love-making, so few speeches after the first meeting or
+two, so few letters exchanged, and fewer embraces. The last veils had
+fallen at the fury of Chris's intervention, and they had known then what
+had been inevitable all along.
+
+Ralph smiled to himself as he remembered how little he had said or she
+had answered; there had been no need to say anything. And then his eyes
+grew wide and passionate, and his hands gripped one another fiercely, as
+the memory died, and the burning flame of desire flared within him again
+from the deep well he bore in his heart. The world of affairs and
+explanations and evasions faded into twilight, and there was but one
+thing left, his love and hers. It was to that that he would appeal.
+
+He sat so a moment longer, and then took up his pen again, though it
+shook in his hand, and went on with his reckonings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was perfectly composed half an hour later as he went downstairs to
+meet her. He had finished his line of figures sedately when the man
+looked in to say that she was below; and had sat yet a moment longer,
+trying to remember mechanically what it was he had determined to tell
+her. Bah! it was trifling and unimportant; words did not affect the
+question; all the wrecked convents in the world could not touch the one
+fact that lay in fire at his heart. He would say nothing; she would
+understand.
+
+In the tiny entrance hall there was a whiff of fragrance where she had
+passed through; and his heart stirred in answer. Then he opened the
+door, stepped through and closed it behind him.
+
+She was standing upright by the hearth, and faced him as he entered. He
+was aware of her blue mantle, her white, jewelled head-dress, one hand
+gripping the mantel-shelf, her pale steady face and bright eyes. Behind
+there was the warm rich panelling, and the leaping glow of the wood
+fire.
+
+She made no movement.
+
+Outside the lane was filled with street noises, the cries of children,
+the voices of men who went by talking, the rumble of a waggon coming
+with the crack of whips and jingle of bells from the river. The wheels
+came up and went past into silence again before either spoke or moved.
+
+Then Ralph lifted his hands a little and let them drop, as he stared at
+her face. From her eyes looked out her will, tense as steel; and his own
+shook to meet it.
+
+"Well?" she said at last; and her voice was perfectly steady.
+
+"Beatrice," cried Ralph; and the agony of it tore his heart.
+
+She dropped her hand to her side and still looked at him without
+flinching.
+
+"Beatrice," cried Ralph once more.
+
+"Then you have no more to say--after last night?"
+
+A torrent of thoughts broke loose in his brain, and he tried to snatch
+one as they fled past--to say one word. His excuses went by him like
+phantoms; they bewildered and dazed him. Why, there were a thousand
+things to say, and each was convincing if he could but say it. The cloud
+passed and there were her eyes watching him still.
+
+"Then that is all?" she said.
+
+Again the cloud fell on him; little scenes piteously clear rose before
+him, of the road by Rusper convent, Layton's leering face, a stripped
+altar; and for each there was a tale if he could but tell it. And still
+the bright eyes never flinched.
+
+It seemed to him as if she was watching him curiously; her lips were
+parted, and her head was a little on one side; her face interested and
+impersonal.
+
+"Why, Beatrice--" he cried again.
+
+Then her love shook her like a storm; he had never dreamed she could
+look like that; her mouth shook; he could see her white teeth clenched;
+and a shiver went over her. He took one step forward, but stopped again,
+for the black eyes shone through the passion that swayed her, as keen
+and remorseless as ever.
+
+He dropped on to his knees at the table and buried his face in his
+hands. He knew nothing now but that he had lost her.
+
+That was her voice speaking now, as steady as her eyes; but he did not
+hear a word she said. Words were nothing; they were not so much as those
+cries from the street, that shrill boy's voice over the way; not so much
+as the sighing crackle from the hearth where he had caused a fire to be
+lighted lest she should feel cold.
+
+She was still speaking, but her voice had moved; she was no longer by
+the fire. He could feel the warmth of the fire now on his hands. But he
+dared not move nor look up; there was but one thing left for him--that
+he had lost her!
+
+That was her hand on the latch; a breath of cold air stirred his hair;
+and still she was speaking. He understood a little more now; she knew it
+all--his doings--what he had said last night--and there was not one word
+to say in answer. Her short lashing sentences fell on his defenceless
+soul, but all sense was dead, and he watched with a dazed impersonalness
+how each stroke went home, and yet he felt no pain or shame.
+
+She was going now; a picture stirred on the wall by the fire as the wind
+rushed in through the open street door.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then the door closed.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+THE FALL OF LEWES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTERNAL DISSENSION
+
+
+The peace was gone from Lewes Priory. A wave had broken in through the
+high wall from the world outside with the coming of the Visitors, and
+had left wreckage behind, and swept out security as it went. The monks
+knew now that their old privileges were gone with the treasures that
+Layton had taken with him, and that although the wave had recoiled, it
+would return again and sweep them all away.
+
+Upon none of them had the blow fallen more fiercely than on Chris; he
+had tried to find peace, and instead was in the midst of storm. The high
+barriers had gone, and with them the security of his own soul, and the
+world that he thought he had left was grinning at the breach.
+
+It was piteous to him to see the Prior--that delicate, quiet prelate who
+had held himself aloof in his dignities--now humbled by the shame of his
+exposure in the chapter-house. The courage that Bishop Fisher had
+restored to him in some measure was gone again; and it was miserable to
+look at that white downcast face in the church and refectory, and to
+recognise that all self-respect was gone. After his return from his
+appearance before Cromwell he was more wretched than ever; it was known
+that he had been sent back in contemptuous disgrace; but it was not
+known how much he had promised in his terror for life.
+
+The house had lost too some half-dozen of its inmates. Two had
+petitioned for release; three professed monks had been dismissed, and a
+recent novice had been sent back to his home. Their places in the
+stately choir were empty, and eloquent with warning; and in their stead
+was a fantastic secular priest, appointed by the Visitors' authority,
+who seldom said mass, and never attended choir; but was regular in the
+refectory, and the chapter-house where he thundered St. Paul's epistles
+at the monks, and commentaries of his own, in the hopes of turning them
+from papistry to a purer faith.
+
+The news from outside echoed their own misery. Week after week the tales
+poured in, of young and old dismissed back to the world whose ways they
+had forgotten, of the rape of treasures priceless not only for their
+intrinsic worth but for the love that had given and consecrated them
+through years of devout service. There was not a house that had not lost
+something; the King himself had sanctioned the work by taking precious
+horns and a jewelled cross from Winchester. And worse than all that had
+gone was the terror of what was yet to come. The world, which had been
+creeping nearer, pausing and creeping on again, had at last passed the
+boundaries and leapt to sacrilege.
+
+It was this terror that poisoned life. The sacristan who polished the
+jewels that were left, handled them doubtfully now; the monk who
+superintended the farm sickened as he made his plans for another year;
+the scribe who sat in the carrel lost enthusiasm for his work; for the
+jewels in a few months might be on royal fingers, the beasts in
+strangers' sheds, and the illuminated leaves blowing over the cobbled
+court, or wrapped round grocers' stores.
+
+Dom Anthony preached a sermon on patience one day in Christmastide,
+telling his fellows that a man's life, and still less a monk's,
+consisted not in the abundance of things that he possessed; and that
+corporate, as well as individual, poverty, had been the ideal of the
+monastic houses in earlier days. He was no great preacher, but the
+people loved to hear his homely remarks, and there was a murmur of
+sympathy as he pointed with a clumsy gesture to the lighted Crib that
+had been erected at the foot of one of the great pillars in the nave.
+
+"Our Lady wore no cloth of gold," he said, "nor Saint Joseph a precious
+mitre; and the blessed Redeemer Himself who made all things had but
+straw to His bed. And if our new cope is gone, we can make our
+processions in the old one, and please God no less. Nay, we may please
+Him more perhaps, for He knows that it is by no will of ours that we do
+so."
+
+But there had been a dismal scene at the chapter next morning. The Prior
+had made them a speech, with a passionate white face and hands that
+shook, and declared that the sermon would be their ruin yet if the
+King's Grace heard of it.
+
+"There was a fellow that went out half-way through," he cried in panic,
+"how do we know whether he is not talking with his Grace even now? I
+will not have such sermons; and you shall be my witnesses that I said
+so."
+
+The monks eyed one another miserably. How could they prosper under such
+a prior as this?
+
+But worse was to follow, though it did not directly affect this house.
+The bill, so long threatened, dissolving the smaller houses, was passed
+in February by a Parliament carefully packed to carry out the King's
+wishes, and from which the spiritual peers were excluded by his
+"permission to them to absent themselves." Lewes Priory, of course,
+exceeded the limit of revenue under which other houses were suppressed,
+and even received one monk who had obtained permission to go there when
+his community fell; but in spite of the apparent encouragement from the
+preamble of the bill which stated that "in the great solemn monasteries
+... religion was right well kept," it was felt that this act was but the
+herald of another which should make an end of Religious Houses
+altogether.
+
+But there was a breath of better news later on, when tidings came in the
+early summer that Anne was in disgrace. It was well known that it was
+her influence that egged the King on, and that there was none so fierce
+against the old ways. Was it not possible that Henry might even yet
+repent himself, if she were out of the way?
+
+Then the tidings were confirmed, and for a while there was hope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir Nicholas Maxwell rode over to see Chris, and was admitted into one
+of the parlours to talk with him.
+
+He seemed furiously excited, and hardly saluted his brother-in-law.
+
+"Chris," he said, "I have come straight from London with great news. The
+King's harlot is fallen."
+
+Chris stared.
+
+"Dead?" he said.
+
+"Dead in a day or two, thank God!"
+
+He spat furiously.
+
+"God strike her!" he cried. "She has wrought all the mischief, I
+believe. They told me so a year back, but I did not believe it."
+
+"And where is she?"
+
+Then Nicholas told his story, his ruddy comely face bright with
+exultation, for he had no room for pity left. The rumours that had come
+to Lewes were true. Anne had been arrested suddenly at Greenwich during
+the sports, and had been sent straight to the Tower. The King was weary
+of her, though she had borne him a child; and did not scruple to bring
+the most odious charges against her. She had denied, and denied; but it
+was useless. She had wept and laughed in prison, and called on God to
+vindicate her; but the process went on none the less. The marriage had
+been declared null and void by Dr. Cranmer who had blessed it; and now
+she was condemned for sinning against it.
+
+"But she is either his wife," said Chris amazed, "or else she is not
+guilty of adultery."
+
+Nicholas chuckled.
+
+"God save us, Chris; do you think Henry can't manage it?"
+
+Then he grew white with passion, and beat the table and damned the King
+and Anne and Cranmer to hell together.
+
+Chris glanced up, drumming his fingers softly on the table.
+
+"Nick," he said, "there is no use in that. When is she to die?"
+
+The knight's face flushed again with pleasure, and he showed his teeth
+set together.
+
+"Two days," he said, "please God, or three at the most. And she will not
+meet those she has sent before her, or John Fisher whose head she had
+brought to her--the bloody Herodias!"
+
+"Pray God that she will!" said Chris softly. "They will pray for her at
+least."
+
+"Pah!" shouted Nicholas, "an eye for an eye for me!"
+
+Chris said nothing. He was thinking of all that this might mean. Who
+could know what might not happen? Nicholas broke in again presently.
+
+"I heard a fine tale," he said, "do you know that the woman is in the
+very room where she slept the night before the crowning? Last time it
+was for the crown to be put on; now it is for the head to be taken off.
+And it is true that she weeps and laughs. They can hear her laugh two
+storeys away, I hear."
+
+"Nick," said Chris suddenly, "I am weary of that. Let her alone. Pray
+God she may turn!"
+
+Nicholas stared astonished, and a little awed too. Chris used not to be
+like this; he seemed quieter and stronger; he had never dared to speak
+so before.
+
+"Yes; I am weary of this," said Chris again. "I stormed once at Ralph,
+and gained nothing. We do not win by those weapons. Where is Ralph?"
+
+Nicholas knit his lips to keep in the fury that urged him.
+
+"He is with Cromwell still," he said venomously, "and very busy, I hear.
+They will be making him a lord soon--but there will be no lady."
+
+Chris had heard of Beatrice's rejection of Ralph.
+
+"He is still busy?"
+
+"Why, yes; he worked long at this bill, I hear."
+
+Chris asked a few more questions, and learned that Ralph seemed fiercer
+than ever since the Visitation. He was well-known at Court; had been
+seen riding with the King; and it was supposed that he was rising
+rapidly in favour every day.
+
+"God help him!" sighed Chris.
+
+The change that had come over Chris was very much marked. Neither a life
+in the world would have done it, nor one in the peace of the cloister;
+but an alternation of the two. He had been melted by the fire of the
+inner life, and braced by the external bitterness of adversity. Ralph's
+visit to the priory, culminating in the passionless salutation of him in
+the cloister as being a guest and therefore a representative of Christ,
+had ended that stage in the development of the monk's character. Chris
+was disappointed in his brother, fearful for him and stern in his
+attitude towards him; but he was not resentful. He was sincere when he
+prayed God to help him.
+
+When Nicholas had eaten and gone, carrying messages to Mary, Chris told
+the others, and there was a revival of hope in the house.
+
+Then a few days later came the news of Anne's death and of the marriage
+of the King with Jane Seymour on the following day. At least Jane was a
+lawful wife and queen in the Catholics' eyes, for Katharine too was
+dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris had now passed through the minor orders, the sub-diaconate and the
+diaconate, and was looking forward to priesthood. It had been thought
+advisable by his superiors, in view of the troubled state of the times,
+to apply for the necessary dispensations, and they had been granted
+without difficulty. So many monks who were not priests had been turned
+into the world resourceless, since they could not be appointed to
+benefices, that it was thought only fair to one who was already bound by
+vows of religion and sacred orders not to hold him back from an
+opportunity to make his living, should affairs be pushed further in the
+direction of dissolution.
+
+He was looking forward with an extraordinary zeal to the crown of
+priesthood. It seemed to him a possession that would compensate for all
+other losses. If he could but make the Body of the Lord, lift It before
+the Throne, and hold It in his hands, all else was trifling.
+
+There were waves of ecstatic peace again breaking over his soul as he
+thought of it; as he moved behind the celebrant at high mass, lifted the
+pall of the chalice, and sang the exultant _Ite missa est_ when all was
+done. What a power would be his on that day! He would have his finger
+then on the huge engine of grace, and could turn it whither he would,
+spraying infinite force on this and that soul, on Ralph stubbornly
+fighting against God in London, on his mother silent and bitter at home,
+on his father anxious and courageous, waiting for disaster, on Margaret
+trembling in Rusper nunnery as she contemplated the defiance she had
+flung in the King's face.
+
+The Prior had given him but little encouragement; he had sent for him
+one day, and told him that he might prepare himself for priesthood by
+Michaelmas, for a foreign bishop was coming to them, and leave would be
+obtained for him to administer the rite. But he had not said a word of
+counsel or congratulation; but had nodded to the young monk, and turned
+his sickly face to the papers again on his table.
+
+Dom Anthony, the pleasant stout guest-master, who had preached the
+sermon in Christmastide, said a word of comfort, as they walked in the
+cloister together.
+
+"You must not take it amiss, brother," he said, "my Lord Prior is beside
+himself with terror. He does not know how to act."
+
+Chris asked whether there were any new reason for alarm.
+
+"Oh, no!" said the monk, "but the people are getting cold towards us
+here. You have seen how few come to mass here now, or to confession.
+They are going to the secular priests instead."
+
+Chris remembered one or two other instances of this growing coldness.
+The poor folks who came for food complained of its quality two or three
+times; and one fellow, an old pensioner of the house, who had lost a
+leg, threw his portion down on the doorstep.
+
+"I will have better than that some day," he had said, as he limped off.
+Chris had gathered up the cold lentils patiently and carried them back
+to the kitchen.
+
+On another day a farmer had flatly refused a favour to the monk who
+superintended the priory-farm.
+
+"I will not have your beasts in my orchard," he had said roughly. "You
+are not my masters."
+
+The congregations too were visibly declining, as the guest-master had
+said. The great nave beyond the screen looked desolate in the
+summer-mornings, as the sunlight lay in coloured patches on the wide
+empty pavement between the few faithful gathered in front, and the half
+dozen loungers who leaned in the shadow of the west wall--men who
+fulfilled their obligation of hearing mass, with a determination to do
+so with the least inconvenience to themselves, and who scuffled out
+before the blessing.
+
+It was evident that the tide of faith and reverence was beginning to ebb
+even in the quiet country towns.
+
+As the summer drew on the wider world too had its storms. A fierce
+sermon was preached at the opening of Convocation, by Dr. Latimer, now
+Bishop of Worcester, at the express desire of the Archbishop, that
+scourged not only the regular but the secular clergy as well. The sermon
+too was more furiously Protestant than any previously preached on such
+an occasion; pilgrimages, the stipends for masses, image-worship, and
+the use of an unknown tongue in divine service, were alike denounced as
+contrary to the "pure gospel." The phrases of Luther were abundantly
+used in the discourse; and it was evident, from the fact that no public
+censure fell upon the preacher, that Henry's own religious views had
+developed since the day that he had published his attack on the foreign
+reformers.
+
+The proceedings of Convocation confirmed the suspicion that the sermon
+aroused. With an astonishing compliance the clergy first ratified the
+decree of nullity in the matter of Anne's marriage with the King,
+disclaimed obedience to Rome, and presented a list of matters for which
+they requested reform. In answer to this last point the King, assisted
+by a couple of bishops, sent down to the houses, a month later, a paper
+of articles to which the clergy instantly agreed. These articles
+proceeded in the direction of Protestantism through omission rather than
+affirmation. Baptism, Penance and the Sacrament of the Altar were spoken
+of in Catholic terms; the other four sacraments were omitted altogether;
+on the other hand, again, devotion to saints, image-worship, and prayers
+for the departed were enjoined with important qualifications.
+
+Finally it was agreed to support the King in his refusal to be
+represented at the proposed General Council at Mantua.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tidings of all this, filtering in to the house at Lewes by priests
+and Religious who stayed there from time to time, did not tend to
+reassure those who looked for peace. The assault was not going to stop
+at matters of discipline; it was dogma that was aimed at, and, worse
+even than that, the foundation on which dogma rested. It was not an
+affair of Religious Houses, or even of morality; there was concerned the
+very Rock itself on which Christendom based all faith and morals. If it
+was once admitted that a National Church, apart from the See of Rome,
+could in the smallest degree adjudicate on a point of doctrine, the
+unity of the Catholic Church as understood by every monk in the house,
+was immediately ruptured.
+
+Again and again in chapter there were terrible scenes. The Prior raved
+weakly, crying that it was not the part of a good Catholic to resist his
+prince, that the Apostle himself enjoined obedience to those in
+authority; that the new light of learning had illuminated perplexing
+problems; and that in the uncertainty it was safer to follow the certain
+duty of civil obedience. Dom Anthony answered that a greater than St.
+Paul had bidden His followers to render to God the things that were
+God's; that St. Peter was crucified sooner than obey Nero--and the Prior
+cried out for silence; and that he could not hear his Christian King
+likened to the heathen emperor. Monk after monk would rise; one
+following his Prior, and disclaiming personal learning and
+responsibility; another with ironic deference saying that a man's soul
+was his own, and that not even a Religious Superior could release from
+the biddings of conscience; another would balance himself between the
+parties, declaring that the distinction of duties was insoluble; that in
+such a case as this it was impossible to know what was due to God and
+what to man. Yet another voice would rise from time to time declaring
+that the tales that they heard were incredible; that it was impossible
+that the King should intend such evil against the Church; he still heard
+his three masses a day as he had always done; there was no more ardent
+defender of the Sacrament of the Altar.
+
+Chris used to steady himself in this storm of words as well as he could,
+by reflecting that he probably would not have to make a decision, for it
+would be done for him, at least as regarded his life in the convent or
+out, by his superiors. Or again he would fix his mind resolutely on his
+approaching priesthood; while the Prior sat gnawing his lips, playing
+with his cross and rapping his foot, before bursting out again and
+bidding them all be silent, for they knew not what they were meddling
+with.
+
+The misery rose to its climax when the Injunctions arrived; and the
+chapter sat far into the morning, meeting again after dinner to consider
+them.
+
+These were directions, issued to the clergy throughout the country, by
+the authority of the King alone; and this very fact was significant of
+what the Royal Supremacy meant. Some of them did not touch the
+Religious, and were intended only for parish-priests; but others were
+bitterly hard to receive.
+
+The community was informed that in future, once in every quarter, a
+sermon was to be preached against the Bishop of Rome's usurped power;
+the Ten Articles, previously issued, were to be brought before the
+notice of the congregation; and careful instructions were to be given as
+regards superstition in the matter of praying to the saints. It was the
+first of these that caused the most strife.
+
+Dom Anthony, who was becoming more and more the leader of the
+conservative party, pointed out that the See of Peter was to every
+Catholic the root of authority and unity, and that Christianity itself
+was imperilled if this rock were touched.
+
+The Prior angrily retorted that it was not the Holy See that was to be
+assaulted, but the erection falsely raised upon it; it was the abuse of
+power, not the use of it that had to be denounced.
+
+Dom Anthony requested the Prior to inform him where the line of
+distinction lay; and the Prior in answer burst into angry explanations,
+instancing the pecuniary demands of the Pope, the appointment of
+foreigners to English benefices, and all the rest of the accusations
+that were playing such a part now in the religious controversy of the
+country.
+
+Dom Anthony replied that those were not the matters principally aimed at
+by the Injunction; it concerned rather the whole constitution of
+Christ's Church, and was a question of the Pope's or the King's
+supremacy over that part of it that lay in England.
+
+Finally the debate was ended by the Prior's declaration that he could
+trust no one to preach the enjoined sermon but himself, and that he
+would see to it on his own responsibility.
+
+It was scarcely an inspiring atmosphere for one who was preparing to
+take on him the burden of priesthood in the Catholic Church.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SACERDOS IN AETERNUM
+
+
+It was a day of wonderful autumn peace when Chris first sang mass in the
+presence of the Community.
+
+The previous day he had received priesthood from the hands of the little
+old French bishop in the priory church; one by one strange mystical
+ceremonies had been performed; the stole had been shifted and crossed on
+the breast, the token of Christ's yoke; the chasuble had been placed
+over his head, looped behind; then the rolling cry to the Spirit of God
+who alone seals to salvation and office had pealed round the high roof
+and down the long nave that stretched away westwards in sunlit gloom;
+while across the outstretched hands of the monk had been streaked the
+sacred oil, giving him the power to bless the things of God. The hands
+were bound up, as if to heal the indelible wound of love that had been
+inflicted on them; and, before they were unbound, into the hampered
+fingers were slid the sacred vessels of the altar, occupied now by the
+elements of bread and wine; while the awful power to offer sacrifice for
+the quick and the dead was committed to him in one tremendous phrase.
+
+Then the mass went on; and the new priest, kneeling with Dom Anthony at
+a little bench set at the foot of the altar steps, repeated aloud with
+the bishop the words of the liturgy from the great painted missal lying
+before him.
+
+How strange it had been too when all was over! He stood by a pillar in
+the nave, beneath St. Pancras's image, while all came to receive his
+blessing. First, the Prior, pale and sullen, as always now; then the
+Community, some smiling and looking into his eyes before they knelt,
+some perfunctory, some solemn and sedate with downcast faces; each
+kissed the fragrant hands, and stood aside, while the laity came up; and
+first among them his father and Mary.
+
+His place too in the refectory had a flower or two laid beside it; and
+the day had gone by in a bewildering dream. He had walked with his
+father and sister a little, and had found himself smiling and silent in
+their company.
+
+In the evening he had once more gone through the ceremonies of mass, Dom
+Anthony stood by, and watched and reminded and criticised. And now the
+morning was come, and he stood at the altar.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The little wind had dropped last night, and the hills round Lewes stood
+in mellow sunlight; the atmosphere was full of light and warmth, that
+tender glow that falls on autumn days; the trees in the court outside
+stood, poised on the brink of sleep, with a yellow pallor tinging their
+leaves; the thousand pigeons exulted and wheeled in the intoxicating
+air.
+
+The shadowy church was alight with sunshine that streamed through the
+clerestory windows on to the heavy pillars, the unevenly paved floor,
+and crept down the recumbent figures of noble and bishop from head to
+foot. There were a few people present beyond the screen, Sir James and
+his daughter in front, watching with a tender reverence the harvesting
+of the new priest, as he prepared to gather under his hands the mystical
+wheat and grapes of God.
+
+Chris was perfectly practised in his ceremonies; and there was no
+anxiety to dissipate the overpowering awe that lay on his soul. He felt
+at once natural and unreal; it was supremely natural that he should be
+here; he could not conceive being other than a priest; there was in him
+a sense of a relaxed rather than an intensified strain; and yet the
+whole matter was strange and intangible, as he felt the supernatural
+forces gathering round, and surging through his soul.
+
+He was aware of a dusky sunlit space about him, of the glimmer of the
+high candles; and nearer of the white cloth, the shining vessels, the
+gorgeous missal, and the rustle of the ministers' vestments. But the
+whole was shot with an inner life, each detail was significant and
+sacramental; and he wondered sometimes at the inaudible vibration that
+stirred the silent air round him, as he spoke the familiar words to
+which he had listened so often.
+
+He kept his eyes resolutely down as he turned from time to time,
+spreading his hands to the people, and was only partly conscious of the
+faces watching him from the dark stalls in front and the sunlit nave
+beyond. Even the sacred ministers, Dom Anthony and another, seemed to be
+little more than crimson impersonal figures that moved and went about
+their stately business with deft and gracious hands.
+
+As he began to penetrate more nearly to the heart of the mystery, and
+the angels' song before the throne rolled up from the choir, there was
+an experience of a yet further retirement from the things of sense. Even
+the glittering halpas, and the gleams of light above it where the five
+chapels branched behind--even these things became shrouded; there was
+just a sheet of white beneath him, the glow of a chalice, and the pale
+disc of the sacrificial bread.
+
+Then, as he paused, with hands together--"_famulorum famularumque
+tuarum"_--there opened out the world where his spirit was bending its
+intention. Figure after figure came up and passed before his closed
+eyes, and on each he turned the beam of God's grace. First Ralph,
+sneering and aloof in his rich dress, intent on some Satanic
+business;--Chris seized as it were the power of God, and enveloped and
+penetrated him with it. Then Margaret, waiting terrified on the divine
+will; his mother in her complacent bitterness; Mary; his father--and as
+he thought of him it seemed as if all God's blessings were not too
+great; Nicholas; his own brethren in religion, his Prior, contracted and
+paralysed with terror; Dom Anthony, with his pathetic geniality....
+
+Ah! how short was the time; and yet so long that the Prior looked up
+sharply, and the deacon shifted in his rustling silk.
+
+Then again the hands opened, and the stately flood of petition poured
+on, as through open gates to the boundless sea that awaited it, where
+the very heart of God was to absorb it into Itself.
+
+The great names began to flit past, like palaces on a river-brink, their
+bases washed by the pouring liturgy--Peter and Paul, Simon and Thaddeus,
+Cosmas and Damian--vast pleasure houses alight with God, while near at
+hand now gleamed the line of the infinite ocean.
+
+The hands came together, arched in blessing; and it marked the first
+sting of the healing water, as the Divine Essence pushed forward to meet
+man's need.
+
+_"Hanc igitur oblationem ..._"
+
+Then followed the swift silent signs, as if the pilot were ordering
+sails out to meet the breeze.
+
+The muttering voice sank to a deliberate whisper, the ripples ceased to
+leap as the river widened, and Chris was delicately fingering the white
+linen before taking the Host into his hands.
+
+There was a swift glance up, as to the great Sun that burned overhead,
+one more noiseless sign, and he sank forward in unutterable awe, with
+his arms on the altar, and the white disc, hovering on the brink of
+non-existence, beneath his eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The faintest whisper rose from behind as the people shifted their
+constrained attitudes. Sir James glanced up, his eyes full of tears, at
+the distant crimson figure beneath the steady row of lights, motionless
+with outspread hands, poised over the bosom of God's Love.
+
+The first murmured words broke the silence; as if next to the Infinite
+Pity rose up the infinite need of man--_Nobis quoque peccatoribus_--and
+sank to silence again.
+
+Then loud and clear rang out _Per omnia saecula saeculorum;_ and the
+choir of monks sang _Amen_.
+
+So the great mystery moved on, but upborne now by the very Presence
+itself that sustained all things. From the limitless sea of mercy, the
+children cried through the priest's lips to their Father who was in
+heaven, and entreated the Lamb of God who takes away sin to have mercy
+on them and give them peace.
+
+Then from far beyond the screen Mary could see how the priest leaning a
+little forward towards That which he bore in his hands, looked on what
+he bore in them; and she whispered softly with him the words that he was
+speaking. _Ave in aeternum sanctissima caro Christi_ ...
+
+Again she hid her face; and when she raised it once, all was over, and
+the Lord had entered and sanctified the body and soul of the man at
+whose words He had entered the creature of bread.
+
+The father and daughter stood together silently in the sunshine outside
+the west end of the church, waiting for Chris. He had promised to come
+to them there for a moment when his thanksgiving was done.
+
+Beyond the wall, and the guest-house where the Visitors had lived those
+two disastrous days, rose up the far sunlit downs, shadowed here and
+there with cup-like hollows, standing like the walls about Jerusalem.
+
+As they turned, on the right above the red roofs of the town, rose the
+downs again, vast slopes and shoulders, over which Chris had ridden so
+short a while ago bearded and brown with hunting. It was over there that
+Ralph had come, through that dip, which seemed against the skyline a
+breach in a high wall.
+
+Ah! surely God would spare this place; so stately and quiet, so
+graciously sheltered by the defences that He Himself had raised! If all
+England tottered and fell, this at least might stand, this vast home of
+prayer that stirred day and night with the praises of the Eternal and
+the petitions of the mortal--this glorious house where a priest so dear
+to them had brought forth from his mystical paternity the very Son of
+God!
+
+The door opened behind them, and Chris came out pale and smiling with a
+little anxious-eyed monk beside him. His eyes lightened as he saw them
+standing there; but he turned again for a moment.
+
+"Yes--father," he said. "What was it?"
+
+"You stayed too long," said the other, "at the _famularumque tuarum_;
+the rubric says _nullus nimis immoretur_, you know;--_nimis immoretur_."
+
+"Yes," said Chris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE NORTHERN RISING
+
+
+A few of the smaller Religious houses had surrendered themselves to the
+King before the passing of the bill in the early spring; and the rest of
+them were gradually yielded up after its enactment during the summer of
+the same year; and among them was Rusper. Chris heard that his sister
+Margaret had returned to Overfield, and would stay there for the
+present.
+
+Throughout the whole of England there were the same scenes to be
+witnessed. A troop of men, headed by a Commissioner, would ride up one
+evening to some village where a little convent stood, demand entrance at
+the gate, pass through, and disappear from the eyes of the watching
+crowd. Then the next day the work would begin; the lead would be
+stripped from the church and buildings; the treasures corded in bundles;
+the woodwork of the interior put up to auction on the village green; and
+a few days later the troop would disappear again, heavily laden, leaving
+behind roofless walls, and bewildered Religious in their new secular
+dress with a few shillings in their pockets, staring after the rich
+cavalcade and wondering what was best to do.
+
+It had been hoped that the King would stay his hand at the death of
+Anne, and even yet return to the obedience of the Holy See. The Pope was
+encouraged to think so by the authorities on the continent, and in
+England itself there prevailed even confidence that a return to the old
+ways would be effected. But Henry had gone too far; he had drunk too
+deeply of the wealth that lay waiting for him in the treasuries of the
+Religious houses, and after a pause of expectation he set his hand to
+the cup again. It was but natural too, and for more noble motives, to
+such a character as his. As he had aimed in his youth at nothing less
+than supremacy in tennis, hunting and tourney, and later in
+architecture, music and theological reputation; as, for the same reason
+Wolsey had fallen, when the King looked away from girls and sports to
+the fiercer game of politics; so now it was intolerable to Henry that
+there should be even the shadow of a spiritual independence within his
+domain.
+
+A glow of resentful disappointment swept through the North of England at
+the news. It burst out into flame in Lincolnshire, and was not finally
+quenched until the early summer of the following year.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The news that reached Lewes from time to time during the winter and
+spring sent the hearts of all that heard it through the whole gamut of
+emotions. At one time fierce hope, then despair, then rising confidence,
+then again blank hopelessness--each in turn tore the souls of the monks;
+and misery reached its climax in the summer at the news of the execution
+at Tyburn of the Abbots of Jervaulx and Fountains, with other monks and
+gentlemen.
+
+The final recital of the whole tragedy was delivered to them at the
+mouth of a Religious from the Benedictine cell at Middlesborough who had
+been released by the Visitors at his own request, but who had afterwards
+repented and joined the rising soon after the outset; he had been
+through most of the incidents, and then when failure was assured had
+fled south in terror for his life, and was now on his way to the
+Continent to take up his monastic vocation once more.
+
+The Prior was away on one of the journeys that he so frequently
+undertook at this time, no man knew whither, or the ex-monk and rebel
+would have been refused admittance; but the sub-Prior was persuaded to
+take him in for a night, and he sat long in one of the parlours that
+evening telling his story.
+
+Chris leaned against the wall and watched him as he talked with the
+candle-light on his face. He was a stout middle-aged man in layman's
+dress, for he was not yet out of peril; he sat forward in his chair,
+making preacher's gestures as he spoke, and using well-chosen vivid
+words.
+
+"They were gathered already when I joined them on their way to York;
+there were nearly ten thousand of them on the road, with Aske at their
+head. I have never set eyes on such a company! There was a troop of
+gentlemen and their sons riding with Aske in front, all in armour; and
+then the rabble behind with gentlemen again to their officers. The
+common folk had pikes and hooks only; and some were in leather harness,
+and some without; but they marched well and kept good order. They were
+of all sorts: hairy men and boys; and miners from the North. There were
+monks, too, and friars, I know not how many, that went with the army to
+encourage them; and everywhere we went the women ran out of their homes
+with food and drink, and prayed God to bless us; and the bells were rung
+in the village churches. We slept as we could, some in houses, some in
+churchyards and by the wayside, and as many of us as could get into the
+churches heard mass each day. As many too as could make them, wore the
+Five Wounds on a piece of stuff sewn on the arm. You would have said
+that none could stand against us, so eager we were and full of faith."
+
+"There was a song, was there not?" began one of the monks.
+
+"Yes, father. We sang it as we went.
+
+   "Christ crucified!
+    For thy wounds wide
+    Us commons guide
+      Which pilgrims be!
+    Through God his grace
+    For to purchase
+    Old wealth and peace
+      Of the spiritualty!
+
+"You could hear it up and down the lines, sung with weeping and
+shouting."
+
+He described how they came to York, and how the Mayor was forced to
+admit them. They stayed there a couple of days; and Aske published his
+directions for all the ejected Religious to return to their houses.
+
+"I went to a little cell near by--I forget its name--to help some canons
+to settle in again, whose friendship I had made. I had told them then
+that my mind was to enter Religion once more, and they took me very
+willingly. We got there at night. The roof was gone from the dormitory,
+but we slept there for all that--such of us as could sleep--for I heard
+one of them sobbing for joy as he lay there in his old corner under the
+stars; and we sang mass in the morning, as well as we could. The priest
+had an old tattered vestment that hardly hung on his shoulders; and
+there was no cross but one that came from a pair of beads, and that we
+hung over the altar. When I left them again, they were at their office
+as before, and busy roofing the house with old timbers; for my lord
+Cromwell had all the lead. And all their garden was trampled; but they
+said they would do very well. The village-folk were their good friends,
+and would bring them what they needed."
+
+He described his journey to Doncaster; the furious excitement of the
+villages he passed through, and the news that reached him hour after
+hour as to the growing vastness of Aske's forces.
+
+"There were thirty thousand, I heard, on the banks of the Don on one
+side; for my lords Nevill and Lumley and others had ridden in with St.
+Cuthbert his banner and arms, and five thousand men, besides those that
+came in from all the country. And on the further side was my Lord
+Shrewsbury for the King, with the Duke and his men. Master Aske had all
+he could do to keep his men back from being at them. Some of the young
+sparks were as terriers at a rat-hole. There was a parley held on the
+bridge, for Norfolk knew well that he must gain time; and Aske sent his
+demands to his Grace, and that was the mistake--"
+
+The man beat one hand into the other and looked round with a kindling
+force--
+
+"That was the mistake! He was too loyal for such work, and did not guess
+at their craft. Well, while we waited there, our men began to make off;
+their farms were wanting them, and their wives and the rest, and we
+melted. Master Aske had to be everywhere at once, it was no fault of
+his. My Lord Derby was marching up upon the houses again, and seeking to
+drive the monks out once more. But there was not an act of violence done
+by our men; not a penny-piece taken or a house burned. They were
+peaceable folk, and asked no more than that their old religion should be
+given back to them, and that they might worship God as they had always
+done."
+
+He went on to explain how the time had been wasted in those fruitless
+negotiations, and how the force dwindled day by day. Various answers
+were attempted by the King, containing both threats and promises, and in
+these, as in all else the hand of Cromwell was evident. Finally, towards
+the end of November, the insurgents gathered again for another meeting
+with the King's representatives at Doncaster, summoned by beacons on the
+top of the high Yorkshire moors, and by the reversed pealing of the
+church bells.
+
+"We had a parley among ourselves at Pomfret first, and had a great
+to-do, though I saw little of it; and drew up our demands; and then set
+out for Doncaster again. The duke was there, with the King's pardon in
+his hand, in the Whitefriars; and a promise that all should be as we
+asked. So we went back to Pomfret, well-pleased, and the next day on St.
+Thomas' hill the herald read the pardon to us all; and we, poor fools,
+thought that his Grace meant to keep his word--"
+
+The monk looked bitterly round, sneering with his white strong teeth set
+together like a savage dog's; and there was silence for a moment. The
+Sub-Prior looked nervously round the faces of his subjects, for this was
+treasonable talk to hear.
+
+Then the man went on. He himself it seemed had retired again to the
+little cell where he had seen the canons settled in a few weeks
+previously; and heard nothing of what was going forward; except that the
+heralds were going about the country, publishing the King's pardon to
+all who had taken part in the Rebellion, and affixing it to the
+market-cross in each town and village, with touching messages from the
+King relating to the grief which he had felt on hearing that his dear
+children believed such tales about him.
+
+Little by little, however, the discontent began to smoulder once more,
+for the King's pledges of restoration were not fulfilled; and Cromwell,
+who was now recognised to be the inspirer of all the evil done against
+Religion, remained as high as ever in the royal favour. Aske, who had
+been to the King in person, and given him an account of all that had
+taken place, now wrote to him that there was a danger of a further
+rising if the delay continued, for there were no signs yet of the
+promised free parliament being called at York.
+
+Then again disturbances had broken out.
+
+"I was at Hull," said the monk, "with Sir Francis Bygod in January; but
+we did nothing, and only lost our leader, and all the while Norfolk was
+creeping up with his army. It was piteous to think what might not have
+been done if we had not trusted his Grace; but 'twas no good, and I was
+back again in the dales here and there, hiding for my life by April.
+Everywhere 'twas the same; the monks were haled out again from their
+houses, and men were hanged by the score. I cut down four myself near
+Meux, and gave them Christian burial at night. One was a monk, and
+hanged in his habit. But the worst of all was at York."
+
+The man's face twitched with emotion, and he passed his hand over his
+mouth once or twice before continuing.
+
+"I did not dare to go into the court for fear I should be known; but I
+stood outside in the crowd and watched them go in. There was a fellow
+riding with Norfolk--a false knave of a man whom we had all learnt to
+hate at Doncaster--for he was always jeering at us secretly and making
+mischief when he could. I saw him with the duke before, when we went
+into the Whitefriars for the pardon; and he stood there behind with the
+look of a devil on his face; and now here he was again--"
+
+"His name, sir?" put in Dom Adrian.
+
+"Torridon, father, Torridon! He was a--"
+
+There was a sharp movement in the room, so that the monk stopped and
+looked round him amazed. Chris felt the blood ebb from his heart and din
+in his ears, and he swayed a little as he leaned against the wall. He
+saw Dom Anthony lean forward and whisper to the stranger; and through
+the haze that was before his eyes saw the other look at him sharply,
+with a fallen jaw.
+
+Then the monk rose and made a little stiff inclination to Chris,
+deferential and courteous, but with a kind of determined dignity in it
+too.
+
+When Chris had recovered himself, the monk was deep in his story, but
+Ralph had fallen out of it.
+
+"You would not believe it," he was saying, "but on the very jury that
+was to try Master Aske and Constable, there were empanelled their own
+blood-relations; and that by the express intention of Norfolk. John Aske
+was one of them, and some others who had to wives the sons of my Lord
+Darcy and Sir Robert Constable. You see how it would be. If the
+prisoners were found guilty, men would say that it must be so, for that
+their own kin had condemned them; and if they were to be acquitted, then
+these men themselves would be cast."
+
+There again broke out a murmur from the listening faces, as the man
+paused.
+
+"Well, they were cast, as you know, for not taking the King to be the
+supreme head of the Church, and for endeavouring to force the King to
+hold a parliament that he willed not. And I was at York again when
+Master Aske was brought back from London to be hanged, and I saw it!"
+
+Again an uncontrollable emotion shook him; and he propped his face on
+his hand as he ended his tale.
+
+"There were many of his friends there in the crowd, and scarcely one
+dared to cry out, God save you, sir.... I dared not...."
+
+He gave one rending sob, and Chris felt his eyes prick with tears at the
+sight of so much sorrow. It was piteous to see a brave man thinking
+himself a coward.
+
+Dom Anthony leaned forward.
+
+"Thank you, father," he said, though his voice was a little husky, "and
+thank God that he died well. You have touched all our hearts."
+
+"I was a hound," sobbed the man, "a hound, that I did not cry out to him
+and tell him that I loved him."
+
+"No, no, father," said the other tenderly, "you must not think so. You
+must serve God well now, and pray for his soul."
+
+The bell sounded out for Compline as he spoke, and the monks rose.
+
+"You will come into choir, father," said the Sub-Prior.
+
+The man nodded, stood up, and followed him out.
+
+Chris was in a strange ferment as he stood in his stall that night. It
+had been sad enough to hear of that gallant attempt to win back the old
+liberties and the old Faith--that attempt that had been a success except
+for the insurgents' trust in their King--and of the death of the
+leaders.
+
+But across the misery had pierced a more poignant grief, as he had
+learnt how Ralph's hand was in this too and had taken once more the
+wrong side in God's quarrel. But still he had no resentment; the
+conflict had passed out of the personal plane into an higher, and he
+thought of his brother as God's enemy rather than his own. Would his
+prayers then never prevail--the prayers that he speeded up in the smoke
+of the great Sacrifice morning by morning for that zealous mistaken
+soul? Or was it perhaps that that brother of his must go deeper yet,
+before coming out to knowledge and pardon?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SEAL
+
+
+The autumn drew in swiftly. The wet south-west wind blew over the downs
+that lay between Lewes and the sea, and beat down the loose browning
+leaves of the trees about the Priory. The grass in the cloister-garth
+grew rank and dark with the constant rain that drove and dropped over
+the high roofs.
+
+And meanwhile the tidings grew heavier still.
+
+After Michaelmas the King set to work in earnest. He had been checked by
+the northern risings, and still paused to see whether the embers had
+been wholly quenched; and then when it was evident that the North was as
+submissive as the South, began again his business of gathering in the
+wealth that was waiting.
+
+He started first in the North, under show of inflicting punishment for
+the encouragement that the Religious had given to the late rebellions;
+and one by one the great abbeys were tottering. Furness and Sawley had
+already fallen, with Jervaulx and the other houses, and Holme Cultram
+was placed under the care of a superior who could be trusted to hand
+over his charge when called upon.
+
+But up to the present not many great houses had actually fallen, except
+those which were supposed to have taken a share in the revolt; and owing
+to the pains taken by the Visitors to contradict the report that the
+King intended to lay his hands on the whole monastic property of
+England, it was even hoped by a few sanguine souls that the large
+houses might yet survive.
+
+There were hot discussions in the chapter at Lewes from time to time
+during the year. The "Bishops' Book," issued by a committee of divines
+and approved by the King, and containing a digest of the new Faith that
+was being promulgated, arrived during the summer and was fiercely
+debated; but so high ran the feeling that the Prior dropped the matter,
+and the book was put away with other papers of the kind on an honourable
+but little-used shelf.
+
+The acrimony in domestic affairs began to reach its climax in October,
+when the prospects of the Priory's own policy came up for discussion.
+
+Some maintained that they were safe, and that quietness and confidence
+were their best security, and these had the support of the Prior; others
+declared that the best hope lay in selling the possessions of the house
+at a low price to some trustworthy man who would undertake to sell then
+back again at only a small profit to himself when the storm was passed.
+
+The Prior rose in wrath when this suggestion was made.
+
+"Would you have me betray my King?" he cried. "I tell you I will have
+none of it. It is not worthy of a monk to have such thoughts."
+
+And he sat down and would hear no more, nor speak.
+
+There were whispered conferences after that among the others, as to what
+his words meant. Surely there was nothing dishonourable in the device;
+they only sought to save what was their own! And how would the King be
+"betrayed" by such an action?
+
+They had an answer a fortnight later; and it took them wholly by
+surprise.
+
+During the second week in November the Prior had held himself more
+aloof than ever; only three or four of the monks, with the Sub-Prior
+among them, were admitted to his cell, and they were there at all hours.
+Two or three strangers too arrived on horseback, and were entertained by
+the Prior in a private parlour. And then on the morning of the
+fourteenth the explanation came.
+
+When the usual business of the chapter was done, the faults confessed
+and penances given, and one or two small matters settled, the Prior,
+instead of rising to give the signal to go, remained in his chair, his
+head bent on to his hand.
+
+It was a dark morning, heavy and lowering; and from where Chris sat at
+the lower end of the great chamber he could scarcely make out the
+features of those who sat under the high window at the east; but as soon
+as the Prior lifted his face and spoke, he knew by that tense strain of
+the voice that something impended.
+
+"There is another matter," said the Prior; and paused again.
+
+For a moment there was complete silence. The Sub-Prior leant a little
+forward and was on the point of speaking, when his superior lifted his
+head again and straightened himself in his chair.
+
+"It is this," he said, and his voice rang hard and defiant, "it is this.
+It is useless to think we can save ourselves. We are under suspicion,
+and worse than suspicion. I have hoped, and prayed, and striven to know
+God's will; and I have talked with my Lord Cromwell not once or twice,
+but often. And it is useless to resist any further."
+
+His voice cracked with misery; but Chris saw him grip the bosses of his
+chair-arms in an effort for self-control. His own heart began to sicken;
+this was not frightened raving such as he had listened to before; it was
+the speech of one who had been driven into decision, as a rat into a
+corner.
+
+"I have talked with the Sub-Prior, and others; and they think with me in
+this. I have kept it back from the rest, that they might serve God in
+peace so long as was possible. But now I must tell you all, my sons,
+that we must leave this place."
+
+There was a hush of terrible tension. The monks had known that they were
+threatened; they could not think otherwise with the news that came from
+all parts, but they had not known that catastrophe was so imminent. An
+old monk opposite Chris began to moan and mutter; but the Prior went on
+immediately.
+
+"At least I think that we must leave. It may be otherwise, if God has
+pity on us; I do not know; but we must be ready to leave, if it be His
+will, and,--and to say so."
+
+He was speaking in abrupt sentences, with pauses between, in which he
+appeared to summon his resolution to speak again, and force out his
+tale. There was plainly more behind too; and his ill-ease seemed to
+deepen on him.
+
+"I wish no one to speak now," he said, "Instead of the Lady-mass
+to-morrow we shall sing mass of the Holy Ghost; and afterwards I shall
+have more to say to you again. I do not desire any to hold speech with
+any other, but to look into their own hearts and seek counsel of God
+there."
+
+He still sat a moment silent, then rose and gave the signal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a strange day for Chris. He did not know what to think, but he
+was certain that they had not yet been told all. The Prior's silences
+had been as pregnant as his words. There was something very close now
+that would be revealed immediately, and meanwhile he must think out how
+to meet it.
+
+The atmosphere seemed charged all day; the very buildings wore a strange
+air, unfamiliar and menacing. The intimate bond between his soul and
+them, knit by associations of prayer and effort, appeared unreal and
+flimsy. He was tormented by doubtfulness; he could not understand on the
+one side how it was possible to yield to the King, on the other how it
+was possible to resist. No final decision could be made by him until he
+had heard the minds of his fellows; and fortunately they would all speak
+before him. He busied himself then with disentangling the strands of
+motive, desire, fear and hope, and waited for the shaking loose of the
+knot until he knew more.
+
+Mass of the Holy Ghost was sung next morning by the Prior himself in red
+vestments; and Chris waited with expectant awe, remembering how the
+Carthusians under like circumstances had been visited by God; but the
+Host was uplifted and the bell rang; and there was nothing but the
+candle-lit gloom of the choir about the altar, and the sigh of the wind
+in the chapels behind.
+
+Then in the chapter-meeting the Prior told them all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He reminded them how they had prayed that morning for guidance, and that
+they must be fearless now in following it out. It was easy to be
+reckless and call it faith, but prudence and reasonable common-sense
+were attributes of the Christian no less than trust in God. They had not
+to consider now what they would wish for themselves, but what God
+intended for them so far as they could read it in the signs of the
+times.
+
+"For myself," he cried,--and Chris almost thought him sincere as he
+spoke, so kindled was his face--"for myself I should ask no more than
+to live and die in this place, as I had hoped. Every stone here is as
+dear to me as to you, and I think more dear, for I have been in a
+special sense the lord of it all; but I dare not think of that. We must
+be ready to leave all willingly if God wills. We thought that we had
+yielded all to follow Christ when we first set our necks here under His
+sweet yoke; but I think He asks of us even more now; and that we should
+go out from here even as we went out from our homes ten or twenty years
+ago. We shall be no further from our God outside this place; and we may
+be even nearer if we go out according to His will."
+
+He seemed on fire with zeal and truth. His timid peevish air was gone,
+and his delicate scholarly face was flushed as he spoke. Chris was
+astonished, and more perplexed than ever. Was it then possible that
+God's will might lie in the direction he feared?
+
+"Now this is the matter which we have to consider," went on the Prior
+more quietly. "His Grace has sent to ask, through a private messenger
+from my Lord Cromwell, whether we will yield up the priory. There is no
+compulsion in the matter--" he paused significantly--"and his Grace
+desires each to act according to his judgment and conscience, of--of his
+own free will."
+
+There was a dead silence.
+
+The news was almost expected by now. Through the months of anxiety each
+monk had faced the probability of such tidings coming to him sooner or
+later; and the last few days had brought expectation to its climax. Yet
+it was hard to see the enemy face to face, and to know that there was no
+possibility of resisting him finally.
+
+The Sub-Prior rose to his feet and began to speak, glancing as if for
+corroboration to his superior from time to time. His mouth worked a
+little at the close of each sentence.
+
+"My Lord Prior has shown us his own mind, and I am with him in the
+matter. His Grace treats us like his own children; he wishes us to be
+loving and obedient. But, as a father too, he has authority behind to
+compel us to his will if we will not submit. And, as my Lord Prior said
+yesterday, we do not know whether or no his Grace will not permit us to
+remain here after all, if we are docile; or perhaps refound the priory
+out of his own bounty. There is talk of the Chertsey monks going to the
+London Charterhouse from Bisham where the King set them last year. But
+we may be sure he will not do so with us if we resist his will now. I on
+my part then am in favour of yielding up the house willingly, and
+trusting ourselves to his Grace's clemency."
+
+There was again silence as he sat down; and a pause of a minute or two
+before Dom Anthony rose. His ruddy face was troubled and perplexed; but
+he spoke resolutely enough.
+
+He said that he could not understand why the matter had not been laid
+before them earlier, that they might have had time to consider it. The
+question was an extremely difficult one to the consciences of some of
+them. On the one hand there was the peril of acquiescing in
+sacrilege--the Prior twisted in his seat as he heard this--and on the
+other of wilfully and petulantly throwing away their only opportunity of
+saving their priory. He asked for time.
+
+Several more made speeches, some in favour of the proposal, and some
+asking, as Dom Anthony had done, for further time for consideration.
+They had no precedents, they said, on which to decide such a question,
+for they understood that it was not on account of treason that they
+were required to surrender the house and property.
+
+The Prior rose with a white face.
+
+"No, no," he cried. "God forbid! That is over and done with. I--we have
+made our peace with my Lord Cromwell in that affair."
+
+"Then why," asked Dom Anthony, "are we required to yield it?"
+
+The Prior glanced helplessly at him.
+
+"I--it is as a sign that the King is temporal lord of the land."
+
+"We do not deny that," said the other.
+
+"Some do," said the Prior feebly.
+
+There was a little more discussion. Dom Anthony remarked that it was not
+a matter of temporal but spiritual headship that was in question. To
+meddle with the Religious Orders was to meddle with the Vicar of Christ
+under whose special protection they were; and it seemed to him at least
+a probable opinion, so far as he had had time to consider it, that to
+yield, even in the hopes of saving their property ultimately, was to
+acquiesce in the repudiation of the authority of Rome.
+
+And so it went on for an hour; and then as it grew late, the Prior rose
+once more, and asked if any one had a word to say who had not yet
+spoken.
+
+Chris had intended to speak, but all that he wished to ask had already
+been stated by others; and he sat now silent, staring up at the Prior,
+and down at the smooth boarded floor at his feet. He had not an idea
+what to do. He was no theologian.
+
+Then the Prior unmasked his last gun.
+
+"As regards the matter of time for consideration, that is now passed. In
+spite of what some have said we have had sufficient warning. All here
+must have known that the choice would be laid before them, for months
+past; it is now an answer that is required of us."
+
+He paused a moment longer. His lips began to tremble, but he made a
+strong effort and finished.
+
+"Master Petre will be here to-night, as my lord Cromwell's
+representative, and will sit in the chapter-house to-morrow to receive
+the surrender."
+
+Dom Anthony started to his feet. The Prior made a violent gesture for
+silence, and then gave the signal to break up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Again the bewildering day went past. The very discipline of the house
+was a weakness in the defence of the surprised party. It was impossible
+for them to meet and discuss the situation as they wished; and even the
+small times of leisure seemed unusually occupied. Dom Anthony was busy
+at the guest-house; one of the others who had spoken against the
+proposal was sent off on a message by the Prior, and another was ordered
+to assist the sacristan to clean the treasures in view of the Visitor's
+coming.
+
+Chris was not able to ask a word of advice from any of those whom he
+thought to be in sympathy with him.
+
+He sat all day over his antiphonary, in the little carrel off the
+cloister, and as he worked his mind toiled like a mill.
+
+He had progressed a long way with the work now, and was engaged on the
+pages that contained the antiphons for Lent. The design was soberer
+here; the angels that had rested among the green branches and early
+roses of Septuagesima, thrusting here a trumpet and there a harp among
+the leaves, had taken flight, and grave menacing creatures were in their
+place. A jackal looked from behind the leafless trunk, a lion lifted
+his toothed mouth to roar from a thicket of thorns, as they had lurked
+and bellowed in the bleak wilderness above the Jordan fifteen hundred
+years ago. They were gravely significant now, he thought; and scarcely
+knowing what he did he set narrow human eyes in the lion's face (for he
+knew no better) and broadened the hanging jaws with a delicate line or
+two.
+
+Then with a fierce impulse he crowned him, and surmounted the crown with
+a cross.
+
+And all the while his mind toiled at the problem. There were three
+things open to him on the morrow. Either he might refuse to sign the
+surrender, and take whatever consequences might follow; or he might sign
+it; and there were two processes of thought by which he might take that
+action. By the first he would simply make an act of faith in his
+superiors, and do what they did because they did it; by the second he
+would sign it of his own responsibility because he decided to think that
+by doing so he would be taking the best action for securing his own
+monastic life.
+
+He considered these three. To refuse to sign almost inevitably involved
+his ruin, and that not only, and not necessarily, in the worldly sense;
+about that he sincerely believed he did not care; but it would mean his
+exclusion from any concession that the King might afterwards make. He
+certainly would not be allowed under any circumstances, to remain in the
+home of his profession; and if the community was shifted he would not be
+allowed to go with them. As regards the second alternative he wondered
+whether it was possible to shift responsibility in that manner; as
+regards the third, he knew that he had very little capability in any
+case of foreseeing the course that events would take.
+
+Then he turned it all over again, and considered the arguments for each
+course. His superiors were set over him by God; it was rash to set
+himself against them except in matters of the plainest conscience. Again
+it was cowardly to shelter himself behind this plea and so avoid
+responsibility. Lastly, he was bound to judge for himself.
+
+The arguments twisted and turned as bewilderingly as the twining
+branches of his design; and behind each by which he might climb to
+decision lurked a beast. He felt helpless and dazed by the storm of
+conflicting motives.
+
+As he bent over his work he prayed for light, but the question seemed
+more tangled than before; the hours were creeping in; by to-morrow he
+must decide.
+
+Then the memory of the Prior's advice to him once before came back to
+his mind; this was the kind of thing, he told himself, that he must
+leave to God, his own judgment was too coarse an instrument; he must
+wait for a clear supernatural impulse; and as he thought of it he laid
+his pencil down, dropped on to his knees, and commended it all to God,
+to the Mother of God, St. Pancras, St. Peter and St. Paul. Even as he
+did it, the burden lifted and he knew that he would know, when the time
+came.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Petre came that night, but Chris saw no more of him than his back as
+he went up the cloister with Dom Anthony to the Prior's chamber. The
+Prior was not at supper, and his seat was empty in the dim refectory.
+
+Neither was he at Compline; and it was with the knowledge that
+Cromwell's man and their own Superior were together in conference, that
+the monks went up the dormitory stairs that night.
+
+But he was in his place at the chapter-mass next morning, though he
+spoke to no one, and disappeared immediately afterwards.
+
+Then at the appointed time the monks assembled in the chapter-house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Chris came in he lifted his eyes, and saw that the room was arrayed
+much as it had been at the visit of Dr. Layton and Ralph. A great table,
+heaped with books and papers, stood at the upper end immediately below
+the dais, and a couple of secretaries were there, sharp-looking men,
+seated at either end and busy with documents.
+
+The Prior was in his place in the shadow and was leaning over and
+talking to a man who sat beside him. Chris could make out little of the
+latter except that he seemed to be a sort of lawyer or clerk, and was
+dressed in a dark gown and cap. He was turning over the leaves of a book
+as the Prior talked, and nodded his head assentingly from time to time.
+
+When all the monks were seated, there was still a pause. It was
+strangely unlike the scene of a tragedy, there in that dark grave room
+with the quiet faces downcast round the walls, and the hands hidden in
+the cowl-sleeves. And even on the deeper plane it all seemed very
+correct and legal. There was the representative of the King, a capable
+learned man, with all the indications of law and order round him, and
+his two secretaries to endorse or check his actions. There too was the
+Community, gathered to do business in the manner prescribed by the Rule,
+with the deeds of foundation before their eyes, and the great brass
+convent seal on the table. There was not a hint of bullying or
+compulsion; these monks were asked merely to sign a paper if they so
+desired it. Each was to act for himself; there was to be no over-riding
+of individual privileges, or signing away another's conscience.
+
+Nothing could have been arranged more peaceably.
+
+And yet to every man's mind that was present the sedate room was black
+with horror. The majesty and terror of the King's will brooded in the
+air; nameless dangers looked in at the high windows and into every man's
+face; the quiet lawyer-like men were ministers of fearful vengeance; the
+very pens, ink and paper that lay there so innocently were sacraments of
+death or life.
+
+The Prior ceased his whispering presently, glanced round to see if all
+were in their places, and then stood up.
+
+His voice was perfectly natural as he told them that this was Dr. Petre,
+come down from Lord Cromwell to offer them an opportunity of showing
+their trust and love towards their King by surrendering to his
+discretion the buildings and property that they held. No man was to be
+compelled to sign; it must be perfectly voluntary on their part; his
+Grace wished to force no conscience to do that which it repudiated. For
+his own part, he said, he was going to sign with a glad heart. The King
+had shown his clemency in a hundred ways, and to that clemency he
+trusted.
+
+Then he sat down; and Chris marvelled at his self-control.
+
+Dr. Petre stood up, and looked round for a moment before opening his
+mouth; then he put his two hands on the table before him, dropped his
+eyes and began his speech.
+
+He endorsed first what the Prior had said, and congratulated all there
+on possessing such a superior. It was a great happiness, he said, to
+deal with men who showed themselves so reasonable and so loyal. Some he
+had had to do with had not been so--and--and of course their
+stubbornness had brought its own penalty. But of that he did not wish
+to speak. On the other hand those who had shown themselves true
+subjects of his Grace had already found their reward. He had great
+pleasure in announcing to them that what the Prior had said to them a
+day or two before was true; and that their brethren in religion of
+Chertsey Abbey, who had been moved to Bisham last year, were to go to
+the London Charterhouse in less than a month. The papers were made out;
+he had assisted in their drawing up.
+
+He spoke in a quiet restrained voice, and with an appearance of great
+deference; there was not the shadow of a bluster even when he referred
+to the penalties of stubbornness; it was very unlike the hot bullying
+arrogance of Dr. Layton. Then he ended--
+
+"And so, reverend fathers, the choice is in your hands. His Grace will
+use no compulsion. You will hear presently that the terms of surrender
+are explicit in that point. He will not force one man to sign who is not
+convinced that he can best serve his King and himself by doing so. It
+would go sorely against his heart if he thought that he had been the
+means of making the lowest of his subjects to act contrary to the
+conscience that God has given him. My Lord Prior, I will beg of you to
+read the terms of surrender."
+
+The paper was read, and it was as it had been described. Again and again
+it was repeated in various phrases that the property was yielded of
+free-will. It was impossible to find in it even the hint of a threat.
+The properties in question were enumerated in the minutest manner, and
+the list included all the rights of the priory over the Cluniac cell of
+Castleacre.
+
+The Prior laid the paper down, and looked at Dr. Petre.
+
+The Commissioner rose from his seat, taking the paper as he did so, and
+so stood a moment.
+
+"You see, reverend fathers, that it is as I told you. I understand that
+you have already considered the matter, so that there is no more to be
+said."
+
+He stepped down from the dais and passed round to the further side of
+the table. One of the secretaries pushed an ink-horn and a couple of
+quills across to him.
+
+"My Lord Prior," said Dr. Petre, with a slight bow. "If you are willing
+to sign this, I will beg of you to do so; and after that to call up your
+subjects."
+
+He laid the paper down. The Prior stepped briskly out of his seat, and
+passed round the table.
+
+Chris watched his back, the thin lawyer beside him indicating the place
+for the name; and listened as in a dream to the scratching of the pen.
+He himself still did not know what he would do. If all signed--?
+
+The Prior stepped back, and Chris caught a glimpse of a white face that
+smiled terribly.
+
+The Sub-Prior stepped down at a sign from his Superior; and then one by
+one the monks came out.
+
+Chris's heart sickened as he watched; and then stood still on a sudden
+in desperate hope, for opposite to him Dom Anthony sat steady, his head
+on his hand, and made no movement when it was his turn to come out.
+Chris saw the Prior look at the monk, and a spasm of emotion went over
+his face.
+
+"Dom Anthony," he said.
+
+The monk lifted his face, and it was smiling too.
+
+"I cannot sign, My Lord Prior."
+
+Then the veils fell, and decision flashed on Chris' soul.
+
+He heard the pulse drumming in his ears, and his wet hands slipped one
+in the other as he gripped them together, but he made no sign till all
+the others had gone up. Then he looked up at the Prior.
+
+It seemed an eternity before the Prior looked at him and nodded; and he
+could make no answering sign.
+
+Then he heard his name called, and with a great effort he answered; his
+voice seemed not his own in his ears. He repeated Dom Anthony's words.
+
+"I cannot sign, My Lord Prior."
+
+Then he sat back with closed eyes and waited.
+
+He heard movements about him, steps, the crackle of parchment, and at
+last Dr. Petre's voice; but he scarcely understood what was said. There
+was but one thought dinning in his brain, and that was that he had
+refused, and thrown his defiance down before the King--that terrible man
+whom he had seen in his barge on the river, with the narrow eyes, the
+pursed mouth and the great jowl, as he sat by the woman he called his
+wife--that woman who now--
+
+Chris shivered, opened his eyes, and sense came back.
+
+Dr. Petre was just ending his speech. He was congratulating the
+Community on their reasonableness and loyalty. By an overwhelming
+majority they had decided to trust the King, and they would not find his
+grace unmindful of that. As for those who had not signed he could say
+nothing but that they had used the liberty that his Grace had given
+them. Whether they had used it rightly was no business of his.
+
+Then he turned to the Prior.
+
+"The seal then, My Lord Prior. I think that is the next matter."
+
+The Prior rose and lifted it from the table. Chris caught the gleam of
+the brass and silver of the ponderous precious thing in his hand--the
+symbol of their corporate existence--engraved, as he knew, with the four
+patrons of the house, the cliff, the running water of the Ouse, and the
+rhyming prayer to St. Pancras.
+
+The Prior handed it to the Commissioner, who took it, and stood there a
+moment weighing it in his hand.
+
+"A hammer," he said.
+
+One of the secretaries rose, and drew from beneath the table a sheet of
+metal and a sharp hammer; he handed both to Dr. Petre.
+
+Chris watched, fascinated with something very like terror, his throat
+contracted in a sudden spasm, as he saw the Commissioner place the metal
+in the solid table before him, and then, holding the seal sideways, lift
+the hammer in his right hand.
+
+Then blow after blow began to echo in the rafters overhead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE SINKING SHIP
+
+
+Dr. Petre had come and gone, and to all appearance the priory was as
+before. He had not taken a jewel or a fragment of stuff; he had
+congratulated the sacristan on the beauty and order of his treasures,
+and had bidden him guard them carefully, for that there were knaves
+abroad who professed themselves as authorised by the King to seize
+monastic possessions, which they sold for their own profit. The offices
+continued to be sung day and night, and the masses every morning; and
+the poor were fed regularly at the gate.
+
+But across the corporate life had passed a subtle change, analogous to
+that which comes to the body of a man. Legal death had taken place
+already; the unity of life and consciousness existed no more; the seal
+was defaced; they could no longer sign a document except as individuals.
+Now the _rigor mortis_ would set in little by little until somatic death
+too had been consummated, and the units which had made up the organism
+had ceased to bear any relation one to the other.
+
+But until after Christmas there was no further development; and the
+Feast was observed as usual, and with the full complement of monks. At
+the midnight mass there was a larger congregation than for many months,
+and the confessions and communions also slightly increased. It was a
+symptom, as Chris very plainly perceived, of the manner in which the
+shadow of the King reached even to the remotest details of the life of
+the country. The priory was now, as it were, enveloped in the royal
+protection, and the people responded accordingly.
+
+There had come no hint from headquarters as to the ultimate fate of the
+house; and some even began to hope that the half-promise of a
+re-foundation would be fulfilled. Neither had any mark of disapproval
+arrived as to the refusal to sign on the part of the two monks; but
+although nothing further was said in conversation or at chapter, there
+was a consciousness in the minds of both Dom Anthony and Chris that a
+wall had arisen between them and the rest. Talk in the cloister was apt
+to flag when either approached; and the Prior never spoke a word to them
+beyond what was absolutely necessary.
+
+Then, about the middle of January the last process began to be enacted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One morning the Prior's place in church was empty.
+
+He was accustomed to disappear silently, and no astonishment was caused
+on this occasion; but at Compline the same night the Sub-Prior too was
+gone.
+
+This was an unheard-of state of things, but all except the guest-master
+and Chris seemed to take it as a matter of course; and no word was
+spoken.
+
+After the chapter on the next morning Dom Anthony made a sign to Chris
+as he passed him in the cloister, and the two went out together into the
+clear morning-sunshine of the outer court.
+
+Dom Anthony glanced behind him to see that no one was following, and
+then turned to the other.
+
+"They are both gone," he said, "and others are going. Dom Bernard is
+getting his things together. I saw them under his bed last night."
+
+Chris stared at him, mute and terrified.
+
+"What are we to do, Dom Anthony?"
+
+"We can do nothing. We must stay. Remember that we are the only two who
+have any rights here now, before God."
+
+There was silence a moment. Chris glanced at the other, and was
+reassured by the steady look on his ruddy face.
+
+"I will stay, Dom Anthony," he said softly.
+
+The other looked at him tenderly.
+
+"God bless you, brother!" he said.
+
+That night Dom Bernard and another were gone. And still the others made
+no sign or comment; and it was not until yet another pair had gone that
+Dom Anthony spoke plainly.
+
+He was now the senior monk in the house; and it was his place to direct
+the business of the chapter. When the formal proceedings were over he
+stood up fearlessly.
+
+"You cannot hide it longer," he said. "I have known for some while what
+was impending." He glanced round at the empty stalls, and his face
+flushed with sudden anger: "For God's sake, get you gone, you who mean
+to go; and let us who are steadfast serve our Lord in peace."
+
+Chris looked along the few faces that were left; but they were downcast
+and sedate, and showed no sign of emotion.
+
+Dom Anthony waited a moment longer, and then gave the signal to depart.
+By a week later the two were left alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was very strange to be there, in the vast house and church, and to
+live the old life now stripped of three-fourths of its meaning; but they
+did not allow one detail to suffer that it was possible to preserve. The
+_opus Dei_ was punctually done, and God was served in psalmody. At the
+proper hours the two priests met in the cloister, cowled and in their
+choir-shoes, and walked through to the empty stalls; and there, one on
+either side, each answered the other, bowed together at the _Gloria_,
+confessed and absolved alternately. Two masses were said each day in the
+huge lonely church, one at the high altar and the other at our Lady's,
+and each monk served the other. In the refectory one read from the
+pulpit as the other sat at the table; and the usual forms were observed
+with the minutest care. In the chapter each morning they met for mutual
+confession and accusation; and in the times between the exercises and
+meals each worked feverishly at the details that alone made the life
+possible.
+
+They were assisted in this by two paid servants, who were sent to them
+by Chris's father, for both the lay-brothers and the servants had gone
+with the rest; and the treasurer had disappeared with the money.
+
+Chris had written to Sir James the day that the last monk had gone,
+telling him the state of affairs, and how the larder was almost empty;
+and by the next evening the servants had arrived with money and
+provisions; and a letter from Sir James written from a sick-bed, saying
+that he was unable to come for the present, for he had taken the fever,
+and that Morris would not leave him, but expressing a hope that he would
+come soon in person, and that Morris should be sent in a few days. The
+latter ended with passionate approval of his son's action.
+
+"God bless and reward you, dear lad!" he had written. "I cannot tell you
+the joy that it is to my heart to know that you are faithful. It cannot
+be for long; but whether it is for long and short, you shall have my
+prayers and blessings; and please God, my poor presence too after a few
+days. May our Lady and your holy patron intercede for you both who are
+so worthy of their protection!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the end of the second week in March Mr. Morris arrived.
+
+Chris was taking the air in the court shortly before sunset, after a
+hard day's work in church. The land was beginning to stir with the
+resurrection-life of spring; and the hills set round the town had that
+faint flush of indescribable colour that tinges slopes of grass as the
+sleeping sap begins to stir. The elm-trees in the court were hazy with
+growth as the buds fattened at the end of every twig, and a group of
+daffodils here and there were beginning to burst their sheaths of gold.
+There on the little lawn before the guest-house were half a dozen white
+and lavender patches of colour that showed where the crocuses would star
+the grass presently; and from the high west front of the immense church,
+and from beneath the eaves of the offices to the right the birds were
+practising the snatches of song that would break out with full melody a
+month or two later.
+
+In spite of all that threatened, Chris was in an ecstasy of happiness.
+It rushed down on him, overwhelmed and enveloped him; for he knew now
+that he had been faithful. The flood of praise in the church had
+dwindled to a thread; but it was still the _opus Dei_, though it flowed
+but from two hearts; and the pulse of the heavenly sacrifice still
+throbbed morning by morning, and the Divine Presence still burned as
+unceasingly as the lamp that beaconed it, in the church that was now all
+but empty of its ministers. There were times when the joy that was in
+his heart trembled into tears, as when last night he and his friend had
+sung the song to Mary; and the contrast between the two poor voices,
+and the roar of petition that had filled the great vaulting a year
+before, had suddenly torn his heart in two.
+
+But now the poignant sorrow had gone again; and as he walked here alone
+on this March evening, with the steady hills about him and the flushing
+sky overhead, and the sweet life quickening in the grass at his feet, an
+extraordinary peace flooded his soul.
+
+There came a knocking at the gate, and the jangle of a bell; and he went
+across quickly and unbarred the door.
+
+Mr. Morris was there on horseback, a couple of saddlebags strapped to
+his beast; and a little group of loungers stood behind.
+
+Chris smiled with delight, and threw the door wide.
+
+The servant saluted him and then turned to the group behind.
+
+"You have no authority," he said, "as to my going in."
+
+Then he rode through; and Chris barred the gate behind him, glancing as
+he did so at the curious faces that stared silently.
+
+Mr. Morris said nothing till he had led his horse into the stable. Then
+he explained.
+
+"One of the fellows told me, sir, that this was the King's house now;
+and that I had no business here."
+
+Chris smiled again.
+
+"I know we are watched," he said, "the servants are questioned each time
+they set foot outside."
+
+Mr. Morris pursed his lips.
+
+"How long shall you be here, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Until we are turned out," said Chris.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was true, as he had said, that the house was watched. Ever since the
+last monk had left there had been a man or two at the gate, another
+outside the church-door that opened towards the town; and another yet
+again beyond the stream to the south of the priory-buildings. Dom
+Anthony had told him what it meant. It was that the authorities had no
+objection to the two monks keeping the place until it could be dealt
+with, but were determined that nothing should pass out. It had not been
+worthwhile to send in a caretaker, for all the valuables had been
+removed either by the Visitors or by the Prior when he went at night.
+There were only two sets of second-best altar vessels left, and a few
+other comparatively worthless utensils for the use of the church and
+kitchen. The great relics and the jewelled treasures had gone long
+before. Chris had wondered a little at the house being disregarded for
+so long; but the other monk had reminded him that such things as lead
+and brass and bells were beyond the power of two men to move, and could
+keep very well until other more pressing business had been despatched
+elsewhere.
+
+Mr. Morris gave him news of his father. It had not been the true fever
+after all, and he would soon be here; in at any rate a week or two. As
+regarded other news, there was no tidings of Mr. Ralph except that he
+was very busy. Mistress Margaret was at home; no notice seemed to have
+been taken of her when she had been turned out with the rest at the
+dissolution of her convent.
+
+It was very pleasant to see that familiar face about the cloister and
+refectory; or now and again, when work was done, looking up from beyond
+the screen as the monks came in by the sacristy door. Once or twice on
+dark evenings when terror began to push through the rampart of the will
+that Chris had raised up, it was reassuring too to know that Morris was
+there, for he bore with him, as old servants do, an atmosphere of home
+and security, and he carried himself as well with a wonderful
+naturalness, as if the relief of beleaguered monks were as ordinary a
+duty as the cleaning of plate.
+
+March was half over now; and still no sign had come from the world
+outside. There were no guests either to bring tidings, for the priory
+was a marked place and it was well not to show or receive kindliness in
+its regard.
+
+Within, the tension of nerves grew acute. Chris was conscious of a
+deepening exaltation, but it was backed by horror. He found himself now
+smiling with an irrepressible internal joy, now twitching with
+apprehension, starting at sudden noises, and terrified at loneliness.
+Dom Anthony too grew graver still; and would take his arm sometimes and
+walk with him, and tell him tales, and watch him with tender eyes. But
+in him, as in the younger monk, the strain tightened every day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were singing Compline together one evening with tired, overstrained
+voices, for they had determined not to relax any of the chant until it
+was necessary. Mr. Morris was behind them at a chair set beyond the
+screen; and there were no others present in church.
+
+The choir was perfectly dark (for they knew the office by heart) except
+for a glimmer from the sacristy door where a lamp burned within to light
+them to bed. Chris's thoughts had fled back to that summer evening long
+ago when he had knelt far down in the nave and watched the serried line
+of the black-hooded soldiers of God, and listened to the tramp of the
+psalmody, and longed to be of their company. Now the gallant regiment
+had dwindled to two, of which he was one, and the guest-master that had
+received him and encouraged him, the other.
+
+Dom Anthony was the officiant this evening, and had just sung lustily
+out in the dark that God was about them with His shield, that they need
+fear no nightly terror.
+
+The movement flagged for a moment, for Chris was not attending; Mr.
+Morris's voice began alone, _A sagitta volante_--and then stopped
+abruptly as he realised that he was singing by himself; and
+simultaneously came a sharp little crash from the dark altar that rose
+up in the gloom in front.
+
+A sort of sobbing breath broke from Chris at the sudden noise, and he
+gripped his hands together.
+
+In a moment Dom Anthony had taken up the verse.
+
+_A sagitta volante_--"From the arrow that flieth by day, from the thing
+that walketh in darkness--" Chris recovered himself; and the office
+passed on.
+
+As the two passed out together towards the door, Dom Anthony went
+forward up the steps; and Chris waited, and watched him stoop and pass
+his hands over the floor. Then he straightened himself, came down the
+steps and went before Chris into the sacristy.
+
+Under the lamp he stopped, and lifted what he carried to the light. It
+was the little ivory crucifix that he had hung there a few weeks ago
+when the last cross of precious metal had disappeared with the
+Sub-Prior. It was cracked across the body of the figure now, and one of
+the arms was detached at the shoulder and swung free on the nail through
+the hand.
+
+Dom Anthony looked at it, turned and looked at Chris; and without a word
+the two passed out into the cloister and turned up the dormitory stairs.
+To both of them it was a sign that the end was at hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the following afternoon Mr. Morris ran in to Chris's carrel, and
+found him putting the antiphonary and his implements up into a parcel.
+
+"Master Christopher," he said, "Sir James and Sir Nicholas are come."
+
+As he hurried out of the cloister he saw the horses standing there,
+spent with fast travelling, and the two riders at their heads, with the
+dust on their boots, and their clothes disordered. They remained
+motionless as the monk came towards them; but he saw that his father's
+face was working and that his eyes were wide and anxious.
+
+"Thank God," said the old man softly. "I am in time. They are coming
+to-night, Chris." But there was a questioning look on his face.
+
+Chris looked at him.
+
+"Will you take the horses?" said his father again. "Nick and I are
+safe."
+
+Chris still stared bewildered. Then he understood; and with
+understanding came decision.
+
+"No, father," he said.
+
+The old man's face broke up into lines of emotion.
+
+"Are you sure, my son?"
+
+Chris nodded steadily.
+
+"Then we will all be together," said Sir James; and he turned to lead
+his horse to the stable.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a little council held in the guest-house a few minutes later.
+Dom Anthony hurried to it, his habit splashed with whitewash, for he had
+been cleaning the dormitory, and the four sat down together.
+
+It seemed that Nicholas had ridden over from Great Keynes to Overfield
+earlier in the afternoon, and had brought the news that a company of men
+had passed through the village an hour before, and that one of them had
+asked which turn to take to Lewes. Sir Nicholas had ridden after them
+and enquired their business, and had gathered that they were bound for
+the priory, and he then turned his horse and made off to Overfield. His
+horse was spent when he arrived there; but he had changed horses and
+came on immediately with Sir James, to warn the monks of the approach of
+the men, and to give them an opportunity of making their escape if they
+thought it necessary.
+
+"Who were the leaders?" asked the elder monk.
+
+Nicholas shook his head.
+
+"They were in front; I dared not ride up."
+
+But his sturdy face looked troubled as he answered, and Chris saw his
+father's lips tighten. Dom Anthony drummed softly on the table.
+
+"There is nothing to be done," he said. "We wait till we are cast out."
+
+"You cannot refuse admittance?" questioned Sir James.
+
+"But we shall do so," said the other tranquilly; "at least we shall not
+open."
+
+"But they will batter the door down."
+
+"Certainly," said the monk.
+
+"And then?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I suppose they will put us out."
+
+There was absolutely nothing to be done. It was absurd to dream of more
+than formal resistance. Up in the North in more than one abbey the
+inmates had armed themselves, and faced the spoilers grimly on the
+village green; but that was where the whole country side was with them,
+and here it was otherwise.
+
+They talked a few minutes longer, and decided that they would neither
+open nor resist. The monks two were determined to remain there until
+they were actually cast out; and then the responsibility would rest on
+other shoulders than theirs.
+
+It was certain of course that by this time to-morrow at the latest they
+would have been expelled; and it was arranged that the two monks should
+ride back to Overfield, if they were personally unmolested, and remain
+there until further plans were decided upon.
+
+The four knew of course that there was a grave risk in provoking the
+authorities any further, but it was a risk that the two Religious were
+determined to run.
+
+They broke up presently; Mr. Morris came upstairs to tell them that food
+was ready in one of the parlours off the cloister; and the two laymen
+went off with him, while the monks went to sing vespers for the last
+time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour or two later the two were in the refectory at supper. The
+evening was drawing in, and the light in the tall windows was fading.
+Opposite where Chris sat (for Dom Anthony was reading aloud from the
+pulpit), a row of coats burned in the glass, and he ran his eyes over
+them. They had been set there, he remembered, soon after his own coming
+to the place; the records had been searched, and the arms of every prior
+copied and emblazoned in the panes. There they all were; from Lanzo of
+five centuries ago, whose arms were conjectural, down to Robert Crowham,
+who had forsaken his trust; telling the long tale of prelates and
+monastic life, from the beginning to the close. He looked round beyond
+the circle of light cast by his own candle, and the place seemed full of
+ghosts and presences to his fancy. The pale oak panelling glimmered
+along the walls above the empty seats, from the Prior's to the left,
+over which the dusky fresco of the Majesty of Christ grew darker still
+as the light faded, down to the pulpit opposite where Dom Anthony's
+grave ruddy face with downcast eyes stood out vivid in the candlelight.
+Ah! surely there was a cloud of witnesses now, a host of faces looking
+down from the black rafters overhead, and through the glimmering
+panes,--the faces of those who had eaten here with the same sacramental
+dignity and graciousness that these two survivors used. It was
+impossible to feel lonely in this stately house, saturated with holy
+life; and with a thrill at his heart he remembered how Dom Anthony had
+once whispered to him at the beginning of the troubles, that if others
+held their peace the very stones should cry out; and that God was able
+of those stones to raise up children to His praise....
+
+There was a sound of brisk, hurrying footsteps in the cloister outside,
+Dom Anthony ceased his reading with his finger on the place, and the
+eyes of the two monks met.
+
+The door was opened abruptly, and Morris stood there.
+
+"My master has sent me, sir," he said. "They are coming."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE LAST STAND
+
+
+The court outside had deepened into shadows as they came out; but
+overhead the sky still glowed faintly luminous in a tender translucent
+green. The evening star shone out clear and tranquil opposite them in
+the west.
+
+There were three figures standing at the foot of the steps that led down
+from the cloister; one of the servants with the two gentlemen; and as
+Chris pushed forward quickly his father turned and lifted his finger for
+silence.
+
+The town lay away to the right; and over the wall that joined the west
+end of the church to the gatehouse, there were a few lights
+visible--windows here and there just illuminated.
+
+For the first moment Chris thought there had been a mistake; he had
+expected a clamour at the gate, a jangling of the bell. Then as he
+listened he knew that it was no false alarm.
+
+Across the wall, from the direction of the hills that showed dimly
+against the evening sky, there came a murmur, growing as he listened.
+The roads were hard from lack of rain, and he could distinguish the
+sound of horses, a great company; but rising above this was a dull roar
+of voices. Every moment it waxed, died once or twice, then sounded out
+nearer and louder. There was a barking of dogs, the cries of children,
+and now and again the snatch of a song or a shouted word or two.
+
+Of the group on the steps within not one stirred, except when Sir James
+slowly lowered his upraised hand; and so they waited.
+
+The company was drawing nearer now; and Chris calculated that they must
+be coming down the steep road that led from the town; and even as he
+thought it he heard the sound of hoofs on the bridge that crossed the
+Winterbourne.
+
+Dom Anthony pushed by him.
+
+"To the gate," he said, and went down the step and across the court
+followed by the others. As they went the clamour grew loud and near in
+the road outside; and a ruddy light shone on the projecting turret of
+the gateway.
+
+Chris was conscious of extraordinary coolness now that the peril was on
+him; and he stared up at the studded oak doors, at the wicket cut in one
+of the leaves, and the sliding panel that covered the grill, with little
+thought but that of conjecture as to how long the destruction of the
+gate would take. The others, too, though he was scarcely aware of their
+presence, were silent and rigid at his side, as Dom Anthony stepped up
+to the closed grill and waited there for the summons.
+
+It came almost immediately.
+
+There was a great crescendo of sound as the party turned the corner, and
+a flare of light shone under the gate; then the sound of loud talking, a
+silence of the hoofs; and a sudden jangle on the bell overhead.
+
+The monk turned from the grill and lifted his hand.
+
+Then again the talking grew loud, as the mob swept round the corner
+after the horses.
+
+Still all was silent within. Chris felt his father's hand seek his own a
+moment, and grip it; and then above the gabbling clamour a voice spoke
+distinctly outside.
+
+"Have the rats run, then?"
+
+The bell danced again over their heads; and there was a clatter of raps
+on the huge door.
+
+Dom Anthony slid back the shutter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a moment it was not noticed outside, for the entry was dark. Chris
+could catch a glimpse on either side of the monk's head of a flare of
+light, but no more.
+
+Then the same voice spoke again, and with something of a foreign accent.
+
+"You are there, then; make haste and open."
+
+Another voice shouted authoritatively for silence; and the clamour of
+tongues died.
+
+Dom Anthony waited until all was quiet, and then answered steadily.
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+There was an oath; the tumult began again, but hushed immediately, as
+the same voice that had called for admittance shouted aloud--
+
+"Open, I tell you, you bloody monk! We come from the King."
+
+"Why do you come?"
+
+A gabble of fierce tongues broke out; Chris pressed up to Dom Anthony's
+back, and looked out. The space was very narrow, and he could not see
+much more than a man's leg across a saddle, the brown shoulder of a
+horse in front, and a smoky haze beyond and over the horse's back. The
+leg shifted a little as he watched, as if the rider turned; and then
+again the voice pealed out above the tumult.
+
+"Will you open, sir, for the last time?"
+
+"I will not," shouted the monk through the grill. "You are nothing
+but--" then he dashed the shutter into its place as a stick struck
+fiercely at the bars.
+
+"Back to the cloister," he said.
+
+The roar outside was tremendous as the six went back across the empty
+court; but it fell to a sinister silence as an order or two was shouted
+outside; and then again swelled with an excited note in it, as the first
+crash sounded on the panels.
+
+Chris looked at his father as they stood again on the steps fifty yards
+away. The old man was standing rigid, his hands at his sides, staring
+out towards the arch of the gateway that now thundered like a drum; and
+his lips were moving. Once he caught his breath as a voice shouted above
+the din outside, and half turned to his son, his hand uplifted as if for
+silence. Then again the voice pealed, and Sir James faced round and
+stared into Chris's eyes. But neither spoke a word.
+
+Dom Anthony, who was standing a yard or two in front, turned presently
+as the sound of splintering began to be mingled with the reverberations,
+and came towards them. His square, full face was steady and alert, and
+he spoke with a sharp decision.
+
+"You and Sir Nicholas, sir, had best be within. My place will be here;
+they will be in immediately."
+
+His words were perfectly distinct here in the open air in spite of the
+uproar from the gate.
+
+There was an indignant burst from the young squire.
+
+"No, no, father; I shall not stir from here."
+
+The monk looked at him; but said no more and turned round.
+
+A sedate voice spoke from the dark doorway behind.
+
+"John and I have fetched out a table or two, father; we can brace this
+door--"
+
+Dom Anthony turned again.
+
+"We shall not resist further," he said.
+
+Then they were silent, for they were helpless. There was nothing to be
+done but to stand there and listen to the din, to the crash that
+splintered more every moment in the cracked woodwork, and to watch the
+high wall and turret solemn and strong against the stars, and bright
+here and there at the edges with the light from the torches beneath. The
+guest-house opposite them was dark, except for one window in the upper
+floor that glowed and faded with the light of the fire that had been
+kindled within an hour or two before.
+
+Sir James took his son suddenly by the arm.
+
+"And you, Chris--" he said.
+
+"I shall stay here, father."
+
+There was a rending thunder from the gate; the wicket reeled in and
+fell, and in a moment through the flimsy opening had sprung the figure
+of a man. They could see him plainly as he stood there in the light of
+the torches, a tall upright figure, a feathered hat on his head, and a
+riding cane in his hand.
+
+The noise was indescribable outside as men fought to get through; there
+was one scream of pain, the plunging of a horse, and then a loud steady
+roar drowning all else.
+
+The oblong patch of light was darkened immediately, as another man
+sprang through, and then another and another; then a pause--then the
+bright flare of a torch shone in the opening; and a moment later a
+fellow carrying a flambeau had made his way through.
+
+The whole space under the arch was now illuminated. Overhead the plain
+mouldings shone out and faded as the torch swayed; every brick of the
+walls was visible, and the studs and bars of the huge doors.
+
+Chris had sprung forward by an uncontrollable impulse as the wicket fell
+in; and the two monks were now standing motionless on the floor of the
+court, side by side, in their black habits and scapulars, hooded and
+girded, with the two gentlemen and the servants on the steps behind.
+
+Chris saw the leaders come together under the arch, as the whole gate
+began to groan and bulge under the pressure of the crowd; and a moment
+later he caught the flash of steel as the long rapiers whisked out.
+
+Then above the baying he heard a fierce authoritative voice scream out
+an order, and saw that one of the gentlemen in front was at the door,
+his rapier protruded before him; and understood the man[oe]uvre. It was
+necessary that the mad crowd should be kept back.
+
+The tumult died and became a murmur; and then one by one a file of
+figures came through. In the hand of each was an instrument of some
+kind, a pick or a bludgeon; and it was evident that it was these who had
+broken in the gate.
+
+Chris counted them mechanically as they streamed through. There seemed
+to be a dozen or so.
+
+Then again the man who had guarded the door as they came through slipped
+back through the opening; and they heard his voice beginning to harangue
+the mob.
+
+But a moment later they had ceased to regard him; for from the archway,
+with the torch-bearer beside him, advanced the tall man with the
+riding-cane who had been the first to enter; and as he emerged into the
+court Chris recognised his brother.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was in a plain rich riding-suit with great boots and plumed hat. He
+walked with an easy air as if certain of himself, and neither quickened
+nor decreased his pace as he saw the monks and the gentlemen standing
+there.
+
+He halted a couple of yards from them, and Chris saw that his face was
+as assured as his gait. His thin lips were tight and firm, and his eyes
+with a kind of insolent irony looked up and down the figures of the
+monks. There was not the faintest sign of recognition in them.
+
+"You have given us a great deal of labour," he said, "and to no purpose.
+We shall have to report it all to my Lord Cromwell. I understand that
+you were the two who refused to sign the surrender. It was the act of
+fools, like this last. I have no authority to take you, so you had best
+be gone."
+
+Dom Anthony answered him in an equally steady voice.
+
+"We are ready to go now," he said. "You understand we have yielded to
+nothing but force."
+
+Ralph's lips writhed in a smile.
+
+"Oh! if that pleases you," he said. "Well, then--"
+
+He took a little step aside, and made a movement towards the gate where
+there sounded out still an angry hum beneath the shouting voice that was
+addressing them.
+
+Chris turned to his father behind, and the voice died in his throat, so
+dreadful was that face that was looking at Ralph. He was standing as
+before, rigid it seemed with grief or anger; and his grey eyes were
+bright with a tense emotion; his lips too were as firm as his son's. But
+he spoke no word. Sir Nicholas was at his side, with one foot advanced,
+and in attitude as if to spring; and Morris's face looked like a mask
+over his shoulder.
+
+"Well, then--" said Ralph once more.
+
+"Ah! you damned hound!" roared the young squire's voice; and his hand
+went up with the whip in it.
+
+Ralph did not move a muscle. He seemed cut in steel.
+
+"Let us go," said Dom Anthony again, to Chris, almost tenderly; "it is
+enough that we are turned out by force."
+
+"You can go by the church, if you will," said Ralph composedly. "In
+fact--" He stopped as the murmur howled up again from the gate--"In
+fact you had better go that way. They do not seem to be your friends out
+there."
+
+"We will go whichever way you wish," remarked the elder monk.
+
+"Then the church," said Ralph, "or some other private door. I suppose
+you have one. Most of your houses have one, I believe."
+
+The sneer snapped the tension.
+
+Dom Anthony turned his back on him instantly.
+
+"Come, brother," he said.
+
+Chris took his father by the arm as he went up the steps.
+
+"Come, sir," he said, "we are to go this way."
+
+There was a moment's pause. The old man still stared down at his elder
+son, who was standing below in the same position. Chris heard a deep
+breath, and thought he was on the point of speaking; but there was
+silence. Then the two turned and followed the others into the cloister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+AXES AND HAMMERS
+
+
+Chris sat next morning at a high window of a house near Saint Michael's
+looking down towards the south of the town.
+
+They had escaped without difficulty the night before through the
+church-entrance, with a man whom Ralph sent after them to see that they
+carried nothing away, leaving the crowd roaring round the corner of the
+gate, and though people looked curiously at the monks, the five laymen
+with them protected them from assault. Mr. Morris had found a lodging a
+couple of days before, unknown to Chris, in the house of a woman who was
+favourable to the Religious, and had guided the party straight there on
+the previous evening.
+
+The two monks had said mass in Saint Michael's that morning before the
+town was awake; and were now keeping within doors at Sir James's earnest
+request, while the two gentlemen with one of the servants had gone to
+see what was being done at the priory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From where Chris sat in his black habit at the leaded window he could
+see straight down the opening of the steep street, across the lower
+roofs below, to where the great pile of the Priory church less than
+half-a-mile away soared up in the sunlight against the water-meadows
+where the Ouse ran to the south of the town.
+
+The street was very empty below him, for every human being that could
+do so had gone down to the sacking of the priory. There might be
+pickings, scraps gathered from the hoards that the monks were supposed
+to have gathered; there would probably be an auction; and there would
+certainly be plenty of excitement and pleasure.
+
+Chris was himself almost numb to sensation. The coolness that had
+condensed round his soul last night had hardened into ice; he scarcely
+realised what was going on, or how great was the catastrophe into which
+his life was plunged. There lay the roofs before him--he ran his eye
+from the west tower past the high lantern to the delicate tracery of the
+eastern apse and chapels--in the hands of the spoilers; and here he sat
+dry-eyed and steady-mouthed looking down on it, as a man looks at a
+wound not yet begun to smart.
+
+It was piteously clear and still. Smoke was rising from a fire somewhere
+behind the church, a noise as of metal on stone chinked steadily, and
+the voices of men calling one to another sounded continually from the
+enclosure. Now and again the tiny figure of a workman showed clear on
+the roof, pick in hand; or leaning to call directions down to his
+fellows beneath.
+
+Dom Anthony looked in presently, breviary in hand, and knelt by Chris on
+the window-step, watching too; but he spoke no word, glanced at the
+white face and sunken eyes of the other, sighed once or twice, and went
+out again.
+
+The morning passed on and still Chris watched. By eleven o'clock the men
+were gone from the roof; half an hour had passed, and no further figure
+had appeared.
+
+There were footsteps on the stairs; and Sir James came in.
+
+He came straight across to his son and sat down by him. Chris looked at
+him. The old man nodded.
+
+"Yes, my son," he said, "they are at it. Nothing is to be left, but the
+cloister and guest-house. The church is to be down in a week they say."
+
+Chris looked at him dully.
+
+"All?" he said.
+
+"All the church, my son."
+
+Sir James gave an account of what he had seen. He had made his way in
+with Nicholas and a few other persons, into the court; but had not been
+allowed to enter the cloister. There was a furnace being made ready in
+the calefactorium for the melting of the lead, he had been told by one
+of the men; and the church, as he had seen for himself, was full of
+workmen.
+
+"And the Blessed Sacrament?" asked Chris.
+
+"A priest was sent for this morning to carry It away to a church; I know
+not which."
+
+Sir James described the method of destruction.
+
+They were beginning with the apse and the chapels behind the high altar.
+The ornaments had been removed, the images piled in a great heap in the
+outer court, and the brasses had been torn up. There were half a dozen
+masons busy at undercutting the pillars and walls; and as they excavated
+the carpenters made wooden insertions to prop up the weight. The men had
+been brought down from London, as the commissioners were not certain of
+the temper of the Lewes people. Two of the four great pillars behind the
+high altar were already cut half through.
+
+"And Ralph?"
+
+The old man's face grew tense and bitter.
+
+"I saw him in the roof," he said; "he made as if he did not see me."
+
+They were half-through dinner before Nicholas joined them. He was
+flushed and dusty and furious.
+
+"Ah! the hounds!" he said, as he stood at the door, trembling. "They
+say they will have the chapels down before night. They have stripped the
+lead."
+
+Sir James looked up and motioned him to sit down.
+
+"We will go down again presently," he said.
+
+"But we have saved our luggage," went on Nicholas, taking his seat; "and
+there was a parcel of yours, Chris, that I put with it. It is all to be
+sent up with the horses to-night."
+
+"Did you speak with Mr. Ralph?" asked Dom Anthony.
+
+"Ah! I did; the dog! and I told him what I thought. But he dared not
+refuse me the luggage. John is to go for it all to-night."
+
+He told them during dinner another fact that he had learned.
+
+"You know who is to have it all?" he said fiercely, his fingers
+twitching with emotion.
+
+"It is Master Gregory Cromwell, and his wife, and his baby. A fine
+nursery!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the evening drew on, Chris was again at the window alone. He had said
+his office earlier in the afternoon, and sat here again now, with his
+hands before him, staring down at the church.
+
+One of the servants had come up with a message from Sir James an hour
+before telling him not to expect them before dusk; and that they would
+send up news of any further developments. The whole town was there, said
+the man: it had been found impossible to keep them out. Dom Anthony
+presently came again and sat with Chris; and Mr. Morris, who had been
+left as a safeguard to the monks, slipped in soon after and stood behind
+the two; and so the three waited.
+
+The sky was beginning to glow again as it had done last night with the
+clear radiance of a cloudless sunset; and the tall west tower stood up
+bright in the glory. How infinitely far away last night seemed now,
+little and yet distinct as a landscape seen through a reversed
+telescope! How far away that silent waiting at the cloister door, the
+clamour at the gate, the forced entrance, the slipping away through the
+church!
+
+The smoke was rising faster than ever now from the great chimney, and
+hung in a cloud above the buildings. Perhaps even now the lead was being
+cast.
+
+There was a clatter at the corner of the cobbled street below, and Dom
+Anthony leaned from the window. He drew back.
+
+"It is the horses," he said.
+
+The servant presently came up to announce that the two gentlemen were
+following immediately, and that he had had orders to procure horses and
+saddle them at once. He had understood Sir James to say that they must
+leave that night.
+
+Mr. Morris hurried out to see to the packing.
+
+In five minutes the gentlemen themselves appeared.
+
+Sir James came quickly across to the two monks.
+
+"We must go to-night, Chris," he said. "We had words with Portinari. You
+must not remain longer in the town."
+
+Chris looked at him.
+
+"Yes?" he said.
+
+"And the chapels will be down immediately. Oh! dear God!"
+
+Dom Anthony made room for the old man to sit down in the window-seat;
+and himself stood behind the two with Nicholas; and so again they
+watched.
+
+The light was fading fast now, and in the windows below lights were
+beginning to shine. The square western tower that dominated the whole
+priory had lost its splendour, and stood up strong and pale against the
+meadows. There was a red flare of light somewhere over the wall of the
+court, and the inner side of the gate-turret was illuminated by it.
+
+A tense excitement lay on the watchers; and no sound came from them but
+that of quick breathing as they waited for what they knew was imminent.
+
+Outside the evening was wonderfully still; they could hear two men
+talking somewhere in the street below; but from the priory came no
+sound. The chink of the picks was still, and the cries of the workmen.
+Far away beyond the castle on their left came an insistent barking of a
+dog; and once, when a horseman rode by below Chris bit his lip with
+vexation, for it seemed to him like the disturbing of a death bed. A
+star or two looked out, vanished, and peeped again from the luminous
+sky, to the south, and the downs beneath were grey and hazy.
+
+All the watchers now had their eyes on the eastern end of the church
+that lay in dim shadow; they could see the roof of the vault behind
+where the high altar lay beneath; the flying buttress of a chapel below;
+and, nearer, the low roof of the Lady-chapel.
+
+Chris kept his eyes strained on the upper vault, for there, he knew the
+first movement would show itself.
+
+The time seemed interminable. He moistened his dry lips from time to
+time, shifted his position a little, and moved his elbow from the sharp
+moulding of the window-frame.
+
+Then he caught his breath.
+
+From where he sat, in the direct line of his eyes, the top of a patch of
+evergreen copse was visible just beyond the roof of the vault; and as
+he looked he saw that a patch of paler green had appeared below it. All
+in a moment he saw too the flying buttress crook itself like an elbow
+and disappear. Then the vault was gone and the roof beyond; the walls
+sank with incredible slowness and vanished.
+
+A cloud of white dust puffed up like smoke.
+
+Then through the open window came the roar of the tumbling masonry; and
+shrill above it the clamour of a great crowd.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+THE KING'S GRATITUDE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A SCHEME
+
+
+The period that followed the destruction of Lewes Priory held very
+strange months for Chris. He had slipped out of the stream into a
+back-water, from which he could watch the swift movements of the time,
+while himself undisturbed by them; for no further notice was taken of
+his refusal to sign the surrender or of his resistance to the
+Commissioners. The hands of the authorities were so full of business
+that apparently it was not worth their while to trouble about an
+inoffensive monk of no particular notoriety, who after all had done
+little except in a negative way, and who appeared now to acquiesce in
+silence and seclusion.
+
+The household at Overfield was of a very mixed nature. Dom Anthony after
+a month or two had left for the Continent to take up his vocation in a
+Benedictine house; and Sir James and his wife, Chris, Margaret, and Mr.
+Carleton remained together. For the present Chris and Margaret were
+determined to wait, for a hundred things might intervene--Henry's death,
+a changing of his mind, a foreign invasion on the part of the Catholic
+powers, an internal revolt in England, and such things--and set the
+clock back again, and, unlike Dom Anthony, they had a home where they
+could follow their Rules in tolerable comfort.
+
+The country was indeed very deeply stirred by the events that were
+taking place; but for the present, partly from terror and partly from
+the great forces that were brought to bear upon English convictions, it
+gave no expression to its emotion. The methods that Cromwell had
+employed with such skill in the past were still active. On the worldly
+side there was held out to the people the hope of relieved taxation, of
+the distribution of monastic wealth and lands; on the spiritual side the
+bishops under Cranmer were zealous in controverting the old principles
+and throwing doubt upon the authority of the Pope. It was impossible for
+the unlearned to know what to believe; new manifestoes were issued
+continually by the King and clergy, full of learned arguments and
+persuasive appeals; and the professors of the old religion were
+continually discredited by accusations of fraud, avarice, immorality,
+hypocrisy and the like. They were silenced, too; while active and
+eloquent preachers like Latimer raged from pulpit to pulpit, denouncing,
+expounding, convincing.
+
+Meanwhile the work went on rapidly. The summer and autumn of '38 saw
+again destruction after destruction of Religious Houses and objects of
+veneration; and the intimidation of the most influential personages on
+the Catholic side.
+
+In February, for example, the rood of Boxley was brought up to London
+with every indignity, and after being exhibited with shouts of laughter
+at Whitehall, and preached against at Paul's Cross, it was tossed down
+among the zealous citizens and smashed to pieces. In the summer, among
+others, the shrine of St. Swithun at Winchester was defaced and robbed;
+and in the autumn that followed the friaries which had stood out so long
+began to fall right and left. In October the Holy Blood of Hayles, a
+relic brought from the East in the thirteenth century and preserved
+with great love and honour ever since, was taken from its resting place
+and exposed to ridicule in London. Finally in the same month, after St.
+Thomas of Canterbury had been solemnly declared a traitor to his prince,
+his name, images and pictures ordered to be erased and destroyed out of
+every book, window and wall, and he himself summoned with grotesque
+solemnity to answer the charges brought against him, his relics were
+seized and burned, and--which was more to the point in the King's view,
+his shrine was stripped of its gold and jewels and vestments, which were
+conveyed in a string of twenty-six carts to the King's treasury. The
+following year events were yet more terrible. The few great houses that
+survived were one by one brought within reach of the King's hand; and
+those that did not voluntarily surrender fell under the heavier
+penalties of attainder. Abbot Whiting of Glastonbury was sent up to
+London in September, and two months later suffered on Tor hill within
+sight of the monastery he had ruled so long and so justly; and on the
+same day the Abbot of Reading suffered too outside his own gateway. Six
+weeks afterwards Abbot Marshall, of Colchester, was also put to death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a piteous life that devout persons led at this time; and few were
+more unhappy than the household at Overfield. It was the more miserable
+because Lady Torridon herself was so entirely out of sympathy with the
+others. While she was not often the actual bearer of ill news--for she
+had neither sufficient strenuousness nor opportunity for it--it was
+impossible to doubt that she enjoyed its arrival.
+
+They were all together at supper one warm summer evening when a servant
+came in to announce that a monk of St. Swithun's was asking hospitality.
+Sir James glanced at his wife who sat with passive downcast face; and
+then ordered the priest to be brought in.
+
+He was a timid, tactless man who failed to grasp the situation, and when
+the wine and food had warmed his heart he began to talk a great deal too
+freely, taking it for granted that all there were in sympathy with him.
+He addressed himself chiefly to Chris, who answered courteously; and
+described the sacking of the shrine at some length.
+
+"He had already set aside our cross called Hierusalem," cried the monk,
+his weak face looking infinitely pathetic with its mingled sorrow and
+anger, "and two of our gold chalices, to take them with him when he
+went; and then with his knives and hammers, as the psalmist tells us, he
+hacked off the silver plates from the shrine. There was a fellow I knew
+very well--he had been to me to confession two days before--who held a
+candle and laughed. And then when all was done; and that was not till
+three o'clock in the morning, one of the smiths tested the metal and
+cried out that there was not one piece of true gold in it all. And Mr.
+Pollard raged at us for it, and told us that our gold was as counterfeit
+as the rotten bones that we worshipped. But indeed there was plenty of
+gold; and the man lied; for it was a very rich shrine. God's vengeance
+will fall on them for their lies and their robbery. Is it not so,
+mistress?"
+
+Lady Torridon lifted her eyes and looked at him. Her husband hastened to
+interpose.
+
+"Have you finished your wine, father?"
+
+The monk seemed not to hear him; and his talk flowed on about the
+destruction of the high altar and the spoiling of the reredos, which had
+taken place on the following days; and as he talked he filled his
+Venetian glass more than once and drank it off; and his lantern face
+grew flushed and his eyes animated. Chris saw that his mother was
+watching the monk shrewdly and narrowly, and feared what might come. But
+it was unavoidable.
+
+"We poor monks," the priest cried presently, "shall soon be cast out to
+beg our bread. The King's Grace--"
+
+"Is not poverty one of the monastic vows?" put in Lady Torridon
+suddenly, still looking steadily at his half-drunk glass.
+
+"Why, yes, mistress; and the King's Grace is determined to make us keep
+it, it seems."
+
+He lifted his glass and finished it; and put out his hand again to the
+bottle.
+
+"But that is a good work, surely," smiled the other. "It will be surely
+a safeguard against surfeiting and drunkenness."
+
+Sir James rose instantly.
+
+"Come, father," he said to the staring monk, "you will be tired out, and
+will want your bed."
+
+A slow smile shone and faded on his wife's face as she rose and rustled
+down the long hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such incidents as this made life at Overfield very difficult for them
+all; it was hard for these sore hearts to be continually on the watch
+for dangerous subjects, and only to be able to comfort one another when
+the mistress of the house was absent; but above all it was difficult for
+Margaret. She was nearly as silent as her mother, but infinitely more
+tender; and since the two were naturally together for the most part,
+except when the nun was at her long prayers, there were often very
+difficult and painful incidents.
+
+For the first eighteen months after her return her mother let her
+alone; but as time went on and the girl's resolution persevered, she
+began to be subjected to a distressing form of slight persecution.
+
+For example: Chris and his father came in one day in the autumn from a
+walk through the priory garden that lay beyond the western moat. As they
+passed in the level sunshine along the prim box-lined paths, and had
+reached the centre where the dial stood, they heard voices in the
+summer-house that stood on the right behind a yew hedge.
+
+Sir James hesitated a moment; and as he waited heard Margaret's voice
+with a thrill of passion in it.
+
+"I cannot listen to that, mother. It is wicked to say such things."
+
+The two turned instantly, passed along the path and came round the
+corner.
+
+Margaret was standing with one hand on the little table, half-turned to
+go. Her eyes were alight with indignation, and her lips trembled. Her
+mother sat on the other side, her silver-handled stick beside her, and
+her hands folded serenely together.
+
+Sir James looked from one to the other; and there fell a silence.
+
+"Are you coming with us, Margaret?" he said.
+
+The girl still hesitated a moment, glancing at her mother, and then
+stepped out of the summer-house. Chris saw that bitter smile writhe and
+die on the elder woman's face, but she said nothing.
+
+Margaret burst out presently when they had crossed the moat and were
+coming up to the long grey-towered house.
+
+"I cannot bear such talk, father," she said, with her eyes bright with
+angry tears, "she was saying such things about Rusper, and how idle we
+all were there, and how foolish."
+
+"You must not mind it, my darling. Your mother does not--does not
+understand."
+
+"There was never any one like Mother Abbess," went on the girl. "I never
+saw her idle or out of humour; and--and we were all so busy and happy."
+
+Her eyes overflowed a moment; her father put his arm tenderly round her
+shoulders, and they went in together.
+
+It was a terrible thing for Margaret to be thrown like this out of the
+one life that was a reality to her. As she looked back now it seemed as
+if the convent shone glorified and beautiful in a haze of grace. The
+discipline of the house had ordered and inspired the associations on
+which memories afterwards depend, and had excluded the discordant notes
+that spoil the harmonies of secular life. The chapel, with its delicate
+windows, its oak rails, its scent of flowers and incense, its tiled
+floor, its single row of carved woodwork and the crosier by the Abbess's
+seat, was a place of silence instinct with a Divine Presence that
+radiated from the hanging pyx; it was these particular things, and not
+others like them, that had been the scene of her romance with God, her
+aspirations, tendernesses, tears and joys. She had walked in the tiny
+cloister with her Lover in her heart, and the glazed laurel-leaves that
+rattled in the garth had been musical with His voice; it was in her
+little white cell that she had learned to sleep in His arms and to wake
+to the brightness of His Face. And now all this was dissipated. There
+were other associations with her home, of childish sorrows and passions
+before she had known God, of hunting-parties and genial ruddy men who
+smelt of fur and blood, of her mother's chilly steady presence--
+associations that jarred with the inner life; whereas in the convent
+there had been nothing that was not redolent with efforts and rewards of
+the soul. Even without her mother life would have been hard enough now
+at Overfield; with her it was nearly intolerable.
+
+Chris, however, was able to do a good deal for the girl; for he had
+suffered in the same way; and had the advantage of a man's strength. She
+could talk to him as to no one else of the knowledge of the interior
+vocation in both of them that persevered in spite of their ejection from
+the cloister; and he was able to remind her that the essence of the
+enclosure, under these circumstances, lay in the spirit and not in
+material stones.
+
+It was an advantage for Chris too to have her under his protection. The
+fact that he had to teach her and remind her of facts that they both
+knew, made them more real to himself; and to him as to her there came
+gradually a kind of sorrow-shot contentment that deepened month by month
+in spite of their strange and distracting surroundings.
+
+But he was not wholly happy about her; she was silent and lonely
+sometimes; he began to see what an immense advantage it would be to her
+in the peculiarly difficult circumstances of the time, to have some one
+of her own sex and sympathies at hand. But he did not see how it could
+be arranged. For the present it was impossible for her to enter the
+Religious Life, except by going abroad; and so long as there was the
+faintest hope of the convents being restored in England, both she and
+her father and brother shrank from the step. And the hope was increased
+by the issue of the Six Articles in the following May, by which
+Transubstantiation was declared to be a revealed dogma, to be held on
+penalty of death by burning; and communion in one kind, the celibacy of
+the clergy, the perpetuity of the vow of chastity, private masses, and
+auricular confession were alike ratified as parts of the Faith held by
+the Church of which Henry had made himself head.
+
+Yet as time went on, and there were no signs of the restoration of the
+Religious Houses, Chris began to wonder again as to what was best for
+Margaret. Perhaps until matters developed it would be well for her to
+have some friend in whom she could confide, even if only to relax the
+strain for a few weeks. He went to his father one day in the autumn and
+laid his views before him.
+
+Sir James nodded and seemed to understand.
+
+"Do you think Mary would be of any service?"
+
+Chris hesitated.
+
+"Yes, sir, I think so--but--"
+
+His father looked at him.
+
+"It is a stranger I think that would help her more. Perhaps another
+nun--?"
+
+"My dear lad, I dare not ask another nun. Your mother--"
+
+"I know," said Chris.
+
+"Well, I will think of it," said the other.
+
+A couple of days later Sir James took him aside after supper into his
+own private room.
+
+"Chris," he said, "I have been thinking of what you said. And Mary shall
+certainly come here for Christmas, with Nick; but--but there is someone
+else too I would like to ask."
+
+He looked at his son with an odd expression.
+
+Chris could not imagine what this meant.
+
+"It is Mistress Atherton," went on the other. "You see you know her a
+little--at least you have seen her; and there is Ralph. And from all
+that I have heard of her--her friendship with Master More and the rest,
+I think she might be the very friend for poor Meg. Do you think she
+would come, Chris?"
+
+Chris was silent. He could not yet fully dissociate the thought of
+Beatrice from the memory of the time when she had taken Ralph's part.
+Besides, was it possible to ask her under the circumstances?
+
+"Then there was one more thing that I never told you;" went on his
+father, "there was no use in it. But I went to see Mistress Atherton
+when she was betrothed to Ralph. I saw her in London; and I think I may
+say we made friends. And she has very few now; she keeps herself aloof.
+Folks are afraid of her too. I think it would be a kindness to her. I
+could not understand how she could marry Ralph; and now that is
+explained."
+
+Chris was startled by this news. His father had not breathed a word of
+it before.
+
+"She made me promise," went on Sir James, "to tell her if Ralph did
+anything unworthy. It was after the first news had reached her of what
+the Visitors were doing. And I told her, of course, about Rusper. I
+think we owe her something. And I think too from what I saw of her that
+she might make her way with your mother."
+
+"It might succeed," said Chris doubtfully, "but it is surely difficult
+for her to come--"
+
+"I know--yes--with Ralph and her betrothal. But if we can ask her,
+surely she can come. I can tell her how much we need her. I would send
+Meg to Great Keynes, if I dared, but I dare not. It is not so safe there
+as here; she had best keep quiet."
+
+They talked about it a few minutes more, and Chris became more inclined
+to it. From what he remembered of Beatrice and the impression that she
+had made on him in those few fierce minutes in Ralph's house he began to
+see that she would probably be able to hold her own; and if only
+Margaret would take to her, the elder girl might be of great service in
+establishing the younger. It was an odd and rather piquant idea, and
+gradually took hold of his imagination. It was a very extreme step to
+take, considering that she had broken off her betrothal to the eldest
+son of the house; but against that was set the fact that she would not
+meet him there; and that her presence would be really valued by at least
+four-fifths of the household.
+
+It was decided that Lady Torridon should be told immediately; and a day
+or two later Sir James came to Chris in the garden to tell him that she
+had consented.
+
+"I do not understand it at all," said the old man, "but your mother
+seemed very willing. I wonder--"
+
+And then he stopped abruptly.
+
+The letter was sent. Chris saw it and the strong appeal it contained
+that Beatrice should come to the aid of a nun who was pining for want of
+companionship. A day or two later brought down the answer that Mistress
+Atherton would have great pleasure in coming a week before Christmas.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Margaret had a fit of shyness when the day came for her arrival. It was
+a clear frosty afternoon, with a keen turquoise sky overhead, and she
+wandered out in her habit down the slope to the moat, crossed the
+bridge, glancing at the thin ice and the sedge that pierced it, and came
+up into the private garden. She knew she could hear the sounds of wheels
+from there, and had an instinctive shrinking from being at the house
+when the stranger arrived.
+
+The grass walks were crisp to the foot; the plants in the deep beds
+rested in a rigid stillness with a black blossom or two drooping here
+and there; and the hollies beyond the yew hedge lifted masses of green
+lit by scarlet against the pale sky. Her breath went up like smoke as
+she walked softly up and down.
+
+There was no sound to disturb her. Once she heard the clink of the
+blacksmith's forge half a mile away in the village; once a blackbird
+dashed chattering from a hedge, scudded in a long dip, and rose again
+over it; a robin followed her in brisk hops, with a kind of pathetic
+impertinence in his round eye, as he wondered whether this human
+creature's footsteps would not break the iron armour of the ground and
+give him a chance to live.
+
+She wondered a thousand things as she went; what kind of a woman this
+was that was coming, how she would look, why she had not married Ralph,
+and above all, whether she understood--whether she understood!
+
+A kind of frost had fallen on her own soul; she could find no sustenance
+there; it was all there, she knew, all the mysterious life that had
+rioted within her like spring, in the convent, breathing its fragrances,
+bewildering in its wealth of shape and colour. But an icy breath had
+petrified it all; it had sunk down out of sight; it needed a soul like
+her own, feminine and sympathetic, a soul that had experienced the same
+things as her own, that knew the tenderness and love of the Saviour, to
+melt that frigid covering and draw out the essences and sweetness again,
+that lay there paralysed by this icy environment....
+
+There were wheels at last.
+
+She gathered up her black skirt, and ran to the edge of the low yews
+that bounded the garden on the north; and as she caught a glimpse of the
+nodding heads of the postilions, the plumes of their mounts, and the
+great carriage-roof swaying in the iron ruts, she shrank back again, in
+an agony of shyness, terrified of being seen.
+
+The sky had deepened to flaming orange in the west, barred by the tall
+pines, before she unlatched the garden-gate to go back to the house.
+
+The windows shone out bright and inviting from the parlour on the
+ground-floor and from beneath the high gable of the hall as she came up
+the slope. Mistress Atherton, she knew, would be in one of these rooms
+if she had not already gone up stairs; and with an instinct of shyness
+still strong within her the girl slipped round to the back, and passed
+in through the chapel.
+
+The court was lighted by a link that flared beside one of the doorways
+on the left, and a couple of great trunks lay below it. A servant came
+out as she stood there hesitating, and she called to him softly to know
+where was Mistress Atherton.
+
+"She is in the parlour, Mistress Margaret," said the man.
+
+The girl went slowly across to the corner doorway, glancing at the
+parlour windows as she passed; but the curtains were drawn on this side,
+and she could catch no glimpse of the party within.
+
+The little entrance passage was dark; but she could hear a murmur of
+voices as she stood there, still hesitating. Then she opened the door
+suddenly, and went into the room.
+
+Her mother was speaking; and the girl heard those icy detached tones as
+she looked round the group.
+
+"It must be very difficult for you, Mistress Atherton, in these days."
+
+Margaret saw her father standing at the window-seat, and Chris beside
+him; and in a moment saw that the faces of both were troubled and
+uneasy.
+
+A tall girl was in the chair opposite, her hands lying easily on the
+arms and her head thrown back almost negligently. She was well dressed,
+with furs about her throat; her buckled feet were crossed before the
+blaze, and her fingers shone with jewels. Her face was pale; her
+scarlet lips were smiling, and there was a certain keen and genial
+amusement in her black eyes.
+
+She looked magnificent, thought Margaret, still standing with her hand
+on the door--too magnificent.
+
+Her father made a movement, it seemed of relief, as his daughter came
+in; but Lady Torridon, very upright in her chair on this side, went on
+immediately.
+
+--"With your opinions, Mistress Atherton, I mean. I suppose all that you
+consider sacred is being insulted, in your eyes."
+
+The tall girl glanced at Margaret with the amusement still in her face,
+and then answered with a deliberate incisiveness that equalled Lady
+Torridon's own.
+
+"Not so difficult," she said, "as for those who have no opinions."
+
+There was a momentary pause; and then she added, as she stood up and Sir
+James came forward.
+
+"I am very sorry for them, Mistress Torridon."
+
+Before Lady Torridon could answer, Sir James had broken in.
+
+"This is my daughter Margaret, Mistress Atherton."
+
+The two ladies saluted one another.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A DUEL
+
+
+Margaret watched Beatrice with growing excitement that evening, in which
+was mingled something of awe and something of attraction. She had never
+seen anyone so serenely self-possessed.
+
+It became evident during supper, beyond the possibility of mistake, that
+Lady Torridon had planned war against the guest, who was a
+representative in her eyes of all that was narrow-minded and
+contemptible. Here was a girl, she seemed to tell herself, who had had
+every opportunity of emancipation, who had been singularly favoured in
+being noticed by Ralph, and who had audaciously thrown him over for the
+sake of some ridiculous scruples worthy only of idiots and nuns. Indeed
+to Chris it was fairly plain that his mother had consented so willingly
+to Beatrice's visit with the express purpose of punishing her.
+
+But Beatrice held her own triumphantly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They had not sat down three minutes before Lady Torridon opened the
+assault, with grave downcast face and in her silkiest manner. She went
+abruptly back to the point where the conversation had been interrupted
+in the parlour by Margaret's entrance.
+
+"Mistress Atherton," she observed, playing delicately with her spoon, "I
+think you said that to your mind the times were difficult for those who
+had no opinions."
+
+Beatrice looked at her pleasantly.
+
+"Yes, Mistress Torridon; at least more difficult for those, than for the
+others who know their own mind."
+
+The other waited a moment, expecting the girl to justify herself, but
+she was forced to go on.
+
+"Abbot Marshall knew his mind, but it was not easy for him."
+
+(The news had just arrived of the Abbot's execution).
+
+"Do you think not, mistress? I fear I still hold my opinion."
+
+"And what do you mean by that?"
+
+"I mean that unless we have something to hold to, in these troublesome
+times, we shall drift. That is all."
+
+"Ah! and drift whither?"
+
+Beatrice smiled so genially as she answered, that the other had no
+excuse for taking offence.
+
+"Well, it might be better not to answer that."
+
+Lady Torridon looked at her with an impassive face.
+
+"To hell, then?" she said.
+
+"Well, yes: to hell," said Beatrice.
+
+There was a profound silence; broken by the stifled merriment of a
+servant behind the chairs, who transformed it hastily into a cough. Sir
+James glanced across in great distress at his son; but Chris' eyes
+twinkled at him.
+
+Lady Torridon was silent a moment, completely taken aback by the
+suddenness with which the battle had broken, and amazed by the girl's
+audacity. She herself was accustomed to use brutality, but not to meet
+it. She laid her spoon carefully down.
+
+"Ah!" she said, "and you believe that? And for those who hold wrong
+opinions, I suppose you would believe the same?"
+
+"If they were wrong enough," said Beatrice, "and through their fault.
+Surely we are taught to believe that, Mistress Torridon?"
+
+The elder woman said nothing at all, and went on with her soup. Her
+silence was almost more formidable than her speech, and she knew that,
+and contrived to make it offensive. Beatrice paid no sort of attention
+to it, however; and without looking at her again began to talk
+cheerfully to Sir James about her journey from town. Margaret watched
+her, fascinated; her sedate beautiful face, her lace and jewels, her
+white fingers, long and straight, that seemed to endorse the impression
+of strength that her carriage and manner of speaking suggested; as one
+might watch a swordsman between the rounds of a duel and calculate his
+chances. She knew very well that her mother would not take her first
+repulse easily; and waited in anxiety for the next clash of swords.
+
+Beatrice seemed perfectly fearless, and was talking about the King with
+complete freedom, and yet with a certain discretion too.
+
+"He will have his way," she said. "Who can doubt that?"
+
+Lady Torridon saw an opening for a wound, and leapt at it.
+
+"As he had with Master More," she put in.
+
+Beatrice turned her head a little, but made no answer; and there was not
+the shadow of wincing on her steady face.
+
+"As he had with Master More," said Lady Torridon a little louder.
+
+"We must remember that he has my Lord Cromwell to help him," observed
+Beatrice tranquilly.
+
+Lady Torridon looked at her again. Even now she could scarcely believe
+that this stranger could treat her with such a supreme indifference. And
+there was a further sting, too, in the girl's answer, for all there
+understood the reference to Ralph; and yet again it was impossible to
+take offence.
+
+Margaret looked at her father, half-frightened, and saw again a look of
+anxiety in his eyes; he was crumbling his bread nervously as he answered
+Beatrice.
+
+"My Lord Cromwell--" he began.
+
+"My Lord Cromwell has my son Ralph under him," interrupted his wife.
+"Perhaps you did not know that, Mistress Atherton."
+
+Margaret again looked quickly up; but there was still no sign of wincing
+on those scarlet lips, or beneath the black eyebrows.
+
+"Why, of course, I knew it," said Beatrice, looking straight at her with
+large, innocent eyes, "that was why--"
+
+She stopped; and Lady Torridon really roused now, made a false step.
+
+"Yes?" she said. "You did not end your sentence?"
+
+Beatrice cast an ironically despairing look behind her at the servants.
+
+"Well," she said, "if you will have it: that was why I would not marry
+him. Did you not know that, Mistress?"
+
+It was so daring that Margaret caught her breath suddenly; and looked
+hopelessly round. Her father and brother had their eyes steadily bent on
+the table; and the priest was looking oddly at the quiet angry woman
+opposite him.
+
+Then Sir James slid deftly in, after a sufficient pause to let the
+lesson sink home; and began to talk of indifferent things; and Beatrice
+answered him with the same ease.
+
+Lady Torridon made one more attempt just before the end of supper, when
+the servants had left the room.
+
+"You are living on--" she corrected herself ostentatiously--"you are
+living with any other family now, Mistress Atherton? I remember my son
+Ralph telling me you were almost one of Master More's household."
+
+Beatrice met her eyes with a delightful smile.
+
+"I am living on--with your family at this time, Mistress Torridon."
+
+There was no more to be said just then. The girl had not only turned her
+hostess' point, but had pricked her shrewdly in riposte, three times;
+and the last was the sharpest of all.
+
+Lady Torridon led the way to the oak parlour in silence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She made no more assaults that night; but sat in dignified aloofness,
+her hands on her lap, with an air of being unconscious of the presence
+of the others. Beatrice sat with Margaret on the long oak settle; and
+talked genially to the company at large.
+
+When compline had been said, Sir James drew Chris aside into the
+star-lit court as the others went on in front.
+
+"Dear lad," he said, "what are we to do? This cannot go on. Your
+mother--"
+
+Chris smiled at him, and took his arm a moment.
+
+"Why, father," he said, "what more do we want? Mistress Atherton can
+hold her own."
+
+"But your mother will insult her."
+
+"She will not be able," said Chris. "Mistress Atherton will not have it.
+Did you not see how she enjoyed it?"
+
+"Enjoyed it?"
+
+"Why, yes; her eyes shone."
+
+"Well, I must speak to her," said Sir James, still perplexed. "Come with
+me, Chris."
+
+Mr. Carleton was just leaving the parlour as they came up to its
+outside door. Sir James drew him into the yard. There were no secrets
+between these two.
+
+"Father," he said, "did you notice? Do you think Mistress Atherton will
+be able to stay here?"
+
+He saw to his astonishment that the priest's melancholy face, as the
+starlight fell on it, was smiling.
+
+"Why, yes, Sir James. She is happy enough."
+
+"But my wife--"
+
+"Sir James, I think Mistress Atherton may do her good. She--" he
+hesitated.
+
+"Well?" said the old man.
+
+"She--Lady Torridon has met her match," said the chaplain, still
+smiling.
+
+Sir James made a little gesture of bewilderment.
+
+"Well, come in, Chris. I do not understand; but if you both think so--"
+
+He broke off and opened the door.
+
+Lady Torridon was gone to her room; and the two girls were alone.
+Beatrice was standing before the hearth with her hands behind her
+back--a gallant upright figure; as they came in, she turned a cheerful
+face to them.
+
+"Your daughter has been apologising, Sir James," she said; and there was
+a ripple of amusement in her voice. "She thinks I have been hardly
+treated."
+
+She glanced at the bewildered Margaret, who was staring at her under her
+delicate eyebrows with wide eyes of amazement and admiration.
+
+Sir James looked confused.
+
+"The truth is, Mistress Atherton, that I too--and my son--"
+
+"Well, not your son," said Chris smiling.
+
+"You too!" cried Beatrice. "And how have I been hardly treated?"
+
+"Well, I thought perhaps, that what was said at supper--" began the old
+man, beginning to smile too.
+
+"Lady Torridon, and every one, has been all that is hospitable," said
+Beatrice. "It is like old days at Chelsea. I love word-fencing; and
+there are so few who practise it."
+
+Sir James was still a little perplexed.
+
+"You assure me, Mistress, that you are not distressed by--by anything
+that has passed?"
+
+"Distressed!" she cried. "Why, it is a real happiness!"
+
+But he was not yet satisfied.
+
+"You will engage to tell me then, if you think you are improperly
+treated by--by anyone--?"
+
+"Why, yes," said the girl, smiling into his eyes. "But there is no need
+to promise that. I am really happy; and I am sure your daughter and I
+will be good friends."
+
+She turned a little towards Margaret; and Chris saw a curious emotion of
+awe and astonishment and affection in his sister's eyes.
+
+"Come, my dear," said Beatrice. "You said you would take me to my room."
+
+Sir James hastened to push open the further door that led to the stairs;
+and the two girls passed out together.
+
+Then he shut the door, and turned to his son. Chris had begun to laugh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A PEACE-MAKER
+
+
+It was a very strange household that Christmas at Overfield. Mary and
+her husband came over with their child, and the entire party, with the
+exception of the duellists themselves, settled down to watch the
+conflict between Lady Torridon and Beatrice Atherton. Its prolongation
+was possible because for days together the hostess retired into a
+fortress of silence, whence she looked out cynically, shrugged her
+shoulders, smiled almost imperceptibly, and only sallied when she found
+she could not provoke an attack. Beatrice never made an assault; was
+always ready for the least hint of peace; but guarded deftly and struck
+hard when she was directly threatened. Neither would she ever take an
+insult; the bitterest dart fell innocuous on her bright shield before
+she struck back smiling; but there were some sharp moments of anxiety
+now and again as she hesitated how to guard.
+
+A silence would fall suddenly in the midst of the talk and clatter at
+table; there would be a momentary kindling of glances, as from the tall
+chair opposite the chaplain a psychological atmosphere of peril made
+itself felt; then the blow would be delivered; the weapons clashed; and
+once more the talk rose high and genial over the battlefield.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The moment when Beatrice's position in the house came nearest to being
+untenable, was one morning in January, when the whole party were
+assembled on the steps to see the sportsmen off for the day.
+
+Sir James was down with the foresters and hounds at the further end of
+the terrace, arranging the details of the day; Margaret had not yet come
+out of chapel, and Lady Torridon, who had had a long fit of silence, was
+standing with Mary and Nicholas at the head of the central stairs that
+led down from the terrace to the gravel.
+
+Christopher and Beatrice came out of the house behind, talking
+cheerfully; for the two had become great friends since they had learnt
+to understand one another, and Beatrice had confessed to him frankly
+that she had been wrong and he right in the matter of Ralph. She had
+told him this a couple of days after her arrival; but there had been a
+certain constraint in her manner that forbade his saying much in answer.
+Here they came then, now, in the frosty sunshine; he in his habit and
+she in her morning house-dress of silk and lace, talking briskly.
+
+"I was sure you would understand, father," she said, as they came up
+behind the group.
+
+Then Lady Torridon turned and delivered her point, suddenly and
+brutally.
+
+"Of course he will," she said. "I suppose then you are not going out,
+Mistress Atherton." And she glanced with an offensive contempt at the
+girl and the monk. Beatrice's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, and
+opened again.
+
+"Why, no, Lady Torridon."
+
+"I thought not," said the other; and again she glanced at the two--"for
+I see the priest is not."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Nick was looking at his wife with a face
+of dismay. Then Beatrice answered smiling.
+
+"Neither are you, dear Lady Torridon. Is not that enough to keep me?"
+
+A short yelp of laughter broke from Nicholas; and he stooped to examine
+his boot.
+
+Lady Torridon opened her lips, closed them again, and turned her back on
+the girl.
+
+"But you are cruel," said Beatrice's voice from behind, "and--"
+
+The woman turned once more venomously.
+
+"You do not want me," she said. "You have taken one son of mine, and now
+you would take the other. Is not my daughter enough?"
+
+Beatrice instantly stepped up, and put her hand on the other's arm.
+
+"Dear Mistress," she said; and her voice broke into tenderness; "she is
+not enough--"
+
+Lady Torridon jerked her arm away.
+
+"Come, Mary," she said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Matters were a little better after that. Sir James was not told of the
+incident; because his son knew very well that he would not allow
+Beatrice to stay another day after the insult; but Chris felt himself
+bound to consult those who had heard what had passed as to whether
+indeed it was possible for her to remain. Nicholas grew crimson with
+indignation and vowed it was impossible. Mary hesitated; and Chris
+himself was doubtful. He went at last to Beatrice that same evening; and
+found her alone in the oak parlour, before supper. The sportsmen had not
+yet come back; and the other ladies were upstairs.
+
+Beatrice affected to treat it as nothing; and it was not till Chris
+threatened to tell his father, that she told him all she thought.
+
+"I must seem a vain fool to say so;" she said, leaning back in her
+chair, and looking up at him, "and perhaps insolent too; yet I must say
+it. It is this: I believe that Lady Torridon--Ah! how can I say it?"
+
+"Tell me," said Chris steadily, looking away from her.
+
+Beatrice shifted a little in her seat; and then stood up.
+
+"Well, it is this. I do not believe your mother is so--so--is what she
+sometimes seems. I think she is very sore and angry; there are a hundred
+reasons. I think no one has--has faced her before. She has been obeyed
+too much. And--and I think that if I stay I may be able--I may be some
+good," she ended lamely.
+
+Chris nodded.
+
+"I understand," he said softly.
+
+"Give me another week or two," said Beatrice, "I will do my best."
+
+"You have worked a miracle with Meg," said Chris. "I believe you can
+work another. I will not tell my father; and the others shall not
+either."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A wonderful change had indeed come to Margaret during the last month.
+Her whole soul, so cramped now by circumstances, had gone out in
+adoration towards this stranger. Chris found it almost piteous to watch
+her--her shy looks, the shiver that went over her, when the brilliant
+figure rustled into the room, or the brisk sentences were delivered from
+those smiling lips. He would see too how their hands met as they sat
+together; how Margaret would sit distracted and hungering for attention,
+eyeing the ceiling, the carpet, her embroidery; and how her eyes would
+leap to meet a glance, and her face flush up, as Beatrice throw her a
+soft word or look.
+
+And it was the right love, too, to the monk's eyes; not a rival flame,
+but fuel for divine ardour. Margaret spent longer, not shorter, time at
+her prayers; was more, not less, devout at mass and communion; and her
+whole sore soul became sensitive and alive again. The winter had passed
+for her; the time of the singing-birds was come.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was fascinated by the other's gallant brilliance. Religion for the
+nun had up to the present appeared a delicate thing that grew in the
+shadow or in the warm shelter of the cloister; now it blossomed out in
+Beatrice as a hardy bright plant that tossed its leaves in the wind and
+exulted in sun and cold. Yet it had its evening tendernesses too, its
+subtle fragrance when the breeze fell, its sweet colours and
+outlines--Beatrice too could pray; and Margaret's spiritual instinct, as
+she knelt by her at the altar-rail or glanced at the other's face as she
+came down fresh with absolution from the chair in the sanctuary where
+the chaplain sat, detected a glow of faith at least as warm as her own.
+
+She was astonished too at her friend's gaiety; for she had expected, so
+far as her knowledge of human souls led to expect anything, a quiet
+convalescent spirit, recovering but slowly from the tragedy through
+which Margaret knew she had passed. It seemed to her at first as if
+Beatrice must be almost heartless, so little did she flinch when Lady
+Torridon darted Ralph's name at her, or Master More's, or flicked her
+suddenly where the wound ought to be; and it was not until the guest had
+been a month in the house that the nun understood.
+
+They were together one evening in Margaret's own white little room above
+the oak parlour. Beatrice was sitting before the fire with her arms
+clasped behind her head, waiting till the other had finished her office,
+and looking round pleased in her heart, at the walls that told their
+tale so plainly. It was almost exactly like a cell. A low oak bed,
+red-blanketted, stood under the sloping roof, a prie-dieu beside it, and
+a cheap little French image of St. Scholastica over it. There was a
+table, with a sheet of white paper, a little ink-horn and two quills
+primly side by side upon it; and at the back stood a couple of small
+bound volumes in which the nun was accumulating little by little private
+devotions that appealed to her. A pair of beads hung on a nail by the
+window over which was drawn an old red curtain; two brass candlesticks
+with a cross between them stood over the hearth, giving it a faint
+resemblance to an altar. The boards were bare except for a strip of
+matting by the bed; and the whole room, walls, floor, ceiling and
+furniture were speckless and precise.
+
+Margaret made the sign of the cross, closed her book, and smiled at
+Beatrice.
+
+"You dear child!" she answered.
+
+Margaret's face shone with pleasure; and she put out her hand softly to
+the other's knee, and laid it there.
+
+"Talk to me," said the nun.
+
+"Well?" said Beatrice.
+
+"Tell me about your life in London. You never have yet, you know."
+
+An odd look passed over the other's face, and she dropped her eyes and
+laid her hands together in her lap.
+
+"Oh, Meg," she said, "I should love to tell you if I could. What would
+you like to hear?"
+
+The nun looked at her wondering.
+
+"Why--everything," she said.
+
+"Shall I tell you of Chelsea and Master More?"
+
+Margaret nodded, still looking at her; and Beatrice began.
+
+It was an extraordinary experience for the nun to sit there and hear
+that wonderful tale poured out. Beatrice for the first time threw open
+her defences--those protections of the sensitive inner life that she had
+raised by sheer will--and showed her heart. She told her first of her
+life in the country before she had known anything of the world; of her
+father's friendship with More when she was still a child, and of his
+death when she was about sixteen. She had had money of her own, and had
+come up to live with Mrs. More's sisters; and so had gradually slipped
+into intimacy at Chelsea. Then she described the life there--the ordered
+beauty of it all--and the marvellous soul that was its centre and sun.
+She told her of More's humour, his unfailing gaiety, his sweet cynicism
+that shot through his talk, his tender affections, and above all--for
+she knew this would most interest the nun--his deep and resolute
+devotion to God. She described how he had at one time lived at the
+Charterhouse, and had seemed to regret, before the end of his life, that
+he had not become a Carthusian; she told her of the precious parcel that
+had been sent from the Tower to Chelsea the day before his death, and
+how she had helped Margaret Roper to unfasten it and disclose the
+hair-shirt that he had worn secretly for years, and which now he had
+sent back for fear that it should be seen by unfriendly eyes or praised
+by flattering tongues.
+
+Her face grew inexpressibly soft and loving as she talked; more than
+once her black eyes filled with tears, and her voice faltered; and the
+nun sat almost terrified at the emotion she had called up. It was hardly
+possible that this tender feminine creature who talked so softly of
+divine and human things and of the strange ardent lawyer in whom both
+were so manifest, could be the same stately lady of downstairs who
+fenced so gallantly, who never winced at a wound and trod so bravely
+over sharp perilous ground.
+
+"They killed him," said Beatrice. "King Henry killed him; for that he
+could not bear an honest, kindly, holy soul so near his own. And we are
+left to weep for him, of whom--of whom the world was not worthy."
+
+Margaret felt her hand caught and caressed; and the two sat in silence a
+moment.
+
+"But--but--" began the nun softly, bewildered by this revelation.
+
+"Yes, my dear; you did not know--how should you?--what a wound I carry
+here--what a wound we all carry who knew him."
+
+Again there was a short silence. Margaret was searching for some word of
+comfort.
+
+"But you did what you could for him, did you not? And--and even Ralph, I
+think I heard--"
+
+Beatrice turned and looked at her steadily. Margaret read in her face
+something she could not understand.
+
+"Yes--Ralph?" said Beatrice questioningly.
+
+"You told father so, did you not? He did what he could for Master More?"
+
+Beatrice laid her other hand too over Margaret's.
+
+"My dear; I do not know. I cannot speak of that."
+
+"But you said--"
+
+"Margaret, my pet; you would not hurt me, would you? I do not think I
+can bear to speak of that."
+
+The nun gripped the other's two hands passionately, and laid her cheek
+against them.
+
+"Beatrice, I did not know--I forgot."
+
+Beatrice stooped and kissed her gently.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The nun loved her tenfold more after that. It had been before a kind of
+passionate admiration, such as a subject might feel for a splendid
+queen; but the queen had taken this timid soul in through the
+palace-gates now, into a little inner chamber intimate and apart, and
+had sat with her there and shown her everything, her broken toys, her
+failures; and more than all her own broken heart. And as, after that
+evening, Margaret watched Beatrice again in public, heard her retorts
+and marked her bearing, she knew that she knew something that the others
+did not; she had the joy of sharing a secret of pain. But there was one
+wound that Beatrice did not show her; that secret was reserved for one
+who had more claim to it, and could understand. The nun could not have
+interpreted it rightly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mary and Nicholas went back to Great Keynes at the end of January; and
+Beatrice was out on the terrace with the others to see them go. Jim, the
+little seven-year-old boy, had fallen in love with her, ever since he
+had found that she treated him like a man, with deference and courtesy,
+and did not talk about him in his presence and over his head. He was
+walking with her now, a little apart, as the horses came round, and
+explaining to her how it was that he only rode a pony at present, and
+not a horse.
+
+"My legs would not reach, Mistress Atherton," he said, protruding a
+small leather boot. "It is not because I am afraid, or father either. I
+rode Jess, the other day, but not astride."
+
+"I quite understand," said Beatrice respectfully, without the shadow of
+laughter in her face.
+
+"You see--" began the boy.
+
+Then his mother came up.
+
+"Run, Jim, and hold my horse. Mistress Beatrice, may I have a word with
+you?"
+
+The two turned and walked down to the end of the terrace again.
+
+"It is this," said Mary, looking at the other from under her plumed hat,
+with her skirt gathered up with her whip in her gloved hand. "I wished
+to tell you about my mother. I have not dared till now. I have never
+seen her so stirred in my life, as she is now. I--I think she will do
+anything you wish in time. It is useless to feign that we do not
+understand one another--anything you wish--come back to her Faith
+perhaps; treat my father better. She--she loves you, I think; and yet
+dare not--"
+
+"On Ralph's account," put in Beatrice serenely.
+
+"Yes; how did you know? It is on Ralph's account. She cannot forgive
+that. Can you say anything to her, do you think? Anything to explain?
+You understand--"
+
+"I understand."
+
+"I do not know how I dare say all this," went on Mary blushing
+furiously, "but I must thank you too for what you have done for my
+sister. It is wonderful. I could have done nothing."
+
+"My dear," said Beatrice. "I love your sister. There is no need for
+thanks."
+
+A loud voice hailed them.
+
+"Sweetheart," shouted Sir Nicholas, standing with his legs apart at the
+mounting steps. "The horses are fretted to death."
+
+"You will remember," said Mary hurriedly, as they turned. "And--God
+bless you, Beatrice!"
+
+Lady Torridon was indeed very quiet now. It was strange for the others
+to see the difference. It seemed as if she had been conquered by the one
+weapon that she could wield, which was brutality. As Mr. Carleton had
+said, she had never been faced before; she had been accustomed to regard
+devoutness as incompatible with strong character; she had never been
+resisted. Both her husband and children had thought to conquer by
+yielding; it was easier to do so, and appeared more Christian; and she
+herself, like Ralph, was only provoked further by passivity. And now she
+had met one of the old school, who was as ready in the use of worldly
+weapons as herself; she had been ignored and pricked alternately, and
+with astonishing grace too, by one who was certainly of that tone of
+mind that she had gradually learnt to despise and hate.
+
+Chris saw this before his father; but he saw too that the conquest was
+not yet complete. His mother had been cowed with respect, as a dog that
+is broken in; she had not yet been melted with love. He had spoken to
+Mary the day before the Maxwells' departure, and tried to put this into
+words; and Mary had seen where the opening for love lay, through which
+the work could be done; and the result had been the interview with
+Beatrice, and the mention of Ralph's name. But Mary had not a notion how
+Beatrice could act; she only saw that Ralph was the one chink in her
+mother's armour, and she left it to this girl who had been so adroit up
+to the present, to find how to pierce it.
+
+Sir James had given up trying to understand the situation. He had for so
+long regarded his wife as an irreconcilable that he hoped for nothing
+better than to be able to keep her pacified; anything in the nature of a
+conversion seemed an idle dream. But he had noticed the change in her
+manner, and wondered what it meant; he hoped that the pendulum had not
+swung too far, and that it was not she who was being bullied now by
+this imperious girl from town.
+
+He said a word to Mr. Carleton one day about it, as they walked in the
+garden.
+
+"Father," he said, "I am puzzled. What has come to my wife? Have you not
+noticed how she has not spoken for three days. Do you think she dislikes
+Mistress Atherton. If I thought that--"
+
+"No, sir," said the priest. "I do not think it is that. I think it is
+the other way about. She did dislike her--but not now."
+
+"You do not think, Mistress Atherton is--is a little--discourteous and
+sharp sometimes. I have wondered whether that was so. Chris thinks not,
+however."
+
+"Neither do I, sir. I think--I think it is all very well as it is. I
+hope Mistress Atherton is to stay yet a while."
+
+"She speaks of going in a week or two," said the old man. "She has been
+here six weeks now."
+
+"I hope not," said the priest, "since you have asked my opinion, sir."
+
+Sir James sighed, looked at the other, and then left him, to search for
+his wife and see if she wanted him. He was feeling a little sorry for
+her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A week later the truth began to come out, and Beatrice had the
+opportunity for which she was waiting.
+
+They were all gathered before the hall-fire expecting supper; the
+painted windows had died with the daylight, and the deep tones of the
+woodwork in gallery and floor and walls had crept out from the gloom
+into the dancing flare of the fire and the steady glow of the sconces.
+The weather had broken a day or two before; all the afternoon sheets of
+rain had swept across the fields and gardens, and heavy cheerless
+clouds marched over the sky. The wind was shrilling now against the
+north side of the hall, and one window dripped a little inside on to the
+matting below it. The supper-table shone with silver and crockery, and
+the napkins by each place; and the door from the kitchen was set wide
+for the passage of the servants, one of whom waited discreetly in the
+opening for the coming of the lady of the house. They were all there but
+she; and the minutes went by and she did not come.
+
+Sir James turned enquiringly as the door from the court opened, but it
+was only a wet shivering dog who had nosed it open, and now crept
+deprecatingly towards the blaze.
+
+"You poor beast," said Beatrice, drawing her skirts aside. "Take my
+place," and she stepped away to allow him to come. He looked gratefully
+up, wagged his rat-tail, and lay down comfortably at the edge of the
+tiles.
+
+"My wife is very late," said Sir James. "Chris--"
+
+He stopped as footsteps sounded in the flagged passage leading from the
+living rooms; and the next moment the door was flung open, and a woman
+ran forward with outstretched hands.
+
+"O! mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" she cried. "My lady is ill. Come, sir, come!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE ELDER SON
+
+
+Ralph had prospered exceedingly since his return from the Sussex
+Visitation. He had been sent on mission after mission by Cromwell, who
+had learnt at last how wholly he could be trusted; and with each success
+his reputation increased. It seemed to Cromwell that his man was more
+whole-hearted than he had been at first; and when he was told abruptly
+by Ralph that his relations with Mistress Atherton had come to an end,
+the politician was not slow to connect cause and effect. He had always
+regretted the friendship; it seemed to him that his servant's character
+was sure to be weakened by his alliance with a friend of Master More;
+and though he had said nothing--for Ralph's manner did not encourage
+questions--he had secretly congratulated both himself and his agent for
+so happy a termination to an unfortunate incident.
+
+For the meantime Ralph's fortunes rose with his master's; Lord Cromwell
+now reigned in England next after the King in both Church and State. He
+held a number of offices, each of which would have been sufficient for
+an ordinary man, but all of which did not overtax his amazing energy. He
+stood absolutely alone, with all the power in his hands; President of
+the Star Chamber, Foreign Minister, Home-Minister, and the Vicar-General
+of the Church; feared by Churchmen, distrusted by statesmen and nobles;
+and hated by all except his own few personal friends--an unique figure
+that had grown to gigantic stature through sheer effort and adroitness.
+
+And beneath his formidable shadow Ralph was waxing great. He had failed
+to get Lewes for himself, for Cromwell designed it for Gregory his son;
+but he was offered his choice among several other great houses. For the
+present he hesitated to choose; uncertain of his future. If his father
+died there would be Overfield waiting for him, so he did not wish to tie
+himself to one of the far-away Yorkshire houses; if his father lived, he
+did not wish to be too near him. There was no hurry, said Cromwell;
+there would be houses and to spare for the King's faithful servants; and
+meantime it would be better for Mr. Torridon to remain in Westminster,
+and lay his foundations of prosperity deeper and wider yet before
+building. The title too that Cromwell dangled before him sometimes--that
+too could wait until he had chosen his place of abode.
+
+Ralph felt that he was being magnificently treated by his master; and
+his gratitude and admiration grew side by side with his rising fortune.
+There was no niggardliness, now that Cromwell had learnt to trust in
+him; he could draw as much money as he wished for the payment of his
+under-agents, or for any other purpose; and no questions were asked.
+
+The little house at Westminster grew rich in treasures; his bed-coverlet
+was the very cope he had taken from Rusper; his table was heavy with
+chalices beaten into secular shape; his fire-screen was a Spanish
+chasuble taken in the North. His servants were no longer three or four
+sleeping in the house; there was a brigade of them, some that attended
+for orders morning by morning, some that skirmished for him in the
+country and returned rich in documents and hearsay; and a dozen waited
+on his personal wants.
+
+He dealt too with great folks. Half a dozen abbots had been to see him
+in the last year or two, stately prelates that treated him as an equal
+and pleaded for his intercession; the great nobles, enemies of his
+master and himself, eyed him with respectful suspicion as he walked with
+Cromwell in Westminster Hall. The King had pulled his ears and praised
+him; Ralph had stayed at Greenwich a week at a time when the execution
+of the Benedictine abbots was under discussion; he had ridden down
+Cheapside with Henry on his right and Cromwell beyond, between the
+shouting crowds and beneath the wild tossing of gold-cloth and tapestry
+and the windy pealing of a hundred brazen bells. He had gone up with
+Norfolk to Doncaster, a mouth through which the King might promise and
+threaten, and had strode up the steps beside the Duke to make an end of
+the insurgent-leaders of the northern rebellion.
+
+He did not lack a goad, beside that of his own ambition, to drive him
+through this desperate stir; he found a sufficient one in his memory. He
+did not think much of his own family, except with sharp contempt. He did
+not even trouble to make any special report about Chris or Margaret; but
+it was impossible to remember Beatrice with contempt. When she had left
+him kneeling at his table, she had left something besides--the sting of
+her words, and the bitter coldness of her eyes.
+
+As he looked back he did not know whether he loathed her or loved her;
+he only knew that she affected him profoundly. Again and again as he
+dealt brutally with some timid culprit, or stood with his hand on his
+hip to direct the destruction of a shrine, the memory whipped him on his
+raw soul. He would show her whether he were a man or no; whether he
+depended on her or no; whether her woman's tongue could turn him or no.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was exercised now with very different matters. Religious affairs for
+the present had fallen into a secondary place, and home and foreign
+politics absorbed most of Cromwell's energies and time. Forces were
+gathering once more against England, and the Catholic powers were coming
+to an understanding with one another against the country that had thrown
+off allegiance to the Pope and the Empire. There was an opportunity,
+however, for Henry's propensity to marriage once more to play a part in
+politics; he had been three years without a wife; and Cromwell had
+hastened for the third time to avail himself of the King's passions as
+an instrument in politics. He had understood that a union between
+England and the Lutheran princes would cause a formidable obstacle to
+Catholic machinations; and with this in view had excited Henry by a
+description and a picture of the Lady Anne, daughter of the Duke of
+Cleves and sister-in-law of the Elector of Saxony. He had been perfectly
+successful in the first stages; the stout duchess had landed at Deal at
+the end of December; and the marriage had been solemnised a few days
+later. But unpleasant rumour had been busy ever since; it was whispered
+far and wide that the King loathed his wife, and complained that he had
+been deceived as to her charms; and Ralph, who was more behind the
+scenes than most men, knew that the rumour was only too true. He had
+been present at an abominable incident the day after the marriage had
+taken place, when the King had stormed and raved about the council-room,
+crying out that he had been deceived, and adding many gross details for
+the benefit of his friends.
+
+Cromwell had been strangely moody ever since. Ralph had watched his
+heavy face day after day staring vacantly across the room, and his hand
+that held the pen dig and prick at the paper beneath it.
+
+Even that was not all. The Anglo-German alliance had provoked opposition
+on the continent instead of quelling it; and Ralph saw more than one
+threatening piece of news from abroad that hinted at a probable invasion
+of England should Cromwell's schemes take effect. These too, however,
+had proved deceptive, and the Lutheran princes whom he had desired to
+conciliate were even already beginning to draw back from the
+consequences of their action.
+
+Ralph was in Cromwell's room one day towards the end of January, when a
+courier arrived with despatches from an agent who had been following the
+Spanish Emperor's pacific progress through France, undertaken as a kind
+of demonstration against England.
+
+Cromwell tore open the papers, and glanced at them, running his quick
+attentive eye over this page and that; and Ralph saw his face grow stern
+and white. He tossed the papers on to the table, and nodded to the
+courier to leave the room.
+
+Then he took up a pen, examined it; dashed it point down against the
+table; gnawed his nails a moment, and then caught Ralph's eye.
+
+"We are failing," he said abruptly. "Mr. Torridon, if you are a rat you
+had better run."
+
+"I shall not run, sir," said Ralph.
+
+"God's Body!" said his master, "we shall all run together, I think;--but
+not yet."
+
+Then he took up the papers again, and began to read.
+
+It was a few days later that Ralph received the news of his mother's
+illness.
+
+She had written to him occasionally, telling him of his father's
+tiresome ways, his brother's arrogance, his sister's feeble piety, and
+finally she had told him of Beatrice's arrival.
+
+"I consented very gladly," she had written, "for I thought to teach my
+lady a lesson or two; but I find her very pert and obstinate. I do not
+understand, my dear son, how you could have wished to make her your
+wife; and yet I will grant that she has a taking way with her; she seems
+to fear nothing but her own superstitions and folly, but I am very happy
+to think that all is over between you. She never loved you, my Ralph;
+for she cares nothing when I speak your name, as I have done two or
+three times; nor yet Master More either. I think she has no heart."
+
+Ralph had wondered a little as he read this, at his mother's curious
+interest in the girl; and he wondered too at the report of Beatrice's
+callousness. It was her damned pride, he assured himself.
+
+Then, one evening as he arrived home from Hackney where he had slept the
+previous night; he found a messenger waiting for him. The letter had not
+been sent on to him, as he had not left word where he was going.
+
+It contained a single line from his father.
+
+"Your mother is ill. Come at once. She wishes for you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in the stormy blackness of a February midnight that he rode up
+through the lighted gatehouse to his home. Above the terrace as he came
+up the road the tall hall-window glimmered faintly like a gigantic
+luminous door hung in space; and the lower window of his father's room
+shone and faded as the fire leapt within.
+
+A figure rose up suddenly from before the hall-fire as he came in,
+bringing with him a fierce gust of wet wind through the opened door; and
+when he had slipped off his dripping cloak into his servant's hands, he
+saw that his father was there two yards away, very stern and white, with
+outstretched hands.
+
+"My son," said the old man, "you are too late. She died two hours ago."
+
+It was a fierce shock, and for a moment he stood dazed, blinking at the
+light, holding his father's warm slender hands in his own, and trying to
+assimilate the news. He had been driven inwards, and his obstinacy
+weakened, during that long ride from town through the stormy sunset into
+the black, howling night; memories had reasserted themselves on the
+strength of his anxiety; and the past year or two slipped from him, and
+left him again the eldest son of the house and of his two parents.
+
+Then as he looked into the pale bearded face before him, and the eyes
+which had looked into his own a few months ago with such passionate
+anger, he remembered all that was between them, dropped the hands and
+went forward to the fire.
+
+His father followed him and stood by him there as he spread his fingers
+to the blaze, and told him the details, in short detached sentences.
+
+She had been seized with pain and vomiting on the previous night at
+supper time; the doctor had been sent for, and had declared the illness
+to be an internal inflammation. She had grown steadily worse on the
+following day, with periods of unconsciousness; she had asked for Ralph
+an hour after she had been taken ill; the pain had seemed to become
+fiercer as the hours went on; she had died at ten o'clock that night.
+
+Ralph stood there and listened, his head pressed against the high
+mantelpiece, and his fingers stretching and closing mechanically to
+supple the stiffened joints.
+
+"Mistress Atherton was with her all the while," said his father; "she
+asked for her."
+
+Ralph shot a glance sideways, and down again.
+
+"And--" he began.
+
+"Yes; she was shriven and anointed, thank God; she could not receive
+Viaticum."
+
+Ralph did not know whether he was glad or sorry at that news. It was a
+proper proceeding at any rate; as proper as the candles and the shroud
+and the funeral rites. As regards grief, he did not feel it yet; but he
+was aware of a profound sensation in his soul, as of a bruise.
+
+There was silence for a moment or two; then the wind bellowed suddenly
+in the chimney, the tall window gave a crack of sound, and the smoke
+eddied out into the room. Ralph turned round.
+
+"They are with her still," said Sir James; "we can go up presently."
+
+The other shook his head abruptly.
+
+"No," he said, "I will wait until to-morrow. Which is my room?"
+
+"Your old room," said his father. "I have had a truckle-bed set there
+for your man. Will you find your way? I must stay here for Mistress
+Atherton."
+
+Ralph nodded sharply, and went out, down the hill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was half an hour more before Beatrice appeared; and then Sir James
+looked up from his chair at the sound of a footstep and saw her coming
+up the matted floor. Her face was steady and resolute, but there were
+dark patches under her eyes, for she had not slept for two nights.
+
+Sir James stood up, and held out his hands.
+
+"Ralph has come," he said. "He is gone to his room. Where are the
+others?"
+
+"The priests are at prayers and Meg too," she said, "It is all ready,
+sir. You may go up when you please."
+
+"I must say a word first," said Sir James. "Sit down, Mistress
+Atherton."
+
+He drew forward his chair for her; and himself stood up on the hearth,
+leaning his head on his hand and looking down into the fire.
+
+"It is this," he said: "May our Lord reward you for what you have done
+for us."
+
+Beatrice was silent.
+
+"You know she asked my pardon," he said, "when we were left alone
+together. You do not know what that means. And she gave me her
+forgiveness for all my folly--"
+
+Beatrice drew a sharp breath in spite of herself.
+
+"We have both sinned," he went on; "we did not understand one another;
+and I feared we should part so. That we have not, we have to thank
+you--"
+
+His old voice broke suddenly; and Beatrice heard him draw a long sobbing
+breath. She knew she ought to speak, but her brain was bewildered with
+the want of sleep and the long struggle; she could not think of a word
+to say; she felt herself on the verge of hysteria.
+
+"You have done it all," he said again presently. "She took all that Mr.
+Carleton said patiently enough, he told me. It is all your work.
+Mistress Atherton--"
+
+She looked up questioningly with her bright tired eyes.
+
+"Mistress Atherton; may I know what you said to her?"
+
+Beatrice made a great effort and recovered her self-control.
+
+"I answered her questions," she said.
+
+"Questions? Did she ask you of the Faith? Did she speak of me? Am I
+asking too much?"
+
+Beatrice shook her head. For a moment again she could not speak.
+
+"I am asking what I should not," said the old man.
+
+"No, no," cried the girl, "you have a right to know. Wait, I will tell
+you--"
+
+Again she broke off, and felt her own breath begin to sob in her throat.
+She buried her face in her hands a moment.
+
+"God forgive me," said the other. "I--"
+
+"It was about your son Ralph," said Beatrice bravely, though her lips
+shook.
+
+"She--she asked whether I had ever loved him at all--and--"
+
+"Mistress Beatrice, Mistress Beatrice, I entreat you not to say more."
+
+"And I told her--yes; and, yes--still."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MUMMERS
+
+
+It was a strange meeting for Beatrice and Ralph the next morning. She
+saw him first from the gallery in chapel at mass, kneeling by his
+father, motionless and upright, and watched him go down the aisle when
+it was over. She waited a few minutes longer, quieting herself,
+marshalling her forces, running her attention over each movement or word
+that might prove unruly in his presence; and then she got up from her
+knees and went down.
+
+It had been an intolerable pain to tell the dying woman that she loved
+her son; it tore open the wound again, for she had never yet spoken that
+secret aloud to any living soul, not even to her own. When the question
+came, as she knew it would, she had not hesitated an instant as to the
+answer, and yet the answer had materialised what had been impalpable
+before.
+
+As she had looked down from the gallery this morning she knew that she
+hated, in theory, every detail of his outlook on life; he was brutal,
+insincere; he had lied to her; he was living on the fruits of sacrilege;
+he had outraged every human tie he possessed; and yet she loved every
+hair of his dark head, every movement of his strong hands. It was that
+that had broken down the mother's reserve; she had been beaten by the
+girl's insolence, as a dog is beaten into respect; she had only one
+thing that she had not been able to forgive, and that was that this
+girl had tossed aside her son's love; then the question had been asked
+and answered; and the work had been done. The dying woman had
+surrendered wholly to the superior personality; and had obeyed like a
+child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She had a sense of terrible guilt as she went downstairs into the
+passage that opened on the court; the fact that she had put into words
+what had lain in her heart, made her fancy that the secret was written
+on her face. Then again she drove the imagination down by sheer will;
+she knew that she had won back her self-control, and could trust her own
+discretion.
+
+Their greeting was that of two acquaintances. There was not the tremor
+of an eyelid of either, or a note in either voice, that betrayed that
+their relations had once been different. Ralph thanked her courteously
+for her attention to his mother; and she made a proper reply. Then they
+all sat down to breakfast.
+
+Then Margaret had to be attended to, for she was half-wild with remorse;
+she declared to Beatrice when they went upstairs together that she had
+been a wicked daughter, that she had resented her mother's words again
+and again, had behaved insolently, and so forth. Beatrice took her in
+her arms.
+
+"My dear," she said, "indeed you must leave all that now. Come and see
+her; she is at peace, and you must be."
+
+The bedroom where Lady Torridon had died was arranged as a _chapelle
+ardente;_ the great bed had been moved out into the centre of the room.
+Six tall candlesticks with escutcheons and yellow tapers formed a
+slender mystical wall of fire and light about it; the windows were
+draped; a couple of kneeling desks were set at the foot of the bed.
+Chris was kneeling at one beside his father as they went in, and Mary
+Maxwell, who had arrived a few hours before death had taken place, was
+by herself in a corner.
+
+Beatrice drew Margaret to the second desk, pushed the book to her, and
+knelt by her. There lay the body of the strange, fierce, lonely woman,
+with her beautiful hands crossed, pale as wax, with a crucifix between
+them; and those great black eyebrows beyond, below which lay the double
+reverse curve of the lashes. It seemed as if she was watching them both,
+as her manner had been in life, with a tranquil cynicism.
+
+And was she at peace, thought Beatrice, as she had told her daughter
+just now? Was it possible to believe that that stormy, vicious spirit
+had been quieted so suddenly? And yet that would be no greater miracle
+than that which death had wrought to the body. If the one was so still,
+why not the other? At least she had asked pardon of her husband for
+those years of alienation; she had demanded the sacraments of the
+Church!
+
+Beatrice bowed her head, and prayed for the departed soul.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was disturbed by the soft opening of a door, and lifted her eyes to
+see Ralph stand a moment by the head of the bed, before he sank on his
+knees. She could watch every detail of his face in the candlelight; his
+thin tight lips, his heavy eyebrows so like his mother's, his curved
+nostrils, the clean sharp line of his jaw.
+
+She found herself analysing his processes of thought. His mother had
+been the one member of his family with whom he had had sympathy; they
+understood one another, these two bitter souls, as no one else did,
+except perhaps Beatrice herself. How aloof they had stood from all
+ordinary affections; how keen must have been their dual loneliness! And
+what did this snapped thread mean to him now? To what, in his opinion,
+did the broken end lead that had passed out from the visible world to
+the invisible? Did he think that all was over, and that the one soul
+that had understood his own had passed like a candle flame into the
+dark? And she too--was she crying for her son, a thin soundless sobbing
+in the world beyond sight? Above all, did he understand how alone he was
+now--how utterly, eternally alone, unless he turned his course?
+
+A great well of pity broke up and surged in her heart, flooding her eyes
+with tears, as she looked at the living son and the dead mother; and she
+dropped her head on her hands again, and prayed for his soul as well as
+for hers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a very strange atmosphere in the house during the day or two that
+passed before the funeral. The household met at meals and in the parlour
+and chapel, but seldom at other times. Ralph was almost invisible; and
+silent when he appeared. There were no explanations on either side; he
+behaved with a kind of distant courtesy to the others, answered their
+questions, volunteered a word or two sometimes; made himself useful in
+small ways as regarded giving orders to the servants, inspecting the
+funeral standard and scutcheons, and making one or two arrangements
+which fell to him naturally; and went out by himself on horseback or on
+foot during the afternoon. His contempt seemed to have fallen from him;
+he was as courteous to Chris as to the others; but no word was spoken on
+either side as regarded either the past and the great gulf that
+separated him from the others, or the future relations between him and
+his home.
+
+The funeral took place three days after death, on the Saturday morning;
+a requiem was sung in the presence of the body in the parish church; and
+Beatrice sat with the mourners in the Torridon chapel behind the black
+hearse set with lights, before the open vault in the centre of the
+pavement. Ralph sat two places beyond her, with Sir James between; and
+she was again vividly conscious of his presence, of his movements as he
+knelt and sat; and again she wondered what all the solemn ceremonies
+meant to him, the yellow candles, the black vestments, the mysterious
+hallowing of the body with incense and water--counteracting, as it were,
+with fragrance and brightness, the corruption and darkness of the grave.
+
+She walked back with Margaret, who clung to her now, almost desperately,
+finding in her sane serenity an antidote to her own remorse; and as she
+walked through the garden and across the moat, with Nicholas and Mary
+coming behind, she watched the three men going in front, Sir James in
+the middle, the monk on his left, and the slow-stepping Ralph on his
+right, and marvelled at the grim acting.
+
+There they went, the father and his two sons, side by side in courteous
+silence--she noticed Ralph step forward to lift the latch of the
+garden-gate for the others to pass through--and between them lay an
+impassable gulf; she found herself wondering whether the other gulf that
+they had looked into half an hour before were so deep or wide.
+
+She was out again with Sir James alone in the evening before supper, and
+learnt from him then that Ralph was to stay till Monday.
+
+"He has not spoken to me of returning again," said the old man, "Of
+course it is impossible. Do you not think so, Mistress Atherton."
+
+"It is impossible," she said. "What good would be served?"
+
+"What good?" repeated the other.
+
+The evening was falling swiftly, layer on layer of twilight, as they
+turned to come back to the house. The steeple of the church rose up on
+their left, slender and ghostly against the yellow sky, out of the black
+yews and cypresses that lay banked below it. They stopped and looked at
+it a moment, as it aspired to heaven from the bones that lay about its
+base, like an eternal resurrection wrought in stone. There all about it
+were the mortal and the dead; the stones and iron slabs leaned, as they
+knew, in hundreds about the grass; and round them again stood the roofs,
+beginning now to kindle under the eaves, where the living slept and ate.
+There was a rumbling of heavy carts somewhere beyond the village, a
+crack or two of a whip, the barking of a dog.
+
+Then they turned again and went up to the house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the chaplain who was late this evening for supper. The others
+waited a few minutes by the fire, but there was no sign of him. A
+servant was sent up to his room and came back to report that he had
+changed his cassock and gone out; a boy had come from the parish-priest,
+said the man, ten minutes before, and Mr. Carleton had probably been
+sent for.
+
+They waited yet five minutes, but the priest did not appear, and they
+sat down. Supper was nearly over before before he came. He came in by
+the side-door from the court, splashed with mud, and looking pale and
+concerned. He went straight up to Sir James.
+
+"May I speak with you, sir?" he said.
+
+The old man got up at once, and went down the hall with him.
+
+The rest waited, expecting them to return, but there was no sign of
+them; and Ralph at last rose and led the way to the oak-parlour. As they
+passed the door of Sir James's room they heard the sound of voices
+within.
+
+Conversation was a very difficult matter that evening. Ralph had behaved
+with considerable grace and tact, but Nicholas had not responded. Ever
+since his arrival on the day before the funeral he had eyed Ralph like a
+strange dog intruded into a house; Mary had hovered round her husband,
+watchful and anxious, stepping hastily into gaps in the conversation,
+sliding in a sentence or two as Nicholas licked his lips in preparation
+for a snarl; once even putting her hand swiftly on his and drowning a
+growl with a word of her own. Ralph had been wonderfully
+self-controlled; only once had Beatrice seen him show his teeth for a
+moment as his brother-in-law had scowled more plainly than usual.
+
+The atmosphere was charged to-night, now that the master of the house
+was away; and as Ralph took his seat in his father's chair, Beatrice had
+caught her breath for a moment as she saw the look on Nicholas's face.
+It seemed as if the funeral had lifted a stone that had hitherto held
+the two angry spirits down; Nicholas, after all, was but a son-in-law,
+and Ralph, to his view at least, a bad son. She feared that both might
+think that a quarrel did not outrage decency; but she feared for
+Nicholas more than for Ralph.
+
+Ralph appeared not to notice the other's scowl, and leaned easily back,
+his head against the carved heraldry, and rapped his fingers softly and
+rhythmically on the bosses of the arms.
+
+Then she heard Nicholas draw a slow venomous breath; and the talk died
+on Mary's lips. Beatrice stood up abruptly, in desperation; she did not
+know what to say; but the movement checked Nicholas, and he glanced at
+her a moment. Then Mary recovered herself, put her hand sharply on her
+husband's, and slid out an indifferent sentence. Beatrice saw Ralph's
+eyes move swiftly and sideways and down again, and a tiny wrinkle of a
+smile show itself at the corners of his mouth. But that danger was
+passed; and a minute later they heard the door of Sir James's room
+opposite open, and the footsteps of the two men come out.
+
+Ralph stood up at once as his father came in, followed by the priest,
+and stepped back to the window-seat; there was the faintest hint in the
+slight motion of his hands to the effect that he had held his post as
+the eldest son until the rightful owner came. But the consciousness of
+it in Beatrice's mind was swept away as she looked at the old man,
+standing with a white stern face and his hands clenched at his sides.
+She could see that something impended, and stood up quickly.
+
+"Mr. Carleton has brought shocking news," he said abruptly; and his eyes
+wandered to his eldest son standing in the shadow of the curtain. "A
+company of mummers has arrived in the village--they--they are to give
+their piece to-morrow."
+
+There was a dead silence for a moment, for all knew what this meant.
+
+Nicholas sprang to his feet.
+
+"By God, they shall not!" he said.
+
+Sir James lifted his hand sharply.
+
+"We cannot hinder it," he said. "The priests have done what they can.
+The fellow tells them--" he paused, and again his eyes wandered to
+Ralph--"the fellow tells them he is under the protection of my Lord
+Cromwell."
+
+There was a swift rustle in the room. Nicholas faced sharply round to
+the window-seat, his hands clenched and his face quivering. Ralph did
+not move.
+
+"Tell them, father," said Sir James.
+
+The chaplain gave his account. He had been sent for by the parish priest
+just before supper, and had gone with him to the barn that had been
+hired for the performance. The carts had arrived that evening from
+Maidstone; and were being unpacked. He had seen the properties; they
+were of the usual kind--all the paraphernalia for the parody of the Mass
+that was usually given by such actors. He had seen the vestments, the
+friar's habit, the red-nosed mask, the woman's costume and wig--all the
+regular articles. The manager had tried to protest against the priests'
+entrance; had denied at first that any insult was intended to the
+Catholic Religion; and had finally taken refuge in defiance; he had
+flung out the properties before their eyes; had declared that no one
+could hinder him from doing as he pleased, since the Archbishop had not
+protested; and Lord Cromwell had given him his express sanction.
+
+"We did all we were able," said the priest. "Master Rector said he would
+put all the parishioners who came, under the ban of the Church; the
+fellow snapped his fingers in his face. I told them of Sir James's
+wishes; the death of my Lady--it was of no avail. We can do nothing."
+
+The priest's sallow face was flushed with fury as he spoke; and his lips
+trembled piteously with horror and pain. It was the first time that the
+mummers had been near Overfield; they had heard tales of them from other
+parts of the country, but had hoped that their own village would escape
+the corruption. And now it had come.
+
+He stood shaking, as he ended his account.
+
+"Mr. Carleton says it would be of no avail for me to go down myself. I
+wished to. We can do nothing."
+
+Again he glanced at Ralph, who had sat down silently in the shadow while
+the priest talked.
+
+Nicholas could be restrained no longer. He shook off his wife's hand and
+took a step across the room.
+
+"And you--you sit there, you devil!" he shouted.
+
+Sir James was with him in a moment, so swiftly that Beatrice did not see
+him move. Margaret was clinging to her now, whispering and sobbing.
+
+"Nick," snapped out the old man, "hold your tongue, sir. Sit down."
+
+"God's Blood!" bellowed the squire. "You bid me sit down."
+
+Sir James gripped him so fiercely that he stepped back.
+
+"I bid you sit down," he said. "Ralph, will you help us?"
+
+Ralph stood up instantly. He had not stirred a muscle as Nick shouted at
+him.
+
+"I waited for that, sir," he said. "What is it you would have me do?"
+
+Beatrice saw that his face was quite quiet as he spoke; his eyelids
+drooped a little; and his mouth was tight and firm. He seemed not to be
+aware of Nicholas's presence.
+
+"To hinder the play-acting," said his father.
+
+There fell a dead silence again.
+
+"I will do it, sir," said his son. "It--it is but decent."
+
+And in the moment of profound astonishment that fell, he came straight
+across the room, passed by them all without turning his head, and went
+out.
+
+Beatrice felt a fierce emotion grip her throat as she looked after him,
+and saw the door close. Then Margaret seized her again, and she turned
+to quiet her.
+
+She was aware that Sir James had gone out after his son, after a moment
+of silence, and she heard his footsteps pass along the flags outside.
+
+"Oh! God bless him!" sobbed Margaret.
+
+Sir James came back immediately, shook his head, went across the room,
+and sat down in the seat that Ralph had left. A dreadful stillness fell.
+Margaret was quiet now. Mary was sitting with her husband on the other
+side of the hearth. Chris rose presently and sat down by his father, but
+no one spoke a word.
+
+Then Nicholas got up uneasily, came across the room, and stood with his
+back to the hearth warming himself. Beatrice saw him glance now and
+again to the shadowed window-seat where the two men sat; he hummed a
+note or two to himself softly; then turned round and stared at the fire
+with outstretched hands.
+
+The bell rang for prayers, and still without a word being spoken they
+all got up and went out.
+
+In the same silence they came back. Ralph's servant was standing by the
+door as they entered.
+
+"If you please, sir, Mr. Ralph is come in. He bade me tell you that all
+is arranged."
+
+The old man looked at him, swallowed once in his throat; and at last
+spoke.
+
+"It is arranged, you say? It will not take place?"
+
+"It will not take place, sir."
+
+"Where is Mr. Ralph?"
+
+"He is gone to his room, sir. He bade me tell you he would be leaving
+early for London."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A CATASTROPHE
+
+
+Ralph rode away early next morning, yet not so early as to escape an
+interview with his father. They met in the hall, Sir James in his loose
+morning gown and Ralph booted and spurred with his short cloak and tight
+cap. The old man took him by the sleeve, drawing him to the fire that
+burned day and night in winter.
+
+"Ralph--Ralph, my son," he said, "I must thank you for last night."
+
+"You have to thank yourself only, sir, and my mother. I could do no
+otherwise."
+
+"It is you--" began his father.
+
+"It is certainly not Nick, sir. The hot fool nearly provoked me."
+
+"But you hate such mummery yourself, my son?"
+
+Ralph hesitated.
+
+"It is not seemly--" began his father again.
+
+"It is certainly not seemly; but neither are the common folk seemly."
+
+"Did you have much business with them, my son?" Ralph smiled in the
+firelight.
+
+"Why, no, sir. I told them who I was. I charged myself with the burden."
+
+"And you will not be in trouble with my Lord?"
+
+"My Lord has other matters to think of than a parcel of mummers."
+
+Then they separated; and Ralph rode down the drive with his servants
+behind him. Neither father nor son had said a word of any return.
+Neither had Ralph had one private word with Beatrice during his three
+days' stay. Once he had come into the parlour to find her going out at
+the other door; and he had wondered whether she had heard his step and
+gone out on purpose. But he knew very well that under the superficial
+courtesy between him and her there lay something deeper--some passionate
+emotion vibrated like a beam between them; but he did not know, even on
+his side and still less on hers, whether that emotion were one of love
+or loathing. It was partly from the discomfort of the charged
+atmosphere, partly from a shrinking from thanks and explanations that he
+had determined to go up to London a day earlier than he had intended; he
+had a hatred of personal elaborateness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He found Cromwell, on his arrival in London, a little less moody than he
+had been in the previous week; for he was busy with preparations for the
+Parliament that was to meet in April; and to the occupation that this
+gave him there was added a good deal of business connected with Henry's
+negotiations with the Emperor. The dispute, that at present centred
+round the treatment of Englishmen in Spain, and other similar matters,
+in reality ran its roots far deeper; and there were a hundred details
+which occupied the minister. But there was still a hint of storm in the
+air; Cromwell spoke brusquely once or twice without cause, and Ralph
+refrained from saying anything about the affair at Overfield, but took
+up his own work again quietly.
+
+A fortnight later, however, he heard of it once more.
+
+He was sitting at a second table in Cromwell's own room in the Rolls
+House, when one of the secretaries came up with a bundle of reports, and
+laid them as usual before Ralph.
+
+Ralph finished the letter he was engaged on--one to Dr. Barnes who had
+preached a Protestant sermon at Paul's Cross, and who now challenged
+Bishop Gardiner to a public disputation. Ralph was telling him to keep
+his pugnacity to himself; and when he had done took up the reports and
+ran his eyes over them.
+
+They were of the usual nature--complaints, informations, protests,
+appeals from men of every rank of life; agents, farm-labourers, priests,
+ex-Religious, fanatics--and he read them quickly through, docketing
+their contents at the head of each that his master might be saved
+trouble.
+
+At one, however, he stopped, glanced momentarily at Cromwell, and then
+read on.
+
+It was an illiterate letter, ill-spelt and smudged, and consisted of a
+complaint from a man who signed himself Robert Benham, against "Mr.
+Ralph Torridon, as he named himself," for hindering the performance of a
+piece entitled "The Jolly Friar" in the parish of Overfield, on Sunday,
+February the first. Mr. Torridon, the writer stated, had used my Lord
+Cromwell's name and authority in stopping the play; expenses had been
+incurred in connection with it, for a barn had been hired, and the
+transport of the properties had cost money; and Mr. Benham desired to
+know whether these expenses would be made good to him, and if Mr.
+Torridon had acted in accordance with my Lord's wishes.
+
+Ralph bit his pen in some perplexity, when he had finished making out
+the document. He wondered whether he had better show it to Cromwell; it
+might irritate him or not, according to his mood. If it was destroyed
+surely no harm would be done; and yet Ralph had a disinclination to
+destroy it. He sat a moment or two longer considering; once he took the
+paper by the corners to tear it; then laid it down again; glanced once
+more at the heavy intent face a couple of yards away, and then by a
+sudden impulse took up his pen and wrote a line on the corner explaining
+the purport of the paper, initialled it, and laid it with the rest.
+
+Cromwell was so busy during the rest of the day that there was no
+opportunity to explain the circumstances to him; indeed he was hardly in
+the room again, so great was the crowd that waited on him continually
+for interviews, and Ralph went away, leaving the reports for his chief
+to examine at his leisure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning there was a storm.
+
+Cromwell burst out on him as soon as he came in.
+
+"Shut the door, Mr. Torridon," he snapped. "I must have a word with
+you."
+
+Ralph closed the door and came across to Cromwell's table and stood
+there, apparently imperturbable, but with a certain quickening of his
+pulse.
+
+"What is this, sir?" snarled the other, taking up the letter that was
+laid at his hand. "Is it true?"
+
+Ralph looked at him coolly.
+
+"What is it, my Lord? Mr. Robert Benham?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Robert Benham. Is it true? I wish an answer."
+
+"Certainly, my Lord. It is true."
+
+"You hindered this piece being played? And you used my name?"
+
+"I told them who I was--yes."
+
+Cromwell slapped the paper down.
+
+"Well, that is to use my name, is it not, Mr. Torridon?"
+
+"I suppose it is."
+
+"You suppose it is! And tell me, if you please, why you hindered it."
+
+"I hindered it because it was not decent. My mother had been buried
+that day. My father asked me to do so."
+
+"Not decent! When the mummers have my authority!
+
+"If your Lordship does not understand the indecency, I cannot explain
+it."
+
+Ralph was growing angry now. It was not often that Cromwell treated him
+like a naughty boy; and he was beginning to resent it.
+
+The other stared at him under black brows.
+
+"You are insolent, sir."
+
+Ralph bowed.
+
+"See here," said Cromwell, "my men must have no master but me. They must
+leave houses and brethren and sisters for my sake. You should understand
+that by now; and that I repay them a hundredfold. You have been long
+enough in my service to know it. I have said enough. You can sit down,
+Mr. Torridon."
+
+Ralph went to his seat in a storm of fury. He felt he was supremely in
+the right--in the right in stopping the play, and still more so for not
+destroying the complaint when it was in his hands. He had been scolded
+like a school-child, insulted and shouted down. His hand shook as he
+took up his pen, and he kept his back resolutely turned to his master.
+Once he was obliged to ask him a question, and he did so with an icy
+aloofness. Cromwell answered him curtly, but not unkindly, and he went
+to his seat again still angry.
+
+When dinner-time came near, he rose, bowed slightly to Cromwell and went
+towards the door. As his fingers touched the handle he heard his name
+called; and turned round to see the other looking at him oddly.
+
+"Mr. Torridon--you will dine with me?"
+
+"I regret I cannot, my Lord," said Ralph; and went out of the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were no explanations or apologies on either side when they met
+again; but in a few days their behaviour to one another was as usual.
+Yet underneath the smooth surface Ralph's heart rankled and pricked with
+resentment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the meeting of Parliament in April, the business in Cromwell's hands
+grew more and more heavy and distracting.
+
+Ralph went with him to Westminster, and heard him deliver his eloquent
+little speech on the discord that prevailed in England, and the King's
+determination to restore peace and concord.
+
+"On the Word of God," cried the statesman, speaking with extraordinary
+fervour, his eyes kindling as he looked round the silent crowded
+benches, and his left hand playing with his chain, "On the Word of God
+His Highness' princely mind is fixed; on this Word he depends for his
+sole support; and with all his might his Majesty will labour that error
+shall be taken away, and true doctrines be taught to his people,
+modelled by the rule of the Gospel."
+
+Three days later when Ralph came into his master's room, Cromwell looked
+up at him with a strange animation in his dark eyes.
+
+"Good-day, sir," he said; "I have news that I hope will please you. His
+Grace intends to confer on me one more mark of his favour. I am to be
+Earl of Essex."
+
+It was startling news. Ralph had supposed that the minister was not
+standing so high with the King as formerly, since the unfortunate
+incident of the Cleves marriage. He congratulated him warmly.
+
+"It is a happy omen," said the other. "Let us pray that it be a
+constellation and not a single star. There are others of my friends, Mr.
+Torridon, who have claim to His Highness' gratitude."
+
+He looked at him smiling; and Ralph felt his heart quicken once more, as
+it always did, at the hint of an honour for himself.
+
+The business of Parliament went on; and several important bills became
+law. A land-act was followed by one that withdrew from most of the towns
+of England the protection of a sanctuary in the case of certain
+specified crimes; the navy was dealt with; and then in spite of the
+promises of the previous years a heavy money-bill was passed. Finally
+five more Catholics, four priests and a woman, were attainted for high
+treason on various charges.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ralph was not altogether happy as May drew on. There began to be signs
+that his master's policy with regard to the Cleves alliance was losing
+ground in the councils of the State; but Cromwell himself seemed to
+acquiesce, so it appeared as if his own mind was beginning to change.
+There was a letter to Pate, the ambassador to the Emperor, that Ralph
+had to copy one day, and he gathered from it that conciliation was to be
+used towards Charles in place of the old defiance.
+
+But he did not see much of Parliament affairs this month.
+
+Cromwell had told him to sort a large quantity of private papers that
+had gradually accumulated in Ralph's own house at Westminster; for that
+he desired the removal of most of them to his own keeping.
+
+They were an enormous mass of documents, dealing with every sort and
+kind of the huge affairs that had passed through Cromwell's hands for
+the last five years. They concerned hundreds of persons, living and
+dead--statesmen, nobles, the foreign Courts, priests, Religious,
+farmers, tradesmen--there was scarcely a class that was not represented
+there.
+
+Ralph sat hour after hour in his chair with locked doors, sorting,
+docketting, and destroying; and amazed by this startling object-lesson
+of the vast work in which he had had a hand. There were secrets there
+that would burst like a bomb if they were made public--intrigues,
+bribes, threats, revelations; and little by little a bundle of the most
+important documents accumulated on the table before him. The rest lay in
+heaps on the floor.
+
+Those that he had set aside beneath his own eye were a miscellaneous set
+as regarded their contents; the only unity between them lay in the fact
+that they were especially perilous to Cromwell. Ralph felt as if he were
+handling gunpowder as he took them up one by one or added to the heap.
+
+The new coronet that my Lord of Essex had lately put upon his head would
+not be there another day, if these were made public. There would not be
+left even a head to put it upon. Ralph knew that a great minister like
+his master was bound to have a finger in very curious affairs; but he
+had not recognised how exceptional these were, nor how many, until he
+had the bundle of papers before him. There were cases in which persons
+accused and even convicted of high treason had been set at liberty on
+Cromwell's sole authority without reference to the King; there were
+commissions issued in his name under similar conditions; there were
+papers containing drafts, in Cromwell's own hand of statements of
+doctrine declared heretical by the Six Articles, and of which copies had
+been distributed through the country at his express order; there were
+copies of letters to country-sheriffs ordering the release of convicted
+heretics and the imprisonment of their accusers; there were evidences of
+enormous bribes received by him for the perversion of justice.
+
+Ralph finished his task one June evening, and sat dazed with work and
+excitement, his fingers soiled with ink, his tired eyes staring at the
+neat bundle before him.
+
+The Privy Council, he knew, was sitting that afternoon. Even at this
+moment, probably, my Lord of Essex was laying down the law, speaking in
+the King's name, silencing his opponents by sheer force of will, but
+with the Royal power behind him. And here lay the papers.
+
+He imagined to himself with a fanciful recklessness what would happen if
+he made his way into the Council-room, and laid them on the table. It
+would be just the end of all things for his master. There would be no
+more bullying and denouncing then on that side; it would be a matter of
+a fight for life.
+
+The memory of his own grudge, only five months old, rose before his
+mind; and his tired brain grew hot and cloudy with resentment. He took
+up the bundle in his hand and wielded it a moment, as a man might test a
+sword. Here was a headsman's axe, ground and sharp.
+
+Then he was ashamed; set the bundle down again, leaned back in his chair
+and stretched his arms, yawning.
+
+What a glorious evening it was! He must go out and take the air for a
+little by the river; he would walk down towards Chelsea.
+
+He rose up from his chair and went to the window, threw it open and
+leaned out. His house stood back a little from the street; and there was
+a space of cobbled ground between his front-door and the uneven stones
+of the thoroughfare. Opposite rose up one of the tall Westminster
+houses, pushing forward in its upper stories, with a hundred diamond
+panes bright in the slanting sunshine that poured down the street from
+the west. Overhead rose up the fantastic stately chimneys, against the
+brilliant evening sky, and to right and left the street passed out of
+sight in a haze of sunlight.
+
+It was a very quiet evening; the men had not yet begun to stream
+homewards from their occupations; and the women were busy within. A
+chorus of birds sounded somewhere overhead; but there was not a living
+creature to be seen except a dog asleep in the sunshine at the corner of
+the gravel.
+
+It was delicious to lean out here, away from the fire that burned hot
+and red in the grate under its black mass of papers that had been
+destroyed,--out in the light and air. Ralph determined that he would let
+the fire die now; it would not be needed again.
+
+He must go out, he told himself, and not linger here. He could lock up
+the papers for the present in readiness for their transport next day;
+and he wondered vaguely whether his hat and cane were in the
+entrance-hall below.
+
+He straightened himself, and turned away from the window, noticing as he
+did so the dog at the corner of the street sit up with cocked ears. He
+hesitated and turned back.
+
+There was a sound of furious running coming up the street. He would just
+see who the madman was who ran like this on a hot evening, and then go
+out himself.
+
+As he leaned again the pulsating steps came nearer; they were coming
+from the left, the direction of the Palace.
+
+A moment later a figure burst into sight, crimson-faced and hatless,
+with arms gathered to the sides and head thrown back; it appeared to be
+a gentleman by the dress--but why should he run like that? He dashed
+across the opening and disappeared.
+
+Ralph was interested. He waited a minute longer; but the footsteps had
+ceased; and he was just turning once more from the window, when another
+sound made him stand and listen again.
+
+It came from the same direction as before; and at first he could not
+make out what it was. There was a murmur and a pattering.
+
+It came nearer and louder; and he could distinguish once more running
+footsteps. Were they after a thief? he wondered. The murmur and clatter
+grew louder yet; and a second or two later two men burst into sight;
+one, an apprentice with his leather apron flapping as he ran, the other
+a stoutish man like a merchant. They talked and gesticulated as they
+went.
+
+The murmur behind swelled up. There were the voices of many people, men
+and women, talking, screaming, questioning. The dog was on his feet by
+now, looking intently down the street.
+
+Then the first group appeared; half a dozen men walking fast or
+trotting, talking eagerly. Ralph could not hear what they said.
+
+Then a number surged into sight all at once, jostling round a centre,
+and a clamour went up to heaven. The dog trotted up suspiciously as if
+to enquire.
+
+Ralph grew excited; he scarcely knew why. He had seen hundreds of such
+crowds; it might mean anything, from a rise in butter to a declaration
+of war. But there was something fiercely earnest about this mob. Was the
+King ill?
+
+He leaned further from the window and shouted; but no one paid him the
+slightest attention. The crowd shifted up the street, the din growing
+as they went; there was a sound of slammed doors; windows opened
+opposite and heads craned out. Something was shouted up and the heads
+disappeared.
+
+Ralph sprang back from the window, as more and more surged into sight;
+he went to his door, glancing at his papers as he ran across; unlocked
+the door; listened a moment; went on to the landing and shouted for a
+servant.
+
+There was a sound of footsteps and voices below; the men were already
+alert, but no answer came to his call. He shouted again.
+
+"Who is there? Find out what the disturbance means."
+
+There was an answer from one of his men; and the street door opened and
+closed. Again he ran to the window, and saw his man run out without his
+doublet across the court, and seize a woman by the arm.
+
+He waited in passionate expectancy; saw him drop the woman's arm and
+turn to another; and then run swiftly back to the house.
+
+There was something sinister in the man's very movements across that
+little space; he ran desperately, with his head craning forward; once he
+stumbled; once he glanced up at his master; and Ralph caught a sight of
+his face.
+
+Ralph was on the landing as the steps thundered upstairs, and met him at
+the head of the flight.
+
+"Speak man; what is it?"
+
+The servant lifted a face stamped with terror, a couple of feet below
+Ralph's.
+
+"They--they say--"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"They say that the King's archers are about my Lord Essex's house."
+
+Ralph drew a swift breath.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And that my Lord was arrested at the Council to-day."
+
+Ralph turned, and in three steps was in his room again. The key clacked
+in the lock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A QUESTION OF LOYALTY
+
+
+He did not know how long he stood there, with the bundle of papers
+gripped in his two hands; and the thoughts racing through his brain.
+
+The noises in the street outside waned and waxed again, as the news
+swept down the lanes, and recoiled with a wave of excited crowds
+following it. Then again they died to a steady far-off murmur as the mob
+surged and clamoured round the Palace and Abbey a couple of hundred
+yards away.
+
+At last Ralph sat down; still holding the papers. He must clear his
+brain; and how was that possible with the images flashing through it in
+endless and vivid succession? For a while he could not steady himself;
+the shock was bewildering; he could think of nothing but the appalling
+drama. Essex was fallen!
+
+Then little by little the muddy current of thought began to run clear.
+He began to understand what lay before him; and the question that still
+awaited decision.
+
+His first instinct had been to dash the papers on to the fire and grind
+them into the red heart of the wood; but something had checked him. Very
+slowly he began to analyse that instinct.
+
+First, was it not useless? He knew he did not possess one hundredth part
+of the incriminating evidence that was in existence. Of what service
+would it be to his master to destroy that one small bundle?
+
+Next, what would be the result to himself if he did? It was known that
+he was a trusted agent of the minister's; his house would be searched;
+papers would be found; it would be certainly known that he had made away
+with evidence. There would be records of what he had, in the other
+houses. And what then?
+
+On the other hand if he willingly gave up all that was in his
+possession, it would go far to free him from complicity.
+
+Lastly, like a venomous snake lifting its head, his own private
+resentment looked him in the eyes, and there was a new sting added to it
+now. He had lost all, he knew well enough; wealth, honour and position
+had in a moment shrunk to cinders with Cromwell's fall, and for these
+cinders he had lost Beatrice too. He had sacrificed her to his master;
+and his master had failed him. A kind of fury succeeded to his dismay.
+
+Oh, would it not be sweet to add even one more stone to the mass that
+was tottering over the head of that mighty bully, that had promised and
+not performed?
+
+He blinked his eyes, shocked by the horror of the thought, and gripped
+the bundle yet more firmly. The memories of a thousand kindnesses
+received from his master cried at the door of his heart. The sweat
+dropped from his forehead; he lifted a stiff hand to wipe it away, and
+dropped it again into its grip on the papers.
+
+Then he slowly recapitulated to himself the reasons for not destroying
+them. They were overwhelming, convincing! What was there to set against
+them? One slender instinct only, that cried shrill and thin that in
+honour he must burn that damning evidence--burn it--burn it--whether or
+no it would help or hinder, it must be burnt!
+
+Then again he recurred to the other side; told himself that his
+instinct was no more than a ludicrous sentimentality; he must be guided
+by reason, not impulse. Then he glanced at the impulse again. Then the
+two sides rushed together, locked in conflict. He moaned a little, and
+lay back in his chair.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The bright sunlight outside had faded to a mellow evening atmosphere
+before he moved again; and the fire had died to one dull core of
+incandescence.
+
+As he stirred, he became aware that bells were pealing outside; a
+melodious roar filled the air. Somewhere behind the house five brazen
+voices, shouting all together, bellowed the exultation of the city over
+the great minister's fall.
+
+He was weary and stiff as he stood up; but the fever had left his brain;
+and the decision had been made. He relaxed his fingers and laid the
+bundle softly down on the table from which he had snatched it a couple
+of hours before.
+
+They would be here soon, he knew; he wondered they had not come already.
+
+Leaving his papers there, he went out, taking the key with him, and
+locking the door after him. He called up one of his men, telling him he
+would be ready for supper immediately in the parlour downstairs, and
+that any visitors who came for him were to be admitted at once.
+
+Then he passed into his bedroom to wash and change his clothes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half an hour later he came upstairs again.
+
+He had supped alone, listening and watching the window as he ate; but no
+sign had come of any arrival. He had dressed with particular care,
+intending to be found at his ease when the searchers did arrive; there
+must be no sign of panic or anxiety. He had told his man as he rose
+from table, to say to any that came for him that they were expected, and
+to bring them immediately upstairs.
+
+He unlocked the door of his private room, and went in. All was as he had
+left it; the floor between the window and table was white with ordered
+heaps of papers; the bundle on the table itself glimmered where he had
+laid it.
+
+The fire had sunk to a spark. He tenderly lifted off the masses of black
+sheets that crackled as he touched them; it had not occurred to him
+before that these evidences of even a harmless destruction had better be
+removed; and he slid them carefully on to a broad sheet of paper, folded
+it, shaking the ashes together as he did so, and stood a moment,
+wondering where he should hide it.
+
+The room was growing dark now; he put the package down; went to the fire
+and blew it up a little, added some wood, and presently the flames were
+dancing on the broad hearth.
+
+As he stood up again he heard the knocker rap on his street-door. For a
+moment he had an instinct to run to the window and see who was there;
+but he put it aside; there was scarcely time to hide the ashes; and it
+was best too to give no hint of anxiety. He lifted the package of burnt
+papers once more, and stood hesitating; a press would be worse than
+useless as a hiding-place; all such would of course be searched. Then a
+thought struck him; he stood up noiselessly on his chair. The Holbein
+portrait of Cromwell in his furred gown and chain leaned forward from
+the tapestry over the mantelpiece. Ralph set one hand against the wall
+at the side; and then tenderly let the package fall behind the portrait.
+As he did so the painted and living eyes were on a level; it seemed
+strange to him that the faces were so near together at that moment; and
+it struck him with a grim irony that the master should be so protecting
+the servant under these circumstances.
+
+Then he dropped lightly to the ground, and sat quickly in the chair,
+snatching up the bundle of papers from the table as he did so.
+
+The steps were on the landing now; he heard the crack of the balustrade;
+but it seemed they were coming very quietly.
+
+There was a moment's silence; the muscles of his throat contracted
+sharply, then there came the servant's tap; the handle was turned.
+
+Ralph stood up quickly, still holding the papers, as the door opened,
+and Beatrice stepped forward into the room. The door shut noiselessly
+behind her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She stood there, with the firelight playing on her dark loose-sleeved
+mantle, the hood that surrounded her head, her pale face a little
+flushed, and her black steady eyes. Her breath came quickly between her
+parted lips.
+
+Ralph stared at her, dazed by the shock, still gripping the bundle of
+papers. She moved forward a step; and the spell snapped.
+
+"Mistress Beatrice," he said.
+
+"I have come," she said; "what is it? You want me?"
+
+She came round the table, with an air of eager expectancy.
+
+"I--I did not know," said Ralph.
+
+"But you wanted me. What is the matter? I heard you call."
+
+Ralph stared again, bewildered.
+
+"Call?" he said.
+
+"Yes, I heard you. I was in my room at my aunt's house--ah! a couple of
+hours ago. You called me twice. 'Beatrice! Beatrice!' Then--then they
+told me what had happened about my Lord Essex."
+
+"I called you?" repeated Ralph.
+
+"Yes--you called me. Your voice was quite close to me, at my ear; I
+thought you were in the room. Tell me what it is."
+
+She loosened her hold of her mantle as she stood there by the table; and
+it dropped open, showing a sparkle of jewels at her throat. She threw
+back her hood, and it dropped on to her shoulders, leaving visible the
+coiled masses of her black hair set with knots of ribbon.
+
+"I did not call," said Ralph dully. "I do not know what you mean,
+Mistress Atherton."
+
+She made a little impatient gesture.
+
+"Ah! yes," she said, "it is something. Tell me quickly. I suppose it has
+to do with my Lord. What is it?"
+
+"It is nothing," said Ralph again.
+
+They stood looking at one another in silence. Beatrice's eyes ran a
+moment up and down his rich dress, the papers in his hands, then
+wandered to the heaped floor, the table, and returned to the papers in
+his hands.
+
+"You must tell me," she said. "What is that you are holding?"
+
+An angry terror seized Ralph.
+
+"That is my affair, Mistress Atherton. What is your business with me?"
+
+She came a step nearer, and leant her left hand on his table. He could
+see those steady eyes on his face; she looked terribly strong and
+controlled.
+
+"Indeed you must tell me, Mr. Torridon. I am come here to do something.
+I do not know what. What are those papers?"
+
+He turned and dropped them on to the chair behind him.
+
+"I tell you again, I do not know what you mean."
+
+"It is useless," she said. "Have they been to you yet? What do you mean
+to do about my Lord? You know he is in the Tower?"
+
+"I suppose so," said Ralph, "but my counsel is my own."
+
+"Mr. Torridon, let us have an end of this. I know well that you must
+have many secrets against my lord--"
+
+"I tell you that what I know is nothing. I have not a hundredth part of
+his papers."
+
+He felt himself desperate and bewildered, like a man being pushed to the
+edge of a precipice, step by step. But those black eyes held and
+compelled him on. He scarcely knew what he was saying.
+
+"And are these papers all his? What have you been doing with them?"
+
+"My Lord told me to sort them."
+
+The words were drawn out against his own will.
+
+"And those in your hand--on the chair. What are they?"
+
+Ralph made one more violent effort to regain the mastery.
+
+"If you were not a woman, Mistress Atherton, I should tell you you were
+insolent."
+
+Not a ripple troubled those strong eyes.
+
+"Tell me, Mr. Torridon, what are they?"
+
+He stood silent and furious.
+
+"I will tell you what they are," she said; "they are my Lord's secrets.
+Is it not so? And you were about to burn them. Oh! Ralph, is it not so?"
+
+Her voice had a tone of entreaty in it. He dropped his eyes, overcome by
+the passion that streamed from her.
+
+"Is it not so?" she cried again.
+
+"Do you wish me to do so?" he said amazed. His voice seemed not his own;
+it was as if another spoke for him. He had the same sensation of
+powerlessness as once before when she had lashed him with her tongue in
+the room downstairs.
+
+"Wish you?" she cried. "Why, yes; what else?"
+
+He lifted his eyes to hers; the room seemed to have grown darker yet in
+those few minutes. He could only see now a shadowed face looking at him;
+but her bright passionate eyes shone out from it and dominated him.
+
+Again he spoke, in spite of himself.
+
+"I shall not burn them," he said.
+
+"Shall not? shall not?"
+
+"I shall not," he said again.
+
+There was silence. Ralph's soul was struggling desperately within him.
+He put out his hand mechanically and took up the papers once more, as if
+to guard them from this fierce, imperious woman. Beatrice's eyes
+followed the movement; and then rested once more on his face. Then she
+spoke again, with a tense deliberateness that drove every word home,
+piercing and sharp to the very centre of his spirit.
+
+"Listen," she said, "for this is what I came to say. I know what you are
+thinking--I know every thought as if it were my own. You tell yourself
+that it is useless to burn those secrets; that there are ten thousand
+more--enough to cast my lord. I make no answer to that."
+
+"You tell yourself that you can only save yourself by giving them up to
+his enemies. I make no answer to that."
+
+"You tell yourself that it will be known if you destroy them--that you
+will be counted as one of His Highness's enemies. I make no answer to
+that. And I tell you to burn them."
+
+She came a step nearer. There was not a yard between them now; and the
+fire of her words caught and scorched him with their bitterness.
+
+"You have been false to every high and noble thing. You have been false
+to your own conscience--to your father--your brother--your sister--your
+Church--your King and your God. You have been false to love and honour.
+You have been false to yourself. And now Almighty God of His courtesy
+gives you one more opportunity--an opportunity to be true to your
+master. I say nothing of him. God is his judge. You know what that
+verdict will be. And yet I bid you be true to him. He has a thousand
+claims on you. You have served him, though it be but Satan's service;
+yet it is the highest that you know--God help you! He is called
+friendless now. Shall that be wholly true of him? You will be called a
+traitor presently--shall that be wholly true of you? Or shall there be
+one tiny point in which you are not false and treacherous as you have
+been in all other points?"
+
+She stopped again, looking him fiercely in the eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From the street outside there came the sound of footsteps; the ring of
+steel on stone. Ralph heard it, and his eyes rolled round to the window;
+but he did not move.
+
+Beatrice was almost touching him now. He felt the fragrance that hung
+about her envelop him for a moment. Then he felt a touch on the papers;
+and his fingers closed more tightly.
+
+The steps outside grew louder and ceased; and the house suddenly
+reverberated with a thunder of knocking.
+
+Beatrice sprang back.
+
+"Nay, you shall give me them," she said; and stood waiting with
+outstretched hand.
+
+Ralph lifted the papers slowly, stared at them, and at her.
+
+Then he held them out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a moment she had snatched them; and was on her knees by the hearth.
+Ralph watched her, and listened to the steps coming up the stairs. The
+papers were alight now. The girl dashed her fingers among them,
+grinding, tearing, separating the heavy pages.
+
+They were almost gone by now; the thick smoke poured up the chimney; and
+still Beatrice tore and dashed the ashes about.
+
+There was a knocking at the door; and the handle turned. The girl rose
+from her knees and smiled at Ralph as the door opened, and the
+pursuivants stood there in the opening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+TO CHARING
+
+
+Chris had something very like remorse after Ralph had left Overfield,
+and no words of explanation or regret had been spoken on either side. He
+recognised that he had not been blameless at the beginning of their
+estrangement--if, indeed, there ever had been a beginning--for their
+inflamed relations had existed to some extent back into boyhood as far
+as he could remember; but he had been responsible for at least a share
+in the fierce words in Ralph's house after the death of the Carthusians.
+He had been hot-headed, insolent, theatrical; and he had not written to
+acknowledge it. He had missed another opportunity at Lewes--at least
+one--when pride had held him back from speaking, for fear that he should
+be thought to be currying favour. And now this last opportunity, the
+best of all--when Ralph had been accessible and courteous, affected,
+Chris imagined, by the death of his mother--this too had been missed;
+and he had allowed his brother to ride away without a word of regret or
+more than formal affection.
+
+He was troubled at mass, an hour after Ralph had gone; the distraction
+came between him and the sweet solemnity upon which he was engaged. His
+soul was dry and moody. He showed it in his voice. As a younger brother
+in past years; as a monk and a priest now, he knew that the duty of the
+first step to a reconciliation had lain with him; and that he had not
+taken it.
+
+It had been a troubled household altogether when Ralph had gone. There
+was first the shock of Lady Torridon's death, and the hundred regrets
+that it had left behind. Then Beatrice too, who had helped them all so
+much, had told them that she must go back to town--her aunt was alone in
+the little house at Charing, for the friend who had spent Christmas
+there was gone back to the country; and Margaret, consequently, had been
+almost in despair. Lastly Sir James himself had been troubled; wondering
+whether he might not have been warmer with Ralph, more outspoken in his
+gratitude for the affair of the mummers, more ready to welcome an
+explanation from his son. The shadow of Ralph then rested on the
+household, and there was something of pathos in it. He was so much
+detached now, so lonely, and it seemed that he was content it should be
+so.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were pressing matters too to be arranged; and, weightiest of all,
+those relating to Margaret's future. She would now be the only woman
+besides the servants, in the house; and it was growing less and less
+likely that she would be ever able to take up the Religious Life again
+in England. There seemed little reason for her remaining in the country,
+unless indeed she threw aside the Religious habit altogether, and went
+to live at Great Keynes as Mary preferred. Beatrice made an offer to
+receive her in London for a while, but in this case again she would have
+to wear secular dress.
+
+The evening before Beatrice left, the two sat and talked for a couple of
+hours. Margaret was miserable; she cried a little, clung to Beatrice,
+and then was ashamed of herself.
+
+"My dear child," said the other. "It is in your hands. You can do as you
+please."
+
+"But I cannot," sobbed the nun. "I cannot; I do not know. Let me come
+with you, Beatrice."
+
+Beatrice then settled down and talked to her. She told her of her duty
+to her father for the present; she must remember that he was lonely now.
+In any case she must not think of leaving home for another six months.
+In the meantime she had to consider two points. First, did she consider
+herself in conscience bound to Religion? What did the priest tell her?
+If she did so consider herself, then there was no question; she must go
+to Bruges and join the others. Secondly, if not, did she think herself
+justified in leaving her father in the summer? If so, she might either
+go to Great Keynes, or come up for at least a long visit to Charing.
+
+"And what do you think?" asked the girl piteously.
+
+"Do you wish me to tell you!" said Beatrice.
+
+Margaret nodded.
+
+"Then I think you should go to Bruges in July or August."
+
+Margaret stared at her; the tears were very near her eyes again.
+
+"My darling; I should love to have you in London," went on the other
+caressing her. "Of course I should. But I cannot see that King Henry his
+notions make any difference to your vows. They surely stand. Is it not
+so, my dear?"
+
+And so after a little more talk Margaret consented. Her mind had told
+her that all along; it was her heart only that protested against this
+final separation from her friend.
+
+Chris too agreed when she spoke to him a day or two later when Beatrice
+had gone back. He said he had been considering his own case too; and
+that unless something very marked intervened he proposed to follow Dom
+Anthony abroad. They could travel together, he said. Finally, when the
+matter was laid before their father he also consented.
+
+"I shall do very well," he said. "Mary spoke to me of it; and Nicholas
+has asked me to make my home at Great Keynes; so if you go, my son, with
+Meg in the summer, I shall finish matters here, lease out the estate,
+and Mr. Carleton and I shall betake ourselves there. Unless"--he
+said--"unless Ralph should come to another mind."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the spring and early summer drew on, the news, as has been seen, was
+not reassuring.
+
+In spite of the Six Articles of the previous year by which all vows of
+chastity were declared binding before God, there was no hint of making
+it possible for the thousands of Religious in England still compelled by
+them to return to the Life in which such vows were tolerable. The
+Religious were indeed dispensed from obedience and poverty by the civil
+authority; it was possible for them to buy, inherit, and occupy
+property; but a recognition of their corporate life was as far as ever
+away. It was becoming plainer every day that those who wished to pursue
+their vocation must do so in voluntary exile; and letters were already
+being exchanged between the brother and sister at home and the
+representatives of their respective communities on the Continent.
+
+Then suddenly on the eleventh of June there arrived the news of
+Cromwell's fall and of all that it involved to Ralph.
+
+They were at dinner when it came.
+
+There was a door suddenly thrust open at the lower end of the hall; and
+a courier, white with dust and stiff with riding, limped up the matting
+and delivered Beatrice's letter. It was very short.
+
+"Come," she had written. "My Lord of Essex is arrested. He is in the
+Tower. Mr. Ralph, too, is there for refusing to inform against him. He
+has behaved gallantly."
+
+There followed a line from Mistress Jane Atherton, her aunt, offering
+rooms in her own house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A wild confusion fell upon the household. Men ran to and fro, women
+whispered and sobbed in corners under shadow of the King's displeasure
+that lay on the house, the road between the terrace and the stable
+buzzed with messengers, ordering and counter-ordering, for it was not
+certain at first that Margaret would not go. A mounted groom dashed up
+for instructions and was met by Sir James in his riding-cloak on the
+terrace who bade him ride to Great Keynes with the news, and entreat Sir
+Nicholas Maxwell to come up to London and his wife to Overfield; there
+was not time to write. Sir James's own room was in confusion; his
+clothes lay tumbled on the ground and a distraught servant tossed them
+this way and that; Chris was changing his habit upstairs, for it would
+mean disaster to go to town as a monk. Margaret was on her knees in
+chapel, silent and self-controlled, but staring piteously at the
+compassionate figure of the great Mother who looked down on her with Her
+Son in Her arms. The huge dog under the chapel-cloister lifted his head
+and bayed in answer, as frantic figures fled across the court before
+him. And over all lay the hot June sky, and round about the deep
+peaceful woods.
+
+A start was made at three o'clock.
+
+Sir James was already in his saddle, as Chris ran out; an unfamiliar
+figure in his plain priest's cloak and cap and great riding boots
+beneath. A couple of grooms waited behind, and another held the monk's
+horse. Margaret was on the steps, white and steadied by prayer; and the
+chaplain stood behind with a strong look in his eyes as they met those
+of his patron.
+
+"Take care of her, father; take care of her. Her sister will be here
+to-night, please God. Oh! God bless you, my dear! Pray for us all. Jesu
+keep us all! Chris, are you mounted?"
+
+Then they were off; and the white dust rose in clouds about them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was between eight and nine as they rode up the north bank of the
+river from London Bridge to Charing.
+
+It had been a terrible ride, with but few words between the two, and
+long silences that were the worst of all; as, blotting out the rich
+country and the deep woods and the meadows and heathery hills on either
+side of the road through Surrey, visions moved and burned before them,
+such as the King's vengeance had made possible to the imagination. From
+far away across the Southwark fields Chris had seen the huddled
+buildings of the City, the princely spire that marked them, and had
+heard the sweet jangling of the thousand bells that told the Angelus;
+but he had thought of little but of that high gateway under which they
+must soon pass, where the pikes against the sky made palpable the
+horrors of his thought. He had given one swift glance up as he went
+beneath; and then his heart sickened as they went on, past the houses
+and St. Thomas's chapel with gleams of the river seen beneath. Then as
+he looked his breath came sharp; far down there eastwards, seen for a
+moment, rose up the sombre towers where Ralph lay, and the saints had
+suffered.
+
+The old Religious Houses, stretching in a splendid line upwards, from
+the Augustinian priory near the river-bank, along the stream that flowed
+down from Ludgate, caught the last rays of sunlight high against the
+rich sky as the riders went along towards Charing between the
+sedge-brinked tide and the slope of grass on their right; and the monk's
+sorrowful heart was overlaid again with sorrow as he looked at them,
+empty now and desolate where once the praises of God had sounded day and
+night.
+
+They stopped beneath the swinging sign of an inn, with Westminister
+towers blue and magical before them, to ask for Mistress Atherton's
+house, and were directed a little further along and nearer to the
+water's edge.
+
+It was a little old house when they came to it, built on a tiny private
+embankment that jutted out over the flats of the river-bank; of plaster
+and timber with overhanging storeys and windows beneath the roof. It
+stood by itself, east of the village, and almost before the jangle of
+the bell had died away, Beatrice herself was at the door, in her
+house-dress, bare-headed; with a face at once radiant and constrained.
+
+She took them upstairs immediately, after directing the men to take the
+horses, when they had unloaded the luggage, back to the inn where they
+had enquired the way: for there was no stable, she said, attached to the
+house.
+
+Chris came behind his father as if in a dream through the dark little
+hall and up the two flights on to the first landing. Beatrice stopped at
+a door.
+
+"You can say what you will," she said, "before my aunt. She is of our
+mind in these matters."
+
+Then they were in the room; a couple of candles burned on a table before
+the curtained window; and an old lady with a wrinkled kindly face
+hobbled over from her chair and greeted the two travellers.
+
+"I welcome you, gentlemen," she said, "if a sore heart may say so to
+sore hearts."
+
+There was no news of Nicholas, they were told; he had not been heard of.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They heard the story so far as Beatrice knew it; but it was softened for
+their ears. She had found Ralph, she said, hesitating what to do. He had
+been plainly bewildered by the sudden news; they had talked a while; and
+then he had handed her the papers to burn. The magistrate sent by the
+Council had arrived to find the ashes still smoking. He had questioned
+Ralph sharply, for he had come with authority behind him; and Ralph had
+refused to speak beyond telling him that the bundles lying on the floor
+were all the papers of my Lord Essex that were in his possession. They
+had laid hands on these, and then searched the room. A quantity of
+ashes, Beatrice said, had fallen from behind a portrait over the hearth
+when they had shifted it. Then the magistrate had questioned her too,
+enquired where she lived, and let her go. She had waited at the corner
+of the street, and watched the men come out. Ralph walked in the centre
+as a prisoner. She had followed them to the river; had mixed with the
+crowd that gathered there; and had heard the order given to the
+wherryman to pull to the Tower. That was all that she knew.
+
+"Thank God for your son, sir. He bore himself gallantly."
+
+There was a silence as she ended. The old man looked at her wondering
+and dazed. It was so sad, that the news scarcely yet conveyed its
+message.
+
+"And my Lord Essex?" he said.
+
+"My Lord is in the Tower too. He was arrested at the Council by the Duke
+of Norfolk."
+
+The old lady intervened then, and insisted on their going down to
+supper. It would be ready by now, she said, in the parlour downstairs.
+
+They supped, themselves silent, with Beatrice leaning her arms on the
+table, and talking to them in a low voice, telling them all that was
+said. She did not attempt to prophesy smoothly. The feeling against
+Cromwell, she said, passed all belief. The streets had been filled with
+a roaring crowd last night. She had heard them bellowing till long after
+dark. The bells were pealed in the City churches hour after hour, in
+triumph over the minister's fall.
+
+"The dogs!" she said fiercely. "I never thought to say it, but my heart
+goes out to him."
+
+Her spirit was infections. Chris felt a kind of half-joyful recklessness
+tingle in his veins, as he listened to her talk, and watched her black
+eyes hot with indignation and firm with purpose. What if Ralph were
+cast? At least it was for faithfulness--of a kind. Even the father's
+face grew steadier; that piteous trembling of the lower lip ceased, and
+the horror left his eyes. It was hard to remain in panic with that girl
+beside them.
+
+They had scarcely done supper when the bell of the outer door rang
+again, and a moment later Nicholas was with them, flushed with hard
+riding. He strode into the room, blinking at the lights, and tossed his
+riding whip on to the table.
+
+"I have been to the Lieutenant of the Tower," he said; "I know him of
+old. He promises nothing. He tells me that Ralph is well-lodged. Mary is
+gone to Overfield. God damn the King!"
+
+He had no more news to give. He had sent off his wife at once on
+receiving the tidings, and had started half an hour later for London. He
+had been ahead of them all the way, it seemed; but had spent a couple of
+hours first in trying to get admittance to the Tower, and then in
+interviewing the Lieutenant; but there was no satisfaction to be gained
+there. The utmost he had wrung from him was a promise that he would see
+him again, and hear what he had to say.
+
+Then Nicholas had to sup and hear the whole story from the beginning;
+and Chris left his father to tell it, and went up with Beatrice to
+arrange about rooms.
+
+Matters were soon settled with the old lady; Nicholas and Chris were to
+sleep in one room, and Sir James in an another. Two servants only could
+be accommodated in the house; the rest were to put up at the inn.
+Beatrice went off to give the necessary orders.
+
+Mistress Jane Atherton and Chris had a few moments together before the
+others came up.
+
+"A sore heart," said the old lady again, "but a glad one too. Beatrice
+has told me everything."
+
+"I am thankful too," said Chris softly. "I wonder if my father
+understands."
+
+"He will, father, he will. But even if he does not--well, God knows
+all."
+
+It was evident when Sir James came upstairs presently that he did not
+understand anything yet, except that Beatrice thought that Ralph had
+behaved well.
+
+"But it is to my Lord Essex--who has been the worker of all the
+mischief--that my son is faithful. Is that a good thing then?"
+
+"Why, yes," said Chris. "You would not have him faithless there too?"
+
+"But would he not be on God's side at last, if he were against
+Cromwell?"
+
+The old man was still too much bewildered to understand explanations,
+and his son was silent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris could not sleep that night, and long after Nicholas lay deep in
+his pillow, with open mouth and tight eyes, the priest was at the window
+looking out over the river where the moon hung like a silver shield
+above Southwark. The meadows beyond the stream were dim and colourless;
+here and there a roof rose among trees; and straight across the broad
+water to his feet ran a path of heaving glory, where the strong ripple
+tossed the silver surface that streamed down upon it from the moon.
+
+London lay round him as quiet as Overfield, and Chris remembered with a
+stir at his heart his moonlight bathe all those years ago in the lake at
+home, when he had come back hot from hunting and had slipped down with
+the chaplain after supper. Then the water had seemed like a cool restful
+gulf in the world of sensation; the moon had not been risen at first;
+only the stars pricked above and below in air and water. Then the moon
+had come up, and a path of splendour had smitten the surface into sight.
+He had swum up it, he remembered, the silver ripple washing over his
+shoulders as he went.
+
+And now those years of monastic peace and storm had come and gone,
+sifting and penetrating his soul, washing out from it little by little
+the heats and passions with which he had plunged. As he looked back on
+himself he was astonished at his old complacent smallness. His figure
+appeared down that avenue of years, a tiny passionate thing,
+gesticulating, feverish, self-conscious. He remembered his serene
+certainty that he was right and Ralph wrong in every touch of friction
+between them, his own furious and theatrical outburst at the death of
+the Carthusians, his absurd dignity on later occasions. Even in those
+first beginnings of peace when the inner life had begun to well up and
+envelop him he had been narrow and self-centred; he had despised the
+common human life, not understanding that God's Will was as energetic in
+the bewildering rush of the current as in the quiet sheltered
+back-waters to which he himself had been called. He had been awakened
+from that dream by the fall of the Priory, and that to which he opened
+his eyes had been forced into his consciousness by the months at home,
+when he had had that astringent mingling of the world and the spirit, of
+the interpenetration of the inner by the outer. And now for the first
+time he stood as a balanced soul between the two, alight with a tranquil
+grace within, and not afraid to look at the darkness without. He was
+ready now for either life, to go back to the cloister and labour there
+for the world at the springs of energy, or to take his place in the new
+England and struggle at the tossing surface.
+
+He stood here now by the hurrying turbulent stream, a wider and more
+perilous gulf than that that had lain before him as he looked at the
+moonlit lake at Overfield and yet over it brooded the same quiet shield
+of heaven, gilding the black swift flowing forces with the promise of a
+Presence greater than them all.
+
+He stood there long, staring and thinking.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A RELIEF-PARTY
+
+
+The days that followed were very anxious and troubled ones for Ralph's
+friends at Charing. They were dreadful too from their very
+uneventfulness.
+
+On the morning following their arrival Chris went off to the Temple to
+consult a lawyer that the Lieutenant had recommended to Nicholas, and
+brought him back with him an hour later. The first need to be supplied
+was their lack of knowledge as to procedure; and the four men sat
+together until dinner, in the parlour on the first floor looking over
+the sunlit river; and discussed the entire situation.
+
+The lawyer, Mr. Herries, a shrewd-faced Northerner, sat with his back to
+the window, fingering a quill horizontally in his lean brown fingers and
+talking in short sentences, glancing up between them, with patient
+silences as the others talked. He seemed the very incarnation of the
+slow inaction that was so infinitely trying to these anxious souls.
+
+The three laymen did not even know the crime with which Ralph was
+charged, but they soon learnt that the technical phrase for it was
+misprision of treason.
+
+"Mr. Torridon was arrested, I understand," said the lawyer, "by order of
+Council. He would have been arrested in any case. He was known to be
+privy to my Lord Essex's schemes. You inform me that he destroyed
+evidence. That will go against him if they can prove it."
+
+He drew the quill softly through his lips, and then fell to fingering it
+again, as the others stared at him.
+
+"However," went on Mr. Herries, "that is not our affair now. There will
+be time for that. Our question is, when will he be charged, and how? My
+Lord Essex may be tried by a court, or attainted in Parliament. I should
+suppose the latter. Mr. Torridon will be treated in the same way. If it
+be the former, we can do nothing but wait and prepare our case. If it be
+the latter, we must do our utmost to keep his name out of the bill."
+
+He went on to explain his reasons for thinking that a bill of attainder
+would be brought against Cromwell. It was the customary method, he said,
+for dealing with eminent culprits, and its range had been greatly
+extended by Cromwell himself. At this moment three Catholics lay in the
+Tower, attainted through the statesman's own efforts, for their supposed
+share in a conspiracy to deliver up Calais to the invaders who had
+threatened England in the previous year. Feeling, too, ran very high
+against Cromwell; the public would be impatient of a long trial; and a
+bill of attainder would give a readier outlet to the fury against him.
+
+This then was the danger; but they could do nothing, said the lawyer, to
+avert it, until they could get information. He would charge himself with
+that business, and communicate with them as soon as he knew.
+
+"And then?" asked Chris, looking at him desperately, for the cold
+deliberate air of Mr. Herries gave him a terrible sense of the
+passionless process of the law.
+
+"I was about to speak of that," said the lawyer. "If it goes as I think
+it will, and Mr. Torridon's name is suggested for the bill, we must
+approach the most powerful friends we can lay hold on, to use their
+influence against his inclusion. Have you any such, sir?" he added,
+looking at Sir James sharply over the quill.
+
+The old man shook his head.
+
+"I know no one," he said.
+
+The lawyer pursed his lips.
+
+"Then we must do the best we can. We can set aside at once all of my
+Lord Essex's enemies--and--and he has many now. Two names come to my
+mind. Master Ralph Sadler--the comptroller; and my Lord of Canterbury."
+
+"Ah!" cried Chris, dropping his hand, "my Lord of Canterbury! My brother
+has had dealings with him."
+
+Sir James straightened himself in his chair.
+
+"I will ask no favour of that fellow," he said sternly.
+
+The lawyer looked at him with a cocked eyebrow.
+
+"Well, sir," he said, "if you will not you will not. But I cannot
+suggest a better. He is in high favour with his Grace; they say he has
+already said a word for my Lord Essex--not much--much would be too much,
+I think; but still 'twas something. And what of Master Sadler?"
+
+"I know nothing of him," faltered the old man.
+
+There was silence a moment.
+
+"Well, sir," said Mr. Herries, "you can think the matter over. I am for
+my Lord of Canterbury; for the reasons I have named to you. But we can
+wait a few days. We can do nothing until the method of procedure is
+known."
+
+Then he went; promising to let them know as soon as he had information.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rumours began to run swiftly through the City. It was said, though
+untruly at that time, that Cromwell had addressed a letter to the King
+at Henry's own request, explaining his conduct, utterly denying that he
+had said certain rash words attributed to him, and that His Majesty was
+greatly affected by it. There was immense excitement everywhere; a crowd
+assembled daily outside Westminster Hall; groups at every corner of the
+streets discussed the fallen minister's chances; and shouts were raised
+for those who were known to be his enemies, the Duke of Norfolk, Rich,
+and others--as they rode through to the Palace.
+
+Meanwhile Ralph's friends could do little. Nicholas rode down once or
+twice to see the Lieutenant of The Tower, and managed to extract a
+promise that Ralph should hear of their presence in London; but he could
+not get to see him, or hear any news except that he was in good health
+and spirits, and was lodged in a private cell.
+
+Then suddenly one afternoon a small piece of news arrived from Mr.
+Herries to the effect that Cromwell was to be attainted; and anxiety
+became intense as to whether Ralph would be included. Sir James could
+eat nothing at supper, but sat crumbling his bread, while Beatrice
+talked almost feverishly in an attempt to distract him. Finally he rose
+and went out, and the others sat on, eyeing one another, anxious and
+miserable.
+
+In desperation Nicholas began to talk of his visit to the Tower, of the
+Lieutenant's timidity, and his own insistence; and they noticed nothing,
+till the door was flung open, and the old man stood there, his eyes
+bright and his lips trembling with hope. He held a scrap of paper in his
+hand.
+
+"Listen," he cried as the others sprang to their feet.
+
+"A fellow has just come from Mr. Herries with this"--he lifted the paper
+and read,--"Mr. Torridon's name is not in the bill. I will be with you
+to-morrow."
+
+"Thank God!" said Chris.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was another long discussion the following morning. Mr. Herries
+arrived about ten o'clock to certify his news; and the four sat till
+dinner once again, talking and planning. There was not the same
+desperate hurry now; the first danger was passed.
+
+There was only one thing that the lawyer could do, and that was to
+repeat his advice to seek the intercession of the Archbishop. He
+observed again that while Cranmer had the friendship of the fallen
+minister, he had not in any sense been involved in his fall; he was
+still powerful with the King, and of considerable weight with the
+Council in consequence. He was likely therefore to be both able and
+willing to speak on behalf of Cromwell's agent.
+
+"But I would advise nothing to be done until the bill of attainder has
+come before Parliament. We do not know yet how far Mr. Torridon's action
+has affected the evidence. From what you say, gentlemen, and from what I
+have heard elsewhere, I should think that the papers Mr. Torridon
+destroyed are not essential to a conviction. My Lord's papers at his own
+house are sufficient."
+
+But they had some difficulty in persuading Sir James to consent to ask a
+favour of the Archbishop. In his eyes, Cranmer was beyond the pale of
+decency; he had lived with two women, said the old man, whom he called
+his wives, although as a priest he was incapable of marriage; he had
+violated his consecration oath; he had blessed and annulled the frequent
+marriages of the King with equal readiness; he was a heretic confessed
+and open on numberless points of the Catholic Faith.
+
+Mr. Herries pointed out with laborious minuteness that this was beside
+the question altogether. He did not propose that Sir James Torridon
+should go to the Archbishop as to a spiritual superior, but as to one
+who chanced to have great influence;--if he were a murderer it would
+make no difference to his advice.
+
+Chris broke in with troubled eyes.
+
+"Indeed, sir," he said to his father, "you know how I am with you in
+all that you say; and yet I am with Mr. Herries too. I do not
+understand--"
+
+"God help us," cried the old man. "I do not know what to do."
+
+"Will you talk with Mistress Beatrice?" asked Chris.
+
+Sir James nodded.
+
+"I will do that," he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day the bill was passed; and the party in the house at Charing
+sat sick at heart within doors, hearing the crowds roaring down the
+street, singing and shouting in triumph. Every cry tore their hearts;
+for was it not against Ralph's master and friend that they rejoiced? As
+they sat at supper a great battering broke out at the door that looked
+on to the lane; and they sprang up to hear a drunken voice bellowing at
+them to come out and shout for liberty. Nicholas went crimson with
+anger; and he made a movement towards the hall, his hand on his hilt.
+
+"Ah! sit down, Nick," said the monk. "The drunken fool is away again."
+
+And they heard the steps reel on towards Westminster.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not until a fortnight later that they went at last to Lambeth.
+
+Sir James had been hard to persuade; but Beatrice had succeeded at last.
+Nicholas had professed himself ready to ask a favour of the devil
+himself under the circumstances; and Chris himself continued to support
+the lawyer's opinion. He repeated his arguments again and again.
+
+Then it was necessary to make an appointment with the Archbishop; and a
+day was fixed at last. My Lord would see them, wrote a secretary, at
+two o'clock on the afternoon of July the third.
+
+Beatrice sat through that long hot afternoon in the window-seat of the
+upstairs parlour, looking out over the wide river below, conscious
+perhaps for the first time of the vast weight of responsibility that
+rested on her.
+
+She had seen them go off in a wherry, the father and son with Nicholas
+in the stern, and the lawyer facing them on the cross-bench; they had
+been terribly silent as they walked down to the stairs; had stood
+waiting there without a word being spoken but by herself, as the wherry
+made ready; and she had talked hopelessly, desperately, to relieve the
+tension. Then they had gone off. Sir James had looked back at her over
+his shoulder as the boat put out; and she had seen his lips move. She
+had watched them grow smaller and smaller as they went, and then when a
+barge had come between her and them, she had gone home alone to wait for
+their return, and the tidings that they would bring.
+
+And she, in a sense was responsible for it all. If it had not been for
+her visit to Ralph, he would have handed the papers over to the
+authorities; he would be at liberty now, no doubt, as were Cromwell's
+other agents; and, as she thought of it, her tortured heart asked again
+and again whether after all she had done right.
+
+She went over the whole question, as she sat there, looking out over the
+river towards Lambeth, fingering the shutter, glancing now and again at
+the bent old figure of her aunt in her tall chair, and listening to the
+rip of the needle through the silk. Could she have done otherwise? Was
+her interference and advice after all but a piece of mad chivalry,
+unnecessary and unpractical?
+
+And yet she knew that she would do it again, if the same circumstances
+arose. It would be impossible to do otherwise. Reason was against it;
+Mr. Herries had hinted as much with a quick lifting of his bushy
+eyebrows as she had told him the story. It would have made no difference
+to Cromwell--ah! but she had not done it for that; it was for the sake
+of Ralph himself; that he might not lose the one opportunity that came
+to him of making a movement back towards the honour he had forfeited.
+
+But it was no less torture to think of it all, as she sat here. She had
+faced the question before; but now the misery she had watched during
+these last three weeks had driven it home. Day by day she had seen the
+old father's face grow lined and haggard as the suspense gnawed at his
+heart; she had watched him at meals--had seen him sit in bewildered
+grief, striving for self-control and hope--had seen him, as the light
+faded in the parlour upstairs, sink deeper into himself; his eyes hidden
+by his hand, and his grey pointed beard twitching at the trembling of
+his mouth. Once or twice she had met his eyes fixed on hers, in a
+questioning stare, and had known what was in his heart--a simple,
+unreproachful wonder at the strange events that had made her so
+intimately responsible for his son's happiness.
+
+She thought of Margaret too, as she sat there; of the poor girl who had
+so rested on her, believed in her, loved her. There she was now at
+Overfield, living in a nightmare of suspense, watching so eagerly for
+the scanty letters, disappointed every time of the good news for which
+she hoped....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The burden was an intolerable one. Beatrice was scarcely conscious of
+where she sat or for what she waited. She was living over again every
+detail of her relations with Ralph. She remembered how she had seen him
+at first at Chelsea; how he had come out with Master More from the door
+of the New Building and across the grass. She had been twisting a
+grass-ring then as she listened to the talk, and had tossed it on to the
+dog's back. Then, day by day she had met him; he had come at all hours;
+and she had watched him, for she thought she had found a man. She
+remembered how her interest had deepened; how suddenly her heart had
+leapt that evening when she came into the hall and found him sitting in
+the dark. Then, step by step, the friendship had grown till it had
+revealed its radiant face at the bitterness of Chris's words in the
+house at Westminster. Then her life had become magical; all the world
+cried "Ralph" to her; the trumpets she heard sounded to his praise; the
+sunsets had shone for him and her. Then came the news of the Visitors'
+work; and her heart had begun to question her insistently; the questions
+had become affirmation; and in one passionate hour she had gone to him,
+scourged him with her tongue, and left him. She had seen him again once
+or twice in the years that followed; had watched him from a window hung
+with tapestries in Cheapside, as he rode down beside the King; and had
+not dared to ask herself what her heart so longed to tell her. Then had
+come the mother's question; and the falling of the veils.
+
+Then he had called her; she never doubted that; as she sat alone in her
+room one evening. It had come, thin and piteous;--"Beatrice, Beatrice."
+He needed her, and she had gone, and meddled with his life once more.
+
+And he lay in the Tower....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Beatrice, my child."
+
+She turned from the window, her eyes blind with tears; and in a moment
+was kneeling at her aunt's side, her face buried in her lap, and felt
+those kindly old hands passing over her hair. She heard a murmur over
+her head, but scarcely caught a word. There was but one thing she
+needed, and that--
+
+Then she knelt suddenly upright listening, and the caressing hand was
+still.
+
+"Beatrice, my dear, Beatrice."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were footsteps on the stairs outside, eager and urgent. The girl
+rose to her feet, and stood there, swaying a little with a restrained
+expectation.
+
+Then the door was open, and Chris was there, flushed and radiant, with
+the level evening light full on his face.
+
+"It is all well," he cried, "my Lord will take us to the King."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+PLACENTIA
+
+
+The river-front of Greenwich House was a magnificent sight as the four
+men came up to it one morning nearly three weeks later. The long
+two-storied row of brick buildings which Henry had named Placentia, with
+their lines of windows broken by the two clusters of slender towers, and
+porticos beneath, were fronted by broad platforms and a strip of turf
+with steps leading down to the water, and at each of these entrances
+there continually moved brilliant figures, sentries with the sunlight
+flashing on their steel caps and pike-points, servants in the royal
+livery, watermen in their blue and badges.
+
+Here and there at the foot of the steps rocked gaudy barges, a mass of
+gilding and colour, with broad low canopies at the stern, and flags
+drooping at the prow; wherries moved to and fro, like water-beetles,
+shooting across from bank to bank with passengers, above and below the
+palace, or pausing with uplifted oars as the stream swept them down, for
+the visitors to stare and marvel at the great buildings. Behind rose up
+the green masses of trees against the sloping park. And over all lay the
+July sky, solemn flakes of cloud drifting across a field of intense
+blue.
+
+There had been a delay in the fulfilment of the Archbishop's promise; at
+one time he himself was away in the country on affairs, at another time
+the King was too much pressed, Cranmer reported, to have such a matter
+brought before him; and then suddenly a messenger had come across from
+Lambeth with a letter, bidding them present themselves at Greenwich on
+the following morning; for the day following that had been fixed for
+Cromwell's execution, and the Archbishop hoped that the King would be
+ready to hear a word on behalf of the agent whose loyalty had failed to
+save his master.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The boatman suddenly backed water with his left-hand oar, took a stroke
+or two with his right, glancing over his shoulder; and the boat slid up
+to the foot of the steps.
+
+A couple of watermen were already waiting there, in the Archbishop's
+livery, and steadied the boat for the four gentlemen to step out; and a
+moment later the four were standing on the platform, looking about them.
+
+They were at one of the smaller entrances to the palace, up-stream. A
+hundred yards further down was the royal entrance, canopied and
+carpeted, with the King's barge rocking at the foot, a number of
+servants coming and going on the platform, and the great state windows
+overlooking all; but here they were in comparative quiet. A small
+doorway with its buff and steel-clad sentry before it opened on their
+right into the interior of the palace.
+
+One of the watermen saluted the party.
+
+"Master Torridon?" he said.
+
+Chris assented.
+
+"My Lord bade me take you through to him, sir, as soon as you arrived."
+
+He went before them to the door, said a word to the guard, and then the
+party passed on through the little entrance-hall into the interior. The
+corridor was plainly and severely furnished with matting under-foot,
+chairs here and there set along the wainscot, pieces of stuff with
+crossed pikes between hanging on the walls; through the bow windows
+they caught a glimpse now and again of a little court or two, a
+shrubbery and a piece of lawn, and once a vista of the park where Henry
+in his younger days used to hold his May-revels, a gallant and princely
+figure all in green from cap to shoes, breakfasting beneath the trees.
+
+Continually, as they went, first in the corridor and then through the
+waiting rooms at the end, they passed others going to and fro, servants
+hurrying on messages, leisurely and magnificent persons with their hats
+on, pages standing outside closed doors; and twice they were asked their
+business.
+
+"For my Lord of Canterbury," answered the waterman each time.
+
+It seemed to Chris that they must have gone an immense distance before
+the waterman at last stopped, motioning them to go on, and a page in
+purple livery stepped forward from a door.
+
+"For my Lord of Canterbury," said the waterman for the last time.
+
+The page bowed, turned, and threw open the door.
+
+They found themselves in a square parlour, carpeted and hung with
+tapestries from floor to ceiling. A second door opened beyond, in the
+window side, into another room. A round table stood in the centre, with
+brocaded chairs about it, and a long couch by the fireplace. Opposite
+rose up the tall windows through which shone the bright river with the
+trees and buildings on the north bank beyond.
+
+They had hardly spoken a word to one another since they had left
+Charing, for all that was possible had been said during the weeks of
+waiting for the Archbishop's summons.
+
+Cranmer had received them kindly, though he had not committed himself
+beyond promising to introduce them to the King, and had expressed no
+opinion on the case.
+
+He had listened to them courteously, had nodded quietly as Chris
+explained what it was that Ralph had done, and then almost without
+comment had given his promise. It seemed as if the Archbishop could not
+even form an opinion, and still less express one, until he had heard
+what his Highness had to say.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris walked to the window and the lawyer followed him.
+
+"Placentia!" said Mr. Herries, "I do not wonder at it. It is even more
+pleasing from within."
+
+He stood, a prim, black figure, looking out at the glorious view, the
+shining waterway studded with spots of colour, the long bank of the
+river opposite, and the spires of London city lying in a blue heat-haze
+far away to the left.
+
+Chris stared at it too, but with unseeing eyes. It seemed as if all
+power of sensation had left him. The suspense of the last weeks had
+corroded the surfaces of his soul, and the intensity to which it was now
+rising seemed to have paralysed what was left. He found himself
+picturing the little house at Charing where Beatrice was waiting, and,
+he knew, praying; and he reminded himself that the next time he saw her
+he would know all, whether death or life was to be Ralph's sentence. The
+solemn quiet and the air of rich and comfortable tranquillity which the
+palace wore, and which had impressed itself on his mind even in the
+hundred yards he had walked in it, gave him an added sense of what it
+was that lay over his brother, the huge passionless forces with which he
+had become entangled.
+
+Then he turned round. His father was sitting at the table, his head on
+his hand; and Nicholas was staring round the grave room with the
+solemnity of a child, looking strangely rustic and out of place in these
+surroundings.
+
+It was very quiet as Chris leaned against the window-shutter, in his
+secular habit, with his hands clasped behind his back, and looked. Once
+a footstep passed in the corridor outside, and the floor vibrated
+slightly to the tread; once a horn blew somewhere far away; and from the
+river now and again came the cry of a waterman, or the throb of oars in
+rowlocks.
+
+Sir James looked up once, opened his lips as if to speak; and then
+dropped his head on to his hand again.
+
+The waiting seemed interminable.
+
+Chris turned round to the window once more, slipped his breviary out of
+his pocket, and opened it. He made the sign of the cross and began--
+
+_"In nomine Patris et Filii...."_
+
+Then the second door opened; he turned back abruptly; there was a rustle
+of silk, and the Archbishop came through in his habit and gown.
+
+Chris bowed slightly as the prelate went past him briskly towards the
+table where Sir James was now standing up, and searched his features
+eagerly for an omen. There was nothing to be read there; his smooth
+large-eyed face was smiling quietly as its manner was, and his wide lips
+were slightly parted.
+
+"Good-day, Master Torridon; you are in good time. I am just come from
+His Highness, and will take you to him directly."
+
+Chris saw his father's face blanch a little as he bowed in return.
+Nicholas merely stared.
+
+"But we have a few minutes," went on the Archbishop. "Sir Thomas
+Wriothesly is with him. Tell me again sir, what you wish me to say."
+
+Sir James looked hesitatingly to the lawyer.
+
+"Mr. Herries," he said.
+
+Cranmer turned round, and again made that little half-deprecating bow to
+the priest and the lawyer. Mr. Herries stepped forward as Cranmer sat
+down, clasping his hands so that the great amethyst showed on his
+slender finger.
+
+"It is this, my Lord," he said, "it is as we told your Lordship at
+Lambeth. This gentleman desires the King's clemency towards Mr. Ralph
+Torridon, now in the Tower. Mr. Torridon has served--er--Mr. Cromwell
+very faithfully. We wish to make no secret of that. He destroyed certain
+private papers--though that cannot be proved against him, and you will
+remember that we were doubtful whether his Highness should be informed
+of that--"
+
+Sir James broke in suddenly.
+
+"I have been thinking of that, my Lord. I would sooner that the King's
+Grace knew everything. I have no wish that that should be kept from
+him."
+
+The Archbishop who had been looking with smiling attention from one to
+the other, now himself broke in.
+
+"I am glad you think that, sir. I think so myself. Though it cannot be
+proved as you say, it is far best that His Grace should know all. Indeed
+I think I should have told him in any case."
+
+"Then, my Lord, if you think well," went on Mr. Herries, "you might lay
+before his Grace that this is a free and open confession. Mr. Torridon
+did burn papers, and important ones; but they would not have served
+anything. Master Cromwell was cast without them."
+
+"But Mr. Torridon did not know that?" questioned the Archbishop blandly.
+
+"Yes, my Lord," cried Sir James, "he must have known--that my Lord
+Cromwell--"
+
+The Archbishop lifted his hand delicately.
+
+"Master Cromwell," he corrected.
+
+"Master Cromwell," went on the old man, "he must have known that Mr.
+Cromwell had others, more important, that would be certainly found and
+used against him."
+
+"Then why did he burn them? You understand, sir, that I only wish to
+know what I have to say to his Grace."
+
+"He burned them, my Lord, because he could not bear that his hand should
+be lifted against his master. Surely that is but loyal and good!"
+
+The Archbishop nodded quietly three or four times.
+
+"And you desire that his Grace will take order to have Mr. Torridon
+released?"
+
+"That is it, my Lord," said the lawyer.
+
+"Yes, I understand. And can you give any pledge for Mr. Torridon's good
+behaviour?"
+
+"He has served Mr. Cromwell," answered the lawyer, "very well for many
+years. He has been with him in the matter of the Religious Houses; he
+was one of the King's Visitors, and assisted in the--the destruction of
+Lewes priory; and that, my Lord, is a sufficient--"
+
+Sir James gave a sudden sob.
+
+"Mr. Herries, Mr. Herries--"
+
+Cranmer turned to him smiling.
+
+"I know what you feel, sir," he said. "But if this is true--"
+
+"Why, it is true! God help him," cried the old man.
+
+"Then that is what we need, sir; as you said just now. Yes, Mr.
+Herries?"
+
+The lawyer glanced at the old man again.
+
+"That is sufficient guarantee, my Lord, that Mr. Ralph Torridon is no
+enemy of his Grace's projects."
+
+"I cannot bear that!" cried Sir James.
+
+Nicholas, who had been looking awed and open-mouthed from one to the
+other, took him by the arm.
+
+"You must, father," he said. "It--it is devilish; but it is true. Chris,
+have you nothing?"
+
+The monk came forward a step.
+
+"It is true, my Lord," he said. "I was a monk of Lewes myself."
+
+"And you have conformed," put in the Archbishop swiftly.
+
+"I am living at home peaceably," said Chris; "it is true that my brother
+did all this, but--but my father wishes that it should not be used in
+his cause."
+
+"If it is true," said the Archbishop, "it is best to say it. We want
+nothing but the bare truth."
+
+"But I cannot bear it," cried the old man again.
+
+Chris came round behind the Archbishop to his father.
+
+"Will you leave it, father, to my Lord Archbishop? My Lord understands
+what we think."
+
+Sir James looked at him, dazed and bewildered.
+
+"God help us! Do you think so, Chris."
+
+"I think so, father. My Lord, you understand all?"
+
+The Archbishop bowed again slightly.
+
+"Then, my Lord, we will leave it all in your hands."
+
+There was a tap at the door.
+
+The Archbishop rose.
+
+"That is our signal," he said. "Come, gentlemen, his Grace will be ready
+immediately."
+
+Mr. Herries sprang to the door and opened it, bowing as the Archbishop
+went through, followed by Sir James and Nicholas. He and Chris followed
+after.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a kind of dull recklessness in the monk's heart as he went
+through. He knew that he was in more peril than any of the others, and
+yet he did not fear it. The faculty of fear had been blunted, not
+sharpened, by his experiences; and he passed on towards the King's
+presence, almost without a tremor.
+
+The room was empty, except for a page by the further door, who opened it
+as the party advanced; and beyond was a wide lobby, with doors all
+round, and a staircase on the right as they came out. The Archbishop
+made a little motion to the others as he went up, gathering his skirts
+about him, and acknowledging with his disengaged hand the salute of the
+sentry that stood in the lobby.
+
+At the top of the stairs was a broad landing; then a corridor through
+which they passed, and on. They turned to the left, and as they went it
+was apparent that they were near the royal apartments. There were thick
+leather rugs lying here and there; along the walls stood magnificent
+pieces of furniture, inlaid tables with tall dragon-jars upon them,
+suits of Venetian armour elaborately worked in silver, and at the door
+of every room that opened on the corridor there was standing a sentry or
+a servant, who straightened themselves at the sight of the Archbishop.
+He carefully acknowledged each salutation, and nodded kindly once or
+twice.
+
+There was a heavy odour in the air, warm and fragrant, as of mingled
+stuffs and musk, which even the wide windows set open towards the garden
+on the right hand did not wholly obliterate.
+
+For the first time since leaving Charing, Chris's heart quickened. The
+slow stages of approach to the formidable presence had begun to do their
+work; if he had seen the King at once he would not have been moved; if
+he had had an hour longer, he would have recovered from his emotion; but
+this swift ordered approach, the suggestiveness of the thick carpets
+and furniture, the sight of the silent figures waiting, the musky smell
+in the air, all combined now to work upon him; he began to fancy that he
+was drawing nearer the presence of some great carrion-beast that had
+made its den here, that was guarded by these discreet servitors, and to
+which this smooth prelate, in the r�le of the principal keeper, was
+guiding him. Any of these before him might mark the sanctuary of the
+labyrinth, where the creature lurked; one might open, and a savage face
+look out, dripping blood and slaver.
+
+A page threw back a door at last, and they passed through; but again
+there was a check. It was but one more waiting room. The dozen persons,
+folks of all sorts, a lawyer, a soldier, and others stood up and bowed
+to the prelate.
+
+Then the party sat down near the further door in dead silence, and the
+minutes began to pass.
+
+There were cries from the river once or twice as they waited; once a
+footstep vibrated through the door, and twice a murmur of voices sounded
+and died again.
+
+Then suddenly a hand was laid on the handle from the other side, and the
+Archbishop rose, with Sir James beside him.
+
+There was still a pause. Then a voice sounded loud and near, and there
+was a general movement in the room as all rose to their feet. The door
+swung open and the Garter King-at-Arms came through, bland and smiling,
+his puffed silk sleeves brushing against the doorpost as he passed. A
+face like a mask, smooth and expressionless, followed him, and nodded to
+the Archbishop.
+
+Cranmer turned slightly to his party, again made that little movement,
+and went straight through.
+
+Chris followed with Mr. Herries.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE KING'S HIGHNESS
+
+
+As Chris knelt with the others, and the door closed behind him, he was
+aware of a great room with a tall window looking on to the river on his
+left, tapestry-hung walls, a broad table heaped with papers in the
+centre, a high beamed ceiling, and the thick carpet under his knees.
+
+For a moment he did not see the King. The page who had beckoned them in
+had passed across the room, and Chris's eyes followed him out through an
+inner door in the corner.
+
+Then, still on his knees, he turned his eyes to see the Archbishop going
+towards the window, and up the step that led on to the dais that
+occupied the floor of the oriel.
+
+Then he saw the King.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A great figure was seated opposite the side door at which they had
+entered on the broad seat that ran round the three sides of the window.
+The puffed sleeves made the shoulders look enormous; a gold chain lay
+across them, with which the gross fingers were playing. Beneath, the
+vast stomach swelled out into the slashed trunks, and the scarlet legs
+were crossed one over the other. On the head lay a broad plumed velvet
+cap, and beneath it was the wide square face, at once jovial and solemn,
+with the narrow slits of eyes above, and the little pursed mouth fringed
+by reddish hair below, that Chris remembered in the barge years before.
+The smell of musk lay heavy in the air.
+
+Here was the monstrous carrion-beast then at last, sunning himself and
+waiting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So the party rested a moment or two, while the Archbishop went across to
+the dais; he knelt again and then stood up and said a word or two
+rapidly that Chris could not hear.
+
+Henry nodded, and turned his bright narrow eyes on to them; and then
+made a motion with his hand. The Archbishop turned round and repeated
+the gesture; and Chris rose in his place as did the others.
+
+"Master Torridon, your Grace," explained the Archbishop, with a
+deferential stoop of his shoulders. "Your Grace will remember--"
+
+The King nodded abruptly, and thrust his hand out.
+
+Chris touched his father behind.
+
+"Go forward," he whispered; "kiss hands."
+
+The old man went forward a hesitating step or two. The Archbishop
+motioned sharply, and Sir James advanced again up to the dais, sank
+down, and lifted the hand to his lips, and fell back for the others.
+
+When Chris's turn came, and he lifted the heavy fingers, he noticed for
+a moment a wonderful red stone on the thumb, and recognised it. It was
+the Regal of France that he had seen years before at his visit to St.
+Thomas's shrine at Canterbury. In a flash, too, he remembered Cromwell's
+crest as he had seen it on the papers at Lewes--the demi-lion holding up
+the red-gemmed ring.
+
+Then he too had fallen back, and the Archbishop was speaking.
+
+"Your Grace will remember that there is a Mr. Ralph Torridon in the
+Tower--an agent of Mr. Cromwell's--"
+
+The King's face moved slightly, but he said nothing.
+
+--"Who is awaiting trial for destroying evidence. It is that, at least,
+your Grace, that is asserted against him. But it has not been proved.
+Master Torridon here tells me, your Highness, that it cannot be proved,
+but that he wishes to acknowledge it freely on his son's behalf."
+
+Henry's eyes shot back again at the old man, ran over the others, and
+settled again on Cranmer's face, who was standing beside him with his
+back to the window.
+
+"He is here to plead for your Grace's clemency. He wishes to lay before
+your Grace that his son erred through over-faithfulness to Mr.
+Cromwell's cause; and above all that the evidence so destroyed has not
+affected the course of justice--"
+
+"God's Body!" jarred in the harsh voice suddenly, "it has not. Nor shall
+it."
+
+Cranmer waited a moment with downcast eyes; but the King was silent
+again.
+
+"Master Torridon has persuaded me to come with him to your Grace to
+speak for him. He is not accustomed--"
+
+"And who are these fellows?"
+
+Chris felt those keen eyes running over him.
+
+"This is Master Nicholas Maxwell," explained the Archbishop, indicating
+him. "Master Torridon's son-in-law; and this, Mr. Herries--"
+
+"And the priest?" asked the King.
+
+"The priest is Sir Christopher Torridon, living with his father at
+Overfield."
+
+"Ha! has he always lived there then?"
+
+"No, your Grace," said Cranmer smoothly, "he was a monk at Lewes until
+the dissolution of the house."
+
+"I have heard somewhat of his name," mused Henry. "What is it, sir, that
+I have beard of you?"
+
+"It was perhaps Mr. Ralph Torridon's name that your Grace--" began
+Cranmer.
+
+"Nay, nay, it was not. What was it, sir?"
+
+Chris's heart was beating in his ears like a drum now. It had come,
+then, that peril that had always been brooding on the horizon, and which
+he had begun to despise. He had thought that there could be no danger in
+his going to the King; it was so long since Lewes had fallen, and his
+own part had been so small. But his Grace's memory was good, it seemed!
+Danger was close to him, incarnate in that overwhelming presence. He
+said nothing, but stood awaiting detection.
+
+"It is strange," said Henry. "I have forgot. Well, my Lord?"
+
+"I have told your Grace all," explained the Archbishop. "Mr. Ralph
+Torridon has not yet been brought to trial, and his father hopes that
+your Grace will take into consideration these two things: that it was a
+mistake of over-faithfulness that his son committed; and that it has not
+hindered the course of justice."
+
+"Well, well," said Henry, "and that sounds to be in reason. We have none
+too much of either faithfulness or justice in these days. And there is
+no other charge against the fellow?"
+
+"There is no other charge, your Grace."
+
+There fell a complete silence for a moment or two.
+
+Chris glanced up at his father, his own heart uplifted by hope, and saw
+the old man's face trembling with it too. The wrinkled eyes were full of
+tears, and his lips quivered; and Chris could feel the short cloak that
+hung against him shaking at his hand. Nicholas's crimson face showed a
+mingling of such emotion and solemnity that Chris was seized with an
+internal hysterical spasm; but it suddenly died within him as he
+brought his eyes round, and saw that the King was staring at him
+moodily....
+
+The Archbishop's voice broke in again.
+
+"Are we to understand, your Grace, that your Grace's clemency is
+extended to Mr. Ralph Torridon?"
+
+"Eh! then," said the King peevishly, "hold your tongue, my Lord. I am
+trying to remember. Where is Michael?"
+
+"Shall I call him, your Grace?"
+
+"Nay, then; let the lawyer ring the bell!"
+
+Mr. Herries sprang to the table at the King's gesture, and struck the
+little hand-bell that stood there. The door where the page had
+disappeared five minutes before opened silently, and the servant stood
+there.
+
+"Michael," said the King, and the page vanished.
+
+There was an uncomfortable silence. Cranmer stood back a little with an
+air of patient deference, and his quick eyes glanced up now and again at
+the party before him. There was a certain uneasiness in his manner, as
+Chris could see; but the monk presently dropped his eyes again, as he
+saw that the King was once more looking at him keenly, with tight pursed
+lips, and a puzzled look on his forehead.
+
+The thoughts began to race through Chris's brain. He found himself
+praying with desperate speed that Michael, whoever he was, might not
+know; and that the King might not remember; and meanwhile through
+another part of his being ran the thought of the irony of his situation.
+Here he was, come to plead for his brother's life, and on the brink of
+having to plead for his own. The quiet room increased his sense of the
+irony. It seemed so safe and strong and comfortable, up here in the rich
+room, with the tall window looking on to the sunlit river, in a palace
+girt about with guards; and yet the very security of it was his danger.
+He had penetrated into the stronghold of the great beast that ruled
+England: he was within striking distance of those red-stained claws and
+teeth.
+
+Then suddenly the creature stirred and snarled.
+
+"I know it now, sir. You were one of the knaves that would not sign the
+surrender of Lewes."
+
+Chris lifted his eyes and dropped them again.
+
+"God's Body," said the King, "and you come here!"
+
+Again there was silence.
+
+Chris saw his father half turn towards him with a piteous face, and
+perceived that the lawyer had drawn a little away.
+
+The King turned abruptly to Cranmer.
+
+"Did you know this, my Lord?"
+
+"Before God, I did not!"--but his voice shook as he answered.
+
+Chris was gripping his courage, and at last spoke.
+
+"We were told it was a free-will act, your Grace."
+
+Henry said nothing to this. His eyes were rolling up and down the monk's
+figure, with tight, thoughtful lips. Cranmer looked desperately at Sir
+James.
+
+"I did not know that, your Grace," he said again. "I only knew that this
+priest's brother had been very active in your Grace's business."
+
+Henry turned sharply.
+
+"Eh?" he said.
+
+Sir James's hands rose and clasped themselves instinctively. Cranmer
+again looked at him almost fiercely.
+
+"Mr. Ralph Torridon was one of the Visitors," explained the Archbishop
+nervously.
+
+"And this fellow a monk!" cried the King.
+
+"They must have met at Lewes, your Grace."
+
+"Ah! my Lord," cried Sir James suddenly. "I entreated you--"
+
+Henry turned on him suddenly.
+
+"Tell us the tale, sir. What is all this?"
+
+Sir James took a faltering step forward, and then suddenly threw out his
+hands.
+
+"Ah! your Grace, it is a bitter tale for a father to tell. It is true,
+all of it. My son here was a monk at Lewes. He would not sign the
+surrender. I--I approved him for it. I--I was there when my son Ralph
+cast him out--"
+
+"God's blood!" cried the King with a beaming face. "The one brother cast
+the other out!"
+
+Chris saw the Archbishop's face suddenly lighten as he watched the King
+sideways.
+
+"But I cannot bear that he should be saved for that!" went on the old
+man piteously. "He was a good servant to your Grace, but a bad one to
+our Lord--"
+
+The Archbishop drew a swift breath of horror, and his hands jerked. But
+Henry seemed not to hear; his little mouth had opened in a round hole of
+amazed laughter, and he was staring at the old man without hearing him.
+
+"And you were there?" he said. "And your wife? And your aunts and
+sisters?"
+
+"My wife is dead," cried the old man. "Your Grace--"
+
+"And on which side was she?"
+
+"She was--was on your Grace's side."
+
+Henry threw himself back in his chair.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For one moment Chris did not know whether it was wrath or laughter that
+shook him. His face grew crimson, and his narrow eyes disappeared into
+shining slits; his fat hands were on his knees, and his great body
+shook. From his round open mouth came silent gusts of quick breath, and
+he began to sway a little from side to side.
+
+Across the Archbishop's face came a deferential and sympathetic smile,
+and he looked quickly and nervously from the King to the group and back
+again. Sir James had fallen back a pace at the King's laughter, and
+stood rigid and staring. Chris took a step close to him and gripped his
+hand firmly.
+
+There was a footstep behind, and the King leaned forward again, wiping
+the tears away with his sleeve.
+
+"Oh, Michael, Michael!" he sobbed, "here is a fine tale."
+
+A dark-dressed man stepped forward from behind, and stood expectant.
+
+"God! What a happy family!" said the King. "And this fellow here?"
+
+He motioned towards Nicholas, with a feeble gesture. He was still weak
+with laughter.
+
+The young squire moved forward a step, rigid and indignant.
+
+"I am against your Grace," he said sharply.
+
+Henry grew suddenly grave.
+
+"Eh! that is no way to speak," he said.
+
+"It is the only way I can speak," said Nicholas, "if your Grace desires
+the truth."
+
+The King looked at him a moment; but the humour still shone in his eyes.
+
+"Well, well. It is the truth I want. Michael, I sent for you to know
+about the priest here; but I know now. And is it true that his brother
+in the Tower--Ralph Torridon--was one of the Visitors?"
+
+The man pursed his lips a moment. He was standing close to Chris, a
+little in front of him.
+
+"Yes, your Majesty."
+
+"Oh! well. We must let him out, I suppose--if there is nothing more
+against him. You shall tell me presently, Michael."
+
+The Archbishop looked swiftly across at the party.
+
+"Then your Grace extends--"
+
+"Well, Michael, what is it?" interrupted the King.
+
+"It is a matter your Majesty might wish to hear in private," said the
+stranger.
+
+"Oh, step aside, my Lord. And you, gentlemen."
+
+The King motioned down to the further end of the room, as Michael came
+forward.
+
+The Archbishop stepped off the low platform, and led the way down the
+floor; and the others followed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris was in a whirl of bewilderment. He could see the King's great face
+interested and attentive as the secretary said something in his ear, and
+then suddenly light up with amusement again.
+
+"Not a word, not a word," whispered Henry harshly. "Very good, Michael."
+
+The secretary then whispered once more. Chris could hear the sharp
+sibilants, but no word. The King nodded once more, and the man stepped
+down off the dais.
+
+"Prepare the admission, then," said the King after him.
+
+The secretary bowed as he turned and went out of the room once more.
+
+Henry beckoned.
+
+"Come, gentlemen."
+
+He watched them with a solemn joviality as they came up, the Archbishop
+in front, the father and son together, and the two others behind.
+
+"You are a sad crew," began the King, eyeing them pleasantly, and
+sitting forward with a hand on either knee, "and I am astonished, my
+Lord of Canterbury, at your companying with them. But we will have
+mercy, and remember your son's services, Master Torridon, in the past.
+That alone will excuse him. Remember that. That alone. He is the
+stronger man, if he turned out the priest there. And I remember your son
+very well, too; and will forgive him. But I shall not employ him again.
+And his forgiveness shall cover yours, Master Priest; but you must be
+off--you must be off, sir," he barked suddenly, "out of these realms in
+a week. We will have no more treason from you."
+
+The fierce overpowering personality flared out as he spoke, and Chris
+felt his heart beat sick at the force of it.
+
+"And you two gentlemen," went on the King, still smouldering, "you two
+had best hold your tongues. We will not hear such talk in our presence
+or out of it. But we will excuse it now. There, sir, have I said
+enough?"
+
+Sir James dropped abruptly on his knees.
+
+"Oh! God bless your Grace!" he began, with the tears running down.
+
+Henry made an abrupt gesture.
+
+"You shall go to your son," he said, "and see how he fares, and tell him
+this. And she shall have the order of release presently, from me or
+another."
+
+Again the little mouth creased and twitched with amusement.
+
+"And I hope he will be happy with his mother. You may tell him that from
+me."
+
+The Archbishop looked up.
+
+"Mistress Torridon is dead, your Grace," he said softly and
+questioningly.
+
+"Oh, well," said the King; and thrust out his hand to be kissed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris did not know how they got out of the room. They kissed hands
+again; the old man muttered out his thanks; but he seemed bewildered by
+the rush of events, and the supreme surprise. Chris, as he backed away
+from the presence, saw for the last time those narrow royal eyes fixed
+on him, still bright with amusement and expectancy, and the great
+red-fringed cheeks creased about the tiny mouth with an effort to keep
+back laughter. Why was the King laughing, he wondered?
+
+They waited a few minutes in the ante-room for the order that the
+Archbishop had whispered to them should be sent out immediately. They
+said nothing to one another--but the three sat close, looking into one
+another's eyes now and again in astonishment and joy, while Mr. Herries
+stood a little apart solemn and happy at the importance of the r�le he
+had played in the whole affair, and disdaining even to look at the rest
+of the company who sat on chairs and watched the party.
+
+The secretary came to them in a few minutes, and handed them the order.
+
+"My Lord of Canterbury is detained," he said; "he bade me tell you
+gentlemen that he could not see you again."
+
+Sir James was standing up and examining the order.
+
+"For four?" he said.
+
+"Why, yes," said the secretary, and glanced at the four men.
+
+Chris put his hand on his father's arm.
+
+"It is all well," he whispered, "say nothing more. It will do for
+Beatrice."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE TIDINGS AT THE TOWER
+
+
+They debated as they stood on the steps in the sunlight five minutes
+later, as to whether they should go straight to the Tower, or back to
+Charing and take Beatrice with them. They spoke softly to one another,
+as men that have come out from darkness to light, bewildered by the
+sense of freedom and freshness that lay round them. Instead of the
+musk-scented rooms, the formidable dominating presence, the suspense and
+the terror, the river laughed before them, the fresh summer breeze blew
+up it, and above all Ralph was free, and that, not only of his prison,
+but of his hateful work. It had all been done in those few sentences;
+but as yet they could not realise it; and they regarded it, as they
+regarded the ripples at their feet, the lapping wherry, and far-off
+London city, as a kind of dazzling picture which would by and bye be
+found to move and live.
+
+The lawyer congratulated them, and they smiled back and thanked him.
+
+"If you will put me to shore at London Bridge," said Mr. Herries--"I
+have a little business I might do there--that is, if you will be going
+so far."
+
+Chris looked at his father, whose arm he was holding.
+
+"We must take her with us," he said. "She has earned it."
+
+Sir James nodded, dreamily, and turned to the boat.
+
+"To the London Bridge Stairs first," he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a kind of piquant joy in their hearts as they crept up past
+the Tower, and saw its mighty walls and guns across the water. He was
+there, but it was not for long. They would see him that day, and
+to-morrow--to-morrow at the latest, they would all leave it together.
+
+There were a hundred plans in the old man's mind, as he leaned gently
+forward and back to the motion of the boat and stared at the bright
+water. Ralph and he should live at Overfield again; his son would surely
+be changed by all that had come to him, and above all by his own
+response to the demands of loyalty. They should learn to understand one
+another better now--better than ever before. The hateful life lay behind
+them of distrust and contempt; Ralph would come back to his old self,
+and be again as he had been ten years back before he had been dazzled
+and drugged by the man who was to die next day. Then he thought of that
+man, and half-pitied him even then; those strong walls held nothing but
+terror for him--terror and despair; the scaffold was already going up on
+Tower Hill--and as the old man thought of it he leaned forward and tried
+to see over the wharf and under the trees where the rising ground lay;
+but there was nothing to be seen--the foliage hid it.
+
+Chris, also silent beside him, was full of thoughts. He would go abroad
+now, he knew, with Margaret, as they had intended. The King's order was
+the last sign of God's intention for him. He would place Margaret with
+her own sisters at Bruges, and then himself go on to Dom Anthony and
+take up the life again. He knew he would meet some of his old brethren
+in Religion--Dom Anthony had written to say that three or four had
+already joined him at Cluny; the Prior--he knew--had turned his back for
+ever on the monastic life, and had been put into a prebendal stall at
+Lincoln.
+
+And meanwhile he would have the joy of knowing that Ralph was free of
+his hateful business; the King would not employ him again; he would live
+at home now, and rule Overfield well: he and his father together. Ah!
+and what if Beatrice consented to rule it with him! Surely now--He
+turned and looked at his father as he thought of it, and their eyes met.
+
+Chris leaned a little closer.
+
+"Beatrice!" he said. "What if she--?"
+
+The old man nodded tenderly, and his drawn eyes shone in his face.
+
+"Oh! Chris--I was thinking that--"
+
+Then Nicholas came out of his maze.
+
+Ever since his entrance into the palace, except when he had flared out
+at the King, he had moved and stood and sat in a solemn bewilderment.
+The effect of the changed atmosphere had been to paralyse his simple and
+sturdy faculties; and his face had grown unintelligent during the
+process. More than once Chris had been seized with internal laughter, in
+spite of the tragedy; the rustic squire was so strangely incongruous
+with the situation. But he awoke now.
+
+"God bless me!" he said wonderingly. "It is all over and done. God--"
+
+Chris gave a short yelp of laughter.
+
+"Dear Nick," he said, "yes. God bless you indeed! You spoke up well!"
+
+"Did I do right, sir," said the other to Sir James, "I could not help
+it. I--"
+
+"Oh! Nick," said the old man, and leaned forward and put his hand on his
+knee.
+
+Nicholas preened himself as he sat there; he would tell Mary how he had
+bearded his Majesty, and what a diplomatist was her husband.
+
+"You did very well, sir," put in Mr. Herries ironically. "You terrified
+his Grace, I think."
+
+Chris glanced at the lawyer; but Nicholas took it all with the greatest
+complacency; tilted his hilt a little forward, smoothed his doublet, and
+sat smiling and well-pleased.
+
+They reached the Stairs presently and put Mr. Herries ashore.
+
+"I will be at your house to-morrow, sir," he said, "when you go to take
+Mr. Ralph out of prison. The order will be there by the morning, I make
+no doubt."
+
+He bowed and smiled and moved off, a stiff figure deliberately picking
+its way up the oozy steps to the crowded street overhead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Beatrice's face was at the window as they came up the tide half-an-hour
+later. Chris stood up in the wherry, when he saw it, and waved his cap
+furiously, and the face disappeared.
+
+She was at the landing stage before they reached it, a slender brilliant
+figure in her hood and mantle, with her aunt beside her. Chris stood up
+again and cried between his hands across the narrowing space that all
+was well; and her face was radiant as the boat slipped up to the side,
+and balanced there with the boatman's hand on the stone edging.
+
+"It is all well," said Chris again as he stood by her a moment later.
+"He is to go free, and we are to tell him."
+
+He dared not look at her; but he was aware that she stood very still and
+rigid, and that her eyes were on his father's.
+
+"Oh! Mistress Beatrice--"
+
+Chris began to understand it all a little better, a few minutes later,
+as the boat was once again on its way downstream. He and Nicholas had
+moved to the bows of the wherry, and the girl and the old man sat alone
+in the stern.
+
+They were all very silent at first; Chris leaned on his elbow and stared
+out at the sliding banks, the trees on this side and that, the great
+houses with their high roofs and towers behind, and their stone steps in
+front, the brilliant glare on the water, the hundreds of boats--great
+barges flashing jewels from their dozen blades, spidery wherries making
+this way and that; and his mind was busy weaving pictures. He saw it all
+now; there had been that in Beatrice's face during the moment he had
+looked at her, that was more than sympathy. In the shock of that great
+joy the veils had fallen, and her soul had looked out through her black
+tearful eyes.
+
+There was little doubt now as to what would happen. It was not for their
+sake alone, or for Ralph's, that she had looked like that; she had not
+said one word, but he knew what was unspoken.
+
+As they passed under London Bridge he turned a little and looked across
+the boatmen's shoulder at the two as they sat there in the stern, and
+what he saw confirmed him. The old man had flung an arm along the back
+of the seat, and was leaning a little forward, talking in a low voice,
+his face showing indeed the lines and wrinkles that had deepened more
+than ever during these last weeks, but irradiated with an extraordinary
+joy. And the girl was beside him, smiling with downcast eyes, turning a
+quick look now and again as she sat there. Chris could see her scarlet
+lips trembling, and her hands clasped on her knee, shifting a little now
+and again as she listened. It was a strange wooing; the father courting
+for the son, and the woman answering the son through the father; and
+Chris understood what was the answer that she was giving.
+
+Nicholas was watching it too; and presently the two in the stern looked
+up suddenly; first Beatrice and then Sir James, and their eyes flashed
+joy across and across as the four souls met.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Five minutes later again they were at the Tower Stairs.
+
+Mr. Morris, who had been sent on by Mistress Jane Atherton when she had
+heard the news, was there holding his horse by the bridle; and behind
+him had collected a little crowd of idlers. He gave the bridle to one of
+them, and came down the steps to help them out of the boat.
+
+"You have heard?" said Chris as he stepped out last.
+
+"Yes, father," said the servant.
+
+Chris looked at him; and his mask-like face too seemed strangely lighted
+up. There was still across his cheek the shadow of a mark as of an old
+whip-cut.
+
+As they passed up the steps they became aware that the little crowd that
+had waited at the top was only the detached fringe of a multitude that
+had assembled further up the slope. It stretched under the trees as far
+as they could see to right and left, from the outer wall of the Tower on
+the one side, to where the rising ground on the left was hidden under
+the thick foliage in the foreground. There was a murmur of talking and
+laughter, the ringing of hand-bells, the cracking of whips and the cries
+of children. The backs of the crowd were turned to the steps: there was
+plainly something going on higher up the slope, and it seemed somewhat
+away to the left.
+
+For a moment Chris did not understand, and he turned to Morris.
+
+"What is it?" he asked.
+
+"The scaffold," said the servant tersely.
+
+At the same moment high above the murmur of the crowd came the sound of
+heavy resounding blows, as of wood on wood.
+
+Then Chris remembered; and for one moment he sickened as he walked. His
+father turned and looked over his shoulder as he went with Beatrice in
+front, and his eyes were eloquent.
+
+"I had forgotten," said Chris softly. "God help him!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They turned in towards the right almost immediately to the low outer
+gate of the fortress; and those for the first time remembered that the
+order they carried was for four only.
+
+Nicholas instantly offered to wait outside and let Morris go in. Morris
+flatly refused. There was a short consultation, and then Nicholas went
+up to the sentry on guard with the order in his hand.
+
+The man looked at it, glanced at the party, and then turned and knocked
+with his halberd on the great door behind, and in a minute or two an
+officer came out in his buff and feathers. He took the order and ran his
+eyes over it.
+
+Nicholas explained.
+
+The officer looked at him a moment without answering.
+
+"And the lady too?" he said.
+
+"Why, yes," said Nicholas.
+
+"The lady wishes--" then he broke off. "You will have to see the
+Lieutenant," he went on. "I can let you all through to his lodgings."
+
+They passed in with a yeoman to conduct them under the low heavy
+vaulting and through to the open way beyond. On their right was the wall
+between them and the river, and on their left the enormous towers and
+battlements of the inner court.
+
+Chris walked with Morris behind, remembering the last time he was here
+with the Prior all those years before. They had walked silently then,
+too, but for another reason.
+
+They passed the low Traitor's Gate on their right; Chris glanced at the
+green lapping water beneath it as he went--Ralph had landed there--and
+turned up the steep slope to the left under the gateway of the inner
+court; and in a minute or two more were at the door of the Lieutenant's
+lodgings.
+
+There seemed a strange suggestiveness in the silence and order of the
+wide ward that lay before them. The great White Tower dominated the
+whole place on the further side, huge and menacing, pierced by its
+narrow windows set at wide intervals; on the left, the row of towers
+used as prisons diminished in perspective down to where the wall turned
+at right angles and ran in behind the keep; and the great space enclosed
+by the whole was almost empty. There were soldiers on guard here and
+there at the doorways; a servant hurried across the wide sunlit ground,
+and once, as they waited, a doctor in his short gown came out of one
+door and disappeared into another.
+
+And here they waited for an answer to their summons, silent and happy in
+their knowledge. The place held no terrors for them.
+
+The soldier knocked again impatiently, and again stood aside.
+
+Chris saw Nicholas sidle up to the man with something of the same awe on
+his face that had been there an hour ago.
+
+"My Lord--Master Cromwell?" he heard him whisper, correcting himself.
+
+The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
+
+"There," he said.
+
+There were three soldiers, Chris noticed, standing at the foot of one of
+the Towers a little distance off. It was there, then, that Thomas
+Cromwell, wool-carder, waited for death, hearing, perhaps, from his
+window the murmur of the crowd beyond the moat, and the blows of mallet
+on wood as his scaffold went up.
+
+Then the door opened, and after a word or two the soldier motioned them
+in.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Again they had to wait.
+
+The Lieutenant, they were told, had been called away. He was expected
+back presently.
+
+They sat down, still in silence, in the little ground-floor parlour. It
+was a pleasant little room, with a wide hearth, and two windows looking
+on to the court.
+
+But the suspense was not like that of the morning. Now they knew how it
+must end. There would be a few minutes more, long perhaps to Ralph, as
+he sat in his cell somewhere not far from them, knowing nothing of the
+pardon that was on its way; and then the door would open, where day by
+day for the last six weeks the gaoler had come and gone; and the faces
+he knew would be there, and it would be from their lips that he would
+hear the message.
+
+The old man and the girl still sat together in the window-seat, silent
+now like the others. They had had their explanations in the boat, and
+each knew what was in the other's heart. Chris and Nicholas stood by the
+hearth, Mr. Morris by the door; and there was not the tremor of a doubt
+in any of them as to what the future held.
+
+Chris looked tranquilly round the room, at the little square table in
+the centre, the four chairs drawn close to it, with their brocade
+panels stained and well-worn showing at the back, the dark ceiling, the
+piece of tapestry that hung over the side-table between the doors--it
+was a martial scene, faded and discoloured, with ghostly bare-legged
+knights on fat prancing horses all in inextricable conflict, a great
+battleaxe stood out against the dusky foliage of an autumn tree; and a
+stag with his fore feet in the air, ramped in the foreground, looking
+over his shoulder. It was a ludicrously bad piece of work, picked up no
+doubt by some former Lieutenant who knew more of military than artistic
+matters, and had hung there--how long? Chris wondered.
+
+He found himself criticising it detail by detail, comparing it with his
+own designs in the antiphonary; he had that antiphonary still at home;
+he had carried it off from Lewes, when Ralph--Ralph!--had turned him
+out. He had put it up into a parcel on the afternoon of the spoilers'
+arrival. He would show it to Ralph again now--in a day or two at
+Overfield; they would laugh over it together; and he would take it with
+him abroad, and perhaps finish it there. God's work is not so easily
+hindered after all.
+
+But all the while, the wandering stream of his thought was lighted and
+penetrated by the radiant joy of his heart. It was all true, not a
+dream!
+
+He glanced again at the two in the window-seat.
+
+His father was looking out of the lattice; but Beatrice raised her eyes
+to his, and smiled at him.
+
+Sir James stood up.
+
+"The Lieutenant is coming," he said.
+
+A moment later there were steps in the flagged passage; and a murmur of
+voices. The soldier who had brought them to the lodgings was waiting
+there with the order of admission, and was no doubt explaining the
+circumstances.
+
+Then the door opened suddenly; and a tall soldierly-looking man,
+grey-haired and clean-shaven, in an officer's dress, stood there, with
+the order in his hand, as the two in the window-seat rose to meet him.
+
+"Master Torridon," he said abruptly.
+
+Sir James stepped forward.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You have come to see Mr. Ralph Torridon whom we have here?"
+
+"Yes, sir--my son."
+
+Nicholas stepped forward, and the Lieutenant nodded at him.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the officer to him, "I could not admit you before--" he
+stopped, as if embarrassed, and turned to Beatrice.
+
+"And this lady too?"
+
+"Yes, Master Lieutenant," said the old man.
+
+"But--but--I do not understand--"
+
+He looked at the radiant faces before him, and then dropped his eyes.
+
+"I suppose--you have not heard then?"
+
+Chris felt his heart leap, and then begin to throb furiously and
+insistently. What had happened? Why did the man look like that? Why did
+he not speak?
+
+The Lieutenant came a step forward and put his hand on the table. He was
+looking strangely from face to face.
+
+Outside the court was very still. The footstep that had passed on the
+flagstones a minute before had ceased; and there was no sound but the
+chirp of a bird under the eaves.
+
+"You have not heard then?" said the Lieutenant again.
+
+"Oh! for God's sake--" cried the old man suddenly.
+
+"I have just come from your son," said the other steadily. "You are only
+just in time. He is at the point of death."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE RELEASE
+
+
+It was morning, and they still sat in Ralph's cell.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The attendant had brought in stools and a tall chair with a broken back,
+and these were grouped round the low wooden bed; the old man in the
+chair on one side, from where he could look down on his son's face, with
+Beatrice beside him, Chris and Nicholas on the other side. Mr. Morris
+was everywhere, sitting on a form by the door, in and out with food and
+medicine, at his old master's bedside, lifting his pillow, turning him
+in bed, holding his convulsive hands.
+
+He had been ill six days, the Lieutenant told them. The doctor who had
+been called in from outside named the disease _phrenitis_. It was
+certain that he would not recover; and a message to that effect had been
+sent across on the morning before, with the usual reports to Greenwich.
+
+They had supped as they sat--silently--on what the gaoler brought; and
+had slept by turns in the tall chair, wakening at a sound from the bed;
+at the movement of the light across the floor as Morris slipped to and
+fro noiselessly; at the chirp of the birds and the noises of the
+stirring City as the daylight broadened on the wall, and the narrow
+window grew bright and luminous.
+
+And now the morning was high, and they were waiting for the end.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little table stood by the door, white-covered, with two candles,
+guttering now in their sockets, and a tall crucifix, ivory and black,
+lifting its arms in the midst. Before it stood two veiled vessels.
+
+"He will speak before he passes," the doctor had told them the evening
+before; "I do not know whether he will be able to receive Viaticum."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chris raised himself a little in his chair--he was stiff with leaning
+elbows on knees; and he stretched out his feet softly; looking down
+still at the bed.
+
+His brother lay with his back to him; the priest could see the black
+hair, longer than Court fashion allowed now, the brown sinewy neck
+beneath; and one arm outlined over his hip beneath the piled clothes.
+The fingers were moving a little, contracting and loosening, contracting
+and loosening; and he could hear the long slow breaths.
+
+Beyond sat Beatrice, upright and quiet, one hand in her lap, and the
+other holding the father's. The old man was bowed with his head on his
+other hand, as he had been for the last hour, his back bent forward with
+the burden, and his feet crossed before him.
+
+From outside the noises grew louder as the morning advanced. There had
+been the sound of continual coming and going since it was light. Wheels
+had groaned and rattled up out of the distance and ceased abruptly; and
+the noise of hoofs had been like an endless patter over the
+stone-paving. And now, as the hours passed a murmur had been increasing,
+a strange sound like the wind in dry trees, as the huge crowd gathered.
+
+Beatrice raised her eyes suddenly.
+
+The fortress itself which had been quiet till now seemed to awaken
+abruptly.
+
+The sound seemed to come to them up the stairs, but they had learnt
+during those hours that all sounds from within came that way. There was
+a trumpet-note or two, short and brazen; a tramp of feet for a moment,
+the throb of drums; then silence again; then the noise of moving
+footsteps that came and went in an instant. And as the sound came, Ralph
+stirred.
+
+He swayed slowly over on to his back; his breath came in little groans
+that died to silence again as he subsided, and his arm drew out and lay
+on the bedclothes. Chris could see his face now in sharp profile against
+Beatrice's dark skirt, white and sharp; the skin was tightly stretched
+over the nose and cheekbones, his long thin lips were slightly open,
+there was a painful frown on his forehead, and his eyes squinted
+terribly at the ceiling.
+
+A contraction seized the priest's throat as he watched; the face was at
+once so august and so pitiable.
+
+The lips began to move again, as they had moved during the night; it
+seemed as if the dying man were talking and listening. The eyelids
+twitched a little; and once he made a movement as if to rise up. Chris
+was down on his knees in a moment, holding him tenderly down; he felt
+the thin hands come up and fumble with his own, and noticed lines deepen
+between the flickering eyelids. Then the hands lay quiet.
+
+Chris lifted his eyes and saw his father's face and Beatrice's watching.
+Something of the augustness of the dying man seemed to rest on the grey
+bearded lips and solemn eyes that looked down. Beatrice's face was
+steady and tender, and as the priest's eyes met hers, she nodded.
+
+"Yes, speak to him," she said.
+
+Chris threw a hand across the bed and rested it on the wooden frame, and
+then lowered himself softly till his mouth was at the other's ear.
+
+"Ralph," he said, "Ralph, do you hear me?"
+
+Then he raised his face a little and watched.
+
+The eyelids were rising slowly; but they dropped again; and there came a
+little faint babbling from the writhing lips; but no words were
+intelligible. Then they were silent.
+
+"He hears," said Beatrice softly.
+
+The priest bent low again; and as he did so, from outside came a strange
+sound, as of a long monstrous groan from a thousand throats. Again the
+dying man stirred; his hand sought his brother's arm and gripped it with
+a kind of feeble strength; then dropped again on to the coverlet.
+
+Chris hesitated a moment, and again glanced up; and as he did so, there
+was a sound on the stairs. He threw himself back on his heels and looked
+round, as the doctor came in with Morris behind him.
+
+He was a stout ruddy man, and moved heavily across the floor; but Ralph
+seemed not to hear it.
+
+The doctor came to the end of the bed, and stood staring down at the
+dying man's face, frowning and pursing his lips; Chris watched him
+intently for some sign. Then he came round by Beatrice, leaned over the
+bed, and took Ralph's wrist softly into his fingers. He suddenly seemed
+to remember himself, and turned his face abruptly over his shoulder to
+Sir James.
+
+"There is a man come from the palace," he whispered harshly. "I suppose
+it is the pardon." And Chris saw him arch his eyebrows and purse his
+lips again. Then he bent over Ralph once more.
+
+Then again the doctor jerked his head towards the window behind and
+spoke across to Chris.
+
+"They have him out there," he said; "Master Cromwell, I mean."
+
+Then he rose abruptly.
+
+"He cannot receive Viaticum; and he will not be able to make his
+confession. I should shrive him at once, sir, and anoint him."
+
+"At once?" whispered Chris.
+
+"The sooner the better," said the doctor; "there is no telling."
+
+Chris rose swiftly from his knees, and made a sharp sign to Morris. Then
+he sank down once more, looking round, and lifted the purple stole from
+the floor where he had laid it the evening before; and even as he did so
+his soul revolted.
+
+He looked up at Beatrice. Would not she understand the unchivalry of the
+act? But the will in her eyes compelled him.--Yes, yes! Who could set a
+limit to mercy?
+
+He slipped the strip over his shoulders, and again bent down over his
+brother, with one arm across the motionless body. Beatrice and Sir James
+were on their knees by now. Nicholas was busy with Morris at the further
+end of the room. The doctor was gone.
+
+There was a profound silence now outside as the priest bent lower and
+lower till his lips almost touched the ear of the dying man; and every
+word of the broken abrupt sentences was audible to all in the room.
+
+"Ralph--Ralph--dear brother. You are at the point of death. I must
+shrive you. You have sinned very deeply against God and man. I shall
+anoint you afterwards. Make an act of sorrow in your heart for all your
+sins; it will stand for confession. Think of Jesu's love, and of His
+death on the bitter cross--the wounds that He bore for us in love. Give
+me a sign if you can that you repent."
+
+Chris spoke rapidly, and leaned back a moment. Now he was terrified of
+waiting--he did not know how long it would be; but for an intent instant
+he stared down on the shadowed face.
+
+Again the eyelids flickered; the lips formed words, and ceased again.
+
+The priest glanced up, scarcely knowing why; and then again lowered
+himself that if it were possible Ralph might hear.
+
+Then he spoke, with a tense internal effort as if to drive the grace
+home....
+
+"_Ego te absolvo ab omnibus censuris et peccatis, in nomine Patris_--"
+He raised himself a little and lifted his hand, moving it sideways
+across and down as he ended--"_et Filii et Spiritus Sancti_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The priest rose up once more, his duty driving his emotion down; he did
+not dare to look across at the two figures beyond the bed, or even to
+question himself again as to what he was doing.
+
+The two men at the further end of the room were waiting now; they had
+lifted the candles and crucifix off the table, and set them on the bench
+by the side.
+
+Chris went swiftly across the room, dropped on one knee, rose again,
+lifted the veiled vessel that stood in the centre, with the little linen
+cloth beneath, and set it all down on the bench. He knelt again, went a
+step aside back to the table, lifted the other vessel, and signed with
+his head.
+
+The two men grasped the ends of the table, and carried it across the
+floor to the end of the bed. Chris followed and set down the sacred oils
+upon it.
+
+"The cross and one candle," he whispered sharply.
+
+A minute later he was standing by the bed once more.
+
+"_Oremus_--" he began, reading rapidly off the book that Beatrice held
+steadily beneath his eyes.
+
+"_Almighty Everlasting God, who through blessed James Thy Apostle, hast
+spoken, saying, Is any sick among you, let him call the priests of the
+Church_--" (The lips of the dying man were moving again at the sound of
+the words; was it in protest or in faith?)--" ... _that is what is done
+without through our ministry, may be wrought within spiritually by Thy
+divine power, and invisibly by Thy healing; through our Lord Jesus
+Christ. Amen._"
+
+The lips were moving faster than ever on the pillow; the head was
+beginning to turn from side to side, and the mouth lay open.
+
+"_Usquequo, Domine_" ... began Beatrice.
+
+Chris dipped his thumb in the vessel, and sank swiftly on to his knees.
+
+"_Per istam sanctam Unctionem_"--"_through this holy unction_...."
+
+(The old man leaned suddenly forward on to his knees, and steadied that
+rolling head in his two hands; and Chris signed firmly on the eyelids,
+pressing them down and feeling the fluttering beneath his thumb as he
+did so.)
+
+" ... _And His most loving mercy, may the Lord forgive thee whatsoever
+thou hast sinned through sight._"
+
+Ah! that was done--dear God! those eyes that had drooped and sneered,
+that had looked so greedily on treasure--their lids shone now with the
+loving-kindness of God.
+
+Chris snatched a morsel of wool that Morris put forward from behind,
+wiped the eyelids, and dropped the fragment into the earthen basin at
+his side.
+
+"_Per istam sanctam Unctionem_...."
+
+And the ears were anointed--the ears that had listened to Layton's
+filth, to Cromwell's plotting; and to the cries of the oppressed.
+
+The nostrils; the lips that had lied and stormed and accused against
+God's people, compressed now in his father's fingers--they seemed to
+sneer even now, and to writhe under the soft oil; the hands that had
+been laid on God's portion, that had torn the vessels from the altar and
+the cloth of gold from the treasury--those too were signed now, and lay
+twitching on the coverlet.
+
+The bed clothes at the foot of the wooden framework were lifted and laid
+back as Chris passed round to the end, and the long feet, icy cold, were
+lying exposed side by side.
+
+_Per Istam sanctam Unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat
+tibi Domimus quidquid peccasti per incessum pedum. Amen._
+
+Then they too were sealed with pardon, the feet that had been so swift
+and unwearied in the war with God, that had trodden the sanctuary in His
+despite, and trampled down the hearts of His saints--they too were
+signed now with the mark of Redemption and lay again under the folded
+coverlet at the end of their last journey.
+
+A convulsion tore at the priest's heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then suddenly in the profound silence outside there broke out an
+indescribable clamour, drowning in an instant the murmur of prayers
+within. It seemed as if the whole world of men were there, and roaring.
+The sound poured up through the window, across the moat; the boards of
+the flooring vibrated with the sound. There was the throb of drums
+pulsating through the long-drawn yell, the screams of women, the barking
+of dogs; and a moment later, like some devilish benediction, the bells
+of Barking Church pealed out, mellow and jangling, in an exultation of
+blood.
+
+Ralph struggled in his bed; his hands rose clutching at his throat,
+tearing open his shirt before Beatrice's fingers could reach them. The
+breath came swift and hoarse through his open teeth, and his eyelids
+flickered furiously. Then they opened, and his face grew quiet, as he
+looked out across the room.
+
+"My--my Lord!" he said.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The King's Achievement, by Robert Hugh Benson
+
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