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Come Rack! Come Rope! by Robert Hugh Benson

R >> Robert Hugh Benson >> Come Rack! Come Rope!




"I heard none, sir," he said. "I was in the stable."

Robin looked up and down the street. It seemed as empty as it should be
on a summer's day; two or three women were at the doors of their houses,
and an old dog was asleep in the sun. There was no sign of any
disturbance.

"Where is the woman of the house?" asked Robin.

"I do not know, sir."

They could not go without paying; but Robin marvelled at the simplicity
of these folks, to leave a couple of guests free to ride away; he went
within again and called out, but there was no one to be seen.

"This is laughable," he said, coming out again. "Shall we leave a mark
behind us and be off?"

"Are they all gone, sir?" asked the other, staring at him.

"I heard some running and calling out just now," said Robin. "I suppose
a message must have been brought to the house."

Then, as he stood still, hesitating, a noise of voices arose suddenly
round the corner of the street, and a group of men with pitchforks ran
out from a gateway on the other side, fifty yards away, crossed the
road, and disappeared again. Behind them ran a woman or two, a barking
dog, and a string of children. But Robin thought he had caught a glimpse
of some kind of officer's uniform at the head of the running men, and
his heart stood still.


IV

Neither of the two spoke for a moment.

"Wait here with the horses," said Robin. "I must see what all this is
about."

* * * * *

Mr. Arnold was scarcely more than a boy still, and he had all the desire
of a boy, if he saw an excited crowd, to join himself to it. But he was
being a servant just now, and must do what he was told. So he waited
patiently with the two horses that tossed their jingling heads and
stamped and attempted to kick flies off impossibly remote parts of their
bodies. Certainly, the excitement was growing. After he had seen his
friend walk quickly down the road and turn off where the group of
rustically-armed men had disappeared in the direction where newly-made
haystacks shaded their gables beyond the roofs of the houses, several
other figures appeared through the opposite gateway in hot pursuit. One
was certainly a guard of some kind, a stout, important-looking fellow,
who ran and wheezed as he ran loud enough to be heard at the inn door.
The women standing before the houses, too, presently were after the
rest--all except one old dame, who put her head forth, and peered this
way and that with a vindictive anger at having been left all alone. More
yet showed themselves--children dragging puppies after them, an old man
with a large rusty sword, a couple of lads each with a pike--these
appeared, like figures in a pantomime play, whisking into sight from
between the houses, and all disappearing again immediately.

And then, all on a sudden, a great clamour of voices began, all shouting
together, as if some quarry had been sighted: it grew louder, sharp
cries of command rang above the roar. Then there burst out of the side,
where all had gone in, a ball of children, which exploded into fragments
and faced about, still with a couple of puppies that barked shrilly; and
then, walking very fast and upright, came Mr. Robin Audrey, white-faced
and stern, straight up to where the lad waited with the horses.

Robin jerked his head.

"Quick!" he said. "We must be off, or we shall be here all night." He
gathered up his reins for mounting.

"What is it, sir?" asked the other, unable to be silent.

"They have caught some fellows," he said.

"And the inn-account, sir?"

Robin pulled out a couple of coins from his pouch.

"Put that on the table within," he said. "We can wait no longer. Give me
your reins!"

His manner was so dreadful that the young man dared ask no more. He ran
in, laid the coins down (they were more than double what could have been
asked for their entertainment), came out again, and mounted his own
horse that his friend held. As they rode down the street, he could not
refrain from looking back, as a great roar of voices broke out again;
but he could see no more than a crowd of men, with the pitchforks moving
like spears on the outskirt, as if they guarded prisoners within, come
out between the houses and turn up towards the inn they themselves had
just left.

* * * * *

As they came clear of the village and out again upon the open road,
Robin turned to him, and his face was still pale and stern.

"Mr. Arnold," he said, "those were the last of my friends that I told
you of. Now they have them all, and there is no longer any hope. They
found them behind the haystacks next to the garden where we dined. They
must have been there all night."




CHAPTER III


I

It was in the evening of the fourth day after their start that, riding
up alongside of the Blythe, they struck out to the northwest, away from
the trees, and saw the woods of Chartley not half a mile away. Robin
sighed with relief, though, as a fact, his adventure was scarcely more
than begun, since he had yet to learn how he could get speech with the
Queen; but, at least, he was within sight of her, and of his own country
as well. Far away, eastwards, beyond the hills, not twenty miles off,
lay Derby.

* * * * *

It had been a melancholy ride, in spite of the air of freedom through
which they rode, since news had come to them, in more than one place, of
the fortunes of the Babington party. A courier, riding fast, had passed
them as they sighted Buckingham; and by the time they came in, he was
gone again, on Government business (it was said), and the little town
hummed with rumours, out of which emerged, at any rate, the certainty
that the whole company had been captured. At Coventry, again, the
tidings had travelled faster than themselves; for here it was reported
that Mr. Babington and Mr. Charnoc had been racked; and in Lichfield,
last of all, the tale was complete, and (as they learned later)
tolerably accurate too.

It was from a clerk in the inn there that the story came, who declared
that there was no secrecy about the matter any longer, and that he
himself had seen the tale in writing. It ran as follows:

The entire plot had been known from the beginning, Gilbert Gifford had
been an emissary of Walsingham's throughout; and every letter that
passed to and from the various personages had passed through the
Secretary's hands and been deciphered in his house. There never had been
one instant in which Mr. Walsingham had been at fault, or in the dark:
he had gone so far, it was reported, as to insert in one of the letters
that was to go to Mr. Babington a request for the names of all the
conspirators, and in return there had come from him, not only a list of
the names, but a pictured group of them, with Mr. Babington himself in
the midst. This picture had actually been shown to her Grace in order
that she might guard herself against private assassination, since two or
three of the group were in her own household.

"It is like to go hard with the Scots Queen!" said the clerk bitterly.
"She has gone too far this time."

Robin said nothing to commit himself, for he did not know on which side
the man ranged himself; but he drew him aside after dinner, and asked
whether it might be possible to get a sight of the Queen.

"I am riding to Derby," he said, "with my man. But if to turn aside at
Chartley would give us a chance of seeing her, I would do so. A queen in
captivity is worth seeing. And I can see you are a man of influence."

The clerk looked at him shrewdly; he was a man plainly in love with his
own importance, and the priest's last words were balm to him.

"It might be done," he said. "I do not know."

Robin saw the impression he had made, and that the butter could not be
too thick.

"I am sure you could do it for me," he said, "if any man could. But I
understand that a man of your position may be unwilling--"

The clerk solemnly laid a hand on the priest's arm.

"Well, I will tell you this," he said. "Get speech with Mr. Bourgoign,
her apothecary. He alone has access to her now, besides her own women.
It might be he could put you in some private place to see her go by."

This was not much use, thought Robin; but, at least, it gave him
something to begin at: so he thanked the clerk solemnly and
reverentially, and was rewarded by another discreet pat on the arm.

* * * * *

The sight of the Chartley woods, tall and splendid in the light of the
setting sun, and already tinged here and there with the first marks of
autumn, brought his indecision to a point; and he realized that he had
no plan. He had heard that Mary occasionally rode abroad, and he hoped
perhaps to get speech with her that way; but what he had heard from the
clerk and others showed him that this small degree of liberty was now
denied to the Queen. In some way or another he must get news of Mr.
Bourgoign. Beyond that he knew nothing.

* * * * *

The great gates of Chartley were closed as the two came up to them.
There was a lodge beside them, and a sentry stood there. A bell was
ringing from the great house within the woods, no doubt for supper-time,
but there was no other human being besides the sentry to be seen. So
Robin did not even check his weary horse; but turned only, with a
deliberately curious air, as he went past and rode straight on. Then, as
he rounded a corner he saw smoke going up from houses, it seemed,
outside the park.

"What is that?" asked Arnold suddenly. "Do you hear--?"

A sound of a galloping horse grew louder behind them, and a moment
afterwards the sound of another. The two priests were still in view of
the sentry; and knowing that Chartley was guarded now as if it had all
the treasures of the earth within, Robin reflected that to show too
little interest might arouse as sharp suspicion as too much. So he
wheeled his horse round and stopped to look.

They heard the challenge of the sentry within, and then the unbarring of
the gates. An instant later a courier dashed out and wheeled to the
right, while at the same time the second galloper came to view--another
courier on a jaded horse; and the two passed--the one plainly riding to
London, the second arriving from it. The gates were yet open; but the
second was challenged once more before he was allowed to pass and his
hoofs sounded on the road that led to the house. Then the gates clashed
together again.

Robin turned his horse's head once more towards the houses, conscious
more than ever how near he was to the nerves of England's life, and what
tragic ties they were between the two royal cousins, that demanded such
a furious and frequent exchange of messages.

"We must do our best here," he said, nodding towards the little hamlet.


II

It was plainly a newly-grown little group of houses that bordered the
side of the road away from the enclosed park--sprung up as a kind of
overflow lodging for the dependants necessary to such a suddenly
increased household; for the houses were no more than wooden dwellings,
ill-roofed and ill-built, with the sap scarcely yet finished oozing from
the ends of the beams and the planks. Smoke was issuing, in most cases,
from rough holes cut in the roofs, and in the last rays of sunshine two
or three men were sitting on stools set out before the houses.

Robin checked his horse before a man whose face seemed kindly, and who
saluted courteously the fine gentleman who looked about with such an
air.

"My horse is dead-spent," he said curtly. "Is there an inn here where my
man and I can find lodging?"

The man shook his head, looking at the horse compassionately. He had the
air of a groom about him.

"I fear not, sir, not within five miles; at least, not with a room to
spare."

"This is Chartley, is it not?" asked the priest, noticing that the next
man, too, was listening.

"Aye, sir."

"Can you tell me if my friend Mr. Bourgoign lodges in the house, or
without the gates?"

"Mr. Bourgoign, sir? A friend of yours?"

"I hope so," said Robin, smiling, and keeping at least within the letter
of truth.

The man mused a moment.

"It is possible he might help you, sir. He lodges in the house; but he
comes sometimes to see a woman that is sick here."

Robin demanded where she lived.

"At the last house, sir--a little beyond the rest. She is one of her
Grace's kitchen-women. They moved her out here, thinking it might be the
fever she had."

This was plainly a communicative fellow; but the priest thought it wiser
not to take too much interest. He tossed the man a coin and rode on.

* * * * *

The last house was a little better built than the others, and stood
further back from the road. Robin dismounted here, and, with a nod to
Mr. Arnold, who was keeping his countenance admirably, walked up to the
door and knocked on it. It was opened instantly, as if he were expected,
but the woman's face fell when she saw him.

"Is Mr. Bourgoign within?" asked the priest.

The woman glanced over him before answering, and then out to where the
horses waited.

"No, sir," she said at last. "We were looking for him just now...."
(She broke off.) "He is coming now," she said.

Robin turned, and there, walking down the road, was an old man, leaning
on a stick, richly and soberly dressed in black, wearing a black beaver
hat on his head. A man-servant followed him at a little distance.

The priest saw that here was an opportunity ready-made; but there was
one more point on which he must satisfy himself first, and what seemed
to him an inspiration came to his mind.

"He looks like a minister," he said carelessly.

A curious veiled look came over the woman's face. Robin made a bold
venture. He smiled full in her face.

"You need not fear," he said. "I quarrel with no man's religion;" and,
at the look in her face at this, he added: "You are a Catholic, I
suppose? Well, I am one too. And so, I suppose, is Mr. Bourgoign."

The woman smiled tremulously, and the fear left her eyes.

"Yes, sir," she said. "All the friends of her Grace are Catholics, I
think."

He nodded to her again genially. Then, turning, he went to meet the
apothecary, who was now not thirty yards away.

* * * * *

It was a pathetic old figure that was hobbling towards him. He seemed a
man of near seventy years old, with a close-cropped beard and spectacles
on his nose, and he carried himself heavily and ploddingly. Robin argued
to himself that it must be a kindly man who would come out at this
hour--perhaps the one hour he had to himself--to visit a poor dependant.
Yet all this was sheer conjecture; and, as the old man came near, he saw
there was something besides kindliness in the eyes that met his own.

He saluted boldly and deferentially.

"Mr. Bourgoign," he said in a low voice, "I must speak five minutes with
you. And I ask you to make as if you were my friend."

The old man stiffened like a watch-dog. It was plain that he was on his
guard.

"I do not know you, sir."

"I entreat you to do as I ask. I am a priest, sir. I entreat you to take
my hand as if we were friends."

A look of surprise went over the physician's face.

"You can send me packing in ten minutes," went on Robin rapidly, at the
same time holding out his hand. "And we will talk here in the road, if
you will."

There was still a moment's hesitation. Then he took the priest's hand.

"I am come straight from London," went on Robin, still speaking clearly,
yet with his lips scarcely moving. "A fortnight ago I talked with Mr.
Babington."

The old man drew his arm close within his own.

"You have said enough, or too much, at present, sir. You shall walk with
me a hundred yards up this road, and justify what you have said."

"We have had a weary ride of it, Mr. Bourgoign.... I am on the road to
Derby," went on Robin, talking loudly enough now to be overheard, as he
hoped, by any listeners. "And my horse is spent.... I will tell you my
business," he added in a lower tone, "as soon as you bid me."

Fifty yards up the road the old man pressed his arm again.

"You can tell me now, sir," he said. "But we will walk, if you please,
while you do so."

* * * * *

"First," said Robin, after a moment's consideration as to his best
beginning, "I will tell you the name I go by. It is Mr. Alban. I am a
newly-made priest, as I told you just now; I came from Rheims scarcely a
fortnight ago. I am from Derbyshire; and I will tell you my proper name
at the end, if you wish it."

"Repeat the blessing of the deacon by the priest at mass," murmured Mr.
Bourgoign to the amazement of the other, without the change of an
inflection in his voice or a movement of his hand.

"_Dominus sit in corde tuo et in labiis_--" began the priest.

"That is enough, sir, for the present. Well?"

"Next," said Robin, hardly yet recovered from the extraordinary
promptness of the challenge--"Next, I was speaking with Mr. Babington a
fortnight ago."

"In what place?"

"In the inn called the 'Red Bull,' in Cheapside."

"Good. I have lodged there myself," said the other. "And you are one--"

"No, sir," said Robin, "I do not deny that I spoke with them all--with
Mr. Charnoc and--"

"That is enough of those names, sir," said the other, with a small and
fearful lift of his white eyebrows, as if he dreaded the very trees that
nearly met overhead in this place. "And what is your business?"

"I have satisfied you, then--" began Robin.

"Not at all, sir. You have answered sufficiently so far; that is all. I
wish to know your business."

"The night following the day on which the men fled, of whom I have just
spoken, I had a letter from--from their leader. He told me that all was
lost, and he gave me a letter to her Grace here--"

He felt the thin old sinews under his hand contract suddenly, and
paused.

"Go on, sir," whispered the old voice.

"A letter to her Grace, sir. I was to use my discretion whether I
carried it with me, or learned it by rote. I have other interests at
stake besides this, and I used my discretion, and destroyed the letter."

"But you have some writing, no doubt--"

"I have none," said Robin. "I have my word only."

There was a pause.

"Was the message private?"

"Private only to her Grace's enemies. I will tell you the substance of
it now, if you will."

The old man, without answering, steered his companion nearer to the
wall; then he relinquished the supporting arm, and leaned himself
against the stones, fixing his eyes full upon the priest, and searching,
as it seemed, every feature of his face and every detail of his dress.

"Was the message important, sir?"

"Important only to those who value love and fidelity."

"I could deliver it myself, then?"

"Certainly, sir. If you will give me your word to deliver it to her
Grace, as I deliver it to you, and to none else, I will ride on and
trouble you no more."

"That is enough," said the physician decidedly. "I am completely
satisfied, Mr. Alban. All that remains is to consider how I can get you
to her Grace."

"But if you yourself will deliver--" began Robin.

An extraordinary spasm passed over the other's face, that might denote
any fierce emotion, either of anger or grief.

"Do you think it is that?" he hissed. "Why, man, where is your
priesthood? Do you think the poor dame within would not give her soul
for a priest?... Why, I have prayed God night and day to send us a
priest. She is half mad with sorrow; and who knows whether ever again in
this world--"

He broke off, his face all distorted with pain; and Robin felt a strange
thrill of glory at the thought that he bore with him, in virtue of his
priesthood only, so much consolation. He faced for the first time that
tremendous call of which he had heard so much in Rheims--that desolate
cry of souls that longed and longed in vain for those gifts which a
priest of Christ could alone bestow....

"... The question is," the old man was saying more quietly, "how to get
you in to her Grace. Why, Sir Amyas opens her letters even, and reseals
them again! He thinks me a fool, and that I do not know what he does....
Do you know aught of medicine?" he asked abruptly.

"I know only what country folks know of herbs."

"And their names--their Latin names, man?" pursued the other, leaning
forward.

Robin half smiled.

"Now you speak of it," he said, "I have learned a good many, as a
pastime, when I was a boy. I was something of a herbalist, even. But I
have forgotten--"

"Bah! that would be enough for Sir Amyas--"

He turned and spat venomously at the name.

"Sir Amyas knows nothing save his own vile trade. He is a lout--no more.
He is as grim as a goose, always. And you have a town air about you," he
went on, running his eyes critically over the young man's dress. "Those
are French clothes?"

"They were bought in France."

The two stood silent. Robin's excitement beat in all his veins, in spite
of his weariness. He had come to bear a human message only to a
bereaved Queen; and it seemed as if his work were to be rather the
bearing of a Divine message to a lonely soul. He watched the old man's
face eagerly. It was sunk in thought.... Then Mr. Bourgoign took him
abruptly by the arm.

"Give me your arm again," he said. "I am an old man. We must be going
back again. It seems as if God heard our prayers after all. I will see
you disposed for to-night--you and your man and the horses, and I will
send for you myself in the morning. Could you say mass, think you? if I
found you a secure place--and bring Our Lord's Body with you in the
morning?"

He checked the young man, to hear his answer.

"Why, yes," said Robin. "I have all things that are needed."

"Then you shall say mass in any case ... and reserve our Lord's Body in
a pyx.... Now listen to me. If my plan falls as I hope, you must be a
physician to-morrow, and have practised your trade in Paris. You have
been in Paris?"

"No, sir."

"Bah!... Well, no more has Sir Amyas!... You have practised your trade
in Paris, and God has given you great skill in the matter of herbs. And,
upon hearing that I was in Chartley, you inquired for your old friend,
whose acquaintance you had made in Paris, five years ago. And I, upon
hearing you were come, secured your willingness to see my patient, if
you would but consent. Your reputation has reached me even here; you
have attended His Majesty in Paris on three occasions; you restored
Mademoiselle Elise, of the family of Guise, from the very point of
death. You are but a young man still; yet--Bah! It is arranged. You
understand? Now come with me."




CHAPTER IV


I

In spite of his plans and his hopes and his dreams, it was with an
amazement beyond all telling, that Mr. Robert Alban found himself, at
nine o'clock next morning, conducted by two men through the hall at
Chartley to the little parlour where he was to await Sir Amyas Paulet
and the Queen's apothecary.

* * * * *

Matters had been arranged last night with that promptness which alone
could make the tale possible. He had walked back with the old man in
full view of the little hamlet, to all appearances, the best of old
friends; and after providing for a room in the sick woman's house for
Robin himself, another in another house for Mr. Arnold, and stabling for
the horses in a shed where occasionally the spent horses of the couriers
were housed when Chartley stables were overflowing--after all this had
been arranged by Mr. Bourgoign in person, the two walked on to the great
gates of the park, where they took an affectionate farewell within
hearing of the sentry, the apothecary promising to see Sir Amyas that
night and to communicate with his friend in the morning. Robin had
learned previously how strict was the watch set about the Queen's
person, particularly since the news of the Babington plot had first
reached the authorities, and of the extraordinary difficulty to the
approach of any stranger to her presence. Nau and Curle, her two
secretaries, had been arrested and perhaps racked a week or ten days
before; all the Queen's papers had been taken from her, and even her
jewellery and pictures sent off to Elizabeth; and the only persons
ordinarily allowed to speak with her, besides her gaoler, were two of
her women, and Mr. Bourgoign himself.

That morning then, before six o'clock, Robin had said mass in the sick
woman's room and given her communion, with her companion, who answered
his mass, as it was thought more prudent that the other priest should
not even be present; and, at the close of the mass he had reserved in a
little pyx, hidden beneath his clothes, a consecrated particle. Mr.
Bourgoign had said that he would see to it that the Queen should be
fasting up to ten o'clock that day.

And now the last miracle had been accomplished. A servant had come down
late the night before, with a discreet letter from the apothecary,
saying that Sir Amyas had consented to receive and examine for himself
the travelling physician from Paris; and here now went Robin, striving
to remember the old Latin names he had learned as a boy, and to carry a
medical air with him.

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