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Come Rack! Come Rope! by Robert Hugh Benson

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




They blessed themselves, all four of them, openly at the end, and went
out at last to their horses.

"Will you ride with us, sir?" asked Anthony; "we can go your way. Robin
here has something to say to you."

"I shall be happy if you will give me your company for a little. I must
be at Padley before dark, if I can, and must visit a couple of houses on
the way."

He called out to his two servants, who ran out from the kitchen wiping
their mouths, telling them to follow at once, and the three rode off
down the hill.

Then Robin told him.

He was silent for a while after he had put a question or two, biting his
lower lip a little, and putting his little beard into his mouth. Then he
burst out.

"And I dare not ask you to come to me for Easter," he said. "God only
knows where I shall be at Easter. I shall be married, too, by then. My
father is in London now and may send for me. My uncle is in the Fleet. I
am here now only to see what money I can raise for the fines and for the
solace of my uncle. I cannot ask you, Mr. Audrey, though God knows that
I would do anything that I could. Have you nowhere to go? Will your
father hold to what he says?"

Robin told him yes; and he added that there were four or five places he
could go to. He was not asking for help or harbourage, but advice only.

"And even of that I have none," cried Mr. Thomas. "I need all that I can
get myself. I am distracted, Mr. Babington, with all these troubles."

Robin asked him whether the priests who came and went should be told of
the blow that impended; for at those times every apostasy was of
importance to priests who had to run here and there for shelter.

"I will tell one or two of the more discreet ones myself," said Mr.
Thomas, "if you will give me leave. I would that they were all discreet,
but they are not. We will name no names, if you please; but some of them
are unreasonable altogether and think nothing of bringing us all into
peril."

He began to bite his beard again.

"Do you think the Commissioners will visit us again?" asked Anthony.
"Mr. Fenton was telling me--"

"It is Mr. Fenton and the like that will bring them down on us if any
will," burst out Mr. FitzHerbert peevishly. "I am as good a Catholic, I
hope, as any in the world; but we can surely live without the sacraments
for a month or two sometimes! But it is this perpetual coming and going
of priests that enrages her Grace and her counsellors. I do not believe
her Grace has any great enmity against us; but she soon will, if men
like Mr. Fenton and Mr. Bassett are for ever harbouring priests and
encouraging them. It is the same in London, I hear; it is the same in
Lancashire; it is the same everywhere. And all the world knows it, and
thinks that we do contemn her Grace by such boldness. All the mischief
came in with that old Bull, _Regnans in Excelsis_, in '69, and--"

"I beg your pardon, sir," came in a quiet voice from beyond him; and
Robin, looking across, saw Anthony with a face as if frozen.

"Pooh! pooh!" burst out Mr. Thomas, with an uneasy air. "The Holy
Father, I take it, may make mistakes, as I understand it, in such
matters, as well as any man. Why, a dozen priests have said to me they
thought it inopportune; and--"

"I do not permit," said Anthony with an air of dignity beyond his years,
"that any man should speak so in my company."

"Well, well; you are too hot altogether, Mr. Babington. I admire such
zeal indeed, as I do in the saints; but we are not bound to imitate all
that we admire. Say no more, sir; and I will say no more either."

They rode in silence.

It was, indeed, one of those matters that were in dispute at that time
amongst the Catholics. The Pope was not swift enough for some, and too
swift for others. He had thundered too soon, said one party, if, indeed,
it was right to thunder at all, and not to wait in patience till the
Queen's Grace should repent herself; and he had thundered not soon
enough, said the other. Whence it may at least be argued that he had
been exactly opportune. Yet it could not be denied that since the day
when he had declared Elizabeth cut off from the unity of the Church and
her subjects absolved from their allegiance--though never, as some
pretended then and have pretended ever since, that a private person
might kill her and do no wrong--ever since that day her bitterness had
increased yearly against her Catholic people, who desired no better than
to serve both her and their God, if she would but permit that to be
possible.


II

It would be an hour later that they bid good-bye to Mr. Thomas
FitzHerbert, high among the hills to the east of the Derwent river; and
when they had seen him ride off towards Wingerworth, rode yet a few
furlongs together to speak of what had been said.

"He can do nothing, then," said Robin; "not even to give good counsel."

"I have never heard him speak so before," cried Anthony; "he must be
near mad, I think. It must be his marriage, I suppose."

"He is full of his own troubles; that is plain enough, without seeking
others. Well, I must bear mine as best I can."

They were just parting--Anthony to ride back to Dethick, and Robin over
the moors to Matstead, when over a rise in the ground they saw the
heads of three horsemen approaching. It was a wild country that they
were in; there were no houses in sight; and in such circumstances it was
but prudent to remain together until the character of the travellers
should be plain; so the two, after a word, rode gently forward, hearing
the voices of the three talking to one another, in the still air, though
without catching a word. For, as they came nearer the voices ceased, as
if the talkers feared to be overheard.

They were well mounted, these three, on horses known as Scottish nags,
square-built, sturdy beasts, that could cover forty miles in the day.
They were splashed, too, not the horses only, but the riders, also, as
if they had ridden far, through streams or boggy ground. The men were
dressed soberly and well, like poor gentlemen or prosperous yeomen; all
three were bearded, and all carried arms as could be seen from the flash
of the sun on their hilts. It was plain, too, that they were not rogues
or cutters, since each carried his valise on his saddle, as well as from
their appearance. Our gentlemen, then, after passing them with a salute
and a good-day, were once more about to say good-bye one to the other,
and appoint a time and place to meet again for the hunting of which
Robin had spoken to Marjorie, and, indeed, had drawn rein--when one of
the three strangers was seen to turn his horse and come riding back
after them, while his friends waited.

The two lads wheeled about to meet him, as was but prudent; but while he
was yet twenty yards away he lifted his hat. He seemed about thirty
years old; he had a pleasant, ruddy face.

"Mr. Babington, I think, sir," he said.

"That is my name," said Anthony.

"I have heard mass in your house, sir," said the stranger. "My name is
Garlick."

"Why, yes, sir, I remember--from Tideswell. How do you do, Mr. Garlick?
This is Mr. Audrey, of Matstead."

They saluted one another gravely.

"Mr. Audrey is a Catholic, too, I think?"

Robin answered that he was.

"Then I have news for you, gentlemen. A priest, Mr. Simpson, is with us;
and will say mass at Tansley next Sunday. You would like to speak with
his reverence?"

"It will give us great pleasure, sir," said Anthony, touching his horse
with his heel.

"I am bringing Mr. Simpson on his way. He is just fresh from Rheims. And
Mr. Ludlam is to carry him further on Monday," continued Mr. Garlick as
they went forward.

"Mr. Ludlam?"

"He is a native of Radbourne, and has but just finished at Oxford....
Forgive me, sir; I will but just ride forward and tell them."

The two lads drew rein, seeing that he wished first to tell the others
who they were, before bringing them up; and a strange little thing fell
as Mr. Garlick joined the two. For it happened that by now the sun was
at his setting; going down in a glory of crimson over the edge of the
high moor; and that the three riders were directly in his path from
where the two lads waited. Robin, therefore, looking at them, saw the
three all together on their horses with the circle of the sun about
them, and a great flood of blood-coloured light on every side; the
priest was in the midst of the three, and the two men leaning towards
him seemed to be speaking and as if encouraging him strongly. For an
instant, so strange was the light, so immense the shadows on this side
spread over the tumbled ground up to the lads themselves, so vast the
great vault of illuminated sky, that it seemed to Robin as if he saw a
vision.... Then the strangeness passed, as Mr. Garlick turned away again
to beckon to them; and the boy thought no more of it at that time.

They uncovered as they rode towards the priest, and bowed low to him as
he lifted his hand with a few words of Latin; and the next instant they
were in talk.

Mr. Simpson, like his friends, was a youngish man at this time, with a
kind face and great, innocent eyes that seemed to wonder and question.
Mr. Ludlam, too, was under thirty years old, plainly not of gentleman's
birth, though he was courteous and well-mannered. It seemed a great
matter to these three to have fallen in with young Mr. Babington, whose
family was so well-known, and whose own fame as a scholar, as well as an
ardent Catholic, was all over the county.

Robin said little; he was overshadowed by his friend; but he listened
and watched as the four spoke together, and learned that Mr. Simpson had
been made priest scarcely a month before, and was come from Yorkshire,
which was his own county, to minister in the district of the Peak at
least for awhile. He heard, too, news from Douay, and that the college,
it was thought, might move from there to another place under the
protection of the family of De Guise, since her Grace was very hot
against Douay, whence so many of her troubles proceeded, and was doing
her best to persuade the Governor of the Netherlands to suppress it.
However, said Mr. Simpson, it was not yet done.

Anthony, too, in his turn gave the news of the county; he spoke of Mr.
Fenton, of the FitzHerberts and others that were safe and discreet
persons; but he said nothing at that time of Mr. Audrey of Matstead, at
which Robin was glad, since his shame deepened on him every hour, and
all the more now that he had met with those three men who rode so
gallantly through the country in peril of liberty or life itself. Nor
did he say anything of the FitzHerberts except that they might be relied
upon.

"We must be riding," said Garlick at last; "these moors are strange to
me; and it will be dark in half an hour."

"Will you allow me to be your guide, sir?" asked Anthony of the priest.
"It is all in my road, and you will not be troubled with questions or
answers if you are in my company."

"But what of your friend, sir?"

"Oh! Robin knows the country as he knows the flat of his hand. We were
about to separate as we met you."

"Then we will thankfully accept your guidance, sir," said the priest
gravely.

An impulse seized upon Robin as he was about to say good-day, though he
was ashamed of it five minutes later as a modest lad would be. Yet he
followed it now; he leapt off his horse and, holding Cecily's rein in
his arm, kneeled on the stones with both knees.

"Your blessing, sir," he said to the priest. And Anthony eyed him with
astonishment.


III

Robin was moved, as he rode home over the high moors, and down at last
upon the woods of Matstead, in a manner that was new to him, and that he
could not altogether understand. He had met travelling priests before;
indeed, all the priests whose masses he had ever heard, or from whom he
had received the sacraments, were travelling priests who went in peril;
and yet this young man, upon whose consecrated hands the oil was
scarcely yet dry, moved and drew his heart in a manner that he had never
yet known. It was perhaps something in the priest's face that had so
affected him; for there was a look in it of a kind of surprised timidity
and gentleness, as if he wondered at himself for being so foolhardy, and
as if he appealed with that same wonder and surprise to all who looked
on him. His voice, too, was gentle, as if tamed for the seminary and the
altar; and his whole air and manner wholly unlike that of some of the
priests whom Robin knew--loud-voiced, confident, burly men whom you
would have sworn to be country gentlemen or yeomen living on their
estates or farms and fearing to look no man in the face. It was this
latter kind, thought Robin, that was best suited to such a life--to
riding all day through north-country storms, to lodging hardily where
they best could, to living such a desperate enterprise as a priest's
life then was, with prices upon their heads and spies everywhere. It was
not a life for quiet persons like Mr. Simpson, who, surely, would be
better at his books in some college abroad, offering the Holy Sacrifice
in peace and security, and praying for adventurers more hardy than
himself. Yet here was Mr. Simpson just set out upon such an adventure,
of his own free-will and choice, with no compulsion save that of God's
grace.

* * * * *

There was yet more than an hour before supper-time when he rode into the
court at last; and Dick Sampson, his own groom, came to take his horse
from him.

"The master's not been from home to-day, sir," said Dick when Robin
asked of his father.

"Not been from home?"

"No, sir--not out of the house, except that he was walking in the
pleasaunce half an hour ago."

Robin ran up the steps and through the screens to see if his father was
still there; but the little walled garden, so far as he could see it in
the light from the hall windows, was empty; and, indeed, it would be
strange for any man to walk in such a place at such an hour. He
wondered, too, to hear that his father had not been from home; for on
all days, except he were ill, he would be about the estate, here and
there. As he came back to the screens he heard a step going up and down
in the hall, and on looking in met his father face to face. The old man
had his hat on his head, but no cloak on his shoulders, though even with
the fire the place was cold. It was plain that he had been walking up
and down to warm himself. Robin could not make out his face very well,
as he stood with his back to a torch.

"Where have you been, my lad?"

"I went to meet Anthony at one of the Dethick farms, sir--John
Merton's."

"You met no one else?"

"Yes, sir; Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert was there and dined with us. He rode
with us, too, a little way." And then as he was on the point of speaking
of the priest, he stopped himself; and in an instant knew that never
again must he speak of a priest to his father; his father had already
lost his right to that. His father looked at him a moment, standing with
his hands clasped behind his back.

"Have you heard anything of a priest that is newly come to these
parts--or coming?"

"Yes, sir. I hear mass is to be said ... in the district on Sunday."

"Where is mass to be said?"

Robin drew along breath, lifted his eyes to his father's and then
dropped them again.

"Did you hear me, sir? Where is mass to be said?"

Again Robin lifted and again dropped his eyes.

"What is the priest's name?"

Again there was dead silence. For a son, in those days, so to behave
towards his father, was an act of very defiance. Yet the father said
nothing. There the two remained; Robin with his eyes on the ground,
expecting a storm of words or a blow in the face. Yet he knew he could
do no otherwise; the moment had come at last and he must act as he would
be obliged always to act hereafter.

Matters had matured swiftly in the boy's mind, all unconsciously to
himself. Perhaps it was the timid air of the priest he had met an hour
ago that consummated the process. At least it was so consummated.

Then his father turned suddenly on his heel; and the son went out
trembling.




CHAPTER III


I

"I will speak to you to-night, sir, after supper," said his father
sharply a second day later, when Robin, meeting his father setting out
before dinner, had asked him to give him an hour's talk.

* * * * *

Robin's mind had worked fiercely and intently since the encounter in the
hall. His father had sat silent both at supper and afterwards, and the
next day was the same; the old man spoke no more than was necessary,
shortly and abruptly, scarcely looking his son once in the face, and the
rest of the day they had not met. It was plain to the boy that something
must follow his defiance, and he had prepared all his fortitude to meet
it. Yet the second night had passed and no word had been spoken, and by
the second morning Robin could bear it no longer; he must know what was
in his father's mind. And now the appointment was made, and he would
soon know all. His father was absent from dinner and the boy dined
alone. He learned from Dick Sampson that his father had ridden
southwards.

* * * * *

It was not until Robin had sat down nearly half an hour later than
supper-time that the old man came in. The frost was gone; deep mud had
succeeded, and the rider was splashed above his thighs. He stayed at the
fire for his boots to be drawn off and to put on his soft-leather shoes,
while Robin stood up dutifully to await him. Then he came forward, took
his seat without a word, and called for supper. In ominous silence the
meal proceeded, and with the same thunderous air, when it was over, his
father said grace and made his way, followed by his son, into the
parlour behind. He made no motion at first to pour out his wine; then he
helped himself twice and left the jug for Robin.

Then suddenly he began without moving his head.

"I wish to know your intentions," he said, with irony so serious that it
seemed gravity. "I cannot flog you or put you to school again, and I
must know how we stand to one another."

Robin was silent. He had looked at his father once or twice, but now sat
downcast and humble in his place. With his left hand he fumbled, out of
sight, Mr. Maine's pair of beads. His father, for his part, sat with his
feet stretched to the fire, his head propped on his hand, not doing
enough courtesy to his son even to look at him.

"Do you hear me, sir?"

"Yes, sir. But I do not know what to say."

"I wish to know your intentions. Do you mean to thwart and disobey me in
all matters, or in only those that have to do with religion?"

"I do not wish to thwart or disobey you, sir, in any matters except
where my conscience is touched." (The substance of this answer had been
previously rehearsed, and the latter part of it even verbally.)

"Be good enough to tell me what you mean by that."

Robin licked his lips carefully and sat up a little in his chair.

"You told me, sir, that it was your intention to leave the Church. Then
how can I tell you of what priests are here, or where mass is to be
said? You would not have done so to one who was not a Catholic, six
months ago."

The man sneered visibly.

"There is no need," he said. "It is Mr. Simpson who is to say mass
to-morrow, and it is at Tansley that it will be said, at six o'clock in
the morning. If I choose to tell the justices, you cannot prevent it."
(He turned round in a flare of anger.) "Do you think I shall tell the
justices?"

Robin said nothing.

"Do you think I shall tell the justices?" roared the old man
insistently.

"No, sir. Now I do not."

The other growled gently and sank back.

"But if you think that I will permit my son to flout and to my face in
my own hall, and not to trust his own father--why, you are immeasurably
mistaken, sir. So I ask you again how far you intend to thwart and
disobey me."

A kind of despair surged up in the boy's heart--despair at the
fruitlessness of this ironical and furious sort of talk; and with the
despair came boldness.

"Father, will you let me speak outright, without thinking that I mean to
insult you? I do not; I swear I do not. Will you let me speak, sir?"

His father growled again a sort of acquiescence, and Robin gathered his
forces. He had prepared a kind of defence that seemed to him reasonable,
and he knew that his father was at least just. They had been friends,
these two, always, in an underground sort of way, which was all that the
relations of father and son in such days allowed. The old man was curt,
obstinate, and even boisterous in his anger; but there was a kindliness
beneath that the boy always perceived--a kindliness which permitted the
son an exceptional freedom of speech, which he used always in the last
resort and which he knew his father loved to hear him use. This, then,
was plainly a legitimate occasion for it, and he had prepared himself to
make the most of it. He began formally:

"Sir," he said, "you have brought me up in the Old Faith, sent me to
mass, and to the priest to learn my duty, and I have obeyed you always.
You have taught me that a man's duty to God must come before all
else--as our Saviour Himself said, too. And now you turn on me, and bid
me forget all that, and come to church with you.... It is not for me to
say anything to my father about his own conscience; I must leave that
alone. But I am bound to speak of mine when occasion rises, and this is
one of them.... I should be dishonouring and insulting you, sir, if I
did not believe you when you said you would turn Protestant; and a man
who says he will turn Protestant has done so already. It was for this
reason, then, and no other, that I did not answer you the other day; not
because I wish to be disobedient to you, but because I must be obedient
to God. I did not lie to you, as I might have done, and say that I did
not know who the priest was nor where mass was to be said. But I would
not answer, because it is not right or discreet for a Catholic to speak
of these things to those who are not Catholics--"

"How dare you say I am not a Catholic, sir!"

"A Catholic, sir, to my mind," said Robin steadily, "is one who holds to
the Catholic Church and to no other. I mean nothing offensive, sir; I
mean what I said I meant, and no more. It is not for me to condemn--"

"I should think not!" snorted the old man.

"Well, sir, that is my reason. And further--"

He stopped, doubtful.

"Well, sir--what further?"

"Well, I cannot come to the church with you at Easter."

His father wheeled round savagely in his chair.

"Father, hear me out, and then say what you will.... I say I cannot come
with you to church at Easter, because I am a Catholic. But I do not wish
to trouble or disobey you openly. I will go away from home for that
time. Good Mr. Barton will cause no trouble; he wants nothing but peace.
Father, you are not just to me. You have taught me too much, or you have
not given me time enough--"

Again he broke off, knowing that he had said what he did not mean, but
the old man was on him like a hawk.

"Not time enough, you say? Well, then--"

"No, sir; I did not mean that," wailed Robin suddenly. "I do not mean
that I should change if I had a hundred years; I am sure I shall not.
But--"

"You said, 'Not time enough,'" said the other meditatively. "Perhaps if
I give you time--"

"Father, I beg of you to forget what I said; I did not mean to say it.
It is not true. But Marjorie said--"

"Marjorie! What has Marjorie to do with it?"

Robin found himself suddenly in deep waters. He had plunged and found
that he could not swim. This was the second mistake he had made in
saying what he did not mean.... Again the courage of despair came to
him, and he struck out further.

"I must tell you of that too, sir," he said. "Mistress Marjorie and I--"

He stopped, overwhelmed with shame. His father turned full round and
stared at him.

"Go on, sir."

Robin seized his glass and emptied it.

"Well, sir. Mistress Marjorie and I love one another. We are but boy and
girl, sir; we know that--"

Then his father laughed. It was laughter that was at once hearty and
bitter; and, with it, came the closing of the open door in the boy's
heart. As there came out, after it, sentence after sentence of scorn and
contempt, the bolts, so to say, were shot and the key turned. It might
all have been otherwise if the elder man had been kind, or if he had
been sad or disappointed, or even if he had been merely angry; but the
soreness and misery in the old man's heart--misery at his own acts and
words, and at the outrage he was doing to his own conscience--turned his
judgment bitter, and with that bitterness his son's heart shut tight
against him.

"But boy and girl!" sneered the man. "A couple of blind puppies, I would
say rather--you with your falcons and mare and your other toys, and the
down on your chin, and your conscience; and she with her white face and
her mother and her linen-parlour and her beads"--(his charity prevailed
so far as to hinder him from more outspoken contempt)--"And you two
babes have been prattling of conscience and prayers together--I make no
doubt, and thinking yourselves Cecilies and Laurences and all the holy
martyrs--and all this without a by-your-leave, I dare wager, from parent
or father, and thinking yourselves man and wife; and you fondling her,
and she too modest to be fondled, and--"

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