Come Rack, Come Rope

by Robert Hugh Benson

  The priest signed himself with the cross, and turned again to continue the Mass.

  II

  “You tell me, then,” said the girl quietly, “that all is as it was with you? God has told you nothing?”

  Robin was silent.

  Mass had been done an hour or more, and for the most part the company was dispersed again, after refreshment spread in the hall, except for those who were to stay to dinner, and these two had slipped away at last to talk together in the woods; for the court was still filled with servants coming and going, and the parlours occupied.

  Robin had come to Booth’s Edge at the beginning of Passion week, and had been there ever since. He had refrained, at Marjorie’s entreaty, from speaking of her to her parents; and they, too, ruled by their daughter, had held their tongues on the matter. Everything else, however, had been discussed—the effect of the squire’s apostasy, the alternatives that presented themselves to the boy, the future behaviour of him to his father. Yet not much had come of it. If the worst came to the worst, the lawyer had offered the boy a place in his office; Anthony Babington had proposed his coming to Dethick if his father turned him out; while Robin himself inclined to a third alternative—the begging of his father to give him a sum of money and be rid of him; after which he proposed, with youthful vagueness, to set off for London and see what he could do there.

  Marjorie, however, had seemed strangely uninterested in such proposals. She had listened with patience, bowing her head in assent to each, beginning once or twice a word of criticism, and stopping herself before she had well begun. But she had looked at Robin with more than interest; and her mother had found her more than once on her knees in her own chamber, in tears. Yet she had said nothing, except that she would speak her mind after Easter, perhaps.

  And now, it seemed, she was doing it.

  “You have had no other thought?” she said again, “besides those of which you talked with my father?”

  “I have had other thoughts,” said the boy slowly, “but they are so wild and foolish that I have determined to think no more of them.”

  “You are determined?”

  He bowed his head.

  “You are sure, then, that they are not from God?” asked the girl, torn between fear and hope. He was silent; and her heart sank again.

  He looked, indeed, a bewildered boy, borne down by a weight that was too heavy for his years. He walked with his hands behind his back, his hatless head bowed, regarding his feet and the last year’s leaves on which he walked.

  “My Robin,” said the girl, “the last thing I would have you do is to tell me what you would not.… Will you not speak to the priest about it?”

  “I have spoken to the priest.”

  “Yes?”

  “He tells me he does not know what to think.”

  “Would you do this thing—whatever it may be—if the priest told you it was God’s will?”

  There was a pause; and then:

  “I do not know,” said Robin, so low she could scarcely hear him.

  She drew a deep breath to reassure herself.

  “Listen!” she said. “I must say a little of what I think; but not all. Our Lord must finish it to you, if it is according to His will.”

  He glanced at her swiftly, and down again, like a frightened child.

  “You know first,” she said, “that I am promised to you. I hold that promise as sacred as anything on earth can be.”

  Her voice shook a little. The boy bowed his head again. She went on:

  “But there are some things,” she said, “more sacred than anything on earth—those things that come from heaven. Now, I wish to say this—and then have done with it: that if such should be God’s will, I would not hold you for a day. We are Catholics, you and I.… Your father——”

  Her voice broke; and she stopped; yet without leaving go of her hold upon herself. Only she could not speak for a moment.

  Then a great fury seized on the boy. It was one of those angers that for a while poison the air and turn all things sour; yet without obscuring the mind—an anger in which the angry one strikes first at that which he loves most, because he loves it most, knowing, too, that the words he speaks are false. For this, for the present, was the breaking-point in the lad. She would give him no peace; she continued to press on him from without that which already pained him within; so he turned on her.

  “You wish to be rid of me!” he cried fiercely.

  She looked at him with her lips parted, her eyes astonished, and her face gone white.

  “What did you say?” she said.

  His conscience pierced him like a sword. Yet he set his teeth.

  “You wish to be rid of me. You are urging me to leave you. You talk to me of God’s will and God’s voice, and you have no pity on me at all. It is an excuse—a blind.”

  He stood raging. The very fact that he knew every word to be false made his energy the greater; for he could not have said it otherwise.

  “You think that!” she whispered.

  There, then, they stood, eyeing one another. Then there surged over the boy a wave of shame, and the truth prevailed. His fair face went scarlet, and his eyes filled with tears. He dropped on his knees in the leaves, seized her hand and kissed it.

  “Oh! you must forgive me,” he said. “But … but I cannot do it!”

  III

  It was a great occasion in the hall that Easter Day. The three tables, which, according to custom, ran along the walls, were filled to-day with guests; and a second dinner was to follow, scarcely less splendid than the first, for their servants as well as for those of the household. The floor was spread with new rushes; jugs of March beer, a full month old, as it should be, were ranged down the tables; and by every plate lay a posy of flowers. From the passage outside came the sound of music.

  The feast began with the reading of the Gospel; at the close, Mr. John struck with his hand upon the table as a signal for conversation; the doors opened; the servants came in, and a babble of talk broke out. At the high table the master of the house presided, with the priest on his right, Mrs. Manners and Marjorie beyond him; on his left, Mrs. Fenton and her lord. At the other two tables Mr. Thomas presided at one and Mr. Babington at the other.

  The talk was, of course, within the bounds of discretion; though once and again sentences were spoken which would scarcely have pleased the minister of the parish. For they were difficult times in which they lived; and it is no wonder at all if bitterness mixed itself with charity. Hardly one of the folk there but had paid a heavy price for his conscience; and all the worship that was permitted to them, and that by circumstance, and not by law, was such as they had engaged in that morning with shuttered windows and a sentinel for fear that, too, should be silenced.

  The climax of the talk came when dinner was over, and the muscadel, with the mould-jellies, had been put upon the tables. It was at this moment that Mr. John nodded to his son, who went to the door to see the servants out, and stood by it to see that none listened. Then his father struck his hands together for silence, and himself spoke.

  “Mr. Simpson,” he said, “has something to say to us all. It is not a matter to be spoken of lightly, as you will understand presently.… Mr. Simpson.”

  The priest looked up timidly, pulling out a paper from his pocket.

  “You have heard of Mr. Nelson?” he said to the company. “Well, he was a priest; and I have news of his death. He was executed in London on the third of February for his religion. And another man, a Mr. Sherwood, was executed a few days afterwards.”

  There was a rustle along the benches. Some there had heard of the fact, but no more; some had heard nothing of either the man or his death. Two or three faces turned a shade paler; and then the silence settled down again. For here was a matter that touched them all closely enough; since up to now scarcely a priest except Mr. Cuthbert Maine had suffered death for his religion; and even of him some of the more tolerant said that it was treason with which he was cha
rged. They had heard, indeed, of a priest or two having been sent abroad into exile for his faith; but the most of them thought it a thing incredible that in England at this time a man should suffer death for it. Fines and imprisonment were one thing; to such they had become almost accustomed. But death was another matter altogether. And for a priest! Was it possible that the days of King Harry were coming back; and that every Catholic henceforth should go in peril of his life as well as of liberty?

  The folks settled themselves then in their seats; one or two men drank off a glass of wine.

  “I have heard from a good friend of mine in London,” went on the priest, looking at his paper, “one who followed every step of the trial; and was present at the death. They suffered at Tyburn.… However, I will tell you what he says. He is a countryman of mine, from Yorkshire, as was Mr. Nelson, too.

  “ ‘Mr. Nelson was taken in London on the first of December last year. He was born at Shelton, and was about forty-three years old; he was the son of Sir Nicholas Nelson.’

  “So much,” said the priest, looking up from his paper, “I knew myself. I saw him about four years ago just before he went to Douay, and he came back to England as a priest, a year and a half after. Mr. Sherwood was not a priest; he had been at Douay, too, but as a scholar only.… Well, we will speak of Mr. Nelson first. This is what my friend says.”

  He spread the paper before him on the table; and Marjorie, looking past her mother, saw that his hands shook as he spread it.

  “ ‘Mr. Nelson.’ ” began the priest, reading aloud with some difficulty, “ ‘was brought before my lords, and first had tendered to him the oath of the Queen’s supremacy. This he refused to take, saying that no lay prince could have pre-eminence over Christ’s Church; and, upon being pressed as to who then could have it, answered, Christ’s Vicar only, the successor of Peter. Further, he proceeded to say, under questioning, that since the religion of England at this time is schismatic and heretical, so also is the Queen’s Grace who is head of it.

  “ ‘This, then, was what was wanted; and after a delay of a few weeks, the same questions being put to him, and his answers being the same, he was sentenced to death. He was very fortunate in his imprisonment. I had speech with him two or three times and was the means, by God’s blessing, of bringing another priest to him, to whom he confessed himself; and with whom he received the Body of Christ a day before he suffered.

  “ ‘On the third of February, knowing nothing of his death being so near, he was brought up to a higher part of the prison, and there told he was to suffer that day. His kinsmen were admitted to him then, to bid him farewell; and afterwards two ministers came to turn him from his faith if they could; but they prevailed nothing.’ ”

  There was a pause in the reading; but there was no movement among any that listened. Robin, watching from his place at the right-hand table, cold at heart, ran his eyes along the faces. The priest was as white as death, with the excitement, it seemed, of having to tell such a tale. His host beside him seemed downcast and quiet, but perfectly composed. Mrs. Manners had her eyes closed; Anthony Babington was frowning to himself with tight lips; Marjorie he could not see.

  With a great effort the reader resumed:

  “ ‘When he was laid on the hurdle he refused to ask pardon of the Queen’s Grace; for, said he, I have never yet offended her. I was beside him, and heard it. And he added, when those who stood near stormed at him, that it was better to be hanged than to burn in hell-fire.

  “ ‘There was a great concourse of people at Tyburn, but kept back by the officers so that they could not come at him. When he was in the cart, first he commended his spirit into God’s Hands, saying In manus tuas, etc.; then he besought all Catholics that were present to pray for him; I saw a good many who signed themselves in the crowd; and then he said some prayers in Latin; with the psalms Miserere and De Profundis. And then he addressed himself to the people, telling them he died for his religion, which was the Catholic Roman one, and prayed, and desired them to pray, that God would bring all Englishmen into it. The crowd cried out at that, exclaiming against this Catholic Romish Faith; and so he said what he had to say, over again. Then, before the cart was drawn away from him to leave him to hang, he asked pardon of all them he had offended, and even of the Queen, if he had indeed offended her. Then one of the sheriffs called on the hangman to make an end; so Mr. Nelson prayed again in silence, and then begged all Catholics that were there once more to pray that, by the bitter passion of Christ, his soul might be received into everlasting joy. And they did so; for as the cart was drawn away a great number cried out, and I with them, Lord, receive his soul.

  “ ‘He was cut down, according to sentence, before he was dead, and the butchery begun on him; and when it was near over, he moved a little in his pain, and said that he forgave the Queen and all that caused or consented to his death: and so he died.’ ”

  The priest’s voice, which had shaken again and again, grew so tremulous as he ended that those that were at the end of the hall could scarcely hear him; and, as it ceased, a murmur ran along the seats.

  Mr. FitzHerbert leaned over to the priest and whispered. The priest nodded, and the other held up his hand for silence.

  “There is more yet,” he said.

  Mr. Simpson, with a hand that still shook so violently that he could hardly hold his glass, lifted and drank off a cup of muscadel. Then he cleared his throat, sat up a little in his chair, and resumed:

  “ ‘Next I went to see Mr. Sherwood, to talk to him in prison and to encourage him by telling him of the passion of the other and how bravely he bore it. Mr. Sherwood took it very well, and said that he was afraid of nothing, that he had reconciled his mind to it long ago, and had rehearsed it all two or three times, so that he would know what to say and how to bear himself.’ ”

  Mr. FitzHerbert leaned over again to the priest at this point and whispered something. Mr. Simpson nodded, and raised his eyes.

  “Mr. Sherwood,” he said, “was a scholar from Douay, but not a priest. He was lodging in the house of a Catholic lady, and had procured Mass to be said there, and it was through her son that he was taken and charged with recusancy.”

  Again ran a rustle through the benches. This executing of the laity for religion was a new thing in their experience. The priest lifted the paper again.

  “ ‘I found that Mr. Sherwood had been racked many times in the Tower, during the six months he was in prison, to force him to tell, if they could, where he had heard Mass and who had said it. But they could prevail nothing. Further, no visitor was admitted to him all this time, and I was the first and the last that he had; and that though Mr. Roper himself had tried to get at him for his relief; for he was confined underground and lay in chains and filth not to be described. I said what I could to him, but he said he needed nothing and was content, though his pain must have been very great all this while, what with the racking repeated over and over again and the place he lay in.

  “ ‘I was present again when he suffered at Tyburn, but was too far away to hear anything that he said, and scarcely, indeed, could see him; but I learned afterwards that he died well and courageously, as a Catholic should, and made no outcry or complaint when the butchery was done on him.

  “ ‘This, then, is the news I have to send you—sorrowful, indeed, yet joyful, too; for surely we may think that they who bore such pains for Christ’s sake with such constancy will intercede for us whom they leave behind. I am hoping myself to come North again before I go to Douay next year, and will see you then and tell you more.’ ”

  The priest laid down the paper, trembling.

  Mr. FitzHerbert looked up.

  “It will give pleasure to the company,” he said, “to know that the writer of the letter is Mr. Ludlam, from Radbourne, in this county. As you have heard, he, too, hopes by God’s mercy to be made priest and to come back to England.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  I

  IN THE following week Robin went home again. He
thought he had come to a decision last week; he found that the decision was shattered as soon as made. He had talked to the priest; he had resisted Marjorie; and yet to neither of them had he put into formal words what it was that troubled him. He had asked questions about vocation, about the place that circumstance occupies in it, of the value of dispositions, fears, scruples, and resistance. He had, that is, fingered his wound, glanced at it and then glanced aside; yet the one thing he had not done was to probe it—not even to allow another to do so.

  As he rode through Froggatt, he saw a group of saddle-horses standing at the inn door, but thought nothing of it, till a man ran out of the door, still holding his pot, and saluted him, and he recognised him to be one of Mr. Babington’s men.

  “My master is within, sir,” he said; “he bade me look out for you.”

  Robin drew rein, and as he did so, Anthony, too, came out.

  “Ah!” he said. “I heard you would be coming this way. Will you come in? I have something to say to you.”

  Robin slipped off, leaving his mare in the hands of Anthony’s man, since he himself was riding alone, with his valise strapped on behind.

  It was a little room, very trim and well kept, on the first floor, to which his friend led him. Anthony shut the door carefully and came across to the settle by the window-seat.

  “Well,” he said, “I have bad news for you, my friend. Will you forgive me? I have seen your father and had words with him.”

  “Eh?”

  “I said nothing to you before,” went on the other, sitting down beside him. “I knew you would not have it so, but I went to see for myself and to put a question or two. He is your father, but he has also been my friend. That gives me rights, you see!”

  “Tell me,” said Robin heavily.

  It appeared that Anthony, who was a precise as well as an ardent young man, had had scruples about trusting to hearsay. Certainly it was rumoured far and wide that the squire of Matstead had done as he had said he would do, and gone to church; but Mr. Anthony was one of those spirits who will always have things, as they say, from the fountain-head; partly from instincts of justice, partly, no doubt, for the pleasure of making direct observations to the principals concerned. This was what he had done in this case. He had ridden, without a word to any, up to Matstead, and had demanded to be led to the squire; and there and then, refusing to sit down till he was answered, had put his question. There had been a scene. The squire had referred to puppies who wanted drowning, to young sparks, and to such illustrative similes; and Anthony, in spite of his youthful years, had flared out about turncoats and lick-spittles. There had been a very pretty ending: the squire had shouted for his servants and Anthony for his, and the two parties had eyed one another, growling like dogs, until bloodshed seemed imminent. Then the visitor had himself solved the situation by stalking out of the house from which the squire was proposing to flog him, mounting his horse, and with a last compliment or two had ridden away. And here he was at Froggatt on his return journey, having eaten there that dinner which no longer would be spread for him at Matstead.