Chapter Twenty Four.
Counterplot.
A man to be very much pitied was poor Mr Roberts. Not only had he to pacify the priest, but Mistress Grena’s line of defence, plausible as it sounded, had unhappily crossed and invalidated the excuse he had intended to make for himself. His faint, hazy purpose up to that time had been to deny any knowledge of the escape; but after it had been thus represented as a natural, every-day occurrence, how was he to keep up the story? Yet he had no other ready.
“No, Father—ay, it—I was a-bed,” was his blundering reply.
The priest’s voice was sweet as a newly-tuned piano.
“Was it not strange, my son, that you heard no sounds from beneath? Or went you up, knowing what was passing?”
What was the poor man to do? If he acknowledged that he knew of the escape of the fugitives, he laid himself open to the charge of “aiding and abetting”; if he denied it, he practically denied also the truth of Grena’s defence. At that moment he would have given every acre and shilling in his possession to be free from this horrible cross-questioning.
The cat watched the poor mouse wriggle with grim satisfaction. Either way, it would come to its claws at last.
Suddenly the scene of the morning was reproduced to the mind’s eye of the tortured man. Roger Hall’s voice seemed to say again—“Have you asked Him, Master?” Faintly, tremblingly in the unwontedness of the act, the request was made, and even that slight contact with the unchanging Rock steadied the wavering feet. He must speak truth, and uphold Grena.
“Father,” he said in a changed tone, “my sister told you true. The journey was hastened, and that suddenly.”
The change in his tone puzzled the priest. What had come to the man, in that momentary interval, to nerve him thus anew?
“How came the news, my son?”
Mr Roberts was thankfully able to answer that he knew not.
“But surely, with so much baggage as Mistress Collenwood must have borne withal, the number of horses that left your house could not but be noted of them in the vicinage. Yet I am told no sound was heard.”
“My sister sent the most part of her baggage away before her,” was the answer.
“Remember,” said the Rector sternly, “the sin you incur if you deceive a priest!”
“I have not spoken one untrue word, Father.”
At that moment the door-bell was rung, and answered by Osmund, who, coming into the room, deferentially informed the priest that my Lord Cardinal had sent his sumner to the Rectory, with a command that he, Mr Bastian, should attend his court at eight o’clock on the following morning. The interruption was welcome to both parties. The priest was perplexed, and wanted time to think, no less than Mr Roberts. He had anticipated an easy victory, and found himself unaccountably baffled.
In the present day, no English gentleman would bear such questioning by a priest. The latter would very soon be told, in however civil language, that an Englishman’s house was his castle, and that he held himself responsible for his actions to God alone. But the iron terror of Rome was then over every heart. No priest could be defied, nor his questions evaded, with impunity. If those days ever come back, it will be the fault and the misery of Englishmen who would not take warning by the past, but who suffered the enemy to creep in again “while men slept.” The liberties of England, let us never forget, were bought with the blood of the Marian martyrs.
No sooner had the priest departed than Mistress Grena silently slid into the room. She had evidently been on the watch.
“Brother,” she said, in a voice which trembled with doubt and fear, “what have you told him?”
“What you told him, Grena.”
“Oh!” The exclamation spoke of intense relief.
“But you may thank Roger Hall for it.”
“Roger Hall!—what ado had he therewith?”
“If you ask at him,” answered Mr Roberts with a smile, “methinks he will scarce know.”
“Will he come again?” she asked fearfully—not alluding to Roger Hall.
“I wis not. Very like he will—maybe till he have consumed us. Grena, I know not how it hath been with you, but for me, I have been an arrant coward. God aiding me, I will be thus no longer, but will go forth in the strength of the Lord God. Believe you these lying wonders and deceitful doctrines? for I do not, and have never so done, though I have made believe to do it. I will make believe no longer. I will be a man, and no more a puppet, to be moved at the priest’s pleasure. Thank God, Pan is safe, and Gertrude is not like to fall in trouble. How say you? Go you with me, or keep you Gertrude’s company?”
Then Grena Holland broke down. All her little prim preciseness vanished, and the real woman she was came out of her shell and showed herself.
“O Tom!” she said, sobbing till she could hardly speak: for when restrained, self-contained natures like hers break down, they often do it utterly. “O Tom! God bless thee, and help me to keep by thee, and both of us to be faithful to the end! I too have sinned and done foolishly, and set evil ensample. Forgive me, my brother, and God forgive us both!”
Mr Roberts passed his arm round her, and gave her the kiss of peace.
“Methinks we had best forgive each the other, Grena; and I say Amen to thy ‘God forgive us both!’”
When Mr Bastian arrived at Canterbury a little after daybreak the next morning, he found, as he had expected, that while the message had been sent in the name of Cardinal Pole, it was really the Bishop of Dover who required his attendance. The Bishop wanted to talk with the parish priest concerning the accused persons from his parish. He read their names from a paper whereon he had them noted down—“John Fishcock, butcher; Nicholas White, ironmonger; Nicholas Pardue, cloth-worker; Alice Benden, gentlewoman; Barbara Final, widow, innkeeper; Sens Bradbridge, widow; Emmet Wilson, cloth-worker’s wife.”
“Touching Alice Benden,” said the Bishop, “I require no note at your hands; I have divers times spoken with her, and know her to be a right obstinate heretic, glorying in her errors. ’Tis the other concerning whom I would have some discourse with you. First, this John Fishcock, the butcher: is he like to be persuaded or no?”
“Methinks, nay, my Lord: yet am I not so full sure of him as of some other. The two Nicholases, trow, are surer of the twain. You should as soon shake an ancient oak as White; and Pardue, though he be a man of few words, is of stubborn conditions.”
“Those men of few words oft-times are thus. And how for the women, Brother? Barbara Final—what is she?”
“A pleasant, well-humoured, kindly fashion of woman; yet methinks not one to be readily moved.”
“Sens Bradbridge?”
“A poor creature—weakly, with few wits. I should say she were most like of any to recant, save that she hath so little wit, it were scarce to our credit if she so did.”
The Bishop laughed. “Emmet Wilson?”
“A plain woman, past middle age, of small learning, yet good wit by nature. You shall not move her, holy Father, or I mistake.”
“These heretics, what labour they give us!” said Dick of Dover, rather testily. “’Tis passing strange they cannot conform and have done with it, and be content to enjoy their lives and liberties in peace.”
Having no principle himself, the Bishop was unable to comprehend its existence in other people. Mr Bastian was a shade wiser—not that he possessed much principle, but that he could realise the fact of its existence.
“There is one other point, holy Father,” said he, seeing that the Bishop was about to dismiss him, “whereon, if it stand with your Lordship’s pleasure, I would humbly seek your counsel.”
The Bishop rubbed his hands, and desired Mr Bastian to proceed. The labour which the heretics gave him was very well to complain of, but to him the excitement of discovering a new heretic was as pleasurable as the unearthing of a fox to a keen sportsman. Dick of Dover, having no distinct religious convictions, was not more actuated by personal enmity to the persecuted heretic than the sportsman to the persecuted fox. They both liked the run, the excitement, the risks, and the glory of the sport.
“To tell truth, my Lord,” continued Mr Bastian, dropping his voice, “I am concerned touching a certain parishioner of mine, a gentleman, I am sorry to say, of name and ancient family, cousin unto Mr Roberts of Glassenbury, whose name you well know as one of the oldest houses in Kent.”
The Bishop nodded assent.
“’Tis true, during King Edward’s time, he went for one of the new learning; but he conformed when the Queen came in, and ever sithence have I regarded him as a good Catholic enough, till of late, when I am fallen to doubt it, to my great concern.” And Mr Bastian proceeded to relate to the Bishop all that he knew respecting the flight of the ladies, and his subsequent unsatisfactory interview with the heads of the family. The Bishop listened intently.
“This young maid,” said he, when the narrative was finished, “what said you was her name—Gertrude?—this Gertrude, then, you account of as faithful to holy Church?”
“She hath ever been regular at mass and confession, my Lord, and performeth all her duties well enough. For other matter, methinks, she is somewhat light-minded, and one that should cast more thought to the colour of her sleeves than to the length of her prayers.”
“None the worse for that,” said Dick of Dover—adding hastily, as the unclerical character of his remark struck him—“for this purpose, of course, I signify; for this purpose. Make you a decoy of her, Brother, to catch the other.”
“I cry your Lordship mercy, but I scarce take you. Her father and aunt do come to confession—somewhat irregularly, ’tis true; but they do come; and though the woman be cautious and wily, and can baffle my questions if she will, yet is the man transparent as glass, and timid as an hare. At least, he hath been so until this time; what turned him I wis not, but I am in hopes it shall not last.”
“Move this girl Gertrude to listen behind the arras, when as they talk together,” suggested the Bishop. “Make her promises—of anything she valueth, a fine horse, a velvet gown, a rich husband—whatever shall be most like to catch her.”
Mr Bastian smiled grimly, as he began to see the plot develop.
“’Tis an easy matter to beguile a woman,” said the Bishop, who, being very ignorant of women, believed what he said: “bait but your trap with something fine enough, and they shall walk in by shoals like herrings. Saving these few obstinate simpletons such as Alice Benden, that you can do nought with, they be light enough fish to catch. Catch Gertrude, Brother.”