SIR THOMAS MORE.
A HISTORICAL ROMANCE.
FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.
XIII.
In the meantime Sir Thomas More had returned to his home at Chelsea. He felt at first a slight decree of uneasiness on account of the indiscretions of the Holy Maid of Kent, the evident malice with which Cromwell had drawn them out, and the eagerness with which he had interpreted them.
But as he was accustomed to resign into the hands of God the entire care of his future, and as there appeared to be nothing with which he could reproach himself in the short and accidental relations he had had with that woman, he soon recovered his former tranquillity, and thought no more but of how he might be able to render some new service to the queen. He knew she had set out for Leicester Abbey, and he had already found means of writing to the abbot, whom he remembered having received at the chancelry on some particular business concerning the rights of the abbey, and the father abbot had appeared, as well as he could remember, to be an honest and intelligent man.
Feeling satisfied that the queen had, ere that time, received his communications, he had gone towards evening to take a walk with his children in the country.
They were all seated on the green slope at Chelsea. The Thames flowed at their feet; the freshness of the verdure, the perfumed breeze
that arose from the meadow, the balmy sweetness of the air, all united to render the moment a delicious one.
“See, dear father,” said Margaret, who was sitting at his feet (she always kept as near him as possible), “see how beautiful the river is! How it comes with its silver waves to kiss the rich and verdant meadow which extends so far before us! Look at those flocks of sheep, following the shepherds to the fold; how docile they are and obedient to their voices! And those dogs, how active and intelligent! Oh! how I love the evening, when the horizon yet burns with the red glow of the sun as he descends to light up other skies.” And Margaret paused to admire in silence the pure and inspiring beauties of nature by which she was surrounded, while her eyes sought those of her father, as if to interrogate him.
More smiled as he regarded her.
“Well, my dear daughter,” he said, “why not speak thy whole thought?”
For he loved to listen to the forcible sentiments she sometimes expressed, so characteristic of her melancholy and enthusiastic temperament.
“Why ask that, father?” she replied; “for my thought is sad—sad as all things that end. The day has gone, never more to return! It is like a precious pearl that
has been unstrung from a necklace where all are carefully numbered.”
“Thou art right, my daughter, and may be the happiness I have enjoyed this day in the midst of you will never more return!”
“What sayest thou, my father?” cried Margaret, alarmed. “Nay, wouldst thou leave us, then, and couldst thou live without thy children?”
“No, my child, no; but observe you not how the days of man are like the swift shuttle that flies to and fro in the hands of the weaver, and which he uses to trace, one after another, divers designs?”
“This one pleases me much,” said Margaret, smiling, “and I would like it to stop here.”
As she said this, she extended her hand toward Roper, who brought her a large bouquet of daisies[209] he had gathered for her in the fields.
“Here is my name written on my forehead by the hand of Roper,” she continued; and she placed the pretty white flowers amid the dark tresses of her lovely hair.
The father admired his beautiful young daughter, in whom, indeed, youth and beauty were united in all their brilliancy. Her small hands rested one upon the other; her white robe hung in graceful folds around, defining her perfectly-moulded form; her eyes, calm and serene in expression, yet shone with a thousand fires; one could read in their depths the strength and vigor of this young soul just entering upon life. Those features so calm and lovely, that union of charms and perfections, brought joy and happiness to the depths of the devoted father’s soul. He gazed at her in silence.
“A ray of eternal beauty lights up this beautiful countenance,” he said to himself. “This flower is born of my blood; it is being of my being, soul of my soul. Oh! blessed, blessed for ever be this child whom the Lord hath given to me! Margaret, my daughter,” he said after a moment’s silence, “tell me, I pray you, what is beauty?”
“Beauty?” replied Margaret, smiling at the unexpected question; and she raised towards him her eyes, whose lovely expression anticipated her answer.… “Well, … beauty is an undefinable thing,” she continued. “We recognize it in everything. Our souls are made to see it, to admire and love it; but I cannot, I believe, define it. It is there, and immediately we are enraptured with it. It is a ray of the glory of God; it is his power which flashes before our eyes, and our hearts are at once transported. The beautiful animal, full of life, strength, and agility, whose light and rapid steps seem scarcely to bend the delicate herbage of the field, his glossy coat permitting you to count his veins and admire the graceful and elegant proportions of his form; the plants rich with flowers and weighty with fruits; the birds with variegated plumage and tints of a thousand colors; the pure, azure skies of summer, the stars of night—such is beauty, my father; I feel it, but I cannot describe it to you otherwise.”
“Then, my dear child, what think you of the Being who has drawn all these things out of nothing, and who, by his powerful word, has given them everything, and preserves and watches over them all?”
“That he is,” replied Margaret earnestly, “the source and the veritable plenitude of all beauty; and
that if we could see him either with the eyes of the body or those of the soul, we should be perfectly happy, since he must be, and is necessarily, the sovereign perfection of all that delights in this world. And if you speak to me of eloquence, that moral beauty of soul which subdues and carries everything before it, I find in it but a new expression of that Sovereign Intelligence who has placed in our hearts the faculty of feeling and loving beauty, the strength and elevation of thought, which an Intelligence superior to our own is charged by it to communicate to us.”
“Then, my dear child, what think you of the unbeliever?”
“What do I think of him?” said Margaret, intently regarding Sir Thomas. “I will tell you: I do not think he exists.”
“How say you! that he exists not?”
“No, he does not exist, because he cannot. God has created us free, but that freedom has bounds. We cannot uncreate or make ourselves cease to be, and in the same way we cannot destroy our reason beyond a certain point; we may deny the truth with our lips, but we cannot prevent our hearts from believing it; we may arrange, assert, relate, or invent a falsehood, but we cannot convince ourselves that it is true. The sad science of the atheist compels him to remove God as far as possible from himself; to call him by a name formed of several strange syllables which do not represent him under any form to his mind; then when he has come to drive him beyond the bounds of his narrow intelligence, he denies his Creator with that tongue, with that life, and in the name of that reason which he received from him. Such a man must be a liar, although
he would not be willing to walk proudly in the public ways with the tablet of liar attached to his shoulders.”
More smiled at the strong comparison of Margaret; and as he derived an extreme pleasure from these philosophical conversations, he continued thus:
“You believe, then, there are no atheists?”
“No,” replied Margaret, “there is not one in good faith, because the most ordinary reason is enough to prevent all doubt that the admirable chain of all being, over whom man is established master and king, has not been created by itself, and that it is the work of a Sovereign Intelligence who has foreseen and established all things by a science of prevision and of power far beyond all that we are able to see, all that we can feel, and all that we possess.”
“Nevertheless, Margaret, they will tell you that there is a force, a blind power, who has created all that.”
“Then,” replied Margaret ironically, “I will ask them what they understand by a ‘blind power’; for power means, it seems to me, that which can; but that which is blind can do, can will naught. Those, then, who by a happy chance see, wish, and know something, I would ask to add to the stature of a man the height of one cubit; to organize a head that understands how to solve mathematical problems, to compose music, poetry, to learn, remember, and speak. What think you, my father: would it not be very convenient to have in your cabinet some of those thinking heads, arranged on a shelf, as are pitchers and pipkins? Miserable creatures!” she continued, indignantly, “how they degrade
and dishonor mankind! And how do they dispose of their consciences? Why have they a conscience which commands them to do right and reproaches them for doing wrong, if it is not that man, born immortal, must one day render an account of all his deeds, and receive from God either a reward or punishment? No, it is not in weakness of the intellect that we must search for the origin of atheism, but in the corruption of the heart. If, then, the atheist denies God, he thereby testifies to his justice and power, even as the faithful bear witness to his goodness and mercy in acknowledging and honoring him. The one fears him because of the crimes he has committed; the other hopes in him because of the virtues he practises: behold the sole and only difference between the two men.”
“Well, my dear daughter,” replied More; “but the greater number of men who call themselves atheists follow only their own reasoning, as do you this moment, being almost always most profoundly ignorant of themselves and of their own nature, and entirely indifferent about the means of being instructed. Occupied solely with the present life, they attach themselves to mere sensual enjoyments, and, feeling that it would be necessary to abandon these in order to deliver their souls from the yoke of matter, they prefer thus to vegetate in forgetfulness of themselves and of all their duties.”
“Then, my father, you see that you agree with me on the point from whence I started out, which was that there are really no atheists, that the word is false, that it is taken in a false acceptation, and that it can only be properly defined in this way: ‘One who in his own heart is a liar.’”
While Margaret was conversing thus with her father, and the rest of the family were enjoying the repose of innocence and freedom, a man silently turned around the foot of the hill and followed slowly the path leading through the meadow. His face was darkly clouded with care; envy and malice were hidden in the depths of his heart. He reflected within himself in what manner he should approach the host whom he came to visit, and whom he perceived sitting on top of the hill. Thus in an immortal poem we find the fallen angel thrice making the circuit of the terrestrial paradise, seeking where he should enter in order to attack the man favored of God.
“Father, here is some one coming!” cried the youngest of More’s daughters.
And she ran, followed by the house dog, with which she had been very busy fixing on its neck a collar of leaves.
“It is a gentleman dressed all in black, who has a beautiful chain hanging round his neck.”
As she finished speaking Cromwell appeared.
“Ah! it is you, Master Cromwell,” said More, rising graciously. “Let me welcome you among us. How fares it with you?”
For the more Sir Thomas thought he had to complain of any one, the more he exerted himself by his kind and polite manner to assure him that he felt no bitterness in his heart; this was the cause of the cordial reception he gave Cromwell, whom he would otherwise have avoided.
“Well, I thank you,” replied Cromwell, casting, as was his custom, a furtive glance on all around him.
He at once encountered the eyes
of Margaret, which were fixed upon him with an expression of anger and scorn; for she could not endure him, having learned from the Bishop of Rochester how he had conducted himself in the hall of convocation, with what impudence he had sat himself in the midst of the assembly, and the manœuvres he had used to extort from the bishops an oath which must be followed by such fatal consequences.
He laughed to himself at the young girl’s displeasure, and made her a profound salutation. But she did not return it; and passing from the other side, she went and seated herself near her stepmother, who was knitting the leg of a stocking—the only employment in which she was passably skilled.
Cromwell remarked this movement; and if he was indifferent to it, he at least drew from it an inference as to the feeling of the family with regard to present affairs.
“Sir Thomas,” he said in a tone tinged with raillery, “I come, on the part of the king, to announce great news to you; it depends on yourself whether you find it good or bad. The king, our most gracious sovereign, is married, and he has espoused my lady Anne Boleyn.”
“The king married!” said Sir Thomas. “The king married!” he repeated. But he felt that Cromwell, who was aware of his great attachment to the queen, had only come to enjoy his discomfiture, or to watch him with some malicious design. He at once put himself on his guard, but turned visibly pale.
“He is married,” continued Cromwell. “The clergy laughed at him; but, by my troth, he has in his turn laughed at them! It was necessary that all this should come to an end. Yesterday his majesty advised the lords of his
Privy Council of the decision he has taken of having the new queen publicly acknowledged. The communication should be made to-day in Parliament, and they will proceed immediately after to receive the oaths of all the members touching the succession to the throne, the supremacy of the king, and the separation from the Church of Rome.”
“Cromwell, can it be?” said Sir Thomas More, struck with consternation. “How rapidly all this has been brought about! And the queen, where is she?”
“Which one?” replied Cromwell, already affecting the tone of the court.
“Queen Catherine!” added More with a profound sigh.
“Ah! I understand. More obstinate than ever,” replied Cromwell in a tone of badinage. “She has retired to Easthampstead. We are occupied with her case now in council; she will be summoned to Dunstable, where an ecclesiastical commission will cut short all of her demands. Oh! all is over so far as she is concerned.”
More felt pierced to the heart, and each new expression of Cromwell wounded him afresh. He could not doubt but this cruel man had been sent to take an exact account of his slightest gesture and most insignificant word; he therefore vainly endeavored to restrain his feelings, but sorrow and the honest frankness of his nature carried him beyond the limits of prudence.
“Master Cromwell,” he said with dignity, “I know not why the king has sent you to me; but I think you know me so well that it would be useless for me, standing face to face with you, to disguise my sentiments; I therefore candidly acknowledge
that what you have told me penetrates me with a mortal sorrow. My heart is deeply attached to Queen Catherine, but I am, by my duty, still more devoted to the king. It is with the deepest grief that I see those who surround him, far from telling him the truth, think only of flattering him, that they may obtain new favors from his hands. And you, who are his adviser, I exhort and conjure you never to tell him what he can do, but what he ought to do; because, if the lion knew his strength, who would be able to subdue him? Until this time, as you know, we have not walked in the same road, nor have our eyes been turned to the same end; but now that I have entirely withdrawn from public life, when I can no longer cause you suspicion, when my sole and only desire is to live in obscurity, surrounded by my children, occupying myself with naught but the affairs of my eternal salvation, it seems to me I can disclose to you my inmost thoughts. I esteem you too highly to fear that you would abuse my confidence. Use your influence, then, with the king, if there yet be time, and try to arrest the disasters with which church and state are threatened!”
Cromwell felt confounded; come as a master, a triumphant enemy, he endeavored, but was unable, to recover himself in the presence of the calm and magnanimous virtue of a great man who seemed to place with confidence his destiny in his hands, and to esteem him sufficiently to exhort him still to fulfil his duty to his king and country. He experienced a momentary inspiration of good; but corrupt souls stifle such inspirations with the same facility that they are followed by the pure in heart. An instant’s
reflection sufficed for him to recover his accustomed arrogance.
“That is an easy thing for you to say,” he replied, “having now, as you have just remarked, retired from public life. But for me it is very different; every day convinces me how dangerous it would be to resist the king, and I confess that I am by no means tired of life, and do not desire to lose my head on the scaffold, nor to die in poverty like that poor cardinal of defunct memory. That is why I must continue to act as I have done in Parliament, and I advise you to do the same; for, hearken, Sir Thomas: I have not come here of my own accord, but on the part of the king, to announce to you his intentions, and at the same time say to you that he has learned with great indignation of the correspondence you have kept up with that nun called the Holy Maid of Kent; that, notwithstanding, he will exercise toward you the utmost clemency, that he will strike your name from the bill of high treason which is entered against her, if he has reason hereafter to be satisfied with your conduct, and if you will publicly abjure the prejudices you have until this time manifested against Queen Anne, his spouse.”
“What say you, Master Cromwell?” cried Sir Thomas More. “I am implicated in the proceedings they have instituted against that woman?”
And the unhappy father looked round upon his children, who had gathered around him, and whom terror and alarm had rendered motionless.
“Master Cromwell,” he continued after a moment’s silence, “your visit is a cruel one; my children, at least, were not guilty, if any one else here is.” And his eyes rested
on Margaret, who stood pale and trembling with horror and surprise.
But Cromwell knew very well what he had come to do; it was part of his design that the grief and solicitations of More’s children should break down his resolution, and induce him to yield to all they wished to demand of him.
“Margaret! my beloved child,” said More, especially concerned for her, “grieve not. I fully hope to prove, as clearly as the light of day, that I have nothing with which to reproach myself toward my king, and that I am an entire stranger to the follies of that woman. Listen, Master Cromwell,” he continued, turning towards him, without manifesting the least emotion, “I pray you say to the king, my sovereign, that nothing could afflict me more than to know I had incurred his displeasure. Nevertheless, I hope to prove that he is mistaken with regard to the acquaintance I have had with that woman. I have seen her but once, in the Sion Convent, in a chapel, and then because the fathers urged me to converse with her a few moments, and tell them what I thought of her virtue. She appeared to me simple and true in her conversation. The replies she made to the few questions I addressed her seemed to proceed from an humble heart and a pious soul. Since that day 1 have not seen her. This winter some one spoke to me about her, and told me she had made some predictions about the king, and asked me if I wanted to hear them. To which I replied—and I remember it perfectly—that I wanted to hear nothing about it, and, if it was true she had anything to reveal to the king, it seemed to me at least entirely superfluous for any other man to inquire into it. This is the whole truth, and I beg you,
Master Cromwell, to say to the king I hope to prove it in the most undeniable manner.”
“This woman is only an instrument,” replied Cromwell, affecting not to reply to what Sir Thomas had said; “they have only used her and her pretended revelations in order to cause the conduct of the king to be censured by his people. I very much fear they will be severely punished—those, at least, who have employed her for that purpose.”
“I know not what will come of it,” replied Sir Thomas in a cold and quiet manner. “If it is true that there is a criminal impostor disguised under the appearance of virtue, they would do well to expose and punish her rigorously.”
And there the conversation ended. However much Cromwell desired that it should be prolonged, he neither knew how to renew nor to continue it. He concluded, therefore, to affect a degree of zeal and friendship, and summoned all his hypocrisy to his assistance.
“Dear Sir Thomas,” he said, “as you said but now, we have not always been of the same way of thinking. Some day I may change my opinions; but at this time I cannot begin to tell you how much anxiety I feel on account of the king’s anger in your regard. It appears that they have excited him most terribly against you. You must have some secret enemy who is using these means for the purpose of lessening you in his estimation and making you lose his favor.”
More listened, thinking if indeed it could be Cromwell who spoke in this manner.
“Verily,” he answered, “I must fain think as you do, for I have naught on my conscience touching
that woman; and would to God I was in his sight as free from sin as I feel myself free from any thought of wrong or any transgression against our sovereign lord and king!”
“Sir Thomas, you have let your attachment to Queen Catherine show too plainly, and it is right well known that you are against the spiritual supremacy of the king.”
More made no reply. Tears arose in his eyes. He looked at Margaret. The young girl held one of her stepmother’s long iron knitting-needles, and seemed mechanically trying to sharpen the point with the end of her finger, which she turned rapidly around it. If Margaret had held a poignard, it was evident that she would have wished to plunge it into the heart of the traitor who stood before her. She said nothing, but her flashing eyes followed every movement he made. The others sat motionless, and Cromwell felt oppressed by the attention of all these souls weighing upon his own. He no longer knew what to say; he looked around, he hesitated, he tried to resume the conversation, and again broke down.
Sir Thomas, always kind, always considerate, wished to relieve him from this painfully embarrassing situation.
“Master Cromwell,” he said, “I see that you find it somewhat painful to tell me all you have learned that would be disagreeable to me; therefore let us retire from here. If it please you to sup with us, we will return to the house.”
“I do not think Master Cromwell is hungry,” said Margaret, changing color. “He is one of those men who subsist on evil as well as bread; it is a stronger and more bitter nourishment, the savor of
which agrees better with their ferocious natures.”
“You are charming, charming, damsel!” replied Cromwell, turning toward her with that trifling manner, coarse and familiar, which he considered suitable to adopt in his intercourse with women farthest above himself.
“Margaret does not like compliments,” replied Sir Thomas More, who endeavored to repair, without seeming to have noticed them, the expressions of anger and scorn Margaret had permitted to escape her. “She is very sensitive,” he added.
“And very frank, it seems to me,” answered Cromwell quickly, in a tone insolent and easy.
“A little too much so, perhaps,” replied Sir Thomas gently; “but that is better than to be deceitful.”
“Are all these fields yours?” asked Cromwell.
“No, indeed, sir. I own very little land around my dwelling; besides, I gave a portion of it to Margaret, my daughter, when she became affianced to young Roper.”
Saying this, Sir Thomas turned and walked with Cromwell and his family towards the house. On their arrival Sir Thomas conducted Cromwell into his private cabinet.
“Listen, sir,” he said, after he had closed the door: “I would not wish to conceal from you that you have deeply wounded me by declaring in presence of my children that I had been accused of high treason. I have not been chief-justice so long without learning that this is the weight they will let fall on my head, and I know perfectly well that this accusation of high treason is like a glove, which they can make to fit any hand. As to what I think about the supremacy of the king, that I shall reveal to no man living.
But, at least, be so good as to tell me how this action against me began, and who are my accomplices.”
“The nun,” replied Cromwell (perfectly well instructed in the particulars of an affair he had invented and intended to direct)—“the nun is accused of high treason toward the king. Her accomplices are Master Richard, Dr. Baking, Richard Risby, Biering, Gold, Lawrence Thwaites, John Adisson, and Thomas Abel. As to yourself and the Bishop of Rochester, you are accused of connivance; but, after what you have told me, I doubt not you will be able to prove your innocence easily, and your name will be stricken out at the commencement of the prosecution.”
“The Bishop of Rochester!” exclaimed Sir Thomas, his hands resting on the table, and entirely absorbed in reflection. He recalled the night when Fisher, seated in the same chair now occupied by Cromwell, had implored him not to accept the seal of state, and, upon his refusing to take his advice, prayed God never to permit them to be separated, but that their lives might terminate in the same manner and at the same moment. Lost in the recollection of his tender friendship, More forgot the frightful character of Cromwell, which no one, however, better understood than himself. He took him affectionately by the hand.
“Dear Cromwell,” he exclaimed, “how is this? The Bishop of Rochester? Ah! I implore you have his name removed. Let them be revenged on me, but not on him. Mercy for my friend!”
Sir Thomas was on the point of telling Cromwell that he had heard them both accused on that fatal
night at Westminster; but on reflection he forebore, supposing him to be entirely ignorant of their presence in the church.
“Alas!” continued Sir Thomas, “if I have offended the king, let them punish me; but Rochester, what has he done? Devoid of ambition, occupied entirely with the duties of his bishopric, devoted to the king, at whose birth he attended, loved, esteemed by him, how can they suspect him of wishing to injure his beloved sovereign? Master Cromwell, I beseech you intercede for him!”
That prayer was very well understood by Cromwell, but he feigned not to hear it. He had not come to sympathize with, but rather to enjoy the sufferings of a just man, one whom he still feared, although he had entirely supplanted him.
“Sir Thomas,” he replied, “I cannot see why you supplicate me in behalf of the Bishop of Rochester, as though I were able to do anything in the matter. Justice is there, to be rendered to him, and to you also, if you prove that you are entirely innocent of this charge.”
“In sooth,” said Sir Thomas, “I swear to you that I know nothing about it. I have never considered it of sufficient importance to investigate the character and veracity of that woman. I believe, and am very well convinced, that being the creatures and the children of God, in whom we exist and from whom we have received all things, he will sometimes, in his goodness, manifest his will to us by some extraordinary means and supernatural ways, and also that he can change or interrupt in a moment events of which he has himself marked out the course; but, at the same time, I believe that this truth can be abused either by weakness of
the mind, by error, or by folly. That woman, then, is perhaps guilty of no other crime than of having mistaken dreams for revelations; and if it is thus, I find that the more importance we give to trivial things, the more dangerous we make them, if in the beginning they were the cause of any inconvenience.”
“That is true,” said Cromwell; “but the king is very much wroth, and intends that this woman and all those who have believed in her shall be punished.”
“That alters the case,” replied Sir Thomas; and he paused thoughtfully.
“However,” said Cromwell, “there is a very sure way of conciliating his majesty, which is by praying my lady Anne to be your intercessor. If you wish it, I will request her, in your name, to intercede with the king for the Bishop of Rochester.”
“Ah!” said Sir Thomas.
He felt as though Cromwell had thrust a dagger into his heart. He bowed his head and was unable to utter a word. To save his friend by condescending to a base action—he had not courage to accept the condition.
“That is an assured way,” said Cromwell (and the vile wretch secretly applauded himself on the astute and skilful means he employed)—“infallible; a word from her will suffice.”
“No,” cried More, “no! The honor of my friend is as dear as my own. He would not will it.”
“He would not will it!” replied Cromwell, in an ironical tone. “What! would you, then, consider yourselves dishonored because she had interceded for him?”
“Ah! Cromwell,” cried Sir Thomas, regretting what he had said, “I implore you do not betray my situation!”
“I am far from betraying you, sir, since I offer you a very sure and very simple means of removing all that is dangerous in that situation. I can promise you that if you satisfy the king on this point, and if you testify that you accept and recognize him without any repugnance as supreme head of the church, not only will he pardon your fault, but he will overwhelm you with new favors.”
On hearing this proposal Sir Thomas looked steadily at him.
“Sir,” he said, “I thank you. I now understand what they ask of me, and why they have placed my name and that of my friend on the list of the accused, which, in reality, would not be able to reach or injure us. Now I have no longer any doubt. When will the trial begin?”
“What do you say?” interrupted Cromwell. “What! you refuse?”
“I refuse nothing,” said Sir Thomas modestly; “I only ask when the trial will take place, and when I must present myself at the bar.”
“But reflect on the wrong you do!” replied Cromwell.
“I have considered everything,” responded Sir Thomas.
“Ah! well, then, do as you please.… To-morrow the commission will assemble in the Tower, and I very much fear, from your obstinacy, that you will remain there.”
“In that event I will make my preparations to-night,” replied Sir Thomas.
At that moment Margaret hurriedly entered and announced supper, Cromwell took advantage of the occasion. He saw with great vexation the firmness of Sir Thomas, and, having promised the king that he would make him yield, he supposed the young girl would assist him in renewing the conference.
“Damsel,” he said, inclining toward her,” I am glad you have come; for, although you have treated me but ill, I am here to render an important service to your father. Persuade him, then, to listen to me, and not consent to separate himself from you, perhaps for ever!”
“My God!” cried Margaret, “my father separate himself from us? What do you mean? Speak! what do you mean? With how many maledictions, then, do you come prepared to strike our house?”
“To-morrow Sir Thomas is summoned to appear before the council. Let him promise to take the oath the king requires, and his life will be spared!”
“Stop, sir!” cried Sir Thomas. “My children are not in the habit of judging my conduct nor of designating the path I should follow! Your pity is of the cruellest, sir! May God grant you a more sincere friend and a more genuine compassion than that you have offered me to-day! Go, Margaret; go tell your mother I wait for her.”
To this formal and decided expression of her father’s will Margaret dared not reply; she left the room, but felt that a fearful calamity had befallen her, of which she knew not yet the entire extent, and she descended slowly, pausing on each step of the stairway, wrapped in painful reflection.
Sir Thomas soon entered the hall with Cromwell, to whom he gave the first place at table, and who accepted without remorse such cordial hospitality on the part of a man whom he had resolved to corrupt or ruin entirely.
* * * * *
When night was far advanced, and Cromwell had departed from the abode into which he had entered only to bring sorrow and desolation,
Sir Thomas returned to his cabinet, which he loved like an old servant whom we never regret so much as when it becomes necessary to part with him. He entered, with anxiety and sadness in his soul, and took his accustomed seat; he put the light he carried in the same place where he had placed it for so many years, and from whence it had shone on so many vigils and so many good actions, and he looked around him.
“To-morrow,” he exclaimed, “to-morrow I shall have to leave this abode where I have so long tended and seen my father die, where I have welcomed my first dear wife, where my children have been born!… When the swallow leaves her nest, she has a hope of returning to it again; but I, can I indulge in that sweet delusion? Is it not certain that my ruin is resolved on, and that the king’s indignation means death? To-morrow, when the day shall have dawned, I must assume a cheerful countenance, a serene composure, and say to them: ‘Adieu, my cherished children! I will return very soon.’ I will return very soon! Shall I be able to utter words that are so foreign to my heart? And Margaret—Margaret will weep for me all the days of her life. I shall never behold her young children, nor bless them when for the first time their eyes are opened to the light of day, and I shall never hear them try to repeat my name. Alas! why must it be that the king is annoyed at my breathing the air?—a man, too, confounded among a million of his subjects! Of what importance to him are the thoughts that lie hidden in the bottom of my heart? Why, Lord,” he cried, raising his hands toward heaven, “hast thou not stricken me from his memory,
and why hast thou suffered this prince of the earth to remember my name? Grant me an asylum where I may be able to finish out the days thou hast allotted me; the birds of the air find a shelter, the bears and ferocious beasts of the earth possess their dens, and no one comes to force them away! However, let thy will be done, and not mine.”
More remained for a long time leaning on the table. He then arose and walked the floor to and fro. He moved from place to place in the room; for he would be there no more, if they should summon and compel him to cave for ever his modest and beloved abode.
“They are all asleep,” he said. “I have consoled them. They have seen Cromwell with me, but they have not suspected that he brought the death-warrant of their father. A few hours of peace still remain for them, and to-morrow—to-morrow they will weep and feel that I am no longer with them! My eyes will no more behold my beloved ones; I shall no more hear their voices. They will seek me, but they will find me no more on earth.”
Here Sir Thomas was unable longer to contemplate with calmness the picture his imagination presented of the desolation and abandonment of his children. Looking around to be assured that he was entirely alone, he sank into a chair, and, bursting into tears, abandoned himself to the most bitter grief.
For a long time he remained thus. At length he arose; seeing that the clock in his cabinet was about to strike the hour of midnight, he returned to his table.
Taking up an enormous portfolio, he opened all the drawers. He
took out a great number of papers and divers packages of letters; some of the latter were letters written by Margaret when a child, and he had preserved them as souvenirs of the progress of her youthful intellect; others were from the Bishop of Rochester; the greater number concerned a multitude of persons who had claimed or still sought his counsel and advice, his good offices, to reconcile their families, terminate their disputes, save them from dishonor, prevent their ruin by means of his credit and his money, and still more by the confidence and respect inspired in all by his virtues.
He untied the letters and threw them into the fire, where they were immediately consumed; for he knew with whom he had to deal, and how the most innocent things, the most trivial acts, would be brought up and construed into crimes against those who had held any intercourse with him. Those which concerned these persons he destroyed without regret; but when they had been entirely devoured by the flames, he turned with sadness to those of Margaret and the Bishop of Rochester, and could not summon sufficient resolution to cast them into the fire.
He looked at them and turned them over in his hands; they had given him so much pleasure! Those of his daughter had been dictated by the tenderest love; the virtues of his friend shone in every page of his, and proofs of attachment were inscribed upon every line, recalling the joys, the sorrows, and different events that had occurred during his entire life!
“Come!” he said with bitterness, “when Margaret shall no longer have a father, who will then have any use for these letters? Who will
treasure them up? And thou, O my friend! No, we shall not remain separated; for, O my God! thou hast declared that he who giveth up that which he loves for thy sake shall find it again; and if man, thy creature, gives thee an atom, thou wilt return him an entire world. Have we not received all things from thee? And what thou takest from us for a moment, is it not to return it to us again in eternity?”
He cast the letters into the fire, but turned away that he might not see them consumed. He then examined his book of accounts, and saw that they were correct. Besides, his estate was so small he found but little difficulty in administering it. After retiring from office he had divided his lands between his children, and each one of them knew the lot assigned her.
When he had finished all that, he again began to walk the room, and went toward the window; the night was intensely dark and the heavens obscured by a mass of black clouds.
“Well! I have some time yet,” he said, and turned to sit down. “Everything is arranged; Margaret will send my books. Now I am prepared to depart. It would seem that I am dead, and they come already to blot all traces of my existence from this place. Ah! how harrowing is the thought. My God! my courage fails. Help me, Lord! Animate by a breath of thy strength the weakness of thy servant; for I am the work of thy hands! Have mercy on me and succor me; for sorrow hath fallen upon me and I am utterly cast down!”
As he pronounced these words he thought he heard a sigh; he paused to listen, but heard nothing more, and came to the conclusion
that his troubled imagination had deceived him. Again, however, he heard a slight noise; he then arose and proceeded to listen at the door opening into the library. Opening it very softly, what was his surprise on seeing Margaret! Her back was turned towards him, and a lamp burned beside her. He perceived that she had taken a number of books from the shelves, as she had a pile of them around her, and was leaning earnestly over the one she was reading. So intently was she absorbed that she did not hear her father enter. He advanced slowly until he stood behind her chair, and saw that she was reading a book of jurisprudence written in Latin according to the general custom of the times, and which contained detailed reports of all the trials for high treason; her handkerchief was lying beside her, and it was saturated with her tears. Sir Thomas turned pale; he was obliged to rest his hand on the table, which groaned under his weight.
Margaret turned around in alarm.
“My father!” she cried, “here at this hour!” And she ran to him and folded her arms around him, while her tears began to flow afresh.
“Margaret, what do you here?” he asked as he sank into a chair.
“My father, my father!” She burst into a torrent of tears, and could say no more.
“I thought you slept,” she added.
“Margaret, you should be in bed!” said Sir Thomas, endeavoring to control his feelings.
She fell on her knees before him, and, burying her face in her hands, sobbed aloud; her hair, loosened from its fastening, hung in dishevelled masses down to her feet.
“Margaret, you are weak!” said
More in an altered voice. “Is this the fruit of the lessons I have given you?”
“Dare you, then, say that I am weak, and reproach me because I weep for my father?” she replied, raising her head haughtily. “Do you no longer remember that I have never known a mother’s love, and that, since the day I left my cradle, you alone have directed all my movements, that in you alone have been centred all my affections, and to you have I always confided the most secret thoughts of my heart? You say that I am weak, when not a word of complaint has escaped my lips, when I have concealed my tears, weeping in the darkness of night, and when I have sat at table face to face with your executioner!”
“Margaret, my Margaret!” cried Sir Thomas; and he bowed his head on the shoulder of the child he so cherished, and pressed her to his bosom.
“Have I asked you,” she continued, turning away from him, “what you would do to escape from these tigers thirsting for blood? Have I advised you to recoil before them and lick the prints of their feet? No; I have come in silence to take counsel of the dead, some advice as to the crimes of the human race, because I have thought you would conceal your secret in your heart, and I would not be admitted to share it; that you would tell me what you did not believe, and I would not receive the truth from you. The truth!” she cried vehemently, and with a strength only lent her by excitement and suffering. “I know it now! I know, I feel, I have found out that very soon I shall see you no more; that I shall be alone upon the earth where I have found such joy and happiness in existing; that nothing
will remain to me, and the future will be to me without a hope, and darkened for ever!”
“Margaret,” said Sir Thomas, “have compassion on your father!”
She then said no more, and they sat in silence, she with her arms clasped around his neck. She wept, and the tears continued to course slowly down her cheeks, whilst the lamp she had brought cast a feeble glimmer of light throughout the lengthy apartment, and over the rows of books arranged on the shelves; and thus the hours fled rapidly toward the fatal moment which she saw advancing with an agony indescribable.
O wicked and voluptuous prince! raise your head from your bed of down, draw aside the triple draperies of silk and gold that surround you; for your crimes keep vigil around your couch, and the justice of God numbers every tear you have caused to be shed! Far better would it be for you to sleep on an infected dunghill, in some obscure retreat; that your limbs, weary with toil and the heat of the mid-day sun, should tremble beneath the frosts of night, and that your hands were pure and free from iniquity in the presence of the most high God; for we cannot believe that man oppresses man without justice being meted out to him, or that the weak shall remain the prey of the strong. The day will come when a terrible vengeance shall fall upon the head of the impious, and he will see arrayed before him all the crimes he has committed. Then shall he cry aloud: “Why have I ever lived, and why has my mother ever borne me in her womb?” But light then will no longer be measured, night will have disappeared, century will no more follow century, and time shall be no more.
TO BE CONTINUED
[209] Margarita, Anglicè Margaret, is the Latin word for daisy.—”Transl.