“Oh, it did not end for ever so long! My Lord’s Grace of Dublin got leave for him to come home and see my fair mother and me; and after that, when he had gone into Essex, the King sent after him again, and Sir Godfrey de Craucumbe took him away to the Tower. They sent for a smith to put him in fetters, but the man would not do it when he heard who was to wear the fetters. He said he would rather die than be the man to put chains on ‘that most faithful and noble Hubert, who so often saved England from the ravages of foreigners, and restored England to herself.’ Aunt Marjory, I think he was a grand fellow! I would have kissed him if I had been there.”
As the kiss was at that time the common form of greeting between men and women, for a lady to offer a kiss to a man as a token that she approved his words or actions, was not then considered more demonstrative than it would be to shake hands now. It was, in fact, not an unusual occurrence.
“And my fair father told us,” pursued Margaret, “when he heard what the smith said, he could not help thinking of those words of our Lord, when He thanked God that His mission had been hidden from the wise, but revealed to the ignorant. ‘For,’ our Lord said, ‘to Thee, my God, do I commit my cause; for mine enemies have risen against me.’” (Note 2.)
“And they took him to the Tower of London?”
“Yes, but the Bishop of London was very angry at the violation of sanctuary, and insisted that my fair father should be sent back. He threatened the King with excommunication, and of course that frightened him. He sent him back to the church whence he was taken, but commanded the Sheriff of Essex to surround the church, so that he should neither escape nor obtain food. But my fair father’s true friend, my good old Lord of Dublin—(you were right, Aunt Marjory; all priests are not alike)—interposed, and begged the Lord King to do to him what he had thought to do to my Lord and father. The Lord King then offered the choice of three things:—my Lord and father must either abjure the kingdom for ever, or he must be perpetually imprisoned, or he must openly confess himself a traitor.”
“A fair choice, surely!”
“Horrid, wasn’t it?”
“He chose banishment, did he not?”
“He said, if the King willed it, he was content to go out of England for a time,—not for ever: but a traitor he would never confess himself, for he had never been one.”
“The words of a true man!” said Marjory.