Dr. Higdon raised his hand to stop Arthur's words, but his face was full of distress and sympathy.
"We will trust and hope that such a fearful consummation will not be necessary. The others have submitted; and Clarke is but a shadow of himself, owing to the unwholesome nature of the place in which he is confined. I do not despair yet of bringing him to reason and submission. He is not like Dalaber. There is no stubbornness about him. He will speak with sweet courtesy, and enter into every argument with all the reasonableness of a great mind. But he says that to walk in that procession, to take part in that act of so-called recantation and reconciliation, would be in itself as a confession that those things which he had held and taught were heretical. And no argument will wring that admission from him. He declares--and truly his arguments are sound and cogent--that he has never spoken or taught any single doctrine which was not taught by our Lord and His apostles and is not held by the Catholic Church. And in vain do I quote to him the mandates of various Popes and prelates. His answer ever is that, though he gives all reverence to God's ministers and ordained servants in the church, it must ever be to the Head that he looks for final judgment on all difficult points, and he cannot regard any bishop in the church--not even the Bishop of Rome--as being of greater authority than the Lord.
"It is here that his case is so hopeless. To subvert the authority of the Pope is to shake the church to her foundations. But nothing I say can make Clarke understand this. It is the one point upon which he is obstinately heretical."
"But you still have hopes of inducing him to submit?"
"I shall not cease my efforts, or cease to hope," answered Dr. Higdon earnestly, "for in truth I know not what will be the end if he remain obstinate or, rather, I fear too much what that end will be. If it lay with the cardinal, there would be hope; but the bishop is obdurate. He is resolved to proceed to the uttermost lengths. Pray Heaven Clarke may yet see the folly of remaining obstinate, and may consent at the last to submit as the others have done!"
"Have all done so?"
"There is Dalaber yet to win," answered the dean, "and there are a few more--Sumner for one, and Radley for another--who have not given the assurance yet. If Clarke would submit, they would do so instantly; but they are near to him in the prison, and they can speak with each other, and so they hang together as yet, and what he does they will do. But their peril is not so great as his. The bishop has not named any, save Garret, Ferrar, and Clarke, as the victims of the extreme penalty of the law. Dalaber may well be included if he remains obdurate, and therefore I am greatly concerned that he should be persuaded.
"Think you that you can work upon him, were I to win you permission to see him? I have heard that you did visit him awhile since, when he was kept less strictly than is now the case. What was his frame of mind then? and what hopes have you of leading him to a better one?"
Arthur sat considering awhile, and then said:
"Dalaber is one of those upon whom none can rightly reckon. At one moment he will be adamant, at another yielding and pliable. One day his soul will be on fire, and nothing would move him; but in another mood he would listen and weigh every argument, and might be easily persuaded. One thing is very sure: gentleness would prevail with him a thousand times more than harshness. A friend might prevail where a foe would have no chance. I will gladly visit him, and do what I can; but I would fain, if it might he accorded, see Master Garret first, and take word to Dalaber of mine own knowledge that he has promised submission."