"I escaped pursuit on that night," said the priest. "They sought me in the south, but I fled north, across the border, and took refuge in Scotland."
"Ah!" said old Hathaway, "I dare be sworn there you found plenty of your own sort. Scot and plot hath rhymed together pretty often during this reign."
"It hath," said Eustace; "and I speedily entered into a plot there."
"One you found ready-made to your hand," said Hathaway; "Eh?"
"I did," said the priest. "I fell in, whilst in the mountains, with one Morgan, also a fugitive from England: he introduced me to Babington, Savage, and others, who were zealous Catholics, and engaged in a project for dethroning Elizabeth, and restoring by force of arms the exercise of the ancient and true religion. The Pope, the Spaniard, and the Duke of Guise, had all emissaries amongst this company. I, however, persuaded them of the vanity of any attempts upon the kingdom, so long as one so prudent and popular as Elizabeth was suffered to live. An assassination, an insurrection, and an invasion, must at one and the same time be attempted, I told them, that they saw at once the force of my arguments. We met, during this discussion, in an old castle situate in Strathdon, and called Corgarff—a wild and desolate place. To you who dwell in fertile and pleasant England, my good folks," continued the priest, "the aspect of the wild region in which we held our meetings, would have appeared sufficiently terrible. No shrub, no tree, not a blade of grass was to be seen on this drear mountain land. Nothing but blasted heath, rocky glens, and deep morasses. The people wild, desperate and fearful, as the land they inhabit."
"In few," continued the priest, "having assumed the disguise of a soldier, and the name of Geffrey, I left this place for England, with the purpose of obtaining a secret interview with the Queen of Scots, during her imprisonment. This opportunity I found whilst the queen was in custody of Sir Amias Paulet, rigorous as that confinement was. To her I communicated tidings, that on the event of Elizabeth's death, her own deliverance would be attempted; all the zealous Catholics would fly to arms, and that foreign forces taking advantage of the general confusion, would fix her upon the English throne, and re-establish the Catholic religion."
"Alas! alas! what terrible doings you who meddle with religious matters think upon," said Master Hathaway; "better to kneel down under the blue sky, and worship God without form and ceremony, if such is to be upheld by treason and bloodshed, from one end of the kingdom to the other."
"Alas! thou speakest wiser than thou art aware of," said the father, "and after a life of intrigue and dark underhand doings, in death I find that all such measures are but a serving the cause of the devil, in place of doing our duty towards God."
The dying priest now became so faint and exhausted that he could scarcely proceed.
"I feel," he said, "the hand of death rapidly approaching, and bitterly doth it now weigh upon my soul, that I have in some sort aided the enemies of my country in raising that dreadful tempest which sooner or later must now fall upon the land."