Anthony apologised for interrupting him at his supper, and offered to come again, but Mr. Buxton begged him not to leave, as he had nearly finished. So Anthony sat down, and observed the prison and the prisoner. It was fairly well provided with necessaries: a good straw bed lay in one corner on trestles; and washing utensils stood at the further wall; and there was an oil lamp that hung high up from an iron pin. The prisoner’s luggage lay still half unpacked on the floor, and a row of pegs held a hat and a cloak. Mr. Buxton himself was a dark-haired man with a short beard and merry bright eyes; and was dressed soberly as a gentleman; and behaved himself with courtesy and assurance. But it was a queer place with this flickering lamp, thought Anthony, for a gentleman to be eating his supper in. When Mr. Buxton had finished his dish of roach and a tankard of ale, he looked up at Anthony, smiling.
“My lord knows the ways of Catholics, then,” he said, pointing to the bones on his plate.
Anthony explained that the Protestants observed the Friday abstinence, too.
“Ah yes,” said the other, “I was forgetting the Queen’s late injunctions. Let us see; how did it run? ‘The same is not required for any liking of Papish Superstitions or Ceremonies (is it?) hitherto used, which utterly are to be detested of all Christian folk’; (no, the last word or two is a gloss), ‘but only to maintain the mariners in this land, and to set men a-fishing.’ That is the sense of it, is it not, sir? You fast, that is, not for heavenly reasons, which were a foolish and Papish thing to do; but for earthly reasons, which is a reasonable and Protestant thing to do.”
Anthony might have taken this assault a little amiss, if he had not seen a laughing light in his companion’s eyes; and remembered, too, that imprisonment is apt to breed a little bitterness. So he smiled back at him. Then soon they fell to talking of Lady Maxwell and Great Keynes, where it seemed that Mr. Buxton had stayed more than once.
“I knew Sir Nicholas well,” he said, “God rest his soul. It seems to me he is one of those whose life continually gave the lie to men who say that a Catholic can be no true Englishman. There never beat a more loyal heart than his.”
Anthony agreed; but asked if it were not true that Catholics were in difficulties sometimes as to the proper authority to be obeyed—the Pope or the Prince.
“It is true,” said the other, “or it might be. Yet the principle is clear, Date Cæsari quae sunt Cæsaris. The difficulty lies but in the application of the maxim.”
“But with us,” said Anthony—“Church of England folk,—there hardly can be ever any such difficulty; for the Prince of the State is the Governor of the Church as well.”
“I take your point,” said Mr. Buxton. “You mean that a National Church is better, for that spiritual and temporal authorities are then at one.”