“He was taken through the foul treachery of a spy, who imposed upon me, his friend, and caused me all unknowing to say the very words that brought him into the net.”
And then, more and more, Anthony began to lose his self-consciousness, and poured out the story from the beginning; telling how he had been brought up in the same village with James Maxwell; and what a loyal gentleman he was; and then the story of the trick by which he had been deceived. As he spoke his whole appearance seemed to change; instead of the shy and rather clumsy manner with which he had begun, he was now natural and free; he moved his hands in slight gestures; his blue eyes looked the Queen fairly in the face; he moved a little forward on his knees as he pleaded, and he spoke with a passion that astonished both Mary and himself afterwards when he thought of it, in spite of his short and broken sentences. He was conscious all the while of an intense external strain and pressure, as if he were pleading for his life, and the time was short. Elizabeth relaxed her rigid attitude, and leaned her chin on her hand and her elbow on the table and watched him, her thin lips parted, the pearl rope and crown on her head, and the pearl pendants in her ears moving slightly as she nodded at points in his story.
“Ah! your Grace,” he cried, lifting his open hands towards her a little, “you have a woman’s heart; all your people say so. You cannot allow this man to be so trapped to his death! Treachery never helped a cause yet. If your men cannot catch these priests fairly, then a-God’s name, let them not catch them at all! But to use a friend, and make a Judas of him; to make the very lips that have spoken friendly, speak traitorously; to bait the trap like that—it is devilish. Let him go, let him go, madam! One priest more or less cannot overthrow the realm; but one more foul crime done in the name of justice can bring God’s wrath down on the nation. I hold that a trick like that is far worse than all the disobedience in the world; nay—how can we cry out against the Jesuits and the plotters, if we do worse ourselves? Madam, madam, let him go! Oh! I know I cannot speak as well in this good cause, as some can in a bad cause, but let the cause speak for itself. I cannot speak, I know.”
“Nay, nay,” said Elizabeth softly, “you wrong yourself. You have an honest face, sir; and that is the best recommendation to me.
“And so, Minnie,” she went on, turning to Mary, “this was your petition, was it; and this your advocate? Well, you have not chosen badly. Now, you speak yourself.”
Mary stood a moment silent, and then with a swift movement came round the arm of the Queen’s chair, and threw herself on her knees, with her hands upon the Queen’s left hand as it lay upon the carved boss, and her voice was as Anthony had never yet heard it, vibrant and full of tears.
“Oh! madam, madam; this poor lad cannot speak, as he says; and yet his sad honest face, as your Grace said, is more eloquent than all words. And think of the silence of the little cell upstairs in the Tower; where a gallant gentleman lies, all rent and torn with the rack; and,—and how he listens for the footsteps outside of the tormentors who come to drag him down again, all aching and heavy with pain, down to that fierce engine in the dark. And think of his gallant heart, your Grace, how brave it is; and how he will not yield nor let one name escape him. Ah! not because he loves not your Grace nor desires to serve you; but because he serves your Grace best by serving and loving his God first of all.—And think how he cannot help a sob now and again; and whispers the name of his Saviour, as the pulleys begin to wrench and twist.—And,—and,—do not forget his mother, your Grace, down in the country; how she sits and listens and prays for her dear son; and cannot sleep, and dreams of him when at last she sleeps, and wakes screaming and crying at the thought of the boy she bore and nursed in the hands of those harsh devils. And—and, you can stop it all, your Grace, with one little word; and make that mother’s heart bless your name and pray for you night and morning till she dies;—and let that gallant son go free, and save his racked body before it be torn asunder;—and you can make this honest lad’s heart happy again with the thought that he has saved his friend instead of slaying him. Look you, madam, he has come confessing his fault; saying bravely to your Grace that he did try to do his friend a service in spite of the laws, for that he held love to be the highest law. Ah! how many happy souls you can make with a word; because you are a Queen.—What is it to be a Queen!—to be able to do all that!—Oh! madam, be pitiful then, and show mercy as one day you hope to find it.”
Mary spoke with an intense feeling; her voice was one long straining sob of appeal; and as she ended her tears were beginning to rain down on the hand she held between her own; she lifted it to her streaming face and kissed it again and again; and then dropped her forehead upon it, and so rested in dead silence.
Elizabeth swallowed in her throat once or twice; and then spoke, and her voice was a little choked.
“Well, well, you silly girl.—You plead too well.”