Mr. Buxton smiled.
“Very well,” he said; “yet the case is not greatly different if the gentleman threatens me with torture instead, if I do not voluntarily give him my clothes and my horse. If I were weak and yielded to him, yes, and made promises of all kinds in my cowardice—yet he would be no nearer being the true successor of my name and fortune. And if you read her Grace’s Acts, and King Henry’s too, you will find that that was precisely what took place. My dear sir,” Mr. Buxton went on, “if you will pardon my saying it, I am astounded at the effrontery of your authorities who claim that there was no breach. Your Puritans are wiser; they at least frankly say that the old was Anti-Christian; that His Holiness (God forgive me for saying it!), was an usurper: and that the new Genevan theology is the old gospel brought to light again. That I can understand; and indeed most of your churchmen think so too; and that there was a new beginning made with Protestantism. But when her Grace calls herself a Catholic, and tells the poor Frenchmen that it is the old religion here still: and your bishops, or one or two of them rather, like Cheyney, I suppose, say so too—then I am rendered dumb—(if that were possible). If it is the same, then why, a-God’s name, were the altars dragged down, and the screens burned, and the vestments and the images and the stoups and the pictures and the ornaments, all swept out? Why, a-God’s name, was the old mass blotted out and this new mingle-mangle brought in, if it be all one? And for the last time, a-God’s name, why is it death to say mass now, if it be all one? Go, go: Such talk is foolishness, and worse.”
Mr. Buxton was silent for a moment as Anthony eyed him; and then burst out again.
“Ah! but worse than all are the folks that stand with one leg on either stool. We are the old Church, say they;—standing with the Protestant leg in the air,—therefore let us have the money and the buildings: they are our right. And then when a poor Catholic says, Then let us have the old mass, and the old penance and the old images: Nay, nay, nay, they say, lifting up the Catholic leg and standing on the other, those are Popery; and we are Protestants; we have made away with all such mummery and muniments of superstition. And so they go see-sawing to and fro. When you run at one leg they rest them on the other, and you know not where to take them.”
And so the talk went on. When the evening was over, and Anthony was rising to return to Lambeth, Mr. Buxton put his hand on his arm.
“Good Mr. Norris,” he said, “you have been very patient with me. I have clacked this night like an old wife, and you have borne with me: and now I ask your pardon again. But I do pray God that He may show you light and bring you to the true Church; for there is no rest elsewhere.”
Anthony thanked him for his good wishes.
“Indeed,” he said, too, “I am grateful for all that you have said. You have shown me light, I think, on some things, and I ask your prayers.”
“I go to Stanfield to-morrow,” said Mr. Buxton; “it is a pleasant house, though its master says so, not far from Sir Philip Sidney’s: if you would but come and see me there!”
“I am getting greatly perplexed,” said Anthony, “and I think that in good faith I cannot stay long with the Archbishop; and if I leave him how gladly will I come to you for a few days; but it must not be till then.”