"I obey orders, sir, but do not deal in plots," the son replied, with a pride that matched the father's.
"Art not a Jesuit?" asked Sir Michael.
And Philip answering, proudly and yet with much humility, that he was, Sir Michael would have known of him what he did when the bidding of the Society of Jesus ran counter to His Holiness's policy, or enjoined action inconvenient with the honor of a gentleman. But Philip, avoiding the former question, was yet stung into reply on the second, saying boldly that the spiritual descendants of Loyola were much belied, and had no traffic in the plotting of underhand schemes.
To this his father, with much warmth, but with a greater kindness than had yet appeared in his address, replied: "Truly, I think they do not—through such as thou, my son. Believe your old father, lad; your superiors are men of a boundless statecraft and a subtile, and well know their tools. Who that has knowledge uses an axe to do the office of a file? But files they have, and augers even down to the finest gimlet; and these also work among us."
"Be that as it may, sir," answered Philip, "my mission is honest and open. I come to conjure you to hold faith with the cause in which you have so nobly spent your blood, your sons, your land, and your gold."
"There is nothing left me but my daughter and the ragged edge of life, Philip," said the old man, with a great sadness. "And these, too, would I spend, as I thought, God knows, to spend all that is gone,—for the good, I mean, of England. But not as you would lay them out, Philip; not on James, his harlots, priests, and bastards. The King is the slave of priests as his brother was of women; and, Gad 's my life! the late King was more English in 's tastes. Women may harm the king, but your priest in power is death to the kingdom. I have learned one thing, son Philip, in my nine and seventy years: that a man's king is much, but his country more. But it is enough. Let us leave the matter, or, God forgive me, I shall end by lauding the man I have most hated—the one Englishman since I drew breath that was feared and honored by Pope, Emperor, and Kings. And since? We have been laughed to scorn of the Spaniard, spat upon by the Hollander, and paid—God's blood! ay, paid by a filthy Frenchman!"
"You have called a man traitor for less words than these, sir," said his son, mightily amazed.
"Traitor!" quoth Sir Michael, with a great bitterness. "We are all traitors now. It is the curse of God upon a wicked and adulterous generation. There is no man among us but some will say of him, 'There goeth a traitor,' whether to his king, his country, or his God."
Then Philip: "If I must choose, it shall be to all before my God."
"Ay," said Sir Michael; "but in my plain English way of thought, Sir Priest, no man betrays his country but is traitor to his God."