Robin looked for the inscription, but there was none. Then he broke the two seals, opened the paper and began to read. For the next five minutes there was no sound, except the thresh of the rain and the cry of the wind. The letter ran as follows:
III
"Three more have glorified G.o.d to-day by a good confession--Mr. Garlick, Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Simpson. That is the summary. The tale in detail hath been brought to me to-day by an eye-witness.
"The trial went as all thought it would. There was never the least question of it; for not only were the two priests taken with signs of their calling upon them, but both of them had been in the hands of the magistrates before. There was no shrinking nor fear showed of any kind.
But the chief marvel was that these two priests met with Mr. Simpson in the gaol; they put them together in one room, I think, hoping that Mr.
Simpson would prevail upon them to do as he had promised to do; but, by the grace of G.o.d, it was all the other way, and it was they who prevailed upon Mr. Simpson to confess himself again openly as a Catholic. This greatly enraged my lord Shrewsbury and the rest; so that there was less hope than ever of any respite, and sentence was pa.s.sed upon them all together, Mr. Simpson showing, at the reading of it, as much courage as any. This was all done two days ago at the a.s.sizes; and it was to-day that the sentence was carried out.
"They were all three drawn on hurdles together to the open s.p.a.ce by St.
Mary"s Bridge, where all was prepared, with gallows and cauldron and butchering block; and a great company went after them. I have not heard that they spoke much, on the way, except that a friend of Mr. Garlick"s cried out to him to remember that they had often shot off together on the moors; to which Mr. Garlick made answer merrily that it was true; but that "I am now to shoot off such a shot as I never shot in all my life." He was merry at the trial, too, I hear; and said that "he was not come to seduce men, but rather to induce them to the Catholic religion, that to this end he had come to the country, and for this that he would work so long as he lived." And this he did on the scaffold, speaking to the crowd about him of the salvation of their souls, and casting papers, which he had written in prison, in proof of the Catholic faith.
"Mr. Garlick went up the ladder first, kissing and embracing it as the instrument of his death, and to encourage Mr. Simpson, as it was thought, since some said he showed signs of timorousness again when he came to the place. But he showed none when his turn came, but rather exhibited the same courage as them both. Mr. Ludlam stood by smiling while all was done; and smiling still when his turn came. His last words were, "_Venite benedicti Dei_"; and this he said, seeming to see a vision of angels come to bear his soul away.
"They were cut down, all three of them, before they were dead; and the butchery done on them according to sentence; yet none of them cried out or made the least sound; and their heads and quarters were set up immediately afterwards on poles in divers places of Derby; some of them above the house that stands on the bridge and others on the bridge itself. But these, I hear, will not be there long.
"So these three have kept the faith and finished their course with joy.
_Laus Deo_. Mr. John is in ward, for harbouring of the priests; but nothing hath been done to him yet.
"As for your reverence, I am of opinion that you had best wait another week where you are. There has been a man or two seen hereabouts whom none knew, as well as at Padley. It hath been certified, too, that Mr.
Thomas was at the root of it all, that he gave the information that Mr.
John and at least a priest or two would be at Padley at that time, though no man knows how he knew it, unless through servants" talk; and since Mr. Thomas knows your reverence, it will be better to be hid for a little longer. So, if you will, in a week from now, I will send d.i.c.k once, again to tell you if all be well. I look for no letter back for this since you have nothing to write with in the hut, as I know; but d.i.c.k will tell me how you do; as well as anything you may choose to say to him.
"I ask your reverence"s blessing again. I do not forget your reverence in my poor prayers."
And so it ended, without signature--for safety"s sake.
IV
Robin looked up when he had finished to where the faint outline of the servant could be seen behind the lantern, against the greater darkness of the wall.
"You know of all that has fallen at Derby?" he said, with some difficulty.
"Yes, sir."
"Well, pray G.o.d we may be willing, too, if He bids us to it."
"Yes, sir."...
"You had best lose no time if you are to be home before dawn. Say to Mistress Manners that I thank her for her letter; that I praise G.o.d for the graces she relates in it; and that I will do as she bids.... d.i.c.k."
"Yes, sir."
"Is Mr. Audrey in any of this?"
"I do not know, sir.... I heard--" The man"s voice hesitated.
"What did you hear?"
"I heard that my lord Shrewsbury wondered at his absence from the trial; and ... and that a message would be sent to Mr. Audrey to look to it to be more zealous on her Grace"s commission."
"That was all?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then you had best be gone. There is no more to be said. Bring me what news you can when you come again. Good-night, d.i.c.k."
"Good-night, sir.... G.o.d bless your reverence."
An hour later, with the first coming of the dawn, the storm ceased. (It was that same storm, if he had only known it, that had blown upon the Spanish Fleet at sea and driven it towards destruction. But of this he knew nothing.) He had not slept since d.i.c.k had gone, but had lain on his back on the turfed and blanketed bed in the corner, his hands clasped behind his head, thinking, thinking and re-thinking all that he had read just now. He had known it must happen; but there seemed to him all the difference in the world between an event and its mere certainty.... The thing was done--out to every bitter detail of the loathsome, agonizing death--and it had been two of the men whom he had seen say ma.s.s after himself--the ruddy-faced, breezy countryman, yet anointed with the sealing oil, and the gentle, studious, smiling man who had been no less vigorous than his friend....
But there was one thing he had not known, and that, the recovery of the faint heart which they had inspirited. And then, in an instant he remembered how he had seen the three, years ago, against the sunset, as he rode with Anthony....
His mind was full of the strange memory as he came out at last, when the black darkness began to fade to grey, and the noise of the rain on the roof had ceased, and the wind had fallen.
It was a view of extraordinary solemnity that he looked on, as he stood leaning against the rough door-post. The night was still stronger than day; overhead was as black as ever, and stars shone in it through the dissolving clouds that were pa.s.sing at last. But, immediately over the grim, serrated edge of the crag that faced him to the east, a faint and tender light was beginning to burn, so faint that, as yet it seemed an absence of black rather than as of a colour itself; and in the midst of it, like a crumb of diamond, shone a single dying star. This high land was as still now as a sheltered valley, a tuft of springy gra.s.s stood out on the crag as stiff as a thin plume; and the silence, as at Padley two weeks ago, was marked rather than broken by the tinkle of water from his spring fifty yards away. The air was cold and fresh and marvellously scented, after the rain, with the clean smell of strong turf and rushes.
It was as different from the peace he had had at Padley as water is different from wine; yet it was Peace, too, a confident and expectant peace that precedes the battle, rather than the rest which follows it....
How was it he had seen the three men on the moor; as he turned with Anthony? They were against the crimson west, as against a glory, the two laymen on either side, the young priest in the middle.... They had seemed to bear him up and support him; the colour of the sky was as a stain of blood; and their shadows had stretched to his own feet....
And there came on him in that hour one of those vast experiences that can never be told, when a flood rises in earth and air that turns them all to wine, that wells up through tired limbs, and puzzled brain and beating heart, and soothes and enkindles, all in one; when it is not a mere vision of peace that draws the eyes up in an ecstasy of sight, but a bathing in it, and an envelopment in it, of every fibre of life; when the lungs draw deep breaths of it; and the heart beats in it, and the eyes are enlightened by it; when the things of earth become at once eternal and fixed and of infinite value, and at the same instant of less value than the dust that floats in s.p.a.ce; when there no longer appears any distinction between the finite and the eternal, between time and infinity; when the soul for that moment at least finds that rest that is the magnet and the end of all human striving; and that comfort which wipes away all tears.
CHAPTER V
I
It was the sixth night after d.i.c.k Sampson had come back with news of Mr.
Alban; and he had already received instructions as to how he was to go twenty-four hours later. He was to walk, as before, starting after dark, not carrying a letter this time, after all, in spite of the news that he might have taken with him; for the priest would be back before morning and could hear it all then at his ease.
Every possible cause of alarm had gone; and Marjorie, for the first time for three weeks, felt very nearly as content as a year ago. Not one more doubtful visitor had appeared anywhere; and now she thought herself mistaken even about those solitary figures she had suspected before.
After all, they had only been a couple of men, whose faces her servants did not know, who had gone past on the track beneath the house; one mounted, and the other on foot.
There had been something of a reaction, too, in Derby. The deaths of the three priests had made an impression; there was no doubt of that. Mr.
Biddell had written her a letter on the point, saying that the blood of those martyrs might well be the peace, if it might not be the seed, of the Church in the district. Men openly said in the taverns, he reported, that it was hard that any should die for religion merely; politics were one matter and religion another. Yet the deaths had dismayed the simple Catholics, too, for the present; and at Hathersage church, scarcely ten miles away, above two hundred came to the Protestant sermon preached before my lord Shrewsbury on the first Sunday after.