Come Rack! Come Rope! by Robert Hugh Benson
CHAPTER V
I
It was the sixth night after Dick Sampson had come back with news of Mr.Alban; and he had already received instructions as to how he was to gotwenty-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 hemight have taken with him; for the priest would be back before morningand could hear it all then at his ease.
Every possible cause of alarm had gone; and Marjorie, for the first timefor three weeks, felt very nearly as content as a year ago. Not one moredoubtful visitor had appeared anywhere; and now she thought herselfmistaken even about those solitary figures she had suspected before.After all, they had only been a couple of men, whose faces her servantsdid not know, who had gone past on the track beneath the house; onemounted, and the other on foot.
There had been something of a reaction, too, in Derby. The deaths of thethree 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 ofthose martyrs might well be the peace, if it might not be the seed, ofthe Church in the district. Men openly said in the taverns, he reported,that it was hard that any should die for religion merely; politics wereone matter and religion another. Yet the deaths had dismayed the simpleCatholics, too, for the present; and at Hathersage church, scarcely tenmiles away, above two hundred came to the Protestant sermon preachedbefore my lord Shrewsbury on the first Sunday after.
The news of the Armada, too, had distracted men's minds wonderfully inanother direction. News had come in already, she was informed, of anengagement or two in the English Channel, all in favour of itsdefenders. More than that was not known. But the beacons had blazed; andthe market-place of Derby had echoed with the tramp of the train-bands;and it was not likely that at such a time the attention of themagistrates would be given to anything else.
So her plans were laid. Mr. Alban was to come here for three or fourdays; be provided with a complete change of clothes (all of which shehad ready); shave off his beard; and then set out again for the border.He had best go to Staffordshire, she thought, for a month or two, beforebeginning once more in his own county.
* * * * *
She went to bed that night, happy enough, in spite of the cause, whichshe loved so much, seeming to fail everywhere. It was true that, underthis last catastrophe, great numbers had succumbed; but she hoped thatthis would be but for a time. Let but a few more priests come fromRheims to join the company that had lost so heavily, and all would bewell again. So she said to herself: she did not allow even in her ownsoul that the security of her friend and the thought that he would bewith her in a day or two, had any great part in her satisfaction.
* * * * *
She awaked suddenly. At the moment she did not know what time it was orhow long she had slept; but it was still dark and deathly still. Yet shecould have sworn that she had heard her name called. The rushlight wasburned out; but in the summer night she could still make out the outlineof Mistress Alice's bed. Yet all was still there, except for the gentlebreathing: it could not have been she who had called out in her sleep,or she would surely show some signs of restlessness.
She sat up listening; but there was not a sound. She lay down again; andthe strange fancy seized her that it had been her mother's voice thatshe had heard.... It was in this room that her mother had died.... Againshe sat up and looked round. All was quiet as before: the tall press atthe foot of her bed glimmered here and there with lines and points ofstarlight.
Then, as again she began to lie down, there came the signal for whichher heart was expectant, though her mind knew nothing of its coming. Itwas a clear rap, as of a pebble against the glass.
She was up and out of bed in a moment, and was peering out under thethick arch of the little window. And a figure stood there, bending, itseemed, for another pebble; in the very place where she had seen it, shethought, nearly three weeks ago, standing ready to mount a horse.
Then she was at Alice's bedside.
"Alice," she whispered. "Alice! Wake up.... There is someone come. Youmust come with me. I do not know--" Her voice faltered: she knew thatshe knew, and fear clutched her by the throat.
* * * * *
The porter was fast asleep, and did not move, as carrying a rushlightshe went past the buttery with her friend behind her saying no word. Thebolts were well oiled, and came back with scarcely a sound. Then as thedoor swung slowly back a figure slipped in.
"Yes," he said, "it is I.... I think I am followed.... I have butcome--"
"Come in quickly," she said, and closed and bolted the door once more.
II
It was a horrible delight to sit, wrapped in her cloak with the hoodover her head, listening to his story in the hall, and to know that itwas to her house that he had come for safety. It was horrible to herthat he needed it--so horrible that every shred of interior peace hadleft her; she was composed only in her speech, and it was a strangedelight that he had come so simply. He sat there; she could see hisoutline and the pallor of his face under his hat, and his voice wasperfectly resolute and quiet. This was his tale.
"Twice this afternoon," he said, "I saw a man against the sky, oppositemy hut. It was the same man both times; he was not a shepherd or afarmer's man. The night before, when David came, he did not speak to me;but for the first time he put his head in at the hut-door when hebrought the food and made gestures that I could not understand. I lookedat him and shook my head, but he would say nothing, and I remembered thebond and said nothing myself. All that he would do was to shut his eyesand wave his hands. Then this last night he brought no food at all.
"I was uneasy at the sight of the man, too, in the afternoon. I think hethought that I was asleep; for when I saw him for the first time I waslying down and looking at the crag opposite. And I saw him raise himselfon his hands against the sky, as if he had been lying flat on his facein the heather. I looked at him for a while, and then I flung my handout of bed suddenly, and he was gone in a whisk. I went to the doorafter a time, stretching myself as if I were just awakened, and therewas no sign of him.
"About an hour before sunset I was watching again; and I saw, on asudden, a covey of birds rise suddenly about two hundred yards away tothe north of the hut--that is, by the way that I should have to go downto the valleys again. They rose as if they were frightened. I kept myeyes on the place, and presently I saw a man's hat moving very slowly.It was the movement of a man crawling on his hands, drawing his legsafter him.
"Then I waited for David to come, but he did not come, and I determinedthen to make my way down here as well as I could after dark. If therewere any fellows after me, I should have a better chance of escape thanif I stayed in the hut, I thought, until they could fetch up the rest;and, if not, I could lose nothing by coming a day too soon."
"But--" began the girl eagerly.
"Wait," said Robin quietly. "That is not all. I made very poor way onfoot (for I thought it better to come quietly than on a horse), and Iwent round about again and again in the precipitous ground so that, ifthere were any after me, they could not tell which way I meant to go.For about two hours I heard and saw nothing of any man, and I began tothink I was a fool for all my pains. So I sat down a good while andrested, and even thought that I would go back again. But just as I wasabout to get up again I heard a stone fall a great way behind me: it wason some rocky ground about two hundred yards away. The night was quitestill, and I could hear the stone very plainly.... It was I that crawledthen, further down the hill, and it was then that I saw once more aman's head move against the stars.
"I went straight on then, as quietly as I could. I made sure that it wasbut one that was after me, and that he would not try to take me byhimself, and I saw no more of him till I came down near Padley--"
"Near Padley? Why--"
"I meant to go there first," said the priest, "and lie, there tillmorning. Bu
* * * * *
Mistress Alice lifted her hand suddenly.
"Hark!" she whispered.
Then as the three sat motionless, there came, distinct and clear, from alittle distance down the hill, the noise of two or three horses walkingover stony ground.
III
For one deathly instant the two sat looking each into the other's whiteface--since even the priest changed colour at the sound. (While they hadtalked the dawn had begun to glimmer, and the windows showed grey andghostly on the thin morning mist.) Then they rose together. Marjorie wasthe first to speak.
"You must come upstairs at once," she said. "All is ready there, as youknow."
The priest's lips moved without speaking. Then he said suddenly:
"I had best be off the back way; that is, if it is what I think--"
"The house will be surrounded."
"But you will have harboured me--"
Marjorie's lips opened in a smile.
"I have done that in any case," she said. She caught up the candle andblew it out, as she went towards the door.
"Come quickly," she said.
At the door Janet met them. Her old face was all distraught with fear.She had that moment run downstairs again on hearing the noise. Marjoriesilenced her by a gesture....
The young carpenter had done his work excellently, and Marjorie hadtaken care that there had been no neglect since the work had been done.Yet so short was the time since the hearing of the horses' feet, that asthe girl slipped out of the press again after drawing back the secretdoor, there came the loud knocking beneath, for which they had waitedwith such agony.
"Quick!" she said....
From within, as she waited, came the priest's whisper. "Is this to bepushed--?"
"Yes; yes."
There was the sound of sliding wood and a little snap. Then she closedthe doors of the press again.
IV
Mr. Audrey outside grew indignant, and the more so since he was unhappy.
* * * * *
He had had the message from my lord Shrewsbury that a magistrate of herGrace should show more zeal; and, along with this, had come a privateintimation that it was suspected that Mr. Audrey had at least oncewarned the recusants of an approaching attack. It would be as well,then, if he would manifest a little activity....
But it appeared to him the worst luck in the world that the hunt shouldlead him to Mistress Manners' door.
It was late in the afternoon that the informer had made his appearanceat Matstead, thirsty and dishevelled, with the news that a man thoughtto be a Popish priest was in hiding on the moors; that he was being keptunder observation by another informer; and that it was to be suspectedthat he was the man who had been missed at Padley when my lord had takenGarlick and Ludlam. If it were the man, it would be the priest known bythe name of Alban--the fellow whom my lord's man had so much distrustedat Fotheringay, and whom he had seen again in Derby a while later. Next,if it were this man, he would almost certainly make for Padley if hewere disturbed.
Mr. Audrey had bitten his nails a while as he listened to this, and thenhad suddenly consented. The plan suggested was simple enough. One littletroop should ride to Padley, gathering reinforcements on the way, andanother on foot should set out for the shepherd's hut. Then, if thepriest should be gone, this second party should come on towards Padleyimmediately and join forces with the riders.
All this had been done, and the mounted company, led by the magistratehimself, had come up from the valley in time to see the signalling fromthe heights (contrived by the showing of lights now and again), whichindicated that the priest was moving in the direction that had beenexpected, and that one man at least was on his track. They had waitedthere, in the valley, till the intermittent signals had reached thelevel ground and ceased, and had then ridden up cautiously in time tomeet the informer's companion, and to learn that the fugitive haddoubled suddenly back towards Booth's Edge. There they had waited then,till the dawn was imminent, and, with it, there came the party on foot,as had been arranged; then, all together, numbering about twenty-fivemen, they had pushed on in the direction of Mistress Manners' house.
As the house came into view, more than ever Mr. Audrey reproached hisevil luck. Certainly there still were two or three chances to one thatno priest would be taken at all; since, first, the man might not be apriest, and next, he might have passed the manor and plunged back againinto the hills. But it was not very pleasant work, this rousing of ahouse inhabited by a woman for whom the magistrate had very far fromunkindly feelings, and on such an errand.... So the informers marvelledat the venom with which Mr. Audrey occasionally whispered at them in thedark.
His heart sank as he caught a glimpse of a light first showing, and thensuddenly extinguished, in the windows of the hall, but he was relievedto hear no comment on it from the men who walked by his horse; he evenhoped that they had not seen it.... But he must do his duty, he said tohimself.
* * * * *
He grew a little warm and impatient when no answer came to the knocking.He said such play-acting was absurd. Why did not the man come outcourageously and deny that he was a priest? He would have a far betterexcuse for letting him go.
"Knock again," he cried.
And again the thunder rang through the archway, and the summons in theQueen's name to open.
Then at last a light shone beneath the door. (It was brightening rapidlytowards the dawn here in the open air, but within it would still bedark.) Then a voice grumbled within.
"Who is there?"
"Man," bellowed the magistrate, "open the door and have done with it. Itell you I am a magistrate!"
There was silence. Then the voice came again.
"How do I know that you are?"
Mr. Audrey slipped off his horse, scrambled to the door, set his handson his knees and his mouth to the keyhole.
"Open the door, you fool, in the Queen's name.... I am Mr. Audrey, ofMatstead."
Again came the pause. The magistrate was in the act of turning to bidhis men beat the door in, when once more the voice came.
"I'll tell the mistress, sir.... She's a-bed."
* * * * *
His discomfort grew on him as he waited, staring out at the fastyellowing sky. (Beneath him the slopes towards the valley and thefar-off hills on the other side appeared like a pencil drawing,delicate, minute and colourless, or, at the most, faintly tinted inphantoms of their own colours. The sky, too, was grey with the nightmists not yet dissolved.) It was an unneighbourly action, this of his,he thought. He must do his best to make it as little offensive as hecould. He turned to his men.
"Now, men," he said, glaring like a judge, "no violence here, unless Igive the order. No breaking of aught in the house. The lady here is afriend of mine; and--"
The great bolts shot back suddenly; he turned as the door opened; andthere, pale as milk, with eyes that seemed a-fire, Marjorie's face waslooking at him; she was wrapped in her long cloak and her hood was drawnover her head. The space behind was crowded with faces, unrecognizablein the shadow.
* * * * *
He saluted her.
"Mistress Manners," he said, "I am sorry to incommode you in this way.But a couple of fellows tell me that a man hath come this way, whom theythink to be a priest. I am a magistrate, mistress, and--"
He stopped, confounded by her face. It was not like her face at all--theface, rather, seemed as nothing; her whole soul was in her eyes, cryingto him some message that he could not understand. It appearedimpossible to him that this was a mere entreaty that he should leave onemore priest at liberty; impossible that the mere shock and surpriseshould have changed her so.... He looked at her.... Then he began again:
She swept back again, motioning him to enter. He was astonished at hisown discomfort, but he followed, and his men pressed close after; and henoticed, even in that twilight, that a look of despair went over thegirl's face, sharp as pain, as she saw them.
"You have come to search my house, sir?" she asked. Her voice was ascolourless as her features.
"My commission, mistress, compels me--"
Then he noticed that the doors into the hall had been pushed open, andthat she was moving towards them. And he thought he understood.
"Stand back, men," he barked, so fiercely that they recoiled. "This ladyshall speak with me first."
* * * * *
He passed up the hall after her. He was as unhappy as possible. Hewondered what she could have to say to him; she must surely understandthat no pleading could turn him; he must do his duty. Yet he wouldcertainly do this with as little offence as he could.
"Mistress Manners--" he began.
Then she turned on him again. They were at the further end of the hall,and could speak low without being overheard.
"You must begone again," she whispered. "Oh! you must begone again. Youdo not understand; you--"
Her eyes still burned with that terrible eloquence; it was as the faceof one on the rack.
"Mistress, I cannot begone again. I must do my duty. But I promiseyou--"
She was close to him, staring into his face; he could feel the heat ofher breath on his face.
"You must begone at once," she whispered, still in that voice of agony.He saw her begin to sway on her feet and her eyes turn glassy. He caughther as she swayed.
"Here! you women!" he cried.
* * * * *
It was all that he could do to force himself out through the crowd offolks that looked on him. It was not that they barred his way. Ratherthey shrank from him; yet their eyes pulled and impeded him; it was by aseparate effort that he put each foot before the other. Behind he couldhear the long moan that she had given die into silence, and thechattering whispers of her women who held her. He reassured himselfsavagely; he would take care that no one was taken ... she would thankhim presently; he would but set guards at all the doors and make acursory search; he would break a panel or two; no more. And that wouldsave both his face and her own.... Yet he loathed even such work asthis....
He turned abruptly as he came into the buttery passage.
"All the women in the hall," he said sharply. "Jack, keep the door fasttill we are done."
V
He took particular pains to do as little damage as possible.
First he went through the out-houses, himself with a pike testing thehaystacks, where he was sure that no man could be hidden. The beaststurned slow and ruminating eyes upon him as he went by their stalls.
As he passed, a little later, the inner door into the buttery passage,he could hear the beating of hands on the hall-door. He went on quicklyto the kitchen, hating himself, yet determined to get all done quickly,and drove the kitchen-maid, who was crouching by the unlighted fire, outbehind him, sending a man with her to bestow her in the hall. She wailedas she went by him, but it was unintelligible, and he was in no mood forlistening.
"Take her in," he said; "but let no one out, nor a message, till all isdone." (He thought that the kinder course.)
Then at last he went upstairs, still with his little bodyguard of four,of whom one was the man who had followed the fugitive down from thehills.
He began with the little rooms over the hall: a bedstead stood in one;in another was a table all piled with linen a third had its floorcovered with early autumn fruit, ready for preserving. He struck on apanel or two as he went, for form's sake.
As he came out again he turned savagely on the informer.
"It is damned nonsense," he said; "the fellow's not here at all. I toldyou he'd have gone back to the hills."
The man looked up at him with a furtive kind of sneer in his face; he,too, was angry enough; the loss of the priest meant the loss of theheavy reward.
"We have not searched a room rightly yet, sir," he snarled. "There are ahundred places--"
"Not searched! You villain! Why, what would you have?"
"It's not the manner I've done it before, sir. A pike-thrust here, and ablow there--"
"I tell you I will not have the house injured! Mistress Manners--"
"Very good, sir. Your honour is the magistrate.... I am not."
The old man's temper boiled over. They were passing at that instant ahalf-open door, and within he could see a bare little parlour, withlinen presses against the walls. It would not hide a cat.
"Do you search, then!" he cried. "Here, then, and I will watch you! Butyou shall pay for any wanton damage, I tell you."
The man shrugged his shoulders.
"What is the use, then--" he began.
"Bah! search, then, as you will. I will pay."
* * * * *
The noise from the hall had ceased altogether as the four men went intothe parlour. It was a plain little room, with an open fireplace and agreat settle beside it. There were hangings here and there. That overthe hearth presented Icarus in the chariot of the sun. It seemed such aplace as that in which two lovers might sit and talk together atsunset.... In one place hung a dark oil painting.
The old man went across to the window and stared out.
The sun was up by now, far away out of sight; and the whole sunlitvalley lay stretched beneath beyond the slopes that led down to Padley.The loathing for his work rose up again and choked him--this desperatebullying of a few women; and all to no purpose. He stared out at thehorses beneath, and at the couple of men gossiping together at theirheads.... He determined to see Mistress Manners again alone presently,when she should be recovered, and have a word with her in private. Shewould forgive him, perhaps, when she saw him ride off empty-handed, ashe most certainly meant to do.
He thought, too, of other things, this old man, as he stood, with hisshoulders squared, resolute in his lack of attention to the mean workgoing on behind him.... He wondered whether God were angry or no.Whether this kind of duty were according to His will. Down there wasPadley, where he had heard mass in the old days; Padley, where the twopriests had been taken a few weeks ago. He wondered--
"If it please your honour we will break in this panel," came the smooth,sneering voice that he loathed.
He turned sullenly.
They were opposite the old picture. Beneath it there showed a crack inthe wainscoting.... He could scarcely refuse leave. Besides, thewoodwork was flawed in any case--he would pay for a new panel himself.
"There is nothing there!" he said doubtfully.
"Oh, no, sir," said the man with a peculiar look. "It is but to make ashow--"
The old man's brows came down angrily. Then he nodded; and, leaningagainst the window, watched them.
* * * * *
One of his own men came forward with a hammer and chisel. He placed thechisel at the edge of the cracked panel, where the informer directed,and struck a blow or two. There was the unmistakable dull sound of woodagainst stone--not an echo of resonance. The old man smiled grimly tohimself. The man must be a fool if he thought there could be any holethere!... Well; he would let them do what they would here; and thenforbid any further damage.... He wondered if the priest really were inthe house or no.
The two men had their heads together now, eyeing the crack they hadmade.... Then the informer said something in a low voice that the oldman could not hear; and the other, handing him the chisel and hammer,went out of the room, beckoning to one of the two others that stoodwaiting at the door.
"Well?" sneered the old man. "Have you caught your bird?
"Not yet, sir."
He could hear the steps of the others in the next room; and thensilence.
"What are
"Nothing, sir.... I just bade a man wait on that side."
The man was once more inserting the chisel in the top of thewainscoting; then he presently began to drive it down with the hammer asif to detach it from the wall.
Suddenly he stopped; and at the same instant the old man heard somefaint, muffled noise, as of footsteps moving either in the wall orbeyond it.
"What is that?"
The man said nothing; he appeared to be listening.
"What is that?" demanded the other again, with a strange uneasiness athis heart. Was it possible, after all! Then the man dropped his chiseland hammer and darted out and vanished. A sudden noise of voices andtramplings broke out somewhere out of sight.
"God's blood!" roared the old man in anger and dismay. "I believe theyhave the poor devil!"
* * * * *
He ran out, two steps down the passage and in again at the door of thenext room. It was a bedroom, with two beds side by side: a great presswith open doors stood between the hearth and the window; and, in themidst of the floor, five men struggled and swayed together. The fifthwas a bearded young man, well dressed; but he could not see his face.
Then they had him tight; his hands were twisted behind his back; an armwas flung round his neck; and another man, crouching, had his legsembraced. He cried out once or twice.... The old man turned sick ... agreat rush of blood seemed to be hammering in his ears and dilating hiseyes.... He ran forward, tearing at the arm that was choking theprisoner's throat, and screaming he knew not what.
And it was then that he knew for certain that this was his son.