By What Authority? Part 23

Anthony said he would certainly do his best; and Isabel put out her hand to her brother, and beamed at him; and then turned to look at Hubert again.

"And what are you to do next?" asked Mistress Margaret.

"Well," he said, "I am to go to Plymouth again presently, to help to get the treasure out of the s.h.i.+ps; and I must be there, too, for the spring and summer, for Drake wants me to help him with his new expedition."

"But you are not going with him again, my son?" said his mother quickly.

Hubert put out his hand to her.

"No, no," he said, "I have written to tell him I cannot. I must take my father's place here. He will understand"; and he gave one swift glance at Isabel, and her eyes fell.

Anthony was obliged to return to Lambeth after a day or two, and he carried with him a heart full of admiration and enthusiasm for his friend. He had wondered once or twice, too, as his eyes fell on Isabel, whether there was anything in what Mistress Corbet had said; but he dared not speak to her, and still less to Hubert, unless his confidence was first sought.

The visit to Deptford, which took place a week or two later, gave an additional spurt to Anthony's nationalism. London was all on fire at the return of the buccaneers, and as Anthony rode down the south bank of the river from Lambeth to join the others at the inn, the three miles of river beyond London Bridge were an inspiriting sight in the bright winter suns.h.i.+ne, crowded with craft of all kinds, bright with bunting, that were making their way down to the naval triumph. The road, too, was thick with vehicles and pedestrians.

It was still early when he met his party at the inn, and Hubert took them immediately to see the _Pelican_ that was drawn up in a little creek on the south bank. Mistress Margaret had not come, so the four went together all over the s.h.i.+p that had been for these years the perilous home of this sunburnt lad they all loved so well. Hubert pointed out Drake's own cabin at the p.o.o.p, with its stern-windows, where the last sacrament of the two friends had been celebrated; and where Drake himself had eaten in royal fas.h.i.+on to the sound of trumpets and slept with all-night sentries at his door. He showed them too his own cabin, where he had lived with three more officers, and the upper p.o.o.p-deck where Drake would sit hour after hour with his spy-gla.s.s, ranging the horizons for treasure-s.h.i.+ps. And he showed them, too, the high forecastle, and the men's quarters; and Isabel fingered delicately the touch-holes of the very guns that had roared and snapped so fiercely at the Dons; and they peered down into the dark empty hold where the treasure-chests had lain, and up at the three masts and the rigging that had borne so long the swift wings of the _Pelican_. And they heard the hiss and rattle of the ropes as Hubert ordered a man to run up a flag to show them how it was done; and they smelled the strange tarry briny smell of a sea-going s.h.i.+p.

"You are not tired?" Anthony said to his sister, as they walked back to the inn from which they were to see the spectacle. She shook her head happily; and Anthony, looking at her, once more questioned himself whether Mistress Corbet were right or not.

When they had settled down at last to their window, the crowds were gathering thicker every moment about the entrance to the s.h.i.+p, which lay in the creek perhaps a hundred yards from the inn, and on the road along which the Queen was to come from Greenwich. Anthony felt his whole heart go out in sympathy to these joyous shouting folk beneath, who were here to celebrate the gallant pluck of a little bearded man and his followers, who for the moment stood for England, and in whose presence just now the Queen herself must take second place. Even the quacks and salesmen who were busy in their booths all round used patriotism to push their bargains.

"Spanish ointment, Spanish ointment!" bellowed a red-faced herbalist in a doctor's gown, just below the window. "The Dons know what's best for wounds and knocks after Frankie Drake's visit"; and the crowd laughed and bought up his boxes. And another drove a roaring business in green gla.s.s beads, reported to be the exact size of the emeralds taken from the _Cacafuego_; and others sold little models of the _Pelican_, warranted to frighten away Dons and all other kinds of devils from the house that possessed one. Isabel laughed with pleasure, and sent Anthony down to buy one for her.

But perhaps more than all else the sight of the seamen themselves stirred his heart. Most of them, officers as well as men, were dressed with absurd extravagance, for the prize-money, even after the deduction of the Queen's lion-share, had been immense, but beneath their plumed and jewel-buckled caps, brown faces looked out, alert and capable, with tight lips and bright, puckered eyes, with something of the terrier in their expression. There they swaggered along with a slight roll in their walk, by ones or twos, through the crowd that formed lanes to let them pa.s.s, and surged along in their wake, shouting after them and clapping them on the back. Anthony watched them eagerly as they made their way from all directions to where the _Pelican_ lay; for it was close on noon. Then from far away came the boom of the Tower guns, and then the nearer crash of those that guarded the dockyard; and last the deafening roar of the _Pelican_ broadside; and then the smoke rose and drifted in a heavy veil in the keen frosty air over the cheering crowds. When it lifted again, there was the flash of gold and colour from the Greenwich road, and the high braying of the trumpets pierced the roaring welcome of the people.

But the watchers at the windows could see no more over the heads of the crowd than the plumes of the royal carriage, as the Queen dismounted, and a momentary glimpse of her figure and the group round her as she pa.s.sed on to the deck of the _Pelican_ and went immediately below to the banquet, while the parish church bells pealed a welcome.

Lady Maxwell insisted that Isabel should now dine, as there would be no more to be seen till the Queen should come up on deck again.

Of the actual ceremony of the knighting of Mr. Drake they had a very fair view, though the figures were little and far away. The first intimation they had that the banquet was over was the sight of the scarlet-clad yeomen emerging one by one up the little hatchway that led below. The halberdiers lined the decks already, with their weapons flas.h.i.+ng in long curved lines; and by the time that the trumpets began to sound to show that the Queen was on her way from below, the decks were one dense ma.s.s of colour and steel, with a lane left to the foot of the p.o.o.p-stairs by which she would ascend. Then at last the two figures appeared, the Queen radiant in cloth of gold, and Mr. Drake, alert and brisk, in his Court suit and sword. There was silence from the crowd as the adventurer knelt before the Queen, and Anthony held his breath with excitement as he caught the flash of the slender sword that an officer had put into the Queen's hand; and then an inconceivable noise broke out as Sir Francis Drake stood up. The crowd was one open mouth, shouting, the church bells burst into peals overhead, answered by the roll of drums from the deck and the blare of trumpets; and then the whole din sank into nothingness for a moment under the heart-shaking crash of the s.h.i.+p's broadside, echoed instantly by the deeper roar of the dockyard guns, and answered after a moment or two from far away by the dull boom from the Tower. And Anthony leaned yet further from the window and added his voice to the tumult.

As he rode back alone to Lambeth, after parting with the others at London Bridge, for they intended to go down home again that night, he was glowing with national zeal. He had seen not only royalty and magnificence but an apotheosis of character that day. There in the little trim figure with the curly hair kneeling before the Queen was England at its best--England that sent two s.h.i.+ps against an empire; and it was the Church that claimed Sir Francis Drake as a son, and indeed a devoted one, in a sense, that Anthony himself was serving here at Lambeth, and for which he felt a real and fervent enthusiasm.

He was surprised a couple of days later to receive a note in Lady Maxwell's handwriting, brought up by a special messenger from the Hall.

"There is a friend of mine," she wrote, "to come to Lambeth House presently, he tells me, to be kept a day or two in ward before he is sent to Wisbeach. He is a Catholic, named Mr. Henry Buxton, who showed me great love during the sorrow of my dear husband's death; and I write to you to show kindness to him, and to get him a good bed, and all that may comfort him: for I know not whether Lambeth Prison is easy or hard; but I hope perhaps that since my Lord Archbishop is a prisoner himself he has pity on such as are so too; and so my pains be in vain. However, if you will see Mr. Buxton at least, and have some talk with him, and show him this letter, it will cheer him perhaps to see a friend's face."

Anthony of course made inquiries at once, and found that Mr. Buxton was to arrive on the following afternoon. It was the custom to send prisoners occasionally to Lambeth, more particularly those more distinguished, or who, it was hoped, could be persuaded to friendly conference. Mr. Buxton, however, was thought to be incorrigible, and was only sent there because there was some delay in the preparations for his reception at Wisbeach, which since the previous year had been used as an overflow prison for Papists.

On the evening of the next day, which was Friday, Anthony went straight out from the Hall after supper to the gateway prison, and found Mr.

Buxton at a fish supper in the little prison in the outer part of the eastern tower. He introduced himself, but found it necessary to show Lady Maxwell's letter before the prisoner was satisfied as to his ident.i.ty.

"You must pardon me, Mr. Norris," he said, when he had read the letter and asked a question or two, "but we poor Papists are bound to be shy.

Why, in this very room," he went on, pointing to the inner corner away from the door, and smiling, "for aught I know a man sits now to hear us."

Anthony was considerably astonished to see this stranger point so confidently to the hiding-hole, where indeed the warder used to sit sometimes behind a brick part.i.tion, to listen to the talk of the prisoners; and showed his surprise.

"Ah, Mr. Norris," the other said, "we Papists are bound to be well informed; or else where were our lives? But come, sir, let us sit down."

Anthony apologised for interrupting him at his supper, and offered to come again, but Mr. Buxton begged him not to leave, as he had nearly finished. So Anthony sat down, and observed the prison and the prisoner.

It was fairly well provided with necessaries: a good straw bed lay in one corner on trestles; and was.h.i.+ng utensils stood at the further wall; and there was an oil lamp that hung high up from an iron pin. The prisoner's luggage lay still half unpacked on the floor, and a row of pegs held a hat and a cloak. Mr. Buxton himself was a dark-haired man with a short beard and merry bright eyes; and was dressed soberly as a gentleman; and behaved himself with courtesy and a.s.surance. But it was a queer place with this flickering lamp, thought Anthony, for a gentleman to be eating his supper in. When Mr. Buxton had finished his dish of roach and a tankard of ale, he looked up at Anthony, smiling.

"My lord knows the ways of Catholics, then," he said, pointing to the bones on his plate.

Anthony explained that the Protestants observed the Friday abstinence, too.

"Ah yes," said the other, "I was forgetting the Queen's late injunctions.

Let us see; how did it run? 'The same is not required for any liking of Papish Superst.i.tions or Ceremonies (is it?) hitherto used, which utterly are to be detested of all Christian folk'; (no, the last word or two is a gloss), 'but only to maintain the mariners in this land, and to set men a-fis.h.i.+ng.' That is the sense of it, is it not, sir? You fast, that is, not for heavenly reasons, which were a foolish and Papish thing to do; but for earthly reasons, which is a reasonable and Protestant thing to do."

Anthony might have taken this a.s.sault a little amiss, if he had not seen a laughing light in his companion's eyes; and remembered, too, that imprisonment is apt to breed a little bitterness. So be smiled back at him. Then soon they fell to talking of Lady Maxwell and Great Keynes, where it seemed that Mr. Buxton had stayed more than once.

"I knew Sir Nicholas well," he said, "G.o.d rest his soul. It seems to me he is one of those whose life continually gave the lie to men who say that a Catholic can be no true Englishman. There never beat a more loyal heart than his."

Anthony agreed; but asked if it were not true that Catholics were in difficulties sometimes as to the proper authority to be obeyed--the Pope or the Prince.

"It is true," said the other, "or it might be. Yet the principle is clear, _Date Caesari quae sunt Caesaris_. The difficulty lies but in the application of the maxim."

"But with us," said Anthony--"Church of England folk,--there hardly can be ever any such difficulty; for the Prince of the State is the Governor of the Church as well."

"I take your point," said Mr. Buxton. "You mean that a National Church is better, for that spiritual and temporal authorities are then at one."

"Just so," said Anthony, beginning to warm to his favourite theme. "The Church is the nation regarded as religious. When England wars on land it is through her army, which is herself under arms; when on sea she embarks in the navy; and in the warfare with spiritual powers, it is through her Church. And surely in this way the Church must always be the Church of the people. The Englishman and the Spaniard are like cat and dog; they like not the same food nor the same kind of coat; I hear that their buildings are not like ours; their language, nay, their faces and minds, are not like ours. Then why should be their prayers and their religion? I quarrel with no foreigner's faith; it is G.o.d who made us so."

Anthony stopped, breathless with his unusual eloquence; but it was the subject that lay nearest to his heart at present, and he found no lack of words. The prisoner had watched him with twinkling eyes, nodding his head as if in agreement; and when he had finished his little speech, nodded again in meditative silence.

"It is complete," he answered, "complete. And as a theory would be convincing; and I envy you, Master Norris, for you stand on the top of the wave. That is what England holds. But, my dear sir, Christ our Lord refused such a kingdom as that. My kingdom, He said, is not of this world--is not, that is, ruled by the world's divisions and systems. You have described Babel,--every nation with its own language. But it was to undo Babel and to build one spiritual city that our Saviour came down, and sent the Holy Ghost to make the Church at Pentecost out of Arabians and Medes and Elamites--to break down the part.i.tion-walls, as the apostle tells us,--that there be neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian nor Scythian--and to establish one vast kingdom (which for that very reason we name Catholic), to destroy differences between nation and nation, by lifting each to be of the People of G.o.d--to pull down Babel, the City of Confusion, and build Jerusalem the City of Peace. Dear G.o.d!" cried Mr.

Buxton, rising in his excitement, and standing over Anthony, who looked at him astonished and bewildered. "You and your England would parcel out the Kingdom of heaven into national Churches, as you name them--among all the kingdoms of the world; and yet you call yourselves the servants of Him who came to do just the opposite--yes, and who will do it, in spite of you, and make the kingdoms of this world, instead, the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. Why, if each nation is to have her Church, why not each county and each town--yes, and each separate soul, too; for all are different! Nay, nay, Master Norris, you are blinded by the Prince of this world. He is shewing you even now from an high mountain the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them: lift your eyes, dear lad, to the hills from whence cometh your help; those hills higher than the mountain where you stand; and see the new Jerusalem, and the glory of her, coming down from G.o.d to dwell with men."

Mr. Buxton stood, his eyes blazing, plainly carried away wholly by enthusiasm; and Anthony, in spite of himself, could not be angry. He moistened his lips once or twice.

"Well, sir; of course I hold with what you say, in one sense; but it is not come yet; and never will, till our Lord comes back to make all plain."

"Not come yet?" cried the other, "Not come yet! Why, what is the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church but that? There you have one visible kingdom, gathered out of every nation and tongue and people, as the apostle said. I have a little estate in France, Master Norris, where I go sometimes; and there are folk in their wooden shoes, talking a different human tongue to me, but, thank G.o.d! the same divine one--of contrition and adoration and prayer. There we have the same ma.s.s, the same priesthood, the same blessed sacrament and the same Faith, as in my own little oratory at Stanfield. Go to Spain, Africa, Rome, India; wherever Christ is preached; there is the Church as it is here--the City of Peace.

And as for you and your Church! with whom do you hold communion?"

This stung Anthony, and he answered impulsively.

"In Geneva and Frankfort, at least, there are folk who speak the same divine tongue, as you call it, as we do; they and we are agreed in matters of faith."

"Indeed," said Mr. Burton sharply, "then what becomes of your Nationalism, and the varied temperaments that you told me G.o.d had made?"

Anthony bit his lip; he had overshot his mark. But the other swept on; and as he talked began to step up and down the little room, in a kind of rhapsody.

"Is it possible?" he cried, "that men should be so blind as to prefer the little divided companies they name National Churches--all confusion and denial--to that glorious kingdom that Christ bought with his own dear blood, and has built upon Peter, against which the gates of h.e.l.l shall not prevail. Yes, I know it is a flattering and a pleasant thought that this little nation should have her own Church; and it is humbling and bitter that England should be called to submit to a foreign potentate in the affairs of faith--Nay, cry they like the Jews of old, not Christ but Barabbas--we will not have this Man to reign over us. And yet this is G.o.d's will and not that. Mark me, Mr. Norris, what you hope will never come to be--the Liar will not keep his word--you shall not have that National Church that you desire: as you have dealt, so will it be dealt to you: as you have rejected, so will you be rejected. England herself will cast you off: your religious folk will break into a hundred divisions. Even now your Puritans mock at your prelates--so soon! And if they do thus now, what will they do hereafter? You have cast away Authority, and authority shall forsake you. Behold your house is left unto you desolate."

"Forgive me, Mr. Norris," he added after a pause, "if I have been discourteous, and have forgotten my manners; but--but I would, as the apostle said, that you were altogether as I am, except these bonds."