Come Rack! Come Rope! | Page 9

He spoke bitterly; and, indeed, there was reason; for not only were the
recusants (as the Catholics were named) put in prison for their faith, but
fined for it as well, and let out of prison to raise money for this, by

selling their farms or estates.
"He will go to Norbury?" asked Robin.
"He will come to Padley, too, it is thought. Her Grace must have her
money for her ships and her men, and for her pursuivants to catch us all
with; and it is we that must pay. Shall you sell again this year, sir?"
Mr. Audrey shook his head, pursing up his lips and staring upon the
fire.
"I can sell no more," he said.
Then an agony seized upon Robin lest his father should say all that was
in his mind. He knew it must be said; yet he feared its saying, and with
a quick wit he spoke of that which he knew would divert his friend.
"And the Queen of the Scots," he said. "Have you heard more of her?"
Now Anthony Babington was one of those spirits that live largely
within themselves, and therefore see that which is without through a
haze or mist of their own moods. He read much in the poets; you would
say that Vergil and Ovid, as well as the poets of his own day, were his
friends; he lived within, surrounded by his own images, and therefore
he loved and hated with ten times the ardour of a common man. He was
furious for the Old Faith, furious against the new; he dreamed of wars
and gallantry and splendour; you could see it even in his dress, in his
furred doublet, the embroideries at his throat, his silver-hilted rapier, as
well as in his port and countenance: and the burning heart of all his
images, the mirror on earth of Mary in heaven, the emblem of his piety,
the mistress of his dreams--she who embodied for him what the
courtiers in London protested that Elizabeth embodied for them--the
pearl of great price, the one among ten thousand--this, for him, was
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, now prisoner in her cousin's hands,
going to and fro from house to house, with a guard about her, yet with
all the seeming of liberty and none of its reality....
The rough bitterness died out of the boy's face, and a look came upon it

as of one who sees a vision.
"Queen Mary?" he said, as if he pronounced the name of the Mother of
God. "Yes; I have heard of her.... She is in Norfolk, I think."
Then he let flow out of him the stream that always ran in his heart like
sorrowful music ever since the day when first, as a page, in my Lord
Shrewsbury's house in Sheffield, he had set eyes on that queen of
sorrows. Then, again, upon the occasion of his journey to Paris, he had
met with Mr. Morgan, her servant, and the Bishop of Glasgow, her
friend, whose talk had excited and inspired him. He had learned from
them something more of her glories and beauties, and remembering
what he had seen of her, adored her the more. He leaned back now,
shading his eyes from the candles upon the table, and began to sing his
love and his queen. He told of new insults that had been put upon her,
new deprivations of what was left to her of liberty; he did not speak
now of Elizabeth by name, since a fountain, even of talk, should not
give out at once sweet water and bitter; but he spoke of the day when
Mary should come herself to the throne of England, and take that which
was already hers; when the night should roll away, and the
morning-star arise; and the Faith should come again like the flowing
tide, and all things be again as they had been from the beginning. It was
rank treason that he talked, such as would have brought him to Tyburn
if it had been spoken in London in indiscreet company; it was that
treason which her Grace herself had made possible by her faithlessness
to God and man; such treason as God Himself must have mercy upon,
since He reads all hearts and their intentions. The others kept silence.
At the end he stood up. Then he stooped for his boots.
"I must be riding, sir," he said.
Mr. Audrey raised his hand to the latten bell that stood beside him on
the table.
"I will take Anthony to his horse," said Robin suddenly, for a thought
had come to him.

"Then good-night, sir," said Anthony, as he drew on his second boot
and stood up.
* * * * *
The sky was all ablaze with