by Guy Thorne
CHAPTER II
THE HOUSE OF SHAME; THE LADDER OF GLORY
It was ten o'clock in the evening. The thunderstorm of the morning hadlong since passed away. The night was cool and still. There was no moon,but the sky above London was powdered with stars.
The Palace of the Tower was ablaze with lights. The King and Queen hadsupped in state at eight, and now a masque was in progress, held in theglorious hall which Henry III painted with the story of Antiochus.
The sweet music shivered out into the night as John Commendone came intothe garden among the sleeping flowers.
"And the harp and the viol, the tabret and pipe, and wine are in theirfeasts." Commendone had never read the Bible, but the words of theProphet would have well expressed his mood had he but known them.
For he was melancholy and ill at ease. The exaltation of the morning hadquite gone. Though he was still pleasantly conscious that he was in afair way to great good fortune, some of the savour was lost. He couldnot forget the lurid scene in the Closet--the four faces haunted himstill. And he knew also that a strange and probably terrible experiencewaited him during the next few hours.
"God on the Cross," he said to himself, snapping his fingers inperplexity and misease--it was the fashion at Court to use the greatTudor oaths--"I am come to touch with life--real life at last. And I amnot sure that I like it. But 'tis too new as yet. I must be as other menare, I suppose!"
As he walked alone in the night, and the cool air played upon his face,he began to realise how placid, how much upon the surface, his life hadalways been until now. He had come to Court perfectly equipped bynature, birth, and training for the work of pageantry, a picturesquepart in the retinue of kings. He had fallen into his place quitenaturally. It all came easy to him. He had no trace of the "younggentleman from the country" about him--he might have started life as aCourt page.
But the real emotions of life, the under-currents, the hates, loves, andstrivings, had all been a closed book. He recognised their existence,but never thought they would or could affect him. He had imagined thathe would always be aloof, an interested spectator, untouched,untroubled.
And he knew to-night that all this had been but a phantom of his brain.He was to be as other men. Life had got hold on him at last, stern andrelentless.
"To-night," he thought, "I really begin to live. I am quickened toaction. Some day, anon, I too must make a great decision, one way or theother. The scene is set, they are pulling the traverse from before it,the play begins.
"I am a fair white page," he said to himself, "on which nothing is writ,I have ever been that. To-night comes Master Scrivener. 'I have a mindto write upon thee,' he saith, and needs be that I submit."
He sighed.
The music came to him, sweet and gracious. The long orange-littenwindows of the Palace spoke of the splendours within.
But he thought of a man--whose name he had never heard until thatmorning--lying in some dark room, waiting for those who were to come forhim, the man whom he would watch burning before the sun had set again.
It had been an evening of incomparable splendour.
The King and Queen had been served with all the panoply of state. TheDuke of Norfolk, the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, Lord Paget and LordRochester, had been in close attendance.
The Duke had held the ewer of water, Paget and Rochester the bason andnapkin. After the ablutions the Bishop of London said grace.
The Queen blazed with jewels. The life of seclusion she had led beforeher accession had by no means dulled the love of splendour inherent inher family. Even the French ambassador, well used to pomp and display,leaves his own astonishment on record.
She wore raised cloth of gold, and round her thin throat was a partletor collar of emeralds. Her stomacher was of diamonds, an almost barbaricdisplay of twinkling fire, and over her gold caul was a cap of blackvelvet sewn with pearls.
During the whole of supper it was remarked that Her Grace was merry. Thegay lords and ladies who surrounded her and the King--for all alike,young maids and grey-haired dames of sixty must blaze and sparkletoo--nodded and whispered to each other, wondering at this highgood-humour.
When the Server advanced with his white wand, heading the procession ofyeomen-servers with the gilt dishes of the second course--he was a fatpottle-bellied man--the Queen turned to the Duke of Norfolk.
"_Dame!_" she said in French, "here is a prancing pie! _Ma mye!_ A caponof high grease! Methinks this gentleman hath a very single eye for thelarder!"
"Yes, m'am," the Duke answered, "and so would make a better feast forPolypheme than e'er the lean Odysseus."
They went on with their play of words upon the names of the dishes inthe menu....
"But say rather a porpoise in armour."
"Halibut engrailed, Madam, hath a face of peculiar whiteness like theunder belly of that fish!"
"A jowl of sturgeon!"
"A Florentine of puff paste, m'am."
"_Habet!_" the Queen replied, "I can't better that. Could you, LadyPaget? You are a great jester."
Lady Paget, a stately white-haired dame, bowed to the Duke and then tothe Queen.
"His Grace is quick in the riposte," she said, "and if Your Majestygives him the palm--_qui meruit ferat_! But capon of high grease for myliking."
"But you've said nothing, Lady Paget."
"My wit is like my body, m'am, grown old and rheumy. The salad days ofit are over. I abdicate in favour of youth."
Again this adroit lady bowed.
The Queen flushed up, obviously pleased with the compliment. She lookedat the King to see if he had heard or understood it.
The King had been talking to the Bishop of London, partly in such Latinas he could muster, which was not much, but principally with the aid ofDon Diego Deza, who stood behind His Majesty's chair, and acted asinterpreter--the Dominican speaking English fluently.
During the whole of supper Philip had appeared less morose than usual.There was a certain fire of expectancy and complacence in his eye. Hehad smiled several times; his manner to the Queen had been more genialthan it was wont to be--a fact which, in the opinion of everybody, dulyaccounted for Her Grace's high spirits and merriment.
He looked up now as Lady Paget spoke.
"_Ensalada!_" he said, having caught one word of Lady Paget'sspeech--salad. "Yes, give me some salad. It is the one thing"--hehastened to correct himself--"it is one of the things they make betterin England than in my country."
The Queen was in high glee.
"His Highness grows more fond of our English food," she said; and in amoment or two the Comptroller of the Household came up to the King'schair, followed by a pensioner bearing a great silver bowl of one ofthose wonderful salads of the period, which no modern skill of thekitchen seems able to produce to-day--burridge, chicory, bugloss,marigold leaves, rocket, and alexanders, all mixed with eggs, cinnamon,oil, and ginger.
Johnnie, who was sitting at the Esquires' table, with the Gentlemen ofthe Body and Privy Closet, had watched the gay and stately scene tillsupper was nearly over.
The lights, the music, the high air, the festivity, had had no power tolighten the oppression which he felt, and when at length the King andQueen rose and withdrew to the great gallery where the Masque waspresently to begin, he had slipped out alone into the garden.
"His golden locks time hath to silver turned."
The throbbing music of the old song, the harps' thridding, the lutesshivering out their arpeggio accompaniment, the viols singingtogether--came to him with rare and plaintive sweetness, but theybrought but little balm or assuagement to his dark, excited mood.
Ten o'clock beat out from the roof of the Palace. Johnnie left thegarden. He was to receive his instruction as to his night's doing fromMr. Medley, the Esquire of Sir John Shelton, in the Common Room of theGentlemen of the Body.
He strode across the square in front of the facade, and turned into thelong panelled room where he had breakfasted that morning.
It was
quite empty now--every one was at the Masque--but two silverlamps illuminated it, and shone upon the dark walls of the glitteringarray of plate upon the beaufet.
He had not waited there a minute, however, leaning against the tallcarved mantelpiece, a tall and gallant figure in his rich evening dress,when steps were heard coming through the hall, the door swung open, andMr. Medley entered.
He was a thick-set, bearded man of middle height, more soldier thancourtier, with the stamp of the barrack-room and camp upon him; a brisk,quick-spoken man, with compressed lips and an air of swift service.
"Give you good evening, Mr. Commendone," he said; "I am come with SirJohn's orders."
Johnnie bowed. "At your service," he answered.
The soldier looked round the room carefully before speaking.
"There is no one here, Mr. Medley," Johnnie said.
The other nodded and came close up to the young courtier.
"The Masque hath been going this half-hour," he said, in a low voice,"but His Highness hath withdrawn. Her Grace is still with the dancers,and in high good-humour. Now, I must tell you, Mr. Commendone, that theQueen thinketh His Highness in his own wing of the Palace, and with DonDiego and Don de Castro, his two confessors. She is willing that thisshould be so, and said 'Good night' to His Highness after supper,knowing that he will presently set out to the burning of Dr. Taylor. Sheknoweth that the party sets out for Hadley at two o'clock, and thinkeththat His Highness is spending the time before then in prayer and alittle sleep. I tell you this, Mr. Commendone, in order that you go notback to the Masque before that you set out from the Tower to a certainhouse where His Highness will be with Sir John Shelton. You will takeyour own servant mounted and armed, and a man-at-arms also will be atthe door of your lodging here at ten minutes of midnight. The word atthe Coal Harbour Gate is 'Christ.' With your two men you will at onceride over London Bridge and so to Duck Lane, scarce a furlong from theother side of the bridge. Doubtless you know it"--and here the man'seyes flickered with a half smile for a moment--"but if not, theman-at-arms, one of Sir John's men, will show you the way. You willknock at the big house with the red door, and be at once admitted. Therewill be a light over the door. His Highness will be there with Sir John,and that is all I have to tell you. Afterwards you will know what todo."
Johnnie bowed. "Give you good night," he said. "I understand very well."
As soon as the Esquire had gone, Johnnie turned out of the Common Room,ascended the stairs, went to his own chamber and threw himself upon thelittle bed.
He had imagined that something like this was likely to occur. The King'shabits were perfectly well known to all those about him, and indeed werewhispered of in the Court at large, Queen Mary, alone, apparentlyknowing nothing of the truth as yet. The King's unusual bonhomie atsupper could hardly be accounted for, at least so Johnnie thought, bythe fact that he was to see his own and the Queen's bigotry translatedinto dreadful reality. To the keen young student of faces the King hadseemed generally relieved, expectant, with the air of a boy about to bereleased from school. Now, the reason was plain enough. His Highness hadgone with Sir John Shelton to some infamous house in a bad quarter ofthe city, and it was there the Equerry was to meet him and ride to thedeath scene.
Johnnie tossed impatiently upon his bed. He remembered how on that verymorning he had expressed his hopes to Sir Henry that his duties wouldnot lead him into dubious places. A lot of water had run under thebridges since he kissed his father farewell in the bright morning light.His whole prospects were altered, and advanced. For one thing, he hadbeen present at an intimate and private conference and had receivedmarked and special favour--he shuddered now as he remembered the fourintent faces round the table in the Privy Closet, those sharp faces,with a cruel smirk upon them, those still faces with the orange lightplaying over them in the dark, tempest-haunted room.
"I' faith," he said to himself, "thou art fairly put to sea, Johnnie!but I will not feed myself with questioning. I am in the service ofprinces, and must needs do as I am told. Who am I to be squeamish? Buthey-ho! I would I were in the park at Commendone to-night."
About eleven o'clock his servant came to him and helped him to changehis dress. He wore long riding-boots of Spanish leather, a lightcorselet of tough steel, inlaid with arabesques of gold, and a bigquilted Spanish hat. Over all he fastened a short riding-cloak of suppleleather dyed purple. He primed his pistols and gave them to a man to beput into his holsters, and about a quarter before midnight descended thestairs.
He found a man-at-arms with a short pike, already mounted, and hisservant leading the other two horses; he walked toward the Coal HarbourGate, gave the word to the Lieutenant of the Guard, and left the Tower.
A light moon was just beginning to rise and throw fantastic shadows overTower Hill. It was bright enough to ride by, and Johnnie forbade his manto light the horn lantern which was hanging at the fellow's saddle-bow.
They went at a foot pace, the horses' feet echoing with an empty,melancholy sound from the old timbered houses back to the great bastionwall of the Tower.
The man-at-arms led the way. When they came to London Bridge, where asingle lantern showed the broad oak bar studded with nails, which ranacross the roadway, Johnnie noticed that upon the other side of it weretwo halberdiers of the Tower Guard in their uniforms of black andcrimson, talking to the keeper of the gate.
As they came up the bar swung open.
"Mr. Commendone?" said the keeper, an elderly man in a leather jerkin.
Johnnie nodded.
"Pass through, sir," the man replied, saluting, as did also the twosoldiers who were standing there.
The little cavalcade went slowly over the bridge between the tall houseson either side, which at certain points almost met with theiroverhanging eaves. The shutters were up all over the little jewellers'shops. Here and there a lamp burned from an upstairs window, and theswish and swirl of the river below could be heard quite distinctly.
At the middle of the bridge, just by the well-known armourer's shop ofGuido Ponzio, the Italian sword-smith, whose weapons were eagerlypurchased by members of the Court and the officers both of the Tower andWhitehall, another halberdier was standing, who again saluted Commendoneas he rode by.
It was quite obvious to Johnnie that every precaution had been taken sothat the King's excursion into _les coulisses_ might be undisturbed.
The pike was swung open for them on the south side of the bridgedirectly they drew near, and putting their horses to the trot, theycantered over a hundred yards of trodden grass round which houses werestanding in the form of a little square, and in a few minutes moreturned into Duck Lane.
At this hour of the night the narrow street of heavily-timbered houseswas quite dark and silent. It seemed there was not a soul abroad, andthis surprised Johnnie, who had been led to understand that at midnight"The Lane" was frequently the scene of roistering activity. Now,however, the houses were all blind and dark, and the three horsemenmight have been moving down a street in the city of the dead.
Only the big honey-coloured moon threw a primrose light upon the topmostgables of the houses on the left side of "The Lane"--all the rest beingblack velvet, sombreness and shadow.
John's mouth curved a little in disdain under his small dark moustache,as he noted all this and realised exactly what it meant.
When a king set out for furtive pleasures, lesser men of vice must getthem to their kennels! Lights were out, all manifestation of evil wasthickly curtained. The shameless folk of that wicked quarter of the townmust have shame imposed upon them for the night.
The King was taking his pleasure.
John Commendone, since his arrival in London, and at the Court, hadquietly refused to be a member of any of those hot-blooded parties ofyoung men who sallied out from the Tower or from Whitehall when thereputable world was sleeping. It was not to his taste. He was perfectlycapable of tolerating vice in others--looking on it, indeed, as anatural manifestation of human nature and event. But for himself he
hadpreferred aloofness.
Nevertheless, from the descriptions of his friends, he knew that DuckLane to-night was wearing an aspect which it very seldom wore, and as herode slowly down that blind and sinister thoroughfare with hisattendants, he realised with a little cold shudder what it was to be aking.
He himself was the servant of a king, one of those whom good fortune andopportunity had promoted to be a minister to those almost super-humanbeings who could do no wrong, and ruled and swayed all other men bymeans of their Divine Right.
This was a position he perfectly accepted, had accepted from the first.Already he was rising high in the course of life he had started topursue. He had no thought of questioning the deeds of princes. He knewthat it was his duty, his _metier_, in life to be a pawn in the greatgame. What affected him now, however, as they came up to a big house offree-stone and timber, where a lanthorn of horn hung over a door painteda dull scarlet, was a sense of the enormous and irrevocable power ofthose who were set on high to rule.
No! They were not human, they were not as other men and women are.
He had been in the Queen's Closet that morning, and had seen the deathwarrant signed. The great convulsion of nature, the furious thunders ofGod, had only been, as it were, a mere accompaniment to the business ofthe four people in the Queen's lodge.
A scratch of a pen--a man to die.
And then, during the evening, he had seen, once more, the King andQueen, bright, glittering and radiant, surrounded by the highest andnoblest of England, serene, unapproachable, the centre of the stupendouspageant of the hour.
And now, again, he was come to the stews, to the vile quarter of London,and even here the secret presence of a king closed all doors, and keptthe pandars and victims of evil silent in their dens like crouchinghares.
As they came up to the big, dark house, a little breeze from the riverswirled down the Lane, and fell fresh upon Johnnie's cheek. As it didso, he knew that he was hot and fevered, that the riot of thought withinhim had risen the temperature of his blood. It was cool andgrateful--this little clean breeze of the water, and he longed oncemore, though only for a single second, that he was home in the statelypark of Commendone, and had never heard the muffled throb of the greatmachine of State, of polity, and the going hither and thither of kingsand queens.
But it only lasted for a moment.
He was disciplined, he was under orders. He pulled himself together,banished all wild and speculative thought--sat up in the saddle, grippedthe sides of his cob with his knees, and set his left arm akimbo.
"This is the house, sir," said the trooper, saluting.
"Very well," Johnnie answered, as his servant dismounted and took hishorse by the bridle.
Johnnie leapt to the ground, pulled his sword-belt into position,settled his hat upon his head, and with his gloved fist beat upon thebig red door before him.
In ten seconds he heard a step on the other side of the door. It swungopen, and a tall, thin person, wearing a scarlet robe and a mask ofblack velvet over the upper part of the face, bowed low before him, andwith a gesture invited him to enter.
Johnnie turned round.
"You will stay here," he said to the men. "Be quite silent, and don'tstray away a yard from the door."
Then he followed the tall, thin figure, which closed the door, andflitted down a short passage in front of him with noiseless footsteps.
He knew at once that he was in Queer Street.
The nondescript figure in its fantastic robe and mask struck a chill ofdisgust to his blood.
It was a fantastic age, and all aberrations--all deviations--from thenormal were constantly accentuated by means of costumes and theatriceffect.
The superficial observer of the manners of our day is often apt toexclaim upon the decadence of our time. One has heard perfectly sincereand healthy Englishmen inveigh with anger upon the literature of themoment, the softness and luxury of life and art, the invasion of sturdyEnglish ideals by the corrupt influences of France.
"Give me the days of Good Queen Bess, the hearty, healthy, strong Tudorlife," is the sort of exclamation by no means rare in our time.
... "Bluff King Hal! Drake, Raleigh, all that rough, brave, and splendidtime! Think of Shakespeare, my boy!"
Whether or no our own days are deficient in hardihood and endurance isnot a question to be discussed here--though the private records ofEngland's last war might very well provide a complete answer to thequery. It is certain, however, that in an age when personal prowess witharms was still a title to fortune, when every gentleman of position andbirth knew and practised the use of weapons, the under-currents of life,the hidden sides of social affairs, were at least as "curious" and"decadent" as anything Montmartre or the Quartier Latin have to show.
It must be remembered that in the late Tudor Age almost every one ofgood family, each gentleman about the Court, was not only a trainedsoldier, but also a highly cultured person as well. The Renaissance inItaly was in full swing and activity. Its culture had crossed the Alps,its art was borne upon the wings of its advance to our northern shores.
Grossness was refined....
Johnnie twirled his moustache as he followed the nondescript sexlessfigure which flitted down the dimly-lit panelled passage before him likesome creature from a masque.
At the end of the passage there was a door.
Arrived at it, a long, thin arm, in a sleeve of close-fitting blacksilk, shot out from the red robe. A thin ivory-coloured hand, withfingers of almost preternatural length, rose to a painted scarlet slitwhich was the creature's mouth.
The masked head dropped a little to one side, one lean finger, shininglike a fish-bone, tapped the mouth significantly, the door opened, someheavy curtains of Flanders tapestry were pushed aside, and the Equerrywalked into a place as strange and sickly as he had ever met in somefantastic or disordered dream.
Johnnie heard the door close softly behind him, the "swish, swish" ofthe falling curtains. And then he stood up, his eyes blinking a littlein the bright light which streamed upon them--his hand upon hissword-hilt--and looked around to find himself. He was in a smallishroom, hung around entirely with an arras of scarlet cloth, powdered atregular intervals with a pattern of golden bats.
The floor was covered with a heavy carpet of Flanders pile--a very rareand luxurious thing in those days--and the whole room was lit by itssilver lamps, which hung from the ceiling upon chains. On one side,opposite the door, was a great pile of cushions, going half-way up thewall towards the ceiling--cushions as of strange barbaric colours,violent colours that smote upon the eye and seemed almost to do thebrain a violence.
In the middle of the room, right in the centre, was a low oak stool,upon which was a silver tray. In the middle of the tray was a miniaturechafing-dish, beneath which some volatile amethyst-coloured flame wasburning, and from the dish itself a pastille, smouldering and heated,sent up a thin, grey whip of odorous smoke.
The whole air of this curious tented room was heavy and languorous withperfume. Sickly, and yet with a sensuous allurement, the place seemed toreel round the young man, to disgust one side of him, the real side; andyet, in some low, evil fashion, to beckon to base things in hisblood--base thoughts, physical influences which he had never knownbefore, and which now seemed to suddenly wake out of a long sleep, andto whisper in his ears.
All this, this surveyal of the place in which he found himself, took buta moment, and he had hardly stood there for three seconds--tall,upright, and debonair, amid the wicked luxury of the room--when he hearda sound to his left, and, turning, saw that he was not alone.
Behind a little table of Italian filigree work, upon which were a pairof tiny velvet slippers, embroidered with burnt silver, asprunking-glass--or pocket mirror--and a tall-stemmed bottle of wine,sat a vast, pink, fleshy, elderly woman.
Her face, which was as big as a ham, was painted white and scarlet. Hereyebrows were pencilled with deep black, the heavy eyes shared thevacuity of glass, with an evil and steadfast glitter o
f welcome.
There were great pouches underneath the eyes; the nose was hawk-like,the chins pendulous, the lips once, perhaps, well curved and beautifulenough, now full, bloated, and red with horrid invitation.
The woman was dressed with extreme richness.
Fat and powdered fingers were covered with rings. Her corsage wasjewelled--she was like some dreadful mummy of what youth had been, asullen caricature of a long-past youth, when she also might have walkedin the fields under God's sky, heard bird-music, and seen the dew uponthe bracken at dawn.
Johnnie stirred and blinked at this apparition for a moment; then hisnatural courtesy and training came to him, and he bowed.
As he did so, the fat old woman threw out her jewelled arms, leant backin her chair, stuttering and choking with amusement.
"_Tiens!_" she said in French, "_Monsieur qui arrive!_ Why have younever been to see me before, my dear?"
Johnnie said nothing at all. His head was bent a little forward. He wasregarding this old French procuress with grave attention.
He knew now at once who she was. He had heard her name handed about theCourt very often--Madame La Motte.
"You are a little out of my way, Madame," Johnnie answered. "I come notover Thames. You see, I am but newly arrived at the Court."
He said it perfectly politely, but with a little tiny, half-hiddensneer, which the woman was quick to notice.
"Ah! Monsieur," she said, "you are here on duty. _Merci_, that I knowvery well. Those for whom you have come will be down from above stairsvery soon, and then you can go about your business. But you will take aglass of wine with me?"
"I shall be very glad, Madame," Johnnie answered, as he watched the fat,trembling hand, with all its winking jewels, pouring Vin de Burgogneinto a glass. He raised it and bowed.
The old painted woman raised her glass also, and lifted it to her lips,tossing the wine down with a sudden smack of satisfaction.
Then, in that strange perfumed room, the two oddly assorted peoplelooked at each other straightly for a moment.
Neither spoke.
At length Madame La Motte, of the great big house with the red door,heaved herself out of her arm-chair, and waddled round the table. Shewas short and fat; she put one hand upon the shoulder of the tall, cleanyoung man in his riding suit and light armour.
"_Mon ami_," she said thickly, "don't come here again."
Johnnie looked down at the hideous old creature, but with a singularfeeling of pity and compassion.
"Madame," he said, "I don't propose to come again."
"Thou art limn and debonair, and a very pretty boy, but come not here,because in thy face I see other things for thee. Lads of the Court cometo see me and my girls, proper lads too, but in their faces there is notwhat I discern in thy face. For them it matters nothing; for thee'twould be a stain for all thy life. Thou knowest well whom I am,Monsieur, and canst guess well where I shall go--e'en though His MostCatholic Majesty be above stairs, and will get absolution for all he ispleased to do here. But you--thou wilt be a clean boy. Is it not so?"
The fat hand trembled upon the young man's arm, the hoarse, sodden voicewas full of pleading.
"_Ma mere_," Johnnie answered her in her own language, "have no fear forme. I thank you--but I did not understand...."
"Boy," she cried, "thou canst not understand. Many steps down hellwardshave I gone, and in the pit there is knowledge. I knew good as thouknowest it. Evil now I know as, please God, thou wilt never know it.But, look you, from my very knowledge of evil, I am given a tongue withwhich to speak to thee. Keep virgin. Thou art virgin now; my hand uponthy sword-arm tells me that. Keep virgin until the day cometh andbringeth thy lady and thy destined love to thee."
There were tears in the young man's eyes as he looked down into thegreat pendulous painted face, from which now the evil seemed to be wipedaway as a cloth wipes away a chalk mark upon a slate.
As the last ray of a setting sun sometimes touches to a fugitiveglory--a last fugitive glory--some ugly, sordid building of a town, sohere he saw something maternal and sweet upon the face of this oldbrothel-keeper, this woman who had amassed a huge fortune in ministeringto the pride of life, the pomp, vanity, and lusts of Principalities andPowers.
He turned half round, and took the woman's left hand in his.
"My mother," he said, with an infinitely winning and yet very melancholygaze, "my mother, I think, indeed, that love will never come to me. I amnot made so. May the Mother of God shield me from that which is notlove, but natheless seemeth to have love's visage when one is hot inwine or stirred to excitement. But thou, thou wert not ever...."
She broke in upon him quickly.
Her great red lips pouted out like a ripe plum. The protruding fishyeyes positively lit up with disdain of herself and of her life.
"_Mon cher_," she said, "_Hola!_ I was a young girl once in Lorraine. Ihad a brother--I will tell you little of that old time--but I haveblood."
"Yes," she continued, throwing back her head, till the great rolls offlesh beneath her chin stretched into tightness, "yes, I have blood.There was a day when I was a child, when the poet Jean D'Aquis wrote ofus--
'Quand nous habitions tous ensemble Sur nos collines d'autrefois, Ou l'eau court, ou le buisson tremble Dans la maison qui touche aux bois.'
... It was." Suddenly she left Johnnie standing in the middle of theroom, and with extraordinary agility for her weight and years, glidedround the little table, and sank once more into her seat.
The door at the other end of the room opened, and a tall girl, with awhite face and thin, wicked mouth, and a glorious coronal of red haircame into the room.
"'Tis finished," she said, to the mistress of the house. "Sir JohnShelton is far in drink. He----" she stopped suddenly, as she sawJohnnie, gave him a keen, questioning glance, and then looked once moretowards the fat woman in the chair.
Madame nodded. "This is His Highness's gentleman," she said, "awaitinghim. So it's finished?"
The girl nodded, beginning to survey Johnnie with a cruel, wickedscrutiny, which made him flush with mingled embarrassment and anger.
"His Highness is coming down, Mr. Esquire," she said, pushing out alittle red tip of tongue from between her lips. "His Highness...."
The old woman in the chair suddenly leapt up. She ran at the tall,red-haired girl, caught her by the throat, and beat her about the facewith her fat, jewelled hands, cursing her in strange French oaths,clutching at her hair, shaking her, swinging her about with a dreadfulvulgar ferocity which turned John's blood cold.
As he stood there he caught a glimpse, never to be forgotten, of allthat underlay this veneer of midnight luxury. He saw vile passions atwork, he realised--for the first time truly and completely--in what ahideous place he was.
The tall girl, sobbing and bleeding in the face, disappeared behind thearras. The old woman turned to Johnnie. Her face was almost purple withexertion, her eyes blazed, her hawk-like nose seemed to twitch from sideto side, she panted out an apology:
"She dared, Monsieur, she dared, one of my girls, one of my slaves!Hist!"
A loud voice was heard from above, feet trampled upon stairs, throughthe open door which led to the upper parts of the house of ill-fame cameSir John Shelton, a big, gross, athletic man, obviously far gone inwine.
He saw Johnnie. "Ah, Mr. Commendone," he said thickly. "Here we are, andhere are you! God's teeth! I like well to see you. I myself am well gonein wine, though I will sit my horse, as thou wilt see."
He lurched up to Johnnie and whispered in the young man's ear, with hot,wine-tainted breath.
"He's coming down," he whispered. "It's your part to take charge of HisHighness. He's----"
Sir John stood upright, swaying a little from the shoulders, as down thestairway, framed in the lintel of the door, came King Philip of Spain.
The King was dressed very much as Johnnie himself was dressed; his long,melancholy face was a little flushed--though not with wine. His eyeswere bright, his
thin lips moved and worked.
Directly he saw Commendone his face lit up with recognition. It seemedsuddenly to change.
"Ah, you are here, Mr. Commendone," he said in Spanish. "I am glad tosee you. We have had our amusements, and now we go upon seriousbusiness."
The alteration in the King's demeanour was instant. Temperate, as allSpaniards were and are, he was capable at a moment's notice ofdismissing what had passed, and changing from _bon viveur_ into a gravepotentate in a flash.
He came up to Johnnie. "Now, Mr. Commendone," he said, in a quiet,decisive voice, "we will get to horse and go upon our business. The_senor don_ here is gone in wine, but he will recover as we ride toHadley. You are in charge. Let's begone from this house."
The King led the way out of the red room.
The old procuress bowed to the ground as he went by, but he took nonotice of her.
Johnnie followed the King, Sir John Shelton came staggering after, andin a moment or two they were out in the street, where was now gathered asmall company of horse, with serving-men holding up torches to illuminethe blackness of the night.
They mounted and rode away slowly out of Duck Lane and across LondonBridge, the noise of their passing echoing between the tall, barredhouses.
Several soldiers rode first, and after them came Sir John Shelton.Commendone rode at the King's left hand, and he noticed that HisHighness's broad hat was pulled low over his face and a riding cloakmuffled the lower part of it. Behind them came the other men-at-arms. Assoon as they were clear of the bridge the walk changed into a trot, andthe cavalcade pushed toward Aldgate. Not a soul was in the streets untilthey came to the city gate itself, where there was the usual guard. Theypassed through and came up to the "Woolsack," a large inn which was justoutside the wall. In the light of the torches Commendone could see thatthe place was obviously one of considerable importance, and had probablybeen a gentleman's house in the past.
Large square windows divided into many lights by mullions and transomstook up the whole of the front. The roofs were ornamental, richlycrocketed and finialed, while there was a blazonry of painted heraldryand coats of arms over and around the large central porch. Large stacksof tall, slender chimney-shafts, moulded and twisted, rose up into thedark, and were ornamented over their whole surface with diaper patternsand more armorial bearings. The big central door of the "Woolsack" stoodopen, and a ruddy light beamed out from the hall and from the windowsupon the ground-floor. As they came up, and Sir John Shelton stumbledfrom his horse, holding the King's stirrup for him to dismount,Commendone saw that the space in front of the inn, a wide square with alittle trodden green in the centre of it, held groups of dark figuresstanding here and there.
Halberds rose up against the walls of the houses, showing distinctly inthe occasional light from a cresset held by a man-at-arms.
Sir John Shelton strode noisily into a big panelled hall, the King andCommendone following him, Johnnie realising that, of course, HisHighness was incognito.
The host of the inn, Putton, hurried forward, and behind him was one ofthe Sheriffs of London, who held some papers in his hand and greeted SirJohn Shelton with marked civility.
The knight pulled himself together, and shook the Sheriff by the hand.
"Is everything prepared," he said, "Mr. Sheriff?"
"We are all quite ready, Sir John," the Sheriff answered, looking withinquiring eyes at Commendone and the tall, muffled figure of the King.
"Two gentlemen of the Court who have been deputed by Her Grace to seejustice done," Sir John said. "And now we will to the prisoner."
Putton stepped forward. "This way, gentlemen," he said. "Dr. Taylor iswith his guards in the large room. He hath taken a little succorypottage and a flagon of ale, and seemeth resigned and ready to set out."
With that the host opened a door upon the right-hand side of the halland ushered the party into a room which was used as the ordinary of theinn, a lofty and spacious place lit with candles.
There was a high carved chimney-piece, over which were the arms of theVintners' Company, sable and chevron _cetu_, three tuns argent, withthe figure of Bacchus for a crest. A long table ran down the centre ofthe place, and at one end of it, seated in a large chair of oak, sat thelate Archdeacon of Exeter. Three or four guards stood round in silence.
Dr. Rowland Taylor was a huge man, over six feet in height, and morethan a little corpulent. His face, which was very pale, was stronglycast, his eyes, under shaggy white brows, bright and humorous; the big,genial mouth, half-hidden by the white moustache and beard, both kindlyand strong. He wore a dark gown and a flat velvet cap upon his head, andhe rose immediately as the company entered.
"We are come for you, Dr. Taylor," the Sheriff said, "and you mustimmediately to horse."
The big man bowed, with quiet self-possession.
"'Tis very well, Master Sheriff," he said; "I have been waiting thishalf-hour agone."
"Bring him out," said Sir John Shelton, in a loud, harsh voice. "Keepsilence, Master Taylor, or I will find a way to silence thee."
John Commendone shivered with disgust as the leader of the party spoke.
Even as he did so he felt a hand upon his arm, and the tall, muffledfigure of the King stood close behind him.
"Tell the knight, senor," the King said rapidly in Spanish, "to use thegentleman with more civility. He is to die, as is well fitting a hereticshould die, for God's glory and the safety of the realm. But he is ofgentle birth. Tell Sir John Shelton."
Commendone stepped up to Sir John. "Sir," he said, in a voice which, tryas he would, he could not keep from being very disdainful andcold--"Sir, His Highness bids me to tell you to use Dr. Taylor withcivility, as becomes a man of his birth."
The half-drunken captain glared at the cool young courtier for a moment,but he said nothing, and, turning on his heel, clanked out of the roomwith a rattle of his sword and an aggressive, ruffling manner.
Dr. Taylor, with guards on each side, the Sheriff immediately precedinghim, walked down the room and out into the hall.
Commendone and the King came last.
Johnnie was seized with a sudden revulsion of feeling towards hismaster. This man, cruel and bigoted as he was, the man whom he had seenwith fanaticism and the blood lust blazing in his eye, the man whom hehad seen calmly leaving a vile house, was nevertheless a king and agentleman. The young man could hardly understand or realise theextraordinary combination of qualities in the austere figure by his sideof the man who ruled half the known world. Again, he felt that sense ofawe, almost of fear, in the presence of one so far removed from ordinarymen, so swift in his alterations from coarseness to kingliness, fromrelentless cruelty to cold, sombre decorum.
Dr. Taylor was mounted upon a stout cob, closely surrounded by guards,and with a harsh word of command from Sir John, the party set out.
The host of the "Woolsack" stood at his lighted door, where there was alittle group of serving-men and halberdiers, sharply outlined againstthe red-litten facade of the quaint old building, and then, as theyturned a corner, it all flashed away, and they went forward quietly andsteadily through a street of tall gabled houses.
Directly the lights of the inn and the square in front of it were leftbehind, they saw at once that dawn was about to begin. The houses weregrey now, each moment more grey and ghostly, and they were no longersable and shapeless. The air, too, had a slight stir and chill withinit, and each moment of their advance the ghostly light grew stronger,more wan and spectral than ever the dark had been.
Pursuant to his instructions, Commendone kept close to the King, whorode silently with a drooping head, as one lost in thought. In front ofthem were the backs of the guards in their steel corselets, and in thecentre of the group was the massive figure of the man who was riding tohis death, a huge, black outline, erect and dignified.
John rode with the rest as a man in a dream. His mind and imaginationwere in a state in which the moving figures around him, the cavalcade ofwhich he himself was a part, seemed bu
t phantoms playing fantasticparts upon the stage of some unreal theatre of dreams.
He heard once more the great man-like voice of Queen Mary, but it seemedvery far away, a sinister thing, echoing from a time long past.
The music of the dance in the Palace tinkled and vibrated through hissubconscious brain, and then once more he heard the voice of the evilold woman of the red house, the voice of one in hell, telling him toflee youthful lusts, telling him to wait stainless until love shouldcome to him.
Love! He smiled unconsciously to himself. Love!--why should the thoughtsof love come to a heart-whole man riding upon this sad errand of death;through ghostly streets, stark and grey?...
He looked up dreamily and saw before him, cutting into a sky which wasnow big and tremulous with dawn, the tower of St. Botolph's Church, afaint, misty purple. Far away in the east the sky was faintly streakedwith pink and orange, the curtain of the dark was shaken by thebirth-pangs of the morning. The western sky over St. Paul's was alreadyaglow with a red, reflected light.
The transition was extraordinarily sudden. Every instant the aspect ofthings changed; the whole visible world was being re-created, second bysecond, not gradually, but with a steady, pressing onrush, in which timeseemed merged and forgotten, to be of no account at all, and a thingthat was not.
Johnnie had seen the great copper-coloured moon heave itself out of thesea just like that--the world turning to splendour before his eyes.
But it was dawn now, and in the miraculously clear, inspiring light, thecountless towers and pinnacles of the city rose with sharp outline intothe quiet sky.
The breeze from the river rustled and whispered by them like thetrailing skirts of unseen presences, and as the cool air in all itspurity came over the silent town, the feverishness and sense ofunreality in the young man's mind were dissolved and blown away.
How silent London was!--the broad street stretched out before them likea ribbon of silver-grey, but the tower of St. Botolph's was alreadysolid stone, and no longer mystic purple.
And then, for some reason or other, John Commendone's heart began tobeat furiously. He could not have said why or how. There seemed noreason to account for it, but all his pulses were stirred. A sense ofexpectancy, which was painful in its intensity, and unlike anything hehad ever known before in his life, pervaded all his consciousness.
He gripped his horse by the knees, his left hand holding the leatherreins, hung with little tassels of vermilion silk, his right handresting upon the handle of his sword.
They came up to the porch of the church, and suddenly the foremostmen-at-arms halted, the slight backward movement of their horsessending those who followed backward also. There was a pawing of hooves,a rattle of accoutrements, a sharp order from somewhere in front, andthen they were all sitting motionless.
The moment had arrived. John Commendone saw what he had come to see.From that instant his real life began. All that had gone before, as hesaw in after years, had been but a leading up and preparation for thistime.
Standing just outside the porch of the church was a small group offigures, clustering together, white faces, pitiful and forlorn.
Dr. Taylor's wife, suspecting that her husband should that night becarried away, had watched all night in St. Botolph's porch, having withher her two children, and a man-servant of their house.
The men-at-arms had opened out a little, remaining quite motionless ontheir horses.
Sir John Shelton, obviously mindful of Commendone's warning at the"Woolsack," remained silent also, his blotched face grey and scowling inthe dawn, though he said no word.
The King pulled his hat further over his eyes, and Johnnie at his rightcould see perfectly all that was happening.
He heard a voice, a girl's voice.
"Oh, my dear father! Mother! mother! here is my father led away."
Almost every one who has lived from any depth of being, for whom theworld is no grossly material place, but a state which is constantlyimpinged upon and mingles with the Unseen, must be conscious that at onetime or other of his life sound has been, perhaps, the most predominantinfluence in it.
Now and again, at rare and memorable intervals, the grossness of thistabernacle wherein the soul is encased is pierced by sound. More thanall else, sound penetrates deep into the spiritual consciousness,punctuates life, as it were, at rare moments of emotion, gathering upand crystallising a thousand fancies and feelings which seem to have noadequate cause among outward things.
Johnnie had heard the sound of his mother's voice, as she lay dying--adry, whispering, husky sound, never to be forgotten, as she said,"Johnnie, promise mother to be good; promise me to be good." He hadheard the sweet sound of the death mort winded by the huntsman in thepark of Commendone, as he had run down his first stag--in the voice ofthe girl who cried out with anguish in the pure morning light, he heardfor the third or fourth time, a sound which would always be part of hislife.
"_O, my dear father! Mother! mother! here is my father led away._"
She was a tall girl, in a long grey cloak.
Her hair, growing low upon her forehead, and very thick, was the colourof ripe corn. Great eyes of a deep blue, like cut sapphire, shone inthe dead white oval of her face. The parted lips were a scarleteloquence of agony.
By her side was a tall, grey-haired dame, trembling exceedingly.
One delicate white hand flickered before the elder woman's eyes, allblind with tears and anguish.
Then the Doctor's wife cried, "Rowland, Rowland, where art thou?"
Dr. Taylor answered, "Dear wife, I am here."
Then she came to him, and he took a younger girl, who had been clingingto her mother's skirts, his little daughter Mary, in his arms,dismounting from his horse as he did so, with none to stay him. He, hiswife, and the tall girl Elizabeth, knelt down and said the Lord'sPrayer.
At the sight of it the Sheriff wept apace, and so did divers others ofthe company, and the salt tears ran down Johnnie's cheeks and splashedupon his breast-plate.
After they had prayed Dr. Taylor rose up and kissed his wife, and shookher by the hand, and said: "Farewell, my dear wife, be of good comfort,for I am quiet in my conscience. God shall stir up a father for mychildren."
After that he kissed his daughter Mary and said, "God bless thee andmake thee His servant," and kissing Elizabeth also he said, "God blessthee. I pray you all stand strong and steadfast unto Christ His Word,and keep you from idolatry."
The tall lady clung to him, weeping bitterly. "God be with thee, dearRowland," she said; "I shall, with God's grace, meet thee anon inheaven."
Then Johnnie saw the serving-man, a broad, thick-set fellow, with akeen, brown face, who had been standing a little apart, come up to Dr.Taylor. He was holding by the hand a little boy of ten years or so, withwide, astonished eyes, Thomas, the Doctor's son.
When Dr. Taylor saw them he called them, saying, "Come hither, my sonThomas."
John Hull lifted the child, and sat him upon the saddle of the horse bywhich his father stood, and Dr. Taylor put off his hat, and said to themembers of the party that stood there looking at him: "Good people, thisis mine own son, begotten of my body in lawful matrimony; and God beblessed for lawful matrimony."
Johnnie upon his horse was shaking uncontrollably, but at these lastwords he heard an impatient jingle of accoutrements by his side, andlooking, saw that the face of His Highness was fierce and angry that anordained priest should speak thus of wedlock.
But this was only for a passing moment; the young man's eyes were fixedupon the great clergyman again in an instant.
The priest lifted up his eyes towards heaven, and prayed for his son. Helaid his hand upon the child's head and blessed him; and so deliveredthe child to John Hull, whom he took by the hand and said, "Farewell,John Hull, the faithfullest servant that ever man had."
There was a silence, broken only by the sobbing of women and a lowmurmur of sympathy from the rough men-at-arms.
Sir John Shelton heard it and glanced quickly
at the muffled figure ofthe King.
It was a shrewd, penetrating look, and well understood by His Highness.This natural emotion of the escort, at such a sad and painful scene,might well prove a leaven which would work in untutored minds. Theremust be no more sympathy for heretics. Sir John gave a harsh order, theguard closed in upon Dr. Taylor, there was a loud cry from theArchdeacon's wife as she fell fainting into the arms of the sturdyservant, and the cavalcade proceeded at a smart pace. John looked roundonce, and this is what he saw--the tall figure of Elizabeth Taylor,fixed and rigid, the lovely face set in a stare of horror andunspeakable grief, a star of sorrow as the dawn reddened and day began.
And now, as they left London, the progress was more rapid, the sternbusiness upon which they were engaged looming up and becoming moreimminent every moment, the big man in the centre of the troop beinghurried relentlessly to his end.
And so they rode forth to Brentwood, where, during a short stay, SirJohn Shelton and his men caused to be made for Dr. Taylor a close hood,with two holes for his eyes to look out at, and a slit for his mouth tobreathe at. This they did that no man in the pleasant country ways, thevillages or little towns, should speak to him, nor he to any man.
It was a practice that they had used with others, and very wise andpolitic.
"For," says a chronicler of the time, "their own consciences told themthat they led innocent lambs to the slaughter. Wherefore they fearedlest if the people should have heard them speak or have seen them, theymight have been more strengthened by their godly exhortations to standsteadfast in God's Word, to fly the superstitions and idolatries of thePapacy."
All the way Dr. Taylor was joyful and merry, as one that accountedhimself going to a most pleasant banquet or bridal. He said many notablethings to the Sheriff and the yeomen of the guard that conducted him,and often moved them to weep through his much earnest calling upon themto repent and to amend their evil and wicked living. Oftentimes, also,he caused them to wonder and rejoice, to see him so constant andsteadfast, void of all fear, joyful in heart, and glad to die. At onetime during their progress he said: "I will tell you, I have beendeceived, and, as I think, I shall deceive a great many. I am, as yousee, a man that hath a very great carcase, which I thought would havebeen buried in Hadley churchyard, if I died in my bed, as I well hoped Ishould have done; but herein I see I was deceived. And there are agreat number of worms in Hadley churchyard, which should have had ajolly feed upon this carrion, which they have looked for many a day. Butnow I know we are to be deceived, both I and they; for this carcase mustbe burnt to ashes; and so shall they lose their bait and feeding, thatthey looked to have had of it."
Sir John Shelton, who was riding by the side of Commendone, and who wasnow sober enough, the wine of his midnight revels having died from him,turned to Johnnie with a significant grin as he heard Dr. Taylor saythis to his guards.
Shelton was coarse, overbearing, and a blackguard, but he had a keenmind of a sort, and was of gentle birth.
"Listen to this curtail dog, Mr. Commendone," he said, with a sneer. "Agreat loss to the Church, i' faith. He talketh like some bully-rook orclown of the streets. And these are the men who in their contumacy andtheir daring deny the truth of Holy Church----" He spat upon the groundwith disgust.
Commendone nodded gravely. His insight was keener far than the other's.He saw, in what Bishop Heber afterwards called "the coarse vigour" ofthe Archdeacon's pleasantry, no foolish irreverence indeed, but the racyEnglish courage and humour of a saintly man, resolved to meet hisearthly doom brightly, and to be an example to common men.
Johnnie was the son of a bluff Kentish squire. He knew the English soil,and all the stoic hardy virtues, the racy mannerisms which spring fromit. Courtier and scholar, a man of exquisite refinement, imbued with nosmall share of foreign grace and courtliness, there was yet a side ofhim which was thoroughly English. He saw deeper than the coarse-mouthedcaptain at his side.
The voices of those who had gathered round the porch of St. Botolph'swithout Aldgate still rang in his ears.
The Sheriff and his company, when they heard Dr. Rowland Taylor jestingin this way, were amazed, and looked one at another, marvelling at theman's constant mind, that thus, without any fear, made but a jest at thecruel torment and death now at hand prepared for him.
The sun clomb the sky, the woods were green, the birds were all atmatins. Through many a shady village they passed where the ripening cornrustled in the breeze, the wood smoke went up in blue lines from cottageand manor house, the clink of the forge rang out into the street as theblacksmiths lit their fires, the milkmaids strode out to find the lowingkine in the pastures. It was a brilliant happy morning as they rodealong through the green lanes, a very bridal morning indeed.
When they were come within two miles of Hadley, Dr. Taylor desired for awhile to light off his horse. They let him do it, and the Sheriff at hisrequest ordered the hood to be removed from him.
The whole troop halted for a minute or two, and the Doctor, says thechronicler, "leaped and set a frisk or twain as men commonly do indancing. 'Why, Master Doctor,' quoth the Sheriff, 'how do you now?' Heanswered, 'Well, God be praised, good Master Sheriff, never better; fornow I know I am almost at home. I have not pass two stiles to go over,and I am even at my father's house.'
"'But, Master Sheriff,' said he, 'shall we not go through Hadley?'
"'Yes,' said the Sheriff, 'you shall go through Hadley.'
"'Then,' said he, 'O good Lord! I thank Thee, I shall yet once more ereI die see my flock, whom Thou, Lord, knowest I have most heartily lovedand truly taught. Good Lord! bless them and keep them steadfast in Thyword and truth.'"
The streets of Hadley were beset on both sides of the way with women andmen of the town and the country-side around, who awaited to see Dr.Taylor.
As the troop passed by, now at walking pace, when the people beheldtheir old friend led to death in this way, their voices were raised inlamentation and there was great weeping.
On all sides John Commendone heard the broad homely Suffolk voices,lifted high in sorrow.
"Ah, good Lord," said one fat farmer's wife to her man, "there goeth ourgood shepherd from us that so faithfully hath taught us, so fatherlyhath cared for us, so godly hath governed us."
And again, the landlord of the "Three Cranes" at Hadley, where the troopstopped for a moment to water their horses at the trough before the inn,and the country people surged and crowded round: "O merciful God; whatshall we poor scattered lambs do? What shall come of this most wickedworld! Good Lord! strengthen him and comfort him. Alack, dear Doctor,may the Lord help thee!"
The great man upon his horse, towering above the yeomen of the guard whosurrounded him, lifted his hand.
"Friends," he said, "and neighbours all, grieve not for me. I havepreached to you God's word and truth, and am come this day to seal itwith my blood."
Johnnie would have thought that the people who bore such an obvious lovefor their rector, and who now numbered several hundreds--sturdycountry-men all--would have raised an outcry against the Sheriff and hisofficers. Many of them had stout cudgels in their hands, some of thembore forks with which they were going to the fields, but there was verylittle anger. The people were cowed, that was very plain to see. Thepower of the law struck fear into them still; the long, unquestioneddespotism of Henry VIII still exercised its sway over simple minds. Nowand again, as the horses were being watered, a fierce snarl of angercame from the outskirts of the crowd. Commendone himself, with hissomewhat foreign appearance, and the tall, muffled figure of the King,excited murmurs and insults.
"They be Spaniards," one fellow cried, "they two be--Spaniards from theQueen's Papist husband. How like you this work, Master Don?"
But that was all. Once Sir John Shelton looked with some apprehension atthe King, but the King understood nothing, and though the sturdycountry-folk in their numbers might well have overcome the guard, arescue was obviously not thought of nor was the slightest attempt at itmade.
All
this was quite homely and natural to Johnnie. He felt with thepeople; he had spent his life in the country. Down at quiet, retiredCommendone his father and he were greatly loved by all the farmers andpeasants of the estate. His mother--that graceful Spanish lady--hadendeared herself for many years to the simple folk of Kent. Old FatherChilches had said Mass in the chapel at Commendone for many yearswithout let or hindrance. Catholic as the house of Commendone had alwaysbeen, there was nothing bigoted or fanatical in their religion. And nowthe young man's heart was stirred to its very depths as this homelyrustic folk lifted up their voices in sorrow.
Even then, however, he questioned nothing in his mind of the justice ofwhat was to be done. Despite the infinite pity he felt for this goodpastor who was to die and his flock who grieved him so, he was yetperfectly loyal in his mind to the power which ordained the execution,part of whose machinery he was. The Queen had said so; the monarch coulddo no wrong. There were reasons of State, reasons of polity, reasons ofreligion which he himself was not competent to enter into or to discuss,but which he accepted blindly then.
And so, as they moved onwards towards Aldham Common, where the finalscene was to be enacted, he moved with the others, one of the ministersof doom.
And through all the bright morning air, through the cries and tears ofthe country-folk, he heard one voice, the voice of a girl, he saw onewhite and lovely face ever before his eyes.
When they came to Aldham Common there was a great multitude of peoplegathered there.
"What place is this?" Dr. Taylor asked, with a smile, though he knewvery well. "And what meaneth it that so much people are gatheredtogether?"
The Sheriff, who was a stranger to this part of the country, and who wasvery agitated and upset, answered him with eager and deprecatingcivility. "It is Aldham Common, Dr. Taylor, the place where you mustsuffer; and the people are come to look upon you." The good man hardlyknew what he was saying.
Dr. Taylor smiled once more.
"Thanked be God," he said, "I am even at home," and alighted from hishorse.
Sir John Shelton, who also dismounted, snatched the hat from theDoctor's head, which was shown to be clipped close, like a horse's backin summer time--a degradation which Bishop Bonner had caused to beperformed upon him the night before as a mean and vulgar revenge for theDoctor's words to him at the ceremony of his degradation.
But when the people saw Dr. Taylor's reverent and ancient face and hislong white beard, they burst into louder weeping than ever, and cried,"God save thee, good Dr. Taylor! Jesus Christ strengthen thee, and helpthee; the Holy Ghost comfort thee," and many other suchlike godlywishes.
They were now come into the centre of Aldham Common, where already aposse of men sent by the Sheriff of the county were keeping a spaceclear round a tall post which had been set into the ground, and whichwas the stake.
Sir John Shelton, who now assumed complete command of the proceedings,gave several loud orders. The people were pressed back with oaths andcurses by the yeomen of the escort, and Dr. Taylor was hurried quicklytowards the stake.
The long ride from London had not been without a certain quiet anddignity; but from this moment everything that was done was rude,hurried, and violent. The natural brutality of Shelton and his menblazed up suddenly. What before had been ineffably sad was now changedto horror, as John Commendone sat his horse by the side of the man whosesafety he was there to guard, and watched the final scene.
Dr. Taylor, who was standing by the stake and disrobing, wished to speakto the people, but the yeomen of the guard were so busy about him thatas soon as he opened his mouth one or another of these fellows thrust afist or tipstaff into his mouth. They were round him like a pack ofdogs, snarling, buffeting him, making him feel indeed the bitterness ofdeath.
This was done by Sir John Shelton's orders, no doubt committed to himfrom London, for it was obvious that any popular feeling in the martyr'sfavour must be suppressed as soon as possibly could be done.
If Dr. Taylor had been allowed to speak to the surging crowd that knewand loved him, the well-known voice, the familiar and belovedexhortations might well have aroused a fury against the ministers of thelaw which they would be powerless to withstand.
Dr. Taylor himself seemed to recognise this, for he sat down upon astool which was placed near the stake and did not offer to speak again.He looked round while three or four ill-favoured fellows in leather werebringing up bundles of furze and freshly cut faggots to the stake, andas he was obviously not about to address the people, the guard was alittle relaxed.
He saw pressing on the outskirts of the crowd an old countryman, with abrown wrinkled face.
"Soyce," he called out cheerily, "I pray thee come and pull off myboots, and take them for thy labour. Thou hast long looked for them, nowtake them."
The ancient fellow, who was indeed the sexton of Hadley Church, cametrembling up, and did as the rector asked.
Then Dr. Taylor rose up, and put off his clothes unto his shirt, andgave them away. Which done, he said with a loud voice, "Good people! Ihave taught you nothing but God's Holy Word and those lessons that Ihave taken out of God's blessed Book, the Holy Bible."
He had hardly said it when a sergeant of the guard, named Homes, gavehim a great stroke upon the head with a waster, and said, "Is that thekeeping of thy promise, thou heretic?"
The venerable head, now stained with blood, drooped, and for a momentthe vitality and vigour seemed to go from the Rector. He saw that it wasutterly useless, that there was no hope of him being allowed to addresshis folk, and so he knelt down and prayed in silence.
While he was praying a very old woman, in poor rags, that was standingamong the people, ran in and knelt by his side, and prayed with him.
Homes caught hold of her and tried to drag her from the Doctor, but shescreamed loudly and clung to the Rector's knees.
"Tread her down with horses; tread her down," said Sir John Shelton, hisface purple with anger.
But even the knight's men would not do it, and there was such a deepthreatening murmur from the crowd that Shelton forbore, and the oldwoman stayed there and prayed with the Doctor.
At last he rose, blessing her, and, dressed only in his shirt, big,burly, and very dignified, he went to the stake and kissed it, and sethimself into a pitch barrel, which they had put for him to stand in.
He stood there so, with his back upright against the stake, with hishands folded together, and his eyes towards heaven, praying continually.
Four men set up the faggots and piled them round him, and one brought atorch to make the fire.
As the furze lit and began to crackle at the bottom of the pile, the manHomes, either really mad with religious hatred, or, as is more probable,a brute, only zealous to ingratiate himself with his commander, pickedup a billet of wood and cast it most cruelly at the Doctor. It lit uponhis head and broke his face, so that the blood ran down it.
Then said Dr. Taylor, "O friend, I have harm enough; what needed that?"
Then, with Sir John Shelton standing close by, and the people roundshuddering with horror, the Rector began to say the Psalm _Miserere_ inEnglish.
Sir John shot out his great red hand and struck the martyr upon the lipswith his open palm.
"Ye knave," he said, "speak Latin; I will make thee."
At that, John Commendone, scarcely knowing what he did, leapt from hishorse and caught Shelton by the shoulder. With all the strength of hisyoung athletic frame he sent him spinning away from the stake. Sir Johnstaggered, recovered himself, and with his face blazing with anger,rushed at the young man.
At that the King suddenly wheeled his horse, and interposed betweenthem.
"Keep you away, Sir John," he said in Spanish, "that is enough."
The knight did not understand the King's words, but the tone and theaccent were significant. With a glare of fury at Johnnie, he slunk asideto his men.
The calm voice of the Rector went on reciting the words of the Psalm.When it was finished he said the Gloria, and as t
he smoke rolled uparound him, and red tongues of flame began to be brightly visible in thesunlight, he held up both his hands, and said, "Merciful Father ofheaven, for Jesus Christ my Saviour's sake, receive my soul into Thyhands."
So stood he still without either crying or moving, with his hands foldedtogether, until suddenly one of the men-at-arms caught up a halbert andstruck him on the head so that the brains fell out, and the corpse sankinto the fire.
"Thus," says the chronicler, "the man of God gave his blessed soul intothe hands of his merciful Father, and his most dear and certain SaviourJesus Christ, Whom he most entirely loved, faithfully and earnestlypreached, obediently followed in living, and constantly glorified indeath."
