Come Rack, Come Rope

by Robert Hugh Benson

  But there was one thing he had not known, and that, the recovery of the faint heart which they had inspirited. And then, in an instant he remembered how he had seen the three, years ago, against the sunset, as he rode with Anthony.…

  His mind was full of the strange memory as he came out at last, when the black darkness began to fade to grey, and the noise of the rain on the roof had ceased, and the wind had fallen.

  It was a view of extraordinary solemnity that he looked on, as he stood leaning against the rough door-post. The night was still stronger than day; overhead it was as black as ever, and stars shone in it through the dissolving clouds that were passing at last. But, immediately over the grim, serrated edge of the crag that faced him to the east, a faint and tender light was beginning to burn, so faint that as yet it seemed an absence of black rather than as of a colour itself; and in the midst of it, like a crumb of diamond, shone a single dying star. The air was cold and fresh and marvellously scented, after the rain, with the clean smell of strong turf and rushes. It was as different from the peace he had had at Padley as water is different from wine; yet it was Peace, too, a confident and expectant peace that precedes the battle, rather than the rest which follows it.…

  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 go twenty-four hours later. He was to walk, as before, starting after dark, not carrying a letter this time, after all, in spite of the news that he might have taken with him; for the priest would be back before morning and could hear it all then at his ease.

  Every possible cause of alarm had gone; and Marjorie, for the first time for three weeks, felt very nearly as content as a year ago. Not one more doubtful visitor had appeared anywhere; and now she thought herself mistaken even about those solitary figures she had suspected before. After all, they had only been a couple of men, whose faces her servants did not know, who had gone past on the track beneath the house; one mounted, and the other on foot.

  There had been something of a reaction, too, in Derby. The deaths of the three priests had made an impression; there was no doubt of that. Mr. Biddell had written her a letter on the point, saying that the blood of those martyrs might well be the peace, if it might not be the seed, of the Church in the district. Men openly said in the taverns, he reported, that it was hard that any should die for religion merely; politics were one matter and religion another. Yet the deaths had dismayed the simple Catholics, too, for the present; and at Hathersage church, scarcely ten miles away, above two hundred came to the Protestant sermon preached before my lord Shrewsbury on the first Sunday after.

  The news of the Armada, too, had distracted men’s minds wonderfully in another direction. News had come in already, she was informed, of an engagement or two in the English Channel, all in favour of its defenders. More than that was not known. But the beacons had blazed; and the 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 the magistrates would be given to anything else.

  So her plans were laid. Mr. Alban was to come here for three or four days; be provided with a complete change of clothes (all of which she had 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, before beginning once more in his own county.

  She went to bed that night, happy enough, in spite of the cause, which she loved so much, seeming to fail everywhere. It was true that, under this last catastrophe, great numbers had succumbed; but she hoped that this would be but for a time. Let but a few more priests come from Rheims to join the company that had lost so heavily, and all would be well again. So she said to herself: she did not allow even in her own soul that the security of her friend and the thought that he would be with 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 or how long she had slept; but it was still dark and deathly still. Yet she could have sworn that she had heard her name called. The rushlight was burned out; but in the summer night she could still make out the outline of Mistress Alice’s bed. Yet all was still there, except for the gentle breathing: 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; and the strange fancy seized her that it had been her mother’s voice that she had heard.… It was in this room that her mother had died.… Again she sat up and looked round. All was quiet as before: the tall press at the foot of her bed glimmered here and there with lines and points of starlight.

  Then, as again she began to lie down, there came the signal for which her heart was expectant, though her mind knew nothing of its coming. It was 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 the thick arch of the little window. And a figure stood there, bending, it seemed, for another pebble; in the very place where she had seen it, she thought, 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. You must come with me. I do not know——” Her voice faltered: she knew that she knew, and fear clutched her by the throat.

  The porter was fast asleep, and did not move, as carrying a rushlight she went past the buttery with her friend behind her saying no word. The bolts were well oiled, and came back with scarcely a sound. Then as the door swung slowly back a figure slipped in.

  “Yes,” he said, “it is I.… I think I am followed.… I have but come——”

  “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 hood over her head, listening to his story in the hall, and to know that it was to her house that he had come for safety. It was horrible to her that he needed it—so horrible that every shred of interior peace had left her; she was composed only in her speech, and it was a strange delight that he had come so simply. He sat there; she could see his outline and the pallor of his face under his hat, and his voice was perfectly resolute and quiet. This was his tale.

  “Twice this afternoon,” he said, “I saw a man against the sky, opposite my hut. It was the same man both times; he was not a shepherd or a farmer’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 he brought the food and made gestures that I could not understand. I looked at him and shook my head, but he would say nothing, and I remembered the bond and said nothing myself. All that he would do was to shut his eyes and 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 he thought that I was asleep; for when I saw him for the first time I was lying down and looking at the crag opposite. And I saw him raise himself on his hands against the sky, as if he had been lying flat on his face in the heather. I looked at him for a while, and then I flung my hand out of bed suddenly, and he was gone in a whisk. I went to the door after a time, stretching myself as if I were just awakened, and there was no sign of him.

  “About an hour before sunset I was watching again, and I saw, on a sudden, a covey of birds rise suddenly about two hundred yards away to the north of the hut—that is, by the way that I should have to go down to the valleys again. They rose as if they were frightened. I kept my eyes 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 legs after him.

  “Then I waited for David to come, but he did not come, and I determined then to make my way down here as well as I could after dark. If there were any fellows after me, I should have a better chance of escape than if 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 on foot (for I thought it better to come quietly than on a horse), and I went round about again and again in the precipitous ground so that, if there 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 to think I was a fool for all my pains. So I sat down a good while and rested, and even thought that I would go back again. But just as I was about to get up again I heard a stone fall a great way behind me: it was on some rocky ground about two hundred yards away. The night was quite still, and I could hear the stone very plainly.… It was I that crawled then, further down the hill, and it was then that I saw once more a man’s head move against the stars.

  “I went straight on then, as quietly as I could. I made sure that it was but one that was after me, and that he would not try to take me by himself, 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 till morning. But as I came down the hill I heard the steps of him again a great way off. So I turned sharp into a little broken ground that lies there, and hid myself among the rocks——”

  Mistress Alice lifted her hand suddenly.

  “Hark!” she whispered.

  Then as the three sat motionless, there came, distinct and clear, from a little distance down the hill, the noise of two or three horses walking over stony ground.

  III

  For one deathly instant the two sat looking each into the other’s white face—since even the priest changed colour at the sound. (While they had talked the dawn had begun to glimmer, and the windows showed grey and ghostly on the thin morning mist.) Then they rose together. Marjorie was the first to speak.

  “You must come upstairs at once,” she said. “All is ready there, as you know.”

  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 and blew 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. Marjorie silenced her by a gesture.…

  The young carpenter had done his work excellently, and Marjorie had taken 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 as the girl slipped out of the press again after drawing back the secret door, there came the loud knocking beneath, for which they had waited with such agony.

  “Quick!” she said.…

  From within, as she waited, came the priest’s whisper.

  “Is this to be pushed——?”

  “Yes; yes.”

  There was the sound of sliding wood and a little snap. Then she closed the 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 her Grace should show more zeal; and, along with this, had come a private intimation that it was suspected that Mr. Audrey had at least once warned 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 should lead him to Mistress Manners’ door.

  It was late in the afternoon that the informer had made his appearance at Matstead, thirsty and dishevelled, with the news that a man thought to be a Popish priest was in hiding on the moors; that he was being kept under observation by another informer; and that it was to be suspected that he was the man who had been missed at Padley when my lord had taken Garlick and Ludlam. If it were the man, it would be the priest known by the name of Alban—the fellow whom my lord’s man had so much distrusted at 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 he were disturbed.

  Mr. Audrey had bitten his nails a while as he listened to this, and then had suddenly consented. The plan suggested was simple enough. One little troop should ride to Padley, gathering reinforcements on the way, and another on foot should set out for the shepherd’s hut. Then, if the priest should be gone, this second party should come on towards Padley immediately and join forces with the riders.

  All this had been done, and the mounted company, led by the magistrate himself, had come up from the valley in time to see the signalling from the heights (contrived by the showing of lights now and again), which indicated that the priest was moving in the direction that had been expected, and that one man at least was on his track. They had waited there, in the valley, till the intermittent signals had reached the level ground and ceased, and had then ridden up cautiously in time to meet the informer’s companion, and to learn that the fugitive had doubled 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-five men, they had pushed on in the direction of Mistress Manners’ house.

  As the house came into view, more than ever Mr. Audrey reproached his evil luck. Certainly there still were two or three chances to one that no priest would be taken at all; since, first, the man might not be a priest, and next, he might have passed the manor and plunged back again into the hills. But it was not very pleasant work, this rousing of a house inhabited by a woman for whom the magistrate had very far from unkindly feelings, and on such an errand.… So the informers marvelled at the venom with which Mr. Audrey occasionally whispered at them in the dark.

  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 out courageously and deny that he was a priest? He would have a far better excuse for letting him go.

  “Knock again,” he cried.

  And again the thunder rang through the archway, and the summons in the Queen’s name to open.

  Then at last a light shone beneath the door. (It was brightening rapidly towards the dawn here in the open air, but within it would still be dark.) Then a voice grumbled within.

  “Who is there?”

  “Man,” bellowed the magistrate, “open the door and have done with it. I tell 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 hands on his knees and his mouth to the keyhole.

  “Open the door, you fool, in the Queen’s name.… I am Mr. Audrey, of Matstead.”

  Again came the pause. The magistrate was in the act of turning to bid his 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 fast yellowing sky. He turned to his men.

  “Now, men,” he said, glaring like a judge, “no violence here, unless I give the order. No breaking of aught in the house. The lady here is a friend of mine; and——”

  The great bolts shot back suddenly; he turned as the door opened; and there, pale as milk, with eyes that seemed a-fire, Marjorie’s face was looking at him; she was wrapped in her long cloak and her hood was drawn over her head.

  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 ma
n hath come this way, whom they think to be a priest. I am a magistrate, mistress, and——”

  He stopped, confounded by her face. Her whole soul was in her eyes, crying to him some message that he could not understand.… He looked at her.… Then he began again:

  “It is no will of mine, mistress, beyond my duty. But I hold her Grace’s commission——”

  She swept back again, motioning him to enter. He was astonished at his own discomfort, but he followed, and his men pressed close after; and he noticed, even in that twilight, that a look of despair went over the girl’s face, sharp as pain, as she saw them.

  “You have come to search my house, sir?” she asked. Her voice was as colourless as her features.

  “My commission, mistress, compels me——”

  Then he noticed that the doors into the hall had been pushed open, and that she was moving towards them. And he thought he understood.

  “Stand back, men,” he barked, so fiercely that they recoiled. “This lady shall speak with me first.”

  He passed up the hall after her. He was as unhappy as possible. He wondered what she could have to say to him; she must surely understand that no pleading could turn him; he must do his duty. Yet he would certainly 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. You do not understand; you——”

  Her eyes still burned with that terrible eloquence; it was as the face of one on the rack.

  “Mistress, I cannot begone again. I must do my duty. But I promise you——”

  She was close to him, staring into his face; he could feel the heat of her breath on his face.