Oddsfish! by Robert Hugh Benson (i am malala young readers edition TXT) 📕

is not near broken with all I have had to do?"

He spoke with extraordinary passion; for that was his way when he was very deeply moved (which, to tell the truth, however, was not very often). But I have never known a man so careless and indolent on the surface, who had a softer heart than His Sacred Majesty, if it could but be touched.

"The blood of God's priests," he cried, holding the arms of his chair so that it shook--"their blood cries from the ground against me! Do you think I do not know that? Yet what can I do? I am tied and bound by circumstance. I could not save them; and in the attempt I could only lose my own life or throne as well. The people are mad for their blood! Why Scroggs himself said in public at one of the trials, that even the King's Mercy could not come between them and death. And it is at this moment, then, that the servants to whom I had looked to help me, leave me! Go if you will, Mr. Mallock, and save your own soul. You shall have a safe passage to France; but never again speak to me of Catholic charity."

Every word that he said rang true in my heart. It was true indeed, as he said, that no effort of his could have saved the men, and he could only have perished himself. There were scores of men, even among his own guards, I have no doubt, who would have killed him if he had shewn at this time the least mercy, or the least inclination towards Catholicism. His back was to the wall; he fought not for himself only, but for Monarchy itself in England. There would have been an end of all, and we back again under the tyranny of the Commonwealth if he had acted otherwise; or as I had thought that he would.

He had scarcely finished when I was on my knees before him.

"Sir," I cried, "I am heartily ashamed of myself. I ask pardon for all that I have said. I will go to France or to anywhere else; and will think myself honoured by it, and by the forgiveness of Your Majesty. Sir; let me be your servant once more."

The passion was gone from his face as he looked down on me there; and he was, as before, the great Prince, with his easy manner and his unimaginable charm.

"Why that is very well said," he answered me. "And I shall be glad to have your services, Mr. Mallock. Mr. Chiffinch will give you all instructions."

* * * * *


"That was a very bold speech," said Mr. Chiffinch presently, when the King was gone away again--"which you made to His Majesty."

"Why, did you hear it?" I cried.

He smiled at me.

"Why, yes," he said. "I was behind the open door just within the further chamber. I was not sure of you, Mr. Mallock, neither was the King for that matter."

"Sure of me?"

"I thought perhaps we might have a real threatener of the King's life, at last," he said. "You had a very wild look when you came in, Mr. Mallock."

"Yet His Majesty came; and unarmed!" I cried: "and as happy as--as a King!"

"Why, what else?" asked Mr. Chiffinch.

Our eyes met; and for the first time I understood how even a man like this, with his pandering to the King's pleasures, and his own evil life, could have as much love and admiration for such a man, as I myself had.



PART II

CHAPTER I

I do not mean to set down in this volume all that befell me during the years that I was in the King's service, partly because that would make too large a book, but chiefly because there were committed to me affairs of which this French one was the first, of which I took my oath never to speak without leave. Up to the present in England nothing had been said to me which would be private twenty years afterwards; I take no shame at all at revealing what little I was able to do for the King personally in England--(except perhaps in one or two points which must not be spoken of)--nor of my adventures and my endeavours to be of service to those who were one with me in religion; but of the rest, the least said the soonest mended. So the best plan which I can think of is to leave out on every occasion all that passed, or very nearly all, when I was out of my country, both in France and Rome, for I went away--on what I may call secret service--three times altogether between my first coming and the King's death. It is enough to say that this time I was in Paris about three months, and in Normandy one; and that I had acquitted myself, so far, to His Majesty's satisfaction.[A]

[Footnote A: Plainly this business of Mr. Mallock had some connection with Charles' perpetual intrigues with France, for Louis' support of him. At this time Charles' intrigues were a little unsuccessful; so it may be supposed that without Mr. Mallock they would have been even worse.]

I returned to London then on the night of the sixteenth of November, of the same year; and I brought with me a letter to the King from a certain personage in France.

Now to one living in a Catholic country the rumours that come from others not so happy, are either greatly swollen and exaggerated in his mind, or thought nothing of. It was the latter case with me. I was in high favour on both sides of the Channel; and this, I suppose made me think little of the troubles in my own country: so when I and James reached London late in the evening, after riding up from Kent, I went straight to Whitehall, as bold as brass to demand to see Mr. Chiffinch. We had ridden fast, and had talked with but very few folks, and these ignorant; so that I knew nothing of what impended, and was astonished that the sentinels at the gate eyed me so suspiciously.

"Yes, sir," said the younger, to whom I had addressed myself, "and what might your business with Mr. Chiffinch be?"

I had learned by now not to quack gossip or to parley with underlings; so I answered him very shortly.

"Then fetch the lieutenant," I said; and sat back on my horse like a great person.

When the lieutenant came he was one I had never seen before, nor he me; and he too asked me what I wanted with Mr. Chiffinch.

"Lord, man!" I cried, for I was weary with my journey, and a little impatient. "Do you think I shall blurt out private business for all the world to hear? Send me under guard if you will--a man on each side--so you send me."

He did not do that (for I think he thought that I might be some important personage from my way with him), but he would not let James come in too; and he said a man must go with me to show me the way.

"Or I, him," I said. "However; let it be so;" and I told James to ride on to the lodgings, and make all ready for me there.

Now I had heard in France of the events in the kingdom; but as they had not greatly affected Catholics, and, if anything, had even helped them, I was in no great state of mind. Within a week of my getting to Paris the news came of how the Duke of Monmouth had been sent with an army to Scotland and had trounced the Highlanders (who prayed and preached when they should have fought) at Bothwell Bridge on the river Clyde; and of the punishment he inflicted on them afterwards; though this was nothing to what Dr. Sharpe (who had been killed by them in May) or Lauderdale would have done to them. Of Catholic fortunes there was not a great deal of bad news, and some good: Sir George Wakeman, with three Benedictines, was acquitted of any design to murder the King; and Mr. Kerne, a priest, had been acquitted at Hereford of the charge under 27 Elizabeth--that famous statute, still in force, that forbade any priest that had received Orders beyond the seas, to reside in England. On the other hand, in the provinces, a few had suffered; of whom I remember, on the Feast of the Assumption a Franciscan named Johnson, a man of family, had been condemned at Worcester; and Mr. Will Plessington at Chester: and these were executed. Since then, no deaths that I had heard of, had taken place in England for such causes: and affairs seemed pretty quiet.

I was all unprepared then for the news I had from Mr. Chiffinch, as soon as he had greeted me, and paid me compliments on the way I had done my French business.

"You are come just in time," he said ruefully. "We are to have a great to-do to-morrow, I hear."

I asked him what that might be, lolling in my chair, for I was stiff with riding.

"Why it is your old friend Dangerfield, I hear, who is the thorn in our pillow now. He hath first feigned to discover a Covenanting plot against His Majesty; and then turned it into a Popish one. There has been much foolish talk about a meal-tub, and papers hidden in it, and such-like: and now there is to be a great procession of malcontents to-morrow, to burn the Pope and the Devil and Sir George Jeffreys, and God knows who, at Temple Bar. But that is not all."

"Why, what else?" I asked. "And why is not the procession forbidden?"

"Who do you think is behind it all?" he said. "Why; no one less than my Lord Shaftesbury himself. Dangerfield is but one of his tools. And that is not all."

"Lord!" said I. "What a troublous country!" (I spoke lightly, for I did not understand the weight of all these events.) "What else is the matter?"

"It is the Duke of Monmouth," he said, "who is the pawn in Shaftesbury's game. My Lord would give the world to have the Duke declared legitimate, and so oust James. His Grace of Monmouth is something of a popular hero now, after his doings in Scotland, and most of all since he stands for the Protestant Religion. He hath dared to strike out the bar sinister from his arms too; and goeth about the country as if he were truly royal. So His Royal Highness is gone back to Scotland again in a great fury; and His Majesty is once again in a strait betwixt two, as the Scriptures say. There is his Catholic brother on the one side; and there is this young spark of a Protestant bastard on the other. We shall know better to-morrow how the feeling runs. His Majesty was taken very ill in August; and I am not surprised at it."

* * * * *


This was all very heavy news for me. I had hoped in