The King's Achievement by Robert Hugh Benson (best color ebook reader TXT) 📕

and went up with Beatrice to arrange about rooms.

Matters were soon settled with the old lady; Nicholas and Chris were to sleep in one room, and Sir James in an another. Two servants only could be accommodated in the house; the rest were to put up at the inn. Beatrice went off to give the necessary orders.

Mistress Jane Atherton and Chris had a few moments together before the others came up.

"A sore heart," said the old lady again, "but a glad one too. Beatrice has told me everything."

"I am thankful too," said Chris softly. "I wonder if my father understands."

"He will, father, he will. But even if he does not--well, God knows all."

It was evident when Sir James came upstairs presently that he did not understand anything yet, except that Beatrice thought that Ralph had behaved well.

"But it is to my Lord Essex--who has been the worker of all the mischief--that my son is faithful. Is that a good thing then?"

"Why, yes," said Chris. "You would not have him faithless there too?"

"But would he not be on God's side at last, if he were against Cromwell?"

The old man was still too much bewildered to understand explanations, and his son was silent.

* * * * *


Chris could not sleep that night, and long after Nicholas lay deep in his pillow, with open mouth and tight eyes, the priest was at the window looking out over the river where the moon hung like a silver shield above Southwark. The meadows beyond the stream were dim and colourless; here and there a roof rose among trees; and straight across the broad water to his feet ran a path of heaving glory, where the strong ripple tossed the silver surface that streamed down upon it from the moon.

London lay round him as quiet as Overfield, and Chris remembered with a stir at his heart his moonlight bathe all those years ago in the lake at home, when he had come back hot from hunting and had slipped down with the chaplain after supper. Then the water had seemed like a cool restful gulf in the world of sensation; the moon had not been risen at first; only the stars pricked above and below in air and water. Then the moon had come up, and a path of splendour had smitten the surface into sight. He had swum up it, he remembered, the silver ripple washing over his shoulders as he went.

And now those years of monastic peace and storm had come and gone, sifting and penetrating his soul, washing out from it little by little the heats and passions with which he had plunged. As he looked back on himself he was astonished at his old complacent smallness. His figure appeared down that avenue of years, a tiny passionate thing, gesticulating, feverish, self-conscious. He remembered his serene certainty that he was right and Ralph wrong in every touch of friction between them, his own furious and theatrical outburst at the death of the Carthusians, his absurd dignity on later occasions. Even in those first beginnings of peace when the inner life had begun to well up and envelop him he had been narrow and self-centred; he had despised the common human life, not understanding that God's Will was as energetic in the bewildering rush of the current as in the quiet sheltered back-waters to which he himself had been called. He had been awakened from that dream by the fall of the Priory, and that to which he opened his eyes had been forced into his consciousness by the months at home, when he had had that astringent mingling of the world and the spirit, of the interpenetration of the inner by the outer. And now for the first time he stood as a balanced soul between the two, alight with a tranquil grace within, and not afraid to look at the darkness without. He was ready now for either life, to go back to the cloister and labour there for the world at the springs of energy, or to take his place in the new England and struggle at the tossing surface.

He stood here now by the hurrying turbulent stream, a wider and more perilous gulf than that that had lain before him as he looked at the moonlit lake at Overfield and yet over it brooded the same quiet shield of heaven, gilding the black swift flowing forces with the promise of a Presence greater than them all.

He stood there long, staring and thinking.


CHAPTER IX


A RELIEF-PARTY

The days that followed were very anxious and troubled ones for Ralph's friends at Charing. They were dreadful too from their very uneventfulness.

On the morning following their arrival Chris went off to the Temple to consult a lawyer that the Lieutenant had recommended to Nicholas, and brought him back with him an hour later. The first need to be supplied was their lack of knowledge as to procedure; and the four men sat together until dinner, in the parlour on the first floor looking over the sunlit river; and discussed the entire situation.

The lawyer, Mr. Herries, a shrewd-faced Northerner, sat with his back to the window, fingering a quill horizontally in his lean brown fingers and talking in short sentences, glancing up between them, with patient silences as the others talked. He seemed the very incarnation of the slow inaction that was so infinitely trying to these anxious souls.

The three laymen did not even know the crime with which Ralph was charged, but they soon learnt that the technical phrase for it was misprision of treason.

"Mr. Torridon was arrested, I understand," said the lawyer, "by order of Council. He would have been arrested in any case. He was known to be privy to my Lord Essex's schemes. You inform me that he destroyed evidence. That will go against him if they can prove it."

He drew the quill softly through his lips, and then fell to fingering it again, as the others stared at him.

"However," went on Mr. Herries, "that is not our affair now. There will be time for that. Our question is, when will he be charged, and how? My Lord Essex may be tried by a court, or attainted in Parliament. I should suppose the latter. Mr. Torridon will be treated in the same way. If it be the former, we can do nothing but wait and prepare our case. If it be the latter, we must do our utmost to keep his name out of the bill."

He went on to explain his reasons for thinking that a bill of attainder would be brought against Cromwell. It was the customary method, he said, for dealing with eminent culprits, and its range had been greatly extended by Cromwell himself. At this moment three Catholics lay in the Tower, attainted through the statesman's own efforts, for their supposed share in a conspiracy to deliver up Calais to the invaders who had threatened England in the previous year. Feeling, too, ran very high against Cromwell; the public would be impatient of a long trial; and a bill of attainder would give a readier outlet to the fury against him.

This then was the danger; but they could do nothing, said the lawyer, to avert it, until they could get information. He would charge himself with that business, and communicate with them as soon as he knew.

"And then?" asked Chris, looking at him desperately, for the cold deliberate air of Mr. Herries gave him a terrible sense of the passionless process of the law.

"I was about to speak of that," said the lawyer. "If it goes as I think it will, and Mr. Torridon's name is suggested for the bill, we must approach the most powerful friends we can lay hold on, to use their influence against his inclusion. Have you any such, sir?" he added, looking at Sir James sharply over the quill.

The old man shook his head.

"I know no one," he said.

The lawyer pursed his lips.

"Then we must do the best we can. We can set aside at once all of my Lord Essex's enemies--and--and he has many now. Two names come to my mind. Master Ralph Sadler--the comptroller; and my Lord of Canterbury."

"Ah!" cried Chris, dropping his hand, "my Lord of Canterbury! My brother has had dealings with him."

Sir James straightened himself in his chair.

"I will ask no favour of that fellow," he said sternly.

The lawyer looked at him with a cocked eyebrow.

"Well, sir," he said, "if you will not you will not. But I cannot suggest a better. He is in high favour with his Grace; they say he has already said a word for my Lord Essex--not much--much would be too much, I think; but still 'twas something. And what of Master Sadler?"

"I know nothing of him," faltered the old man.

There was silence a moment.

"Well, sir," said Mr. Herries, "you can think the matter over. I am for my Lord of Canterbury; for the reasons I have named to you. But we can wait a few days. We can do nothing until the method of procedure is known."

Then he went; promising to let them know as soon as he had information.

* * * * *


Rumours began to run swiftly through the City. It was said, though untruly at that time, that Cromwell had addressed a letter to the King at Henry's own request, explaining his conduct, utterly denying that he had said certain rash words attributed to him, and that His Majesty was greatly affected by it. There was immense excitement everywhere; a crowd assembled daily outside Westminster Hall; groups at every corner of the streets discussed the fallen minister's chances; and shouts were raised for those who were known to be his enemies, the Duke of Norfolk, Rich, and others--as they rode through to the Palace.

Meanwhile Ralph's friends could do little. Nicholas rode down once or twice to see the Lieutenant of The Tower, and managed to extract a promise that Ralph should hear of their presence in London; but he could not get to see him, or hear any news except that he was in good health and spirits, and was lodged in a private cell.

Then suddenly one afternoon a small piece of news arrived from Mr. Herries to the effect that Cromwell was to be attainted; and anxiety became intense as to whether Ralph would be included. Sir James could eat nothing at supper, but sat crumbling his bread, while Beatrice talked almost feverishly in an attempt to distract him. Finally he rose and went out, and the others sat on, eyeing one another, anxious and miserable.

In desperation Nicholas began to talk of his visit to the Tower, of the Lieutenant's timidity, and his own insistence; and they noticed nothing, till the door was flung open, and the old man stood there, his eyes bright and his lips trembling with hope. He held a scrap of paper in his hand.

"Listen," he cried as the others sprang to their feet.

"A fellow has just come from Mr. Herries with