By What Authority? by Robert Hugh Benson (sight word books TXT) 📕

fro; gigantic shadows wavered; the shadow of a halberd head went across a curtain at one of the lower windows.

A crimson-faced man threw open a window and shouted instructions to the sentry left at the door, who in answer shook his head and pointed to the bellowing crowd; the man at the window made a furious gesture and disappeared. The illumination began to climb higher and higher as the searchers mounted from floor to floor; thin smoke began to go up from one or two of the chimneys in the frosty air;--they were lighting straw to bring down any fugitives concealed in the chimneys. Then the sound of heavy blows began to ring out; they were testing the walls everywhere for hiding-holes; there was a sound of rending wood as the flooring was torn up. Then over the parapet against the stairs looked a steel-crowned face of a pursuivant. The crowd below yelled and pointed at first, thinking he was a fugitive; but he grinned down at them and disappeared.

Then at last came an exultant shout; then a breathless silence; then the crowd began to question and answer again.

"They had caught the priest!--No, the priest had escaped,--damn him!--It was half a dozen women. No, no! they had had the women ten minutes ago in a room at the back.--What fools these pursuivants were!--They had found the chapel and the altar.--What a show it would all make at the trial!--Ah! ah! it was the priest after all."

* * * *


Those nearest the door saw the man with the torch on the stairs stand back a little; and then a dismal little procession began to appear round the turn.

First came a couple of armed men, looking behind them every now and then; then a group of half a dozen women, whom they had found almost immediately, but had been keeping for the last few minutes in a room upstairs; then a couple more men. Then there was a little space; and then more constables and more prisoners. Each male prisoner was guarded by two men; the women were in groups. All these came out to the court. The crowd began to sway back against the walls, pointing and crying out; and a lane with living walls was formed towards the archway that opened into Newman's Passage.

When the last pursuivants who brought up the rear had reached the door, an officer, who had been leaning from a first-floor window with the pale face of Lackington peering over his shoulder, gave a sharp order; and the procession halted. The women, numbering fourteen or fifteen, were placed in a group with some eight men in hollow square round them; then came a dozen men, each with a pursuivant on either side. But plainly they were not all come; they were still waiting for something; the officer and Lackington disappeared from the window; and for a moment too, the crowd was quiet.

A murmur of excitement began to rise again, as another group was seen descending the stairs within. The officer came first, looking back and talking as he came; then followed two pursuivants with halberds, and immediately behind them, followed by yet two men, walked James Maxwell in crimson vestments all disordered, with his hands behind him, and his comely head towering above the heads of the guard. The crowd surged forward, yelling; and the men at the door grounded their halberds sharply on the feet of the front row of spectators. As the priest reached the door, a shrill cry either from a boy or a woman pierced the roaring of the mob. "God bless you, father," and as he heard it he turned and smiled serenely. His face was white, and there was a little trickle of blood run down across it from some wound in his head. The rest of the prisoners turned towards him as he came out; and again he smiled and nodded at them. And so the Catholics with their priest stood a moment in that deafening tumult of revilings, before the officer gave the word to advance.

Then the procession set forward through the archway; the crowd pressing back before them, like the recoil of a wave, and surging after them again in the wake. High over the heads of all moved the steel halberds, shining like grim emblems of power; the torches tossed up and down and threw monstrous stalking shadows on the walls as they passed; the steel caps edged the procession like an impenetrable hedge; and last moved the crimson-clad priest, as if in some church function, but with a bristling barrier about him; then came the mob, pouring along the narrow passages, jostling, cursing, reviling, swelled every moment by new arrivals dashing down the alleys and courts that gave on the thoroughfare; and so with tramp and ring of steel the pageant went forward on its way of sorrows.

* * * *


Before six o'clock Newman's Court was empty again, except for one armed figure that stood before the shattered door of No. 3 to guard it. Inside the house was dark again except in one room high up where the altar had stood. Here the thick curtains against the glass had been torn down, and the window was illuminated; every now and again the shadows on the ceiling stirred a little as if the candle was being moved; and once the window opened and a pale smooth face looked out for a moment, and then withdrew again. Then the light disappeared altogether; and presently shone out in another room on the same floor; then again after an half an hour or so it was darkened; and again reappeared on the floor below. And so it went on from room to room; until the noises of the waking city began, and the stars paled and expired. Over the smokeless town the sky began to glow clear and brilliant. The crowing of cocks awoke here and there; a church bell or two began to sound far away over the roofs. The pale blue overhead grew more and more luminous; the candle went out on the first floor; the steel-clad man stretched himself and looked at the growing dawn.

A step was heard on the stairs, and Lackington came down, carrying a small valise apparently full to bursting. He looked paler than usual; and a little hollow-eyed for want of sleep. He came out and stood by the soldier, and looked about him. Everywhere the court showed signs of the night's tumult. Crumbled ice from broken icicles and trampled frozen pools lay powdered on the stones. Here and there on the walls were great smears of black from the torches, and even one or two torn bits of stuff and a crushed hat marked where the pressure had been fiercest. Most eloquent of all was the splintered door behind him, still held fast by one stout bolt, but leaning crookedly against the dinted wall of the interior.

"A good night's work, friend," said Lackington to the man. "Another hive taken, and here"--and he tapped his valise--"here I bear the best of the honey."

The soldier looked heavily at the bag. He was tired too; and he did not care for this kind of work.

"Well," said Lackington again, "I must be getting home safe. Keep the door; you shall be relieved in one hour."

The soldier nodded at him; but still said nothing; and Lackington lifted the valise and went off too under the archway.

* * * *


That same morning Lady Maxwell in her room in the Hall at Great Keynes awoke early before dawn with a start. She had had a dream but could not remember what it was, except that her son James was in it, and seemed to be in trouble. He was calling on her to save him, she thought, and awoke at the sound of his voice. She often dreamt of him at this time; for the life of a seminary priest was laid with snares and dangers. But this dream seemed worse than all.

She struck a light, and looked timidly round the room; it seemed still ringing with his voice. A great tapestry in a frame hung over the mantelpiece, Actaeon followed by his hounds; the hunter panted as he ran, and was looking back over his shoulder; and the long-jawed dogs streamed behind him down a little hill.

So strong was the dream upon the old lady that she felt restless, and presently got up and went to the window and opened a shutter to look out. A white statue or two beyond the terrace glimmered in the dusk, and the stars were bright in the clear frosty night overhead. She closed the shutter and went back again to bed; but could not sleep. Again and again as she was dozing off, something would startle her wide awake again: sometimes it was a glimpse of James' face; sometimes he seemed to be hurrying away from her down an endless passage with closed doors; he was dressed in something crimson. She tried to cry out, her voice would not rise above a whisper. Sometimes it was the dream of his voice; and once she started up crying out, "I am coming, my son." Then at last she awoke again at the sound of footsteps coming along the corridor outside; and stared fearfully at the door to see what would enter. But it was only the maid come to call her mistress. Lady Maxwell watched her as she opened the shutters that now glimmered through their cracks, and let a great flood of light into the room from the clear shining morning outside.

"It is a frosty morning, my lady," said the maid.

"Send one of the men down to Mistress Torridon," said Lady Maxwell, "and ask her to come here as soon as it is convenient. Say I am well; but would like to see her when she can come."

There was no priest in the house that Sunday, so there could be no mass; and on these occasions Mistress Margaret usually stayed at the Dower House until after dinner; but this morning she came up within half an hour of receiving the message.

She did not pretend to despise her sister's terror, or call it superstitious.

"Mary," she said, taking her sister's jewelled old fingers into her own two hands, "we must leave all this to the good God. It may mean much, or little, or nothing. He only knows; but at least we may pray. Let me tell Isabel; a child's prayers are mighty with Him; and she has the soul of a little child still."

So Isabel was told; and after church she came up to dine at the Hall and spend the day there; for Lady Maxwell was thoroughly nervous and upset: she trembled at the sound of footsteps, and cried out when one of the men came