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House of Torment

by Guy Thorne · English · Gutenberg #36721 · 447,142 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: House of Torment

Author: Guy Thorne


        
Release date: July 13, 2011 [eBook #36721]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36721

Credits: E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org)


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E-text prepared by Mark C. Orton, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made
available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org)



Note: Images of the original pages are available through
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HOUSE OF TORMENT

A Tale of the Remarkable Adventures of Mr. John Commendone
Gentleman to King Philip II of Spain at the English Court

by

C. RANGER-GULL

Author of "The Serf," etc.







New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1911

Published September, 1911

The Quinn & Boden Co. Press
Rahway, N. J.




DEDICATION TO DAVID WHITELAW

SOUVENIR OF A LONG FRIENDSHIP


     _My dear David,_

     _Since I first met you, considerably more than a decade ago, in
     a little studio high up in a great London building, we have
     both seen much water flow under the bridges of our lives._

     _We have all sorts of memories, have we not?_

     _Late midnights and famishing morrows, in the gay hard days
     when we were endeavouring to climb the ladder of our Art; a
     succession of faces, a welter of experiences. Some of us fell
     in the struggle; others failed and still haunt the reprobate
     purlieus of Fleet Street and the Strand! There was one who
     achieved a high and delicate glory before he died--"Tant va la
     cruche a l'eau qu'a la fin elle se casse."_

     _There is another who is slowly and surely finding his way to a
     certainty of fame._

     _And the rest of us have done something, if not--as yet--all we
     hoped to do. At any rate, the slopes of the first hills lie
     beneath us. We are in good courage and resolute for the
     mountains._

     _The mist eddies and is spiralled below in the valleys from
     which we have come, but already we are among the deep sweet
     billows of the mountain winds, and I think it is because we
     have both found our "Princess Galvas" that we have got this far
     upon the way._

     _We may never stand upon the summit and find that tempest of
     fire we call the Sun full upon us. But the pleasure of going on
     is ours still--there will always be that._

     _Ever your friend,
     C. RANGER-GULL._




CONTENTS


       I IN THE QUEEN'S CLOSET; THE FOUR FACES

      II THE HOUSE OF SHAME; THE LADDER OF GLORY

     III THE MEETING WITH JOHN HULL AT CHELMSFORD

      IV PART TAKEN IN AFFAIRS BY THE HALF TESTOON

       V THE FINDING OF ELIZABETH

      VI A KING AND A VICTIM. TWO GRIM MEN

     VII HEY HO! AND A RUMBELOW!

    VIII "WHY, WHO BUT YOU, JOHNNIE!"

      IX "MISERICORDIA ET JUSTITIA"

       X THE SILENT MEN IN BLACK

      XI IN THE BOX

     XII "TENDIMUS IN LATIUM"




CHAPTER I

IN THE QUEEN'S CLOSET; THE FOUR FACES


Sir Henry Commendone sat upon an oak box clamped with bands of iron and
watched his son completing his morning toilette.

"And how like you this life of the Court, John?" he said.

The young man smoothed out the feather of his tall cone-shaped hat.
"Truly, father," he answered, "in respect of itself it seems a very good
life, but in respect that it is far from the fields and home it is
naught. But I like it very well. And I think I am likely to rise high. I
am now attached to the King Consort, by the Queen's pleasure. His
Highness has spoken frequently with me, and I have my commission duly
written out as _caballerizo_."

"I never could learn Spanish," the elder man replied, wagging his head.
"Father Chilches tried to teach me often of an afternoon when you were
hawking. What does the word mean in essence?"

"Groom of the body, father--equerry. It is doubtless because I speak
Spanish that it hath been given me."

"Very like, Johnnie. But since the Queen, God bless her, has come to the
throne, and England is reconciled to Holy Church, thou wert bound to
get a post at Court. They could not ignore our name. I wrote to the
Bishop of London myself, he placed my request before the Queen's Grace,
and hence thou art here and in high favour."

The young man smiled. "Which I shall endeavour to keep," he answered.
"And now I must soon go to the Queen's lodging. I am in attendance on
King Philip."

"And I to horse with my men at noon and so home to Kent. I am glad to
have seen thee, Johnnie, in thy new life, though I do not love London
and the Court. But tell me of the Queen's husband. The neighbours will
all want news of him. It's little enough they like the Spanish match in
Kent. Give me a picture of him."

"I have been at Court a month," John Commendone answered, "and I have
learned more than one good lesson. There is a Spanish saying that runs
this way, '_Palabras y plumas viento las Heva_' (Words and feathers are
carried far by the wind). I will tell you, father, but repeat nothing
again. Kent is not far away, and I have ambition."

Sir Henry chuckled. "Prudent lad," he said; "thou art born to be about a
palace. I'll say nothing."

"Well then, here is your man, a pedant and a fool, a stickler for little
trifles, a very child for detail. Her Grace the Queen and all the nobles
speak many languages. Every man is learned now. His Highness speaks but
Spanish, though he has a little French. Never did I see a man with so
small a mind, and yet he thinks he can see deep down into men's hearts
and motives, and knows all private and public affairs."

Sir John whistled. He plucked at one of the roses of burnt silver
embroidered upon the doublet of green tissue he was wearing--the gala
dress which he had put on for his visit to Court, a garment which was a
good many years behind the fashion, but thought most elegant by his
brother squires in Kent.

"So!" he said, "then this match will prove as bad for the country as all
the neighbours are saying. Still, he is a good Catholic, and that is
something."

John nodded carelessly. "More so," he replied, "than is thought becoming
to his rank and age by many good Catholics about the Court. He is as
regular at mass, sermons, and vespers as a monk--hath a leash of friars
to preach for his instruction, and disputes in theology with others half
the night till Her Grace hath to send one of her gentlemen to bid him
come to bed."

"Early days for that," said the Kentish gentleman, "though, in faith,
the Queen is thirty-eight and----"

John started. "Whist!" he said. "I'm setting you an evil example, sir.
Long ears abound in the Tower. I'll say no more."

"I'm mum, Johnnie," Sir Henry replied. "I'll break in upon thee no more.
Get on with thy tale."

"'Tis a bargain then, sir, and repeat nothing I tell you. I was saying
about His Highness's religion. He consults Don Diego Deza, a Dominican
who is his confessor, most minutely as to all the actions of life,
inquiring most anxiously if this or that were likely to burden his
conscience. And yet--though Her Grace suspects nothing--he is of a very
gross and licentious temper. He hath issued forth at night into the
city, disguised, and indulged himself in the common haunts of vice. I
much fear me that he will command me to go with him on some such
expedition, for he begins to notice me more than any others of the
English gentlemen in his company, and to talk with me in the Spanish
tongue...."

The elder man laughed tolerantly.

"Every man to his taste," he said; "and look you, Johnnie, a prince is
wedded for state reasons, and not for love. The ox hath his bow, the
faulcon his bells, and as pigeon's bill man hath his desire and would be
nibbling!"

John Commendone drew himself up to his full slim height and made a
motion of disgust.

"'Tis not my way," he said. "Bachelor, I hunt no fardingales, nor would
I do so wedded."

"God 'ild you, Johnnie. Hast ever taken a clean and commendable view of
life, and I love thee for it. But have charity, get you charity as you
grow older. His Highness is narrow, you tell me; be not so yourself.
Thou art not a little pot and soon hot, but I think thou wilt find a
fire that will thaw thee at Court. A young man must get experience. I
would not have thee get through the streets with a bragging look nor
frequent the stews of town. But young blood must have its May-day.
Whilst can, have thy May-day, Johnnie. Have thy door shadowed with green
birches, long fennel, St. John's wort, orphine, and white lilies. Wilt
not be always young. But I babble; tell me more of King Philip."

The tall youth had stood silent while his father spoke, his grave, oval
face set in courteous attention. It was a coarse age. Henry the Eighth
was not long dead, and the scandals of his court and life influenced all
private conduct. That Queen Mary was rigid in her morals went for very
little. The Lady Elizabeth, still a young girl, was already committing
herself to a course of life which--despite the historians of the popular
textbooks--made her court in after years as licentious as ever her
father's had been. Old Sir Henry spoke after his kind, and few young men
in 1555 were so fastidious as John Commendone.

He welcomed the change in conversation. To hear his father--whom he
dearly loved--speak thus, was most distasteful to him.

"His Highness is a glutton for work," the young man went on. "I see him
daily, and he is ever busy with his pen. He hateth to converse upon
affairs of state, but will write a letter eighteen pages long when his
correspondent is in the next room, howbeit the subject is one which a
man of sense would settle in six words of the tongue. Indeed, sir, he is
truly of opinion that the world is to move upon protocols and
apostilles. Events must not be born without a preparatory course of his
obstetrical pedantry! Never will he learn that the world will not rest
on its axis while he writeth directions of the way it is to turn."

Sir Henry shook himself like a dog.

"And the Queen mad for such a husband as this!" he said.

"Aye, worships him as it were a saint in a niche. A skilled lutanist
with a touch on the strings remarkable for its science, speaking many
languages with fluency and grace, Latin in especial, Her Grace yet
thinks His Highness a great statesman and of a polished easy wit."

"How blind is love, Johnnie! blinder still when it cometh late. A cap
out of fashion and ill-worn. 'Tis like one of your French withered
pears. It looks ill and eats dryly."

"I was in the Queen's closet two days gone, in waiting on His Highness.
A letter had come from Paris, narrating how a member of the Spanish
envoy's suit to that court had been assassinated. The letter ran that
the manner in which he had been killed was that a Jacobin monk had given
him a pistol-shot in the head--'_la facon que l'on dit qu'il a ette tue,
sa ette par un Jacobin qui luy a donne d'un cou de pistolle dans la
tayte_.' His Highness took up his pen and scrawled with it upon the
margin. He drew a line under one word '_pistolle_'; 'this is perhaps
some kind of knife,' quoth he; 'and as for "_tayte_," it can be nothing
else but head, which is not _tayte_, but _tete_ or _teyte_, as you very
well know.' And, father, the Queen was all smiles and much pleased with
this wonderful commentary!"

Sir Henry rose.

"I will hear no more," he said. "It is time I went. You have given me
much food for thought. Fare thee well, Johnnie. Write me letters with
thy doings when thou canst. God bless thee."

The two men stood side by side, looking at each other in silence, one
hale and hearty still, but with his life drawing to its close, the other
in the first flush of early manhood, entering upon a career which
promised a most brilliant future, with every natural and material
advantage, either his already, or at hand.

They were like and yet unlike.

The father was big, burly, iron-grey of head and beard, with hooked nose
and firm though simple eyes under thick, shaggy brows.

John was of his father's height, close on six feet. He was slim, but
with the leanness of perfect training and condition. Supple as an eel,
with a marked grace of carriage and bearing, he nevertheless suggested
enormous physical strength. The face was a pure oval with an olive tinge
in the skin, the nose hooked like his sire's, the lips curved into a
bow, but with a singular graveness and strength overlying and informing
their delicacy. The eyes, of a dark brown, were inscrutable. Steadfast
in regard, with a hint of cynicism and mockery in them, they were at the
same time instinct with alertness and a certain watchfulness. He seemed,
as he stood in his little room in the old palace of the Tower, a
singularly handsome, clever, and capable young man, but a man with
reservations, with secrets of character which no one could plumb or
divine.

He was the only son of Sir Henry Commendone and a Spanish lady of high
birth who had come to England in 1512 to take a position in the suite of
Catherine of Arragon, three years after her marriage to Henry VIII.
During the early part of Henry's reign Sir Henry Commendone was much at
Windsor and a personal friend of the King. Those were days of great
brilliancy. The King was young, courteous, and affable. His person was
handsome, he was continually engaged in martial exercises and all forms
of field sports. Sir Henry was one of the band of gay youths who tilted
and hawked or hunted in the Great Park. He fell in love with the
beautiful young Juanita de Senabria, married her with the consent and
approbation of the King and Queen, and immediately retired to his manors
in Kent. From that time forward he took absolutely no part in politics
or court affairs. He lived the life of a country squire of his day in
serene health and happiness. His wife died when John--the only issue of
the marriage--was six years old, and the boy was educated by Father
Chilches, a placid and easy-going Spanish priest, who acted as domestic
chaplain at Commendone. This man, loving ease and quiet, was
nevertheless a scholar and a gentleman. He had been at the court of
Charles V, and was an ideal tutor for Johnnie. His religion, though
sincere, sat easily upon him. The Divorce from Rome did not draw him
from his calm retreat, the oath enforcing the King's supremacy had no
terrors for him, and he died at a good old age in 1548, during the
protectorate of Somerset.

From this man Johnnie had learnt to speak Spanish, Italian, and French.
Naturally quick and intelligent, he had added something of his mother's
foreign grace and self-possession to the teachings and worldly-wisdom of
Don Chilches, while his father had delighted to train him in all manly
exercises, than whom none was more fitted to do.

Sir Henry became rich as the years went on, but lived always as a simple
squire. Most of his land was pasturage, then far more profitable than
the growing of corn. Tillage, with no knowledge of the rotation of
crops, no turnip industry to fatten sheep, miserable appliances and
entire ignorance of manures, afforded no interest on capital. But the
export of wool and broadcloth was highly profitable, and Sir Henry's
wool was paid for in good double ryals by the manufacturers and
merchants of the great towns.

John Commendone entered upon his career, therefore, with plenty of
money--far more than any one suspected--a handsome person, thoroughly
accomplished in all that was necessary for a gentleman of that day.

In addition, his education was better than the general, he was without
vices, and, in the present reign, the consistent Catholicity of his
house recommended him most strongly to the Queen and her advisers.

       *       *       *       *       *

"So God 'ild ye, Johnnie. Come not down the stairs with me. Let us make
farewell here and now. I go to the Constable's to leave my duty, and
then to take a stirrup-cup with the Lieutenant. My serving-men and
horses are waiting at the south of White Tower at Coal Harbour Gate.
Farewell."

The old man put his arms in their out-moded bravery round his son and
kissed him on both cheeks. He hugged like a bear, and his beard was wiry
and strong against the smooth cheeks of his son. Then coughing a little,
he almost imperceptibly made the sign of the cross, and, turning,
clanked away, his sword ringing on the stone floor and his spurs--for he
wore riding-boots of Spanish leather--clicking in unison.

John was left alone.

He sat down upon the low wooden bed and gazed at the chest where the
knight had been sitting. The little room, with its single window looking
out upon the back offices of the palace, seemed strangely empty,
momentarily forlorn. Johnnie sighed. He thought of the woods of
Commendone, of the old Tudor house with its masses of chimneys and
deep-mullioned windows--of all that home-life so warm and pleasant; dawn
in the park with the deer cropping wet, silver grass, the whistle of the
wild duck as they flew over the lake, the garden of rosemary, St. John's
wort, and French lavender, which had been his mother's.

Then, stifling a sigh, he sprang to his feet, buckled on his sword--the
fashionable "whiffle"-shaped weapon with globular pommel and the
quillons of the guard ornamented in gold--and gave a glance at a little
mirror hung upon the wall. By no means vain, he had a very careful taste
in dress, and was already considered something of a dandy by the young
men of his set.

He wore a doublet of black satin, slashed with cloth of silver; and
black velvet trunks trussed and tagged with the same. His short cloak
was of cloth of silver lined with blue velvet pounced with his cypher,
and it fell behind him from his left shoulder.

He smoothed his small black moustache--for he wore no beard--set his
ruff of two pleats in order, and stepped gaily out of his room into a
long panelled corridor, a very proper young man, taut, trim, and _point
device_.

There were doors on each side of the corridor, some closed, some ajar. A
couple of serving-men were hastening along it with ewers of water and
towels. There was a hum and stir down the whole length of the place as
the younger gentlemen of the Court made their toilettes.

From one door a high sweet tenor voice shivered out in song--

    "Filz de Venus, voz deux yeux desbendez
    Et mes ecrits lisez et entendez..."

"That's Mr. Ambrose Cholmondely," Johnnie nodded to himself. "He has a
sweet voice. He sang in the sextette with Lady Bedingfield and Lady
Paget last night. A sweet voice, but a fool! Any girl--or dame either
for that matter--can do what she likes with him. He travels fastest who
travels alone. Master Ambrose will not go far, pardieu, nor travel
fast!"

He came to the stair-head--it was a narrow, open stairway leading into a
small hall, also panelled. On the right of the hall was a wide, open
door, through which he turned and entered the common-room of the
gentlemen who were lodged in this wing of the palace.

The place was very like the senior common-room of one of the more
ancient Oxford colleges, wainscoted in oak, and with large mullioned
windows on the side opposite to a high carved fire-place.

A long table ran down the centre, capable of seating thirty or forty
people, and at one end was a beaufet or side-board with an almost
astonishing array of silver plate, which reflected the sunlight that
was pouring into the big, pleasant room in a thousand twinkling points
of light.

It was an age of silver. The secretary to Francesco Capella, the
Venetian Ambassador to London, writes of the period: "There is no small
innkeeper, however poor and humble he may be, who does not serve his
table with silver dishes and drinking cups; and no one who has not in
his house silver plate to the amount of at least L100 sterling is
considered by the English to be a person of any consequence. The most
remarkable thing in London is the quantity of wrought silver."

The gentlemen about the Queen and the King Consort had their own private
silver, which was kept in this their common messroom, and was also
supplemented from the Household stores.

Johnnie sat down at the table and looked round. At the moment, save for
two serving-men and the pantler, he was alone. Before him was the silver
plate and goblet he had brought from Commendone, stamped with his crest
and motto, "_Sapere aude et tace_." He was hungry, and his eye fell upon
a dish of perch in foyle, one of the many good things upon the table.

The pantler hastened up.

"The carpes of venison are very good this morning, sir," he said
confidentially, while one serving-man brought a great piece of manchet
bread and another filled Johnnie's flagon with ale.

"I'll try some," he answered, and fell to with a good appetite.

Various young men strolled in and stood about, talking and jesting or
whispering news of the Court, calling each other by familiar nicknames,
singing and whistling, examining a new sword, cursing the amount of
their tailors' bills--as young men have done and will do from the dawn
of civilisation to the end.

John finished his breakfast, crossed himself for grace, and, exchanging
a remark or two here and there, went out of the room and into the
morning sunshine which bathed the old palace of the Tower in splendour.

How fresh the morning air was! how brilliant the scene before him!

To his right was the Coal Harbour Gate and the huge White Tower. Two
Royal standards shook out in the breeze, the Leopards of England and
blazoned heraldry of Spain, with its tower of gold upon red for Castile,
the red and yellow bars of Arragon, the red and white checkers of
Burgundy, and the spread-eagle sable of Sicily.

To the left was that vast range of halls and galleries and gardens which
was the old palace, now utterly swept away for ever. The magnificent
pile of brick and timber known as the Queen's gallery, which was the
actual Royal lodging, was alive and astir with movement. Halberdiers of
the guard were stationed at regular distances upon the low stone terrace
of the facade, groups of officers went in and out of the doors, already
some ladies were walking in the privy garden among the parterres of
flowers, brilliant as a window of stained glass. The gilding and painted
blazonry on the great hall built by Henry III glowed like huge jewels.

On the gravel sweep before the palace grooms and men-at-arms were
holding richly caparisoned horses, and people were continually coming up
and riding away, their places to be filled by new arrivals.

It is almost impossible, in our day, to do more than faintly imagine a
scene so splendid and so debonair. The clear summer sky, its crushed
sapphire unveiled by smoke, the mass of roofs, flat, turreted,
embattled--some with stacks of warm, red chimneys splashed with the jade
green of ivy--the cupulars and tall clock towers, the crocketed
pinnacles and fantastic timbered gables, made a whole of extraordinary
beauty.

Dozens of great gilt vanes rose up into the still, bright air, the gold
seeming as if it were cunningly inlaid upon the curve of a blue bowl.

The pigeons cooed softly to each other, the jackdaws wheeled and
chuckled round the dizzy heights of the White Tower, there was a sweet
scent of wood smoke and flowers borne upon the cool breezes from the
Thames.

The clocks beat out the hour of noon, there was the boom of a gun and a
white puff of smoke from the Constable Tower, a gay fanfaronade of
trumpets shivered out, piercingly sweet and triumphant, a distant bell
began to toll somewhere over by St. John's Chapel.

John Commendone entered the great central door of the Queen's gallery.

He passed the guard of halberdiers that stood at the foot of the great
staircase, exchanging good mornings with Mr. Champneys, who was in
command, and went upwards to the gallery, which was crowded with people.
Officers of the Queen's archers, dressed in scarlet and black velvet,
with a rose and imperial crown woven in gold upon their doublets,
chatted with permanent officials of the household. There was a
considerable sprinkling of clergy, and at one end of the gallery,
nearest to the door of the Ante-room, was a little knot of Dominican
monks, dark and somewhat saturnine figures, who whispered to each other
in liquid Spanish. John went straight to the Ante-room entrance, which
was screened by heavy curtains of tapestry. He spoke a word to the
officer guarding it with a drawn sword, and was immediately admitted to
a long room hung with pictures and lit by large windows all along one
side of its length.

Here were more soldiers and several gentlemen ushers with white wands in
their hands. One of them had a list of names upon a slip of parchment,
which he was checking with a pen. He looked up as John came in.

"Give you good day, Mr. Commendone," he said. "I have you here upon this
paper. His Highness is with the Queen in her closet, and you are to be
in waiting. Lord Paget has just had audience, and the Bishop of London
is to come."

He lowered his voice, speaking confidentially. "Things are coming to a
head," he said. "I doubt me but that there will be some savage doings
anon. Now, Mr. Commendone, I wish you very well. You are certainly
marked out for high preferment. Your cake is dough on both sides. See
you keep it. And, above all, give talking a lullaby."

John nodded. He saw that the other knew something. He waited to hear
more.

"You have been observed, Mr. Commendone," the other went on, his pointed
grey beard rustling on his ruff with a sound as of whispering leaves,
and hardly louder than the voice in which he spoke. "You have had those
watching you as to your demeanours and deportments whom you did not
think. And you have been very well reported of. The King likes you and
Her Grace also. They have spoken of you, and you are to be advanced. And
if, as I very well think, you will be made privy to affairs of state and
policy, pr'ythee remember that I am always at your service, and love you
very well."

He took his watch from his doublet. "It is time you were announced," he
said, and turning, opened a door opposite the tapestry-hung portal
through which Johnnie had entered.

"Mr. Commendone," he said, "His Highness's gentleman."

An officer within called the name down a short passage to a captain who
stood in front of the door of the closet. There was a knock, a murmur
of voices, and John was beckoned to proceed.

He felt unusually excited, though at the same time quite cool. Old Sir
James Clinton at the door had not spoken for nothing. Certainly his
prospects were bright.... In another moment he had entered the Queen's
room and was kneeling upon one knee as the door closed behind him.

The room was large and cheerful. It was panelled throughout, and the
wainscoting had been painted a dull purple or liver-colour, with the
panel-beadings picked out in gold. The roof was of stone, and
waggon-headed with Welsh groins--that is to say, groins which cut into
the main arch below the apex. Two long Venice mirrors hung on one wall,
and over the fire-place was a crucifix of ivory.

In the centre of the place was a large octagonal table covered with
papers, and a massive silver ink-holder.

Seated at the table, very busy with a mass of documents, was King Philip
II of Spain. Don Diego Deza, his confessor and private chaplain, stood
by the side of the King's chair.

Seated at another and smaller table in a window embrasure Queen Mary was
bending over a large flat book. It was open at an illuminated page, and
the sunlight fell upon the gold and vermilion, the _rouge-de-fer_ and
powder-blue, so that it gleamed like a little _parterre_ of jewels.

It was the second time that John Commendone had been admitted to the
Privy Closet. He had been in waiting at supper, the Queen had spoken to
him once or twice; he was often in the King Consort's lodging, and was
already a favourite among the members of the Spanish suite. But this was
quite different. He knew it at once. He realised immediately that he was
here--present at this "domestic interior," so to speak, for some
important purpose. Had he known the expressive idiom of our day, he
would have said to himself, "I have arrived!"

Philip looked up. His small, intensely serious eyes gave a gleam of
recognition.

"Buenos dias, senor," he said.

John bowed very low.

Suddenly the room was filled with a harsh and hoarse volume of sound, a
great booming, resonant voice, like the voice of a strong, rough man.

It came from the Queen.

"Mr. Commendone, come you here. His Highness hath work to do. Art a
lutanist, Lady Paget tells me, then look at this new book of tablature
with the voice part very well writ and the painting of the initial most
skilfully done."

The young man advanced to the Queen. She held out her left hand, a
little shrivelled hand, for him to kiss. He did so, and then, rising,
bent over the wonderfully illuminated music book.

The six horizontal lines of the lute notation, each named after a
corresponding note of the instrument, were drawn in scarlet. The Arabic
numerals which indicated the frets to be used in producing the notes
were black and orange, the initial H was a wealth of flat heraldic
colour.

    "His golden locks time hath to filuer turnde"

the Queen read out in her great masculine voice,--a little subdued now,
but still fierce and strong, like the purring of a panther. "What think
you of my new book of songs, Mr. Commendone?"

"A beautiful book, Madam, and fit for Your Grace's skill, who hath no
rival with the lute."

"'Tis kind of you to say so, Mr. Commendone, but you over compliment
me."

She bent her brows together, lost in serious thought for a moment, and
drummed with lean fingers upon the table.

Suddenly she looked up and her face cleared.

"I can say truly," she continued, "that I am a very skilled player. For
a woman I can fairly put myself in the first rank. But I have met others
surpassing me greatly."

She had thought it out with perfect fairness, with an almost pedantic
precision. Woman-like, she was pleased with what the young courtier had
said, but she weighed truth in grains and scruples--tithe of mint and
cummin, the very word and article of bald fact; always her way.

"And here, Mr. Commendone," she continued, "is my new virginal. It hath
come from Firenze, and was made by Nicolo Pedrini himself. My Lord Mayor
begged Our acceptance of it."

The virginal was a fine instrument--spinet it came to be called in
Elizabeth's reign, from the spines or crow-quills which were attached to
the "jacks" and plucked at the strings.

The case was made of cypress wood, inlaid with whorls of thin silver and
enamels of various colours.

"We were pleased at the Lord Mayor's courtesy," the Queen concluded, and
the change in pronoun showed John that the interview was over in its
personal sense, and that he had been very highly honoured.

He bowed, with a murmur of assent, and drew aside to the wall of the
room, waiting easily there, a fresh and gallant figure, for any further
commands.

Nor did it escape him that the Queen had given him a look of prim, but
quite marked approval--as an old maid may look upon a handsome and
well-mannered boy.

The Queen pressed down the levers of the spinet once or twice, and the
thin, sweet chords like the ghost of a harp rang out into the room.

John watched her from the wall.

The divine right of monarchs was a doctrine very firmly implanted in his
mind by his upbringing and the time in which he lived. The absolutism of
Henry VIII had had an extraordinary influence on public thought.

To a man such as John Commendone the monarch of England was rather more
than human.

At the same time his cool and clever brain was busily at work, drinking
in details, criticising, appraising, wondering.

The Queen wore a robe of claret-coloured velvet, fringed with gold
thread and furred with powdered ermine. Over her rather thin hair,
already turning very grey, she wore the simple caul of the period, a
head-dress which was half bonnet, half skull-cap, made of cloth of
tinsel set with pearls.

Small, lean, sickly, painfully near-sighted, yet with an eye full of
fierceness and fire--your true Tudor-tiger eye--she was yet singularly
feminine. As she sat there, her face wrinkled by care and evil passions
even more than by time, touching the keys of her spinet, picking up a
piece of embroidery, and frequently glancing at her husband with quick,
hungry looks of fretful and even suspicious affection, she was far more
woman than queen.

The great booming voice which terrified strong men, coming from this
frail and sinister figure, was silent now. There was pathos even in her
attitude. A submissive wife of Philip with her woman's gear.

The King of Spain went on writing, coldly, carefully, and with
concentrated attention, and John's eyes fell upon him also, his new
master, the most powerful man in the world of that day. King of Spain,
Naples, Sicily, Duke of Milan, Lord of Franche Comte and the
Netherlands, Ruler of Tunis and the Barbary coast, the Canaries, Cape de
Verd Islands, Philippines and Spice Islands, the huge West Indian
colonies, and the vast territories of Mexico and Peru--an almost
unthinkable power was in the hands of this man.

As it all came to him, Johnnie shuddered for a moment. His nerves were
tense, his imagination at work, it seemed difficult to breathe the same
air as these two super-normal beings in the still, warm chamber.

From outside came the snarling of trumpets, the stir and noise of
soldiery--here, warm silence, the scratching of a pen upon parchment,
the echo of a voice which rolled like a kettle-drum....

Suddenly the King laid down his pen and rose to his feet, a tall, lean,
sombre-faced man in black and gold. He spoke a few words to Father Diego
Deza and then went up to the Queen in the window.

The monk went on arranging papers in orderly bundles, and tying some of
them with cords of green silk, which he drew from a silver box.

John saw the Queen's face. It lit up and became almost beautiful for a
second as Philip approached. Then as husband and wife conversed in low
voices, the equerry saw yet another change come over Mary's twitching
and expressive countenance. It hardened and froze, the thin lips
tightened to a line of dull pink, the eyes grew bitter bright, the head
nodded emphatically several times, as if in agreement at something the
King was saying.

Then John felt some one touch his arm, and found that the Dominican had
come to him noiselessly, and was smiling into his face with a flash of
white teeth and steady, watchful eyes.

He started violently and turned his head from the Royal couple in some
confusion. He felt as though he had been detected in some breach of
manners, of espionage almost.

"Buenos dias, senor, como anda usted?" Don Diego asked in a low voice.

"Thank you, I am very well," Johnnie answered in Spanish.

"Como esta su padre?"

"My father is very well also. He has just left me to ride home to Kent,"
John replied, wondering how in the world this foreign priest knew of the
old knight's visit.

It was true, then, what Sir James Clinton had said! He was being
carefully watched. Even in the Royal Closet his movements were known.

"A loyal gentleman and a good son of the Church," said the priest, "we
have excellent reports of him, and of you also, senor," he concluded,
with another smile.

John bowed.

"_Los negocios del politica_--affairs of state," the chaplain whispered
with a half-glance at the couple in the window. "There are great times
coming for England, senor. And if you prove yourself a loyal servant and
good Catholic, you are destined to go far. His Most Catholic Majesty has
need of an English gentleman such as you in his suite, of good birth,
of the true religion, with Spanish blood in his veins, and speaking
Spanish."

Again the young man bowed. He knew very well that these words were
inspired. This suave ecclesiastic was the power behind the throne. He
held the King's conscience, was his confessor, more powerful than any
great lord or Minister--the secret, unofficial director of world-wide
policies.

His heart beat high within him. The prospects opening before him were
enough to dazzle the oldest and most experienced courtier; he was upon
the threshold of such promotion and intimacies as he, the son of a plain
country gentleman, had never dared to hope for.

It had grown very hot; he remarked upon it to the priest, noticing, as
he did so, that the room was darker than before.

The air of the closet was heavy and oppressive, and glancing at the
windows, he saw that it was no fancy of strained and excited nerves, but
that the sky over the river was darkening, and the buildings upon London
Bridge stood out with singular sharpness.

"A storm of thunder," said Don Diego indifferently, and then, with a
gleam in his eyes, "and such a storm shall presently break over England
that the air shall be cleared of heresy by the lightnings of Holy
Church--ah! here cometh His Grace of London!"

The Captain of the Guard had suddenly beaten upon the door. It was flung
open, and Sir James Clinton, who had come down the passage from the
Ante-room, preceded the Bishop, and announced him in a loud, sonorous
voice.

Johnnie instinctively drew himself up to attention, the chaplain
hastened forward, King Philip, in the window, stood upright, and the
Queen remained seated. From the wall Johnnie saw all that happened quite
distinctly. The scene was one which he never forgot.

There was the sudden stir and movement of his lordship's entrance, the
alteration and grouping of the people in the closet, the challenge of
the captain at the door, the heralding voice of Sir James--and then,
into the room, which was momentarily growing darker as the thunder
clouds advanced on London, Bishop Bonner came.

The man _pressed_ into the room, swift, sudden, assertive. In his
scarlet chimere and white rochet, with his bullet head and bristling
beard, it was as though a shell had fallen into the room.

A streak of livid light fell upon his face--set, determined, and alive
with purpose--and the man's eyes, greenish brown and very bright, caught
a baleful fire from the waning gleam.

Then, with almost indecent haste, he brushed past John Commendone and
the eager Spanish monk, and knelt before the Queen.

He kissed her hand, and the hand of the King Consort also, with some
murmured words which Johnnie could not catch. Then he rose, and the
Queen, as she had done upon her arrival from Winchester after her
marriage, knelt for his blessing.

Commendone and the chaplain knelt also; the King of Spain bowed his
head, as the rapid, breathless pattering Latin filled the place, and one
outstretched hand--two white fingers and one white thumb--quivered for a
moment and sank in the leaden light.

There was a new grouping of figures, some quick talk, and then the
Queen's great voice filled the room.

"Mr. Commendone! See that there are lights!"

Johnnie stumbled out of the closet, now dark as at late evening, strode
down the passage, burst into the Ante-room, and called out loudly,
"Bring candles, bring candles!"

Even as he said it there was a terrible crash of thunder high in the air
above the Palace, and a simultaneous flash of lightning, which lit up
the sombre Ante-room with a blinding and ghostly radiance for the
fraction of a second.

White faces immobile as pictures, tense forms of all waiting there, and
then the voice of Sir James and the hurrying of feet as the servants
rushed away....

It was soon done. While the thunder pealed and stammered overhead, the
amethyst lightning sheets flickered and cracked, the white whips of the
fork-lightning cut into the black and purple gloom, a little procession
was made, and gentlemen ushers followed Johnnie back to the Royal
Closet, carrying candles in their massive silver sconces, dozens of
twinkling orange points to illumine what was to be done.

The door was closed. The King, Queen, and the Bishop sat down at the
central table upon which all the lights were set.

Don Diego Deza stood behind Philip's chair.

The Queen turned to John.

"Stand at the door, Mr. Commendone," she said, "and with your sword
drawn. No one is to come in. We are engaged upon affairs of state."

Her voice was a second to the continuous mutter of the thunder, low,
fierce, and charged with menace. Save for the candles, the room was now
quite dark.

A furious wind had risen and blew great gouts of hot rain upon the
window-panes with a rattle as of distant artillery.

Johnnie drew his sword, held it point downwards, and stood erect,
guarding the door. He could feel the tapestry which covered it moving
behind him, bellying out and pressing gently upon his back.

He could see the faces of the people at the table very distinctly.

The King of Spain and his chaplain were in profile to him. The Queen and
the Bishop of London he saw full-face. He had not met the Bishop before,
though he had heard much about him, and it was on the prelate's
countenance that his glance of curiosity first fell.

Young as he was, Johnnie had already begun to cultivate that cool
scrutiny and estimation of character which was to stand him in such
stead during the years that were to come. He watched the face of Edmund
Bonner, or Boner, as the Bishop was more generally called at that time,
with intense interest. Boner was to the Queen what the Dominican Deza
was to her husband. The two priests ruled two monarchs.

In the yellow candle-light, an oasis of radiance in the murk and gloom
of the storm, the faces of the people round the table hid nothing. The
Bishop was bullet-headed, had protruding eyes, a bright colour, and his
moustache and beard only partially hid lips that were red and full. The
lips were red and full, there was a coarseness, and even sensuality,
about them, which was, nevertheless, oddly at war with their
determination and inflexibility. The young man, pure and fastidious
himself, immediately realised that Boner was not vicious in the ordinary
meaning of the word. One hears a good deal about "thin, cruel lips"--the
Queen had them, indeed--but there are full and blood-charged lips which
are cruel too. And these were the lips of the Bishop of London.

There was a huge force about the man. He was plebeian, common, but
strong.

Don Diego, Commendone himself, the Queen and her husband, were all
aristocrats in their different degree, bred from a line--pedigree
people.

That was the bond between them.

The Bishop was outside all this, impatient of it, indeed; but even while
the groom of the body twirled his moustache with an almost mechanical
gesture of disgust and misliking, he felt the power of the man.

And no historian has ever ventured to deny that. The natural son of the
hedge-priest, George Savage--himself a bastard--walked life with a
shield of brutal power as his armour. The blood-stained man from whom--a
few years after--Queen Elizabeth turned away with a shudder of
irrepressible horror, was the man who had dared to browbeat and bully
Pope Clement VII himself. He took a personal and undignified delight in
the details of physical and mental torture of his victims. In 1546 he
had watched with his own eyes the convulsions of Dame Anne Askew upon
the rack. He was sincere, inflexible, and remarkable for obstinacy in
everything except principle. As Ambassador to Paris in Henry's reign he
had smuggled over printed sheets of Coverdale's and Grafton's
translation of the Bible in his baggage--the personal effects of an
ambassador being then, as now, immune from prying eyes. During the
Protectorate he had lain in prison, and now the strenuous opposer of
papal claims in olden days was a bishop in full communion with Rome.

... He was speaking now, in a loud and vulgar voice, which even the
presence of their Majesties failed to soften or subdue.

--"And this, so please Your Grace, is but a sign and indication of the
spirit abroad. There is no surcease from it. We shall do well to gird us
up and scourge this heresy from England. This letter was delivered by an
unknown woman to my chaplain, Father Holmes. 'Tis a sign of the times."

He unfolded a paper and began to read.

"I see that you are set all in a rage like a ravening wolf against the
poor lambs of Christ appointed to the slaughter for the testimony of the
truth. Indeed, you are called the common cut-throat and general
slaughter-slave to all the bishops of England; and therefore 'tis wisdom
for me and all other simple sheep of the Lord to keep us out of your
butcher's stall as long as we can. The very papists themselves begin now
to abhor your blood-thirstiness, and speak shame of your tyranny. Like
tyranny, believe me, my lord, any child that can any whit speak, can
call you by your name and say, 'Bloody Boner is Bishop of London'; and
every man hath it as perfectly upon his fingers'-ends as his
Paternoster, how many you, for your part, have burned with fire and
famished in prison; they say the whole sum surmounteth to forty persons
within this three-quarters of this year. Therefore, my lord, though your
lordship believeth that there is neither heaven nor hell nor God nor
devil, yet if your lordship love your own honesty, which was lost long
agone, you were best to surcease from this cruel burning of Christian
men, and also from murdering of some in prison, for that, indeed,
offendeth men's minds most. Therefore, say not but a woman gave you
warning, if you list to take it. And as for the obtaining of your popish
purpose in suppressing the Truth, I put you out of doubt, you shall not
obtain it as long as you go to work this way as ye do; for verily I
believe that you have lost the hearts of twenty thousand that were rank
papists within this twelve months."

The Bishop put the letter down upon the table and beat upon it with his
clenched fist. His face was alight with inquiry and anger.

Every one took it in a different fashion.

Philip crossed himself and said nothing, formal, cold, and almost
uninterested. Don Diego crossed himself also. His face was stern, but
his eyes flitted hither and thither, sparkling in the light.

Then the Queen's great voice boomed out into the place, drowning the
thunder and the beating rain upon the window-panes, pressing in gouts of
sound on the hot air of the closet.

Her face was bagged and pouched like a quilt. All womanhood was wiped
out of it--lips white, eyes like ice....

"I'll stamp it out of this realm! I'll burn it out. Jesus! but we will
burn it out!"

The Bishop's face was trembling with excitement. He thrust a paper in
front of the Queen.

"Madam," he said, "this is the warrant for Doctor Rowland Taylor."

Mary caught up a pen and wrote her name at the foot of the document in
the neat separated letters of one accustomed to write in Greek, below
the signature of the Chancellor Gardiner and the Lords Montague and
Wharton, judges of the Legantine Court for the trial of heretics.

"I will make short with him," the Queen said, "and of all blasphemers
and heretics. There is the paper, my lord, with my hand to it. A black
knave this, they tell me, and withal very stubborn and lusty in
blasphemy."

"A very black knave, Madam. I performed the ceremony of degradation upon
him yestereen, and, by my troth, never did the walls of Newgate chapel
shelter such a rogue before. He would not put on the vestments which I
was to strip from him, and was then, at my order, robed by another. And
when he was thoroughly furnished therewith, he set his hands to his
sides and cried, 'How say you, my lord, am I not a goodly fool? How say
you, my masters, if I were in Chepe, should I not have boys enough to
laugh at these apish toys?'"

The Queen crossed herself. Her face blazed with fury. "Dog!" she cried.
"Perchance he will sing another tune to-morrow morn. But what more?"

"I took my crosier-staff to smite him on the breast," the Bishop
continued. "And upon that Mr. Holmes, that is my chaplain, said, 'Strike
him not, my lord, for he will sure strike again.' 'Yes, and by St. Peter
will I,' quoth Doctor Taylor. 'The cause is Christ's, and I were no
good Christian if I would not fight in my Master's quarrel.' So I laid
my curse on him, and struck him not."

The King's large, sombre face twisted into a cold sneer.

"_Perro labrador nunca buen mordedor_--a barking dog is never a good
fighter," he said. "I shall watch this clerk-convict to-morrow. Methinks
he will not be so lusty at his burning."

The Bishop looked up quickly with surprise in his face.

"My lord," the Queen said to him, "His Majesty, as is both just and
right, desireth to see this blasphemer's end, and will report to me on
the matter. Mr. Commendone, come here."

Johnnie advanced to the table.

"You will go to Sir John Shelton," the Queen went on, "and learn from
him all that hath been arranged for the burning of this heretic. The
King will ride with the party and you in close attendance upon His
Majesty. Only you and Sir John will know who the King is, and your life
depends upon his safety. I am weary of this business. My heart grieves
for Holy Church while these wolves are not let from their wickedness. Go
now, Mr. Commendone, upon your errand, and report to Father Deza this
afternoon."

She held out her hand. John knelt on one knee and kissed it.

As he left the closet the rain was still lashing the window-panes, and
the candles burnt yellow in the gloom.

By a sudden flash of lightning he saw the four faces looking down at the
death warrant. There was a slight smile on all of them, and the
expressions were very intent.

The great white crucifix upon the panelling gleamed like a ghost.




CHAPTER II

THE HOUSE OF SHAME; THE LADDER OF GLORY


It was ten o'clock in the evening. The thunderstorm of the morning had
long 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 had
supped in state at eight, and now a masque was in progress, held in the
glorious hall which Henry III painted with the story of Antiochus.

The sweet music shivered out into the night as John Commendone came into
the garden among the sleeping flowers.

"And the harp and the viol, the tabret and pipe, and wine are in their
feasts." Commendone had never read the Bible, but the words of the
Prophet would have well expressed his mood had he but known them.

For he was melancholy and ill at ease. The exaltation of the morning had
quite gone. Though he was still pleasantly conscious that he was in a
fair way to great good fortune, some of the savour was lost. He could
not forget the lurid scene in the Closet--the four faces haunted him
still. And he knew also that a strange and probably terrible experience
waited him during the next few hours.

"God on the Cross," he said to himself, snapping his fingers in
perplexity and misease--it was the fashion at Court to use the great
Tudor oaths--"I am come to touch with life--real life at last. And I am
not sure that I like it. But 'tis too new as yet. I must be as other men
are, 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 had
always been until now. He had come to Court perfectly equipped by
nature, birth, and training for the work of pageantry, a picturesque
part in the retinue of kings. He had fallen into his place quite
naturally. It all came easy to him. He had no trace of the "young
gentleman from the country" about him--he might have started life as a
Court page.

But the real emotions of life, the under-currents, the hates, loves, and
strivings, had all been a closed book. He recognised their existence,
but never thought they would or could affect him. He had imagined that
he 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 and
relentless.

"To-night," he thought, "I really begin to live. I am quickened to
action. Some day, anon, I too must make a great decision, one way or the
other. 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 mind
to write upon thee,' he saith, and needs be that I submit."

He sighed.

The music came to him, sweet and gracious. The long orange-litten
windows of the Palace spoke of the splendours within.

But he thought of a man--whose name he had never heard until that
morning--lying in some dark room, waiting for those who were to come for
him, 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. The
Duke of Norfolk, the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, Lord Paget and Lord
Rochester, had been in close attendance.

The Duke had held the ewer of water, Paget and Rochester the bason and
napkin. After the ablutions the Bishop of London said grace.

The Queen blazed with jewels. The life of seclusion she had led before
her accession had by no means dulled the love of splendour inherent in
her 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 partlet
or collar of emeralds. Her stomacher was of diamonds, an almost barbaric
display of twinkling fire, and over her gold caul was a cap of black
velvet sewn with pearls.

During the whole of supper it was remarked that Her Grace was merry. The
gay lords and ladies who surrounded her and the King--for all alike,
young maids and grey-haired dames of sixty must blaze and sparkle
too--nodded and whispered to each other, wondering at this high
good-humour.

When the Server advanced with his white wand, heading the procession of
yeomen-servers with the gilt dishes of the second course--he was a fat
pottle-bellied man--the Queen turned to the Duke of Norfolk.

"_Dame!_" she said in French, "here is a prancing pie! _Ma mye!_ A capon
of high grease! Methinks this gentleman hath a very single eye for the
larder!"

"Yes, m'am," the Duke answered, "and so would make a better feast for
Polypheme than e'er the lean Odysseus."

They went on with their play of words upon the names of the dishes in
the menu....

"But say rather a porpoise in armour."

"Halibut engrailed, Madam, hath a face of peculiar whiteness like the
under 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, Lady
Paget? You are a great jester."

Lady Paget, a stately white-haired dame, bowed to the Duke and then to
the Queen.

"His Grace is quick in the riposte," she said, "and if Your Majesty
gives him the palm--_qui meruit ferat_! But capon of high grease for my
liking."

"But you've said nothing, Lady Paget."

"My wit is like my body, m'am, grown old and rheumy. The salad days of
it are over. I abdicate in favour of youth."

Again this adroit lady bowed.

The Queen flushed up, obviously pleased with the compliment. She looked
at the King to see if he had heard or understood it.

The King had been talking to the Bishop of London, partly in such Latin
as he could muster, which was not much, but principally with the aid of
Don Diego Deza, who stood behind His Majesty's chair, and acted as
interpreter--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. He
had smiled several times; his manner to the Queen had been more genial
than it was wont to be--a fact which, in the opinion of everybody, duly
accounted 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's
speech--salad. "Yes, give me some salad. It is the one thing"--he
hastened to correct himself--"it is one of the things they make better
in England than in my country."

The Queen was in high glee.

"His Highness grows more fond of our English food," she said; and in a
moment or two the Comptroller of the Household came up to the King's
chair, followed by a pensioner bearing a great silver bowl of one of
those wonderful salads of the period, which no modern skill of the
kitchen 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 of
the Body and Privy Closet, had watched the gay and stately scene till
supper was nearly over.

The lights, the music, the high air, the festivity, had had no power to
lighten the oppression which he felt, and when at length the King and
Queen rose and withdrew to the great gallery where the Masque was
presently 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 lutes
shivering out their arpeggio accompaniment, the viols singing
together--came to him with rare and plaintive sweetness, but they
brought but little balm or assuagement to his dark, excited mood.

Ten o'clock beat out from the roof of the Palace. Johnnie left the
garden. He was to receive his instruction as to his night's doing from
Mr. Medley, the Esquire of Sir John Shelton, in the Common Room of the
Gentlemen of the Body.

He strode across the square in front of the facade, and turned into the
long panelled room where he had breakfasted that morning.

It was quite empty now--every one was at the Masque--but two silver
lamps illuminated it, and shone upon the dark walls of the glittering
array of plate upon the beaufet.

He had not waited there a minute, however, leaning against the tall
carved mantelpiece, a tall and gallant figure in his rich evening dress,
when steps were heard coming through the hall, the door swung open, and
Mr. Medley entered.

He was a thick-set, bearded man of middle height, more soldier than
courtier, 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 Sir
John'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 the
Queen thinketh His Highness in his own wing of the Palace, and with Don
Diego and Don de Castro, his two confessors. She is willing that this
should be so, and said 'Good night' to His Highness after supper,
knowing that he will presently set out to the burning of Dr. Taylor. She
knoweth that the party sets out for Hadley at two o'clock, and thinketh
that His Highness is spending the time before then in prayer and a
little sleep. I tell you this, Mr. Commendone, in order that you go not
back to the Masque before that you set out from the Tower to a certain
house where His Highness will be with Sir John Shelton. You will take
your own servant mounted and armed, and a man-at-arms also will be at
the door of your lodging here at ten minutes of midnight. The word at
the Coal Harbour Gate is 'Christ.' With your two men you will at once
ride over London Bridge and so to Duck Lane, scarce a furlong from the
other side of the bridge. Doubtless you know it"--and here the man's
eyes flickered with a half smile for a moment--"but if not, the
man-at-arms, one of Sir John's men, will show you the way. You will
knock at the big house with the red door, and be at once admitted. There
will 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 to
do."

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 the
little bed.

He had imagined that something like this was likely to occur. The King's
habits were perfectly well known to all those about him, and indeed were
whispered of in the Court at large, Queen Mary, alone, apparently
knowing nothing of the truth as yet. The King's unusual bonhomie at
supper could hardly be accounted for, at least so Johnnie thought, by
the fact that he was to see his own and the Queen's bigotry translated
into dreadful reality. To the keen young student of faces the King had
seemed generally relieved, expectant, with the air of a boy about to be
released from school. Now, the reason was plain enough. His Highness had
gone with Sir John Shelton to some infamous house in a bad quarter of
the city, and it was there the Equerry was to meet him and ride to the
death scene.

Johnnie tossed impatiently upon his bed. He remembered how on that very
morning he had expressed his hopes to Sir Henry that his duties would
not lead him into dubious places. A lot of water had run under the
bridges since he kissed his father farewell in the bright morning light.
His whole prospects were altered, and advanced. For one thing, he had
been present at an intimate and private conference and had received
marked and special favour--he shuddered now as he remembered the four
intent faces round the table in the Privy Closet, those sharp faces,
with a cruel smirk upon them, those still faces with the orange light
playing 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 of
princes, and must needs do as I am told. Who am I to be squeamish? But
hey-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 change
his dress. He wore long riding-boots of Spanish leather, a light
corselet of tough steel, inlaid with arabesques of gold, and a big
quilted Spanish hat. Over all he fastened a short riding-cloak of supple
leather dyed purple. He primed his pistols and gave them to a man to be
put into his holsters, and about a quarter before midnight descended the
stairs.

He found a man-at-arms with a short pike, already mounted, and his
servant leading the other two horses; he walked toward the Coal Harbour
Gate, 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 over
Tower Hill. It was bright enough to ride by, and Johnnie forbade his man
to 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 bastion
wall of the Tower.

The man-at-arms led the way. When they came to London Bridge, where a
single lantern showed the broad oak bar studded with nails, which ran
across the roadway, Johnnie noticed that upon the other side of it were
two halberdiers of the Tower Guard in their uniforms of black and
crimson, 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 two
soldiers who were standing there.

The little cavalcade went slowly over the bridge between the tall houses
on either side, which at certain points almost met with their
overhanging eaves. The shutters were up all over the little jewellers'
shops. Here and there a lamp burned from an upstairs window, and the
swish 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 of
Guido Ponzio, the Italian sword-smith, whose weapons were eagerly
purchased by members of the Court and the officers both of the Tower and
Whitehall, another halberdier was standing, who again saluted Commendone
as he rode by.

It was quite obvious to Johnnie that every precaution had been taken so
that the King's excursion into _les coulisses_ might be undisturbed.

The pike was swung open for them on the south side of the bridge
directly they drew near, and putting their horses to the trot, they
cantered over a hundred yards of trodden grass round which houses were
standing in the form of a little square, and in a few minutes more
turned into Duck Lane.

At this hour of the night the narrow street of heavily-timbered houses
was quite dark and silent. It seemed there was not a soul abroad, and
this 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 horsemen
might have been moving down a street in the city of the dead.

Only the big honey-coloured moon threw a primrose light upon the topmost
gables of the houses on the left side of "The Lane"--all the rest being
black 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 get
them to their kennels! Lights were out, all manifestation of evil was
thickly curtained. The shameless folk of that wicked quarter of the town
must 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, had
quietly refused to be a member of any of those hot-blooded parties of
young men who sallied out from the Tower or from Whitehall when the
reputable world was sleeping. It was not to his taste. He was perfectly
capable of tolerating vice in others--looking on it, indeed, as a
natural manifestation of human nature and event. But for himself he had
preferred aloofness.

Nevertheless, from the descriptions of his friends, he knew that Duck
Lane to-night was wearing an aspect which it very seldom wore, and as he
rode slowly down that blind and sinister thoroughfare with his
attendants, he realised with a little cold shudder what it was to be a
king.

He himself was the servant of a king, one of those whom good fortune and
opportunity had promoted to be a minister to those almost super-human
beings who could do no wrong, and ruled and swayed all other men by
means 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 to
pursue. He had no thought of questioning the deeds of princes. He knew
that it was his duty, his _metier_, in life to be a pawn in the great
game. What affected him now, however, as they came up to a big house of
free-stone and timber, where a lanthorn of horn hung over a door painted
a dull scarlet, was a sense of the enormous and irrevocable power of
those 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 death
warrant signed. The great convulsion of nature, the furious thunders of
God, had only been, as it were, a mere accompaniment to the business of
the 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 and
Queen, bright, glittering and radiant, surrounded by the highest and
noblest of England, serene, unapproachable, the centre of the stupendous
pageant 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 kept
the pandars and victims of evil silent in their dens like crouching
hares.

As they came up to the big, dark house, a little breeze from the river
swirled down the Lane, and fell fresh upon Johnnie's cheek. As it did
so, he knew that he was hot and fevered, that the riot of thought within
him had risen the temperature of his blood. It was cool and
grateful--this little clean breeze of the water, and he longed once
more, though only for a single second, that he was home in the stately
park of Commendone, and had never heard the muffled throb of the great
machine of State, of polity, and the going hither and thither of kings
and 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, gripped
the 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 his
horse 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 the
big red door before him.

In ten seconds he heard a step on the other side of the door. It swung
open, and a tall, thin person, wearing a scarlet robe and a mask of
black velvet over the upper part of the face, bowed low before him, and
with a gesture invited him to enter.

Johnnie turned round.

"You will stay here," he said to the men. "Be quite silent, and don't
stray away a yard from the door."

Then he followed the tall, thin figure, which closed the door, and
flitted 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 of
disgust to his blood.

It was a fantastic age, and all aberrations--all deviations--from the
normal were constantly accentuated by means of costumes and theatric
effect.

The superficial observer of the manners of our day is often apt to
exclaim upon the decadence of our time. One has heard perfectly sincere
and healthy Englishmen inveigh with anger upon the literature of the
moment, the softness and luxury of life and art, the invasion of sturdy
English ideals by the corrupt influences of France.

"Give me the days of Good Queen Bess, the hearty, healthy, strong Tudor
life," is the sort of exclamation by no means rare in our time.

... "Bluff King Hal! Drake, Raleigh, all that rough, brave, and splendid
time! Think of Shakespeare, my boy!"

Whether or no our own days are deficient in hardihood and endurance is
not a question to be discussed here--though the private records of
England's last war might very well provide a complete answer to the
query. It is certain, however, that in an age when personal prowess with
arms was still a title to fortune, when every gentleman of position and
birth 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 of
good family, each gentleman about the Court, was not only a trained
soldier, but also a highly cultured person as well. The Renaissance in
Italy 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 sexless
figure which flitted down the dimly-lit panelled passage before him like
some 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 black
silk, shot out from the red robe. A thin ivory-coloured hand, with
fingers of almost preternatural length, rose to a painted scarlet slit
which was the creature's mouth.

The masked head dropped a little to one side, one lean finger, shining
like a fish-bone, tapped the mouth significantly, the door opened, some
heavy curtains of Flanders tapestry were pushed aside, and the Equerry
walked into a place as strange and sickly as he had ever met in some
fantastic or disordered dream.

Johnnie heard the door close softly behind him, the "swish, swish" of
the falling curtains. And then he stood up, his eyes blinking a little
in the bright light which streamed upon them--his hand upon his
sword-hilt--and looked around to find himself. He was in a smallish
room, hung around entirely with an arras of scarlet cloth, powdered at
regular intervals with a pattern of golden bats.

The floor was covered with a heavy carpet of Flanders pile--a very rare
and luxurious thing in those days--and the whole room was lit by its
silver lamps, which hung from the ceiling upon chains. On one side,
opposite the door, was a great pile of cushions, going half-way up the
wall towards the ceiling--cushions as of strange barbaric colours,
violent colours that smote upon the eye and seemed almost to do the
brain 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 miniature
chafing-dish, beneath which some volatile amethyst-coloured flame was
burning, 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 with
perfume. Sickly, and yet with a sensuous allurement, the place seemed to
reel round the young man, to disgust one side of him, the real side; and
yet, in some low, evil fashion, to beckon to base things in his
blood--base thoughts, physical influences which he had never known
before, and which now seemed to suddenly wake out of a long sleep, and
to whisper in his ears.

All this, this surveyal of the place in which he found himself, took but
a moment, and he had hardly stood there for three seconds--tall,
upright, and debonair, amid the wicked luxury of the room--when he heard
a sound to his left, and, turning, saw that he was not alone.

Behind a little table of Italian filigree work, upon which were a pair
of tiny velvet slippers, embroidered with burnt silver, a
sprunking-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. Her
eyebrows were pencilled with deep black, the heavy eyes shared the
vacuity of glass, with an evil and steadfast glitter of welcome.

There were great pouches underneath the eyes; the nose was hawk-like,
the chins pendulous, the lips once, perhaps, well curved and beautiful
enough, 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 was
jewelled--she was like some dreadful mummy of what youth had been, a
sullen caricature of a long-past youth, when she also might have walked
in the fields under God's sky, heard bird-music, and seen the dew upon
the bracken at dawn.

Johnnie stirred and blinked at this apparition for a moment; then his
natural courtesy and training came to him, and he bowed.

As he did so, the fat old woman threw out her jewelled arms, leant back
in her chair, stuttering and choking with amusement.

"_Tiens!_" she said in French, "_Monsieur qui arrive!_ Why have you
never been to see me before, my dear?"

Johnnie said nothing at all. His head was bent a little forward. He was
regarding this old French procuress with grave attention.

He knew now at once who she was. He had heard her name handed about the
Court very often--Madame La Motte.

"You are a little out of my way, Madame," Johnnie answered. "I come not
over Thames. You see, I am but newly arrived at the Court."

He said it perfectly politely, but with a little tiny, half-hidden
sneer, which the woman was quick to notice.

"Ah! Monsieur," she said, "you are here on duty. _Merci_, that I know
very well. Those for whom you have come will be down from above stairs
very soon, and then you can go about your business. But you will take a
glass 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 Burgogne
into 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 people
looked 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. She
was short and fat; she put one hand upon the shoulder of the tall, clean
young 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 singular
feeling 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 come
to see me and my girls, proper lads too, but in their faces there is not
what 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 Most
Catholic Majesty be above stairs, and will get absolution for all he is
pleased 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 voice
was full of pleading.

"_Ma mere_," Johnnie answered her in her own language, "have no fear for
me. I thank you--but I did not understand...."

"Boy," she cried, "thou canst not understand. Many steps down hellwards
have I gone, and in the pit there is knowledge. I knew good as thou
knowest 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 with
which to speak to thee. Keep virgin. Thou art virgin now; my hand upon
thy sword-arm tells me that. Keep virgin until the day cometh and
bringeth thy lady and thy destined love to thee."

There were tears in the young man's eyes as he looked down into the
great pendulous painted face, from which now the evil seemed to be wiped
away as a cloth wipes away a chalk mark upon a slate.

As the last ray of a setting sun sometimes touches to a fugitive
glory--a last fugitive glory--some ugly, sordid building of a town, so
here he saw something maternal and sweet upon the face of this old
brothel-keeper, this woman who had amassed a huge fortune in ministering
to the pride of life, the pomp, vanity, and lusts of Principalities and
Powers.

He turned half round, and took the woman's left hand in his.

"My mother," he said, with an infinitely winning and yet very melancholy
gaze, "my mother, I think, indeed, that love will never come to me. I am
not made so. May the Mother of God shield me from that which is not
love, but natheless seemeth to have love's visage when one is hot in
wine 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 fishy
eyes positively lit up with disdain of herself and of her life.

"_Mon cher_," she said, "_Hola!_ I was a young girl once in Lorraine. I
had a brother--I will tell you little of that old time--but I have
blood."

"Yes," she continued, throwing back her head, till the great rolls of
flesh 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 of
us--

    '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 the
room, and with extraordinary agility for her weight and years, glided
round 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 a
white face and thin, wicked mouth, and a glorious coronal of red hair
came into the room.

"'Tis finished," she said, to the mistress of the house. "Sir John
Shelton is far in drink. He----" she stopped suddenly, as she saw
Johnnie, gave him a keen, questioning glance, and then looked once more
towards the fat woman in the chair.

Madame nodded. "This is His Highness's gentleman," she said, "awaiting
him. So it's finished?"

The girl nodded, beginning to survey Johnnie with a cruel, wicked
scrutiny, which made him flush with mingled embarrassment and anger.

"His Highness is coming down, Mr. Esquire," she said, pushing out a
little 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 face
with her fat, jewelled hands, cursing her in strange French oaths,
clutching at her hair, shaking her, swinging her about with a dreadful
vulgar ferocity which turned John's blood cold.

As he stood there he caught a glimpse, never to be forgotten, of all
that underlay this veneer of midnight luxury. He saw vile passions at
work, he realised--for the first time truly and completely--in what a
hideous place he was.

The tall girl, sobbing and bleeding in the face, disappeared behind the
arras. The old woman turned to Johnnie. Her face was almost purple with
exertion, her eyes blazed, her hawk-like nose seemed to twitch from side
to 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, through
the open door which led to the upper parts of the house of ill-fame came
Sir John Shelton, a big, gross, athletic man, obviously far gone in
wine.

He saw Johnnie. "Ah, Mr. Commendone," he said thickly. "Here we are, and
here are you! God's teeth! I like well to see you. I myself am well gone
in 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 His
Highness. He's----"

Sir John stood upright, swaying a little from the shoulders, as down the
stairway, 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 eyes
were bright, his thin lips moved and worked.

Directly he saw Commendone his face lit up with recognition. It seemed
suddenly to change.

"Ah, you are here, Mr. Commendone," he said in Spanish. "I am glad to
see you. We have had our amusements, and now we go upon serious
business."

The alteration in the King's demeanour was instant. Temperate, as all
Spaniards were and are, he was capable at a moment's notice of
dismissing what had passed, and changing from _bon viveur_ into a grave
potentate 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 to
Hadley. 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 no
notice of her.

Johnnie followed the King, Sir John Shelton came staggering after, and
in a moment or two they were out in the street, where was now gathered a
small company of horse, with serving-men holding up torches to illumine
the blackness of the night.

They mounted and rode away slowly out of Duck Lane and across London
Bridge, the noise of their passing echoing between the tall, barred
houses.

Several soldiers rode first, and after them came Sir John Shelton.
Commendone rode at the King's left hand, and he noticed that His
Highness's broad hat was pulled low over his face and a riding cloak
muffled the lower part of it. Behind them came the other men-at-arms. As
soon as they were clear of the bridge the walk changed into a trot, and
the cavalcade pushed toward Aldgate. Not a soul was in the streets until
they came to the city gate itself, where there was the usual guard. They
passed through and came up to the "Woolsack," a large inn which was just
outside the wall. In the light of the torches Commendone could see that
the place was obviously one of considerable importance, and had probably
been a gentleman's house in the past.

Large square windows divided into many lights by mullions and transoms
took up the whole of the front. The roofs were ornamental, richly
crocketed and finialed, while there was a blazonry of painted heraldry
and coats of arms over and around the large central porch. Large stacks
of tall, slender chimney-shafts, moulded and twisted, rose up into the
dark, and were ornamented over their whole surface with diaper patterns
and more armorial bearings. The big central door of the "Woolsack" stood
open, and a ruddy light beamed out from the hall and from the windows
upon the ground-floor. As they came up, and Sir John Shelton stumbled
from 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 a
little trodden green in the centre of it, held groups of dark figures
standing here and there.

Halberds rose up against the walls of the houses, showing distinctly in
the occasional light from a cresset held by a man-at-arms.

Sir John Shelton strode noisily into a big panelled hall, the King and
Commendone following him, Johnnie realising that, of course, His
Highness was incognito.

The host of the inn, Putton, hurried forward, and behind him was one of
the Sheriffs of London, who held some papers in his hand and greeted Sir
John 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 with
inquiring eyes at Commendone and the tall, muffled figure of the King.

"Two gentlemen of the Court who have been deputed by Her Grace to see
justice done," Sir John said. "And now we will to the prisoner."

Putton stepped forward. "This way, gentlemen," he said. "Dr. Taylor is
with his guards in the large room. He hath taken a little succory
pottage 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 hall
and ushered the party into a room which was used as the ordinary of the
inn, a lofty and spacious place lit with candles.

There was a high carved chimney-piece, over which were the arms of the
Vintners' Company, sable and chevron _cetu_, three tuns argent, with
the figure of Bacchus for a crest. A long table ran down the centre of
the place, and at one end of it, seated in a large chair of oak, sat the
late Archdeacon of Exeter. Three or four guards stood round in silence.

Dr. Rowland Taylor was a huge man, over six feet in height, and more
than a little corpulent. His face, which was very pale, was strongly
cast, his eyes, under shaggy white brows, bright and humorous; the big,
genial mouth, half-hidden by the white moustache and beard, both kindly
and strong. He wore a dark gown and a flat velvet cap upon his head, and
he rose immediately as the company entered.

"We are come for you, Dr. Taylor," the Sheriff said, "and you must
immediately to horse."

The big man bowed, with quiet self-possession.

"'Tis very well, Master Sheriff," he said; "I have been waiting this
half-hour agone."

"Bring him out," said Sir John Shelton, in a loud, harsh voice. "Keep
silence, 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, muffled
figure of the King stood close behind him.

"Tell the knight, senor," the King said rapidly in Spanish, "to use the
gentleman with more civility. He is to die, as is well fitting a heretic
should die, for God's glory and the safety of the realm. But he is of
gentle birth. Tell Sir John Shelton."

Commendone stepped up to Sir John. "Sir," he said, in a voice which, try
as he would, he could not keep from being very disdainful and
cold--"Sir, His Highness bids me to tell you to use Dr. Taylor with
civility, 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 room
with a rattle of his sword and an aggressive, ruffling manner.

Dr. Taylor, with guards on each side, the Sheriff immediately preceding
him, 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 his
master. This man, cruel and bigoted as he was, the man whom he had seen
with fanaticism and the blood lust blazing in his eye, the man whom he
had seen calmly leaving a vile house, was nevertheless a king and a
gentleman. The young man could hardly understand or realise the
extraordinary combination of qualities in the austere figure by his side
of the man who ruled half the known world. Again, he felt that sense of
awe, almost of fear, in the presence of one so far removed from ordinary
men, so swift in his alterations from coarseness to kingliness, from
relentless 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 a
little group of serving-men and halberdiers, sharply outlined against
the red-litten facade of the quaint old building, and then, as they
turned a corner, it all flashed away, and they went forward quietly and
steadily through a street of tall gabled houses.

Directly the lights of the inn and the square in front of it were left
behind, they saw at once that dawn was about to begin. The houses were
grey now, each moment more grey and ghostly, and they were no longer
sable and shapeless. The air, too, had a slight stir and chill within
it, 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, who
rode silently with a drooping head, as one lost in thought. In front of
them were the backs of the guards in their steel corselets, and in the
centre of the group was the massive figure of the man who was riding to
his death, a huge, black outline, erect and dignified.

John rode with the rest as a man in a dream. His mind and imagination
were in a state in which the moving figures around him, the cavalcade of
which he himself was a part, seemed but phantoms playing fantastic
parts upon the stage of some unreal theatre of dreams.

He heard once more the great man-like voice of Queen Mary, but it seemed
very far away, a sinister thing, echoing from a time long past.

The music of the dance in the Palace tinkled and vibrated through his
subconscious brain, and then once more he heard the voice of the evil
old woman of the red house, the voice of one in hell, telling him to
flee youthful lusts, telling him to wait stainless until love should
come to him.

Love! He smiled unconsciously to himself. Love!--why should the thoughts
of 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 was
now big and tremulous with dawn, the tower of St. Botolph's Church, a
faint, misty purple. Far away in the east the sky was faintly streaked
with pink and orange, the curtain of the dark was shaken by the
birth-pangs of the morning. The western sky over St. Paul's was already
aglow with a red, reflected light.

The transition was extraordinarily sudden. Every instant the aspect of
things changed; the whole visible world was being re-created, second by
second, not gradually, but with a steady, pressing onrush, in which time
seemed merged and forgotten, to be of no account at all, and a thing
that was not.

Johnnie had seen the great copper-coloured moon heave itself out of the
sea just like that--the world turning to splendour before his eyes.

But it was dawn now, and in the miraculously clear, inspiring light, the
countless towers and pinnacles of the city rose with sharp outline into
the quiet sky.

The breeze from the river rustled and whispered by them like the
trailing skirts of unseen presences, and as the cool air in all its
purity came over the silent town, the feverishness and sense of
unreality in the young man's mind were dissolved and blown away.

How silent London was!--the broad street stretched out before them like
a ribbon of silver-grey, but the tower of St. Botolph's was already
solid stone, and no longer mystic purple.

And then, for some reason or other, John Commendone's heart began to
beat furiously. He could not have said why or how. There seemed no
reason to account for it, but all his pulses were stirred. A sense of
expectancy, which was painful in its intensity, and unlike anything he
had ever known before in his life, pervaded all his consciousness.

He gripped his horse by the knees, his left hand holding the leather
reins, hung with little tassels of vermilion silk, his right hand
resting upon the handle of his sword.

They came up to the porch of the church, and suddenly the foremost
men-at-arms halted, the slight backward movement of their horses
sending those who followed backward also. There was a pawing of hooves,
a rattle of accoutrements, a sharp order from somewhere in front, and
then 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 he
saw in after years, had been but a leading up and preparation for this
time.

Standing just outside the porch of the church was a small group of
figures, clustering together, white faces, pitiful and forlorn.

Dr. Taylor's wife, suspecting that her husband should that night be
carried away, had watched all night in St. Botolph's porch, having with
her her two children, and a man-servant of their house.

The men-at-arms had opened out a little, remaining quite motionless on
their horses.

Sir John Shelton, obviously mindful of Commendone's warning at the
"Woolsack," remained silent also, his blotched face grey and scowling in
the dawn, though he said no word.

The King pulled his hat further over his eyes, and Johnnie at his right
could 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 the
world is no grossly material place, but a state which is constantly
impinged upon and mingles with the Unseen, must be conscious that at one
time or other of his life sound has been, perhaps, the most predominant
influence in it.

Now and again, at rare and memorable intervals, the grossness of this
tabernacle wherein the soul is encased is pierced by sound. More than
all else, sound penetrates deep into the spiritual consciousness,
punctuates life, as it were, at rare moments of emotion, gathering up
and crystallising a thousand fancies and feelings which seem to have no
adequate cause among outward things.

Johnnie had heard the sound of his mother's voice, as she lay dying--a
dry, whispering, husky sound, never to be forgotten, as she said,
"Johnnie, promise mother to be good; promise me to be good." He had
heard the sweet sound of the death mort winded by the huntsman in the
park of Commendone, as he had run down his first stag--in the voice of
the girl who cried out with anguish in the pure morning light, he heard
for the third or fourth time, a sound which would always be part of his
life.

"_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 colour
of ripe corn. Great eyes of a deep blue, like cut sapphire, shone in
the dead white oval of her face. The parted lips were a scarlet
eloquence of agony.

By her side was a tall, grey-haired dame, trembling exceedingly.

One delicate white hand flickered before the elder woman's eyes, all
blind 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 clinging
to 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, his
wife, and the tall girl Elizabeth, knelt down and said the Lord's
Prayer.

At the sight of it the Sheriff wept apace, and so did divers others of
the company, and the salt tears ran down Johnnie's cheeks and splashed
upon his breast-plate.

After they had prayed Dr. Taylor rose up and kissed his wife, and shook
her 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 my
children."

After that he kissed his daughter Mary and said, "God bless thee and
make thee His servant," and kissing Elizabeth also he said, "God bless
thee. 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, dear
Rowland," she said; "I shall, with God's grace, meet thee anon in
heaven."

Then Johnnie saw the serving-man, a broad, thick-set fellow, with a
keen, 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, with
wide, astonished eyes, Thomas, the Doctor's son.

When Dr. Taylor saw them he called them, saying, "Come hither, my son
Thomas."

John Hull lifted the child, and sat him upon the saddle of the horse by
which his father stood, and Dr. Taylor put off his hat, and said to the
members of the party that stood there looking at him: "Good people, this
is mine own son, begotten of my body in lawful matrimony; and God be
blessed for lawful matrimony."

Johnnie upon his horse was shaking uncontrollably, but at these last
words he heard an impatient jingle of accoutrements by his side, and
looking, saw that the face of His Highness was fierce and angry that an
ordained priest should speak thus of wedlock.

But this was only for a passing moment; the young man's eyes were fixed
upon the great clergyman again in an instant.

The priest lifted up his eyes towards heaven, and prayed for his son. He
laid his hand upon the child's head and blessed him; and so delivered
the 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 low
murmur of sympathy from the rough men-at-arms.

Sir John Shelton heard it and glanced quickly at the muffled figure of
the 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. There
must be no more sympathy for heretics. Sir John gave a harsh order, the
guard closed in upon Dr. Taylor, there was a loud cry from the
Archdeacon's wife as she fell fainting into the arms of the sturdy
servant, and the cavalcade proceeded at a smart pace. John looked round
once, and this is what he saw--the tall figure of Elizabeth Taylor,
fixed and rigid, the lovely face set in a stare of horror and
unspeakable grief, a star of sorrow as the dawn reddened and day began.

And now, as they left London, the progress was more rapid, the stern
business upon which they were engaged looming up and becoming more
imminent every moment, the big man in the centre of the troop being
hurried relentlessly to his end.

And so they rode forth to Brentwood, where, during a short stay, Sir
John 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 to
breathe at. This they did that no man in the pleasant country ways, the
villages 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 and
politic.

"For," says a chronicler of the time, "their own consciences told them
that they led innocent lambs to the slaughter. Wherefore they feared
lest if the people should have heard them speak or have seen them, they
might have been more strengthened by their godly exhortations to stand
steadfast in God's Word, to fly the superstitions and idolatries of the
Papacy."

All the way Dr. Taylor was joyful and merry, as one that accounted
himself going to a most pleasant banquet or bridal. He said many notable
things to the Sheriff and the yeomen of the guard that conducted him,
and often moved them to weep through his much earnest calling upon them
to repent and to amend their evil and wicked living. Oftentimes, also,
he caused them to wonder and rejoice, to see him so constant and
steadfast, void of all fear, joyful in heart, and glad to die. At one
time during their progress he said: "I will tell you, I have been
deceived, and, as I think, I shall deceive a great many. I am, as you
see, a man that hath a very great carcase, which I thought would have
been buried in Hadley churchyard, if I died in my bed, as I well hoped I
should have done; but herein I see I was deceived. And there are a
great number of worms in Hadley churchyard, which should have had a
jolly feed upon this carrion, which they have looked for many a day. But
now I know we are to be deceived, both I and they; for this carcase must
be burnt to ashes; and so shall they lose their bait and feeding, that
they looked to have had of it."

Sir John Shelton, who was riding by the side of Commendone, and who was
now sober enough, the wine of his midnight revels having died from him,
turned to Johnnie with a significant grin as he heard Dr. Taylor say
this to his guards.

Shelton was coarse, overbearing, and a blackguard, but he had a keen
mind of a sort, and was of gentle birth.

"Listen to this curtail dog, Mr. Commendone," he said, with a sneer. "A
great loss to the Church, i' faith. He talketh like some bully-rook or
clown of the streets. And these are the men who in their contumacy and
their daring deny the truth of Holy Church----" He spat upon the ground
with disgust.

Commendone nodded gravely. His insight was keener far than the other's.
He saw, in what Bishop Heber afterwards called "the coarse vigour" of
the Archdeacon's pleasantry, no foolish irreverence indeed, but the racy
English courage and humour of a saintly man, resolved to meet his
earthly 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 from
it. Courtier and scholar, a man of exquisite refinement, imbued with no
small share of foreign grace and courtliness, there was yet a side of
him which was thoroughly English. He saw deeper than the coarse-mouthed
captain at his side.

The voices of those who had gathered round the porch of St. Botolph's
without Aldgate still rang in his ears.

The Sheriff and his company, when they heard Dr. Rowland Taylor jesting
in this way, were amazed, and looked one at another, marvelling at the
man's constant mind, that thus, without any fear, made but a jest at the
cruel torment and death now at hand prepared for him.

The sun clomb the sky, the woods were green, the birds were all at
matins. Through many a shady village they passed where the ripening corn
rustled in the breeze, the wood smoke went up in blue lines from cottage
and manor house, the clink of the forge rang out into the street as the
blacksmiths lit their fires, the milkmaids strode out to find the lowing
kine in the pastures. It was a brilliant happy morning as they rode
along through the green lanes, a very bridal morning indeed.

When they were come within two miles of Hadley, Dr. Taylor desired for a
while to light off his horse. They let him do it, and the Sheriff at his
request ordered the hood to be removed from him.

The whole troop halted for a minute or two, and the Doctor, says the
chronicler, "leaped and set a frisk or twain as men commonly do in
dancing. 'Why, Master Doctor,' quoth the Sheriff, 'how do you now?' He
answered, 'Well, God be praised, good Master Sheriff, never better; for
now 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 ere
I die see my flock, whom Thou, Lord, knowest I have most heartily loved
and truly taught. Good Lord! bless them and keep them steadfast in Thy
word and truth.'"

The streets of Hadley were beset on both sides of the way with women and
men 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 beheld
their old friend led to death in this way, their voices were raised in
lamentation 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 our
good shepherd from us that so faithfully hath taught us, so fatherly
hath cared for us, so godly hath governed us."

And again, the landlord of the "Three Cranes" at Hadley, where the troop
stopped for a moment to water their horses at the trough before the inn,
and the country people surged and crowded round: "O merciful God; what
shall we poor scattered lambs do? What shall come of this most wicked
world! 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 who
surrounded him, lifted his hand.

"Friends," he said, "and neighbours all, grieve not for me. I have
preached to you God's word and truth, and am come this day to seal it
with my blood."

Johnnie would have thought that the people who bore such an obvious love
for their rector, and who now numbered several hundreds--sturdy
country-men all--would have raised an outcry against the Sheriff and his
officers. Many of them had stout cudgels in their hands, some of them
bore forks with which they were going to the fields, but there was very
little anger. The people were cowed, that was very plain to see. The
power of the law struck fear into them still; the long, unquestioned
despotism of Henry VIII still exercised its sway over simple minds. Now
and again, as the horses were being watered, a fierce snarl of anger
came from the outskirts of the crowd. Commendone himself, with his
somewhat 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 the
Queen's Papist husband. How like you this work, Master Don?"

But that was all. Once Sir John Shelton looked with some apprehension at
the King, but the King understood nothing, and though the sturdy
country-folk in their numbers might well have overcome the guard, a
rescue was obviously not thought of nor was the slightest attempt at it
made.

All this was quite homely and natural to Johnnie. He felt with the
people; he had spent his life in the country. Down at quiet, retired
Commendone his father and he were greatly loved by all the farmers and
peasants of the estate. His mother--that graceful Spanish lady--had
endeared herself for many years to the simple folk of Kent. Old Father
Chilches had said Mass in the chapel at Commendone for many years
without let or hindrance. Catholic as the house of Commendone had always
been, there was nothing bigoted or fanatical in their religion. And now
the young man's heart was stirred to its very depths as this homely
rustic folk lifted up their voices in sorrow.

Even then, however, he questioned nothing in his mind of the justice of
what was to be done. Despite the infinite pity he felt for this good
pastor who was to die and his flock who grieved him so, he was yet
perfectly loyal in his mind to the power which ordained the execution,
part of whose machinery he was. The Queen had said so; the monarch could
do no wrong. There were reasons of State, reasons of polity, reasons of
religion 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 final
scene was to be enacted, he moved with the others, one of the ministers
of doom.

And through all the bright morning air, through the cries and tears of
the country-folk, he heard one voice, the voice of a girl, he saw one
white and lovely face ever before his eyes.

When they came to Aldham Common there was a great multitude of people
gathered there.

"What place is this?" Dr. Taylor asked, with a smile, though he knew
very well. "And what meaneth it that so much people are gathered
together?"

The Sheriff, who was a stranger to this part of the country, and who was
very agitated and upset, answered him with eager and deprecating
civility. "It is Aldham Common, Dr. Taylor, the place where you must
suffer; and the people are come to look upon you." The good man hardly
knew what he was saying.

Dr. Taylor smiled once more.

"Thanked be God," he said, "I am even at home," and alighted from his
horse.

Sir John Shelton, who also dismounted, snatched the hat from the
Doctor's head, which was shown to be clipped close, like a horse's back
in summer time--a degradation which Bishop Bonner had caused to be
performed upon him the night before as a mean and vulgar revenge for the
Doctor's words to him at the ceremony of his degradation.

But when the people saw Dr. Taylor's reverent and ancient face and his
long white beard, they burst into louder weeping than ever, and cried,
"God save thee, good Dr. Taylor! Jesus Christ strengthen thee, and help
thee; the Holy Ghost comfort thee," and many other suchlike godly
wishes.

They were now come into the centre of Aldham Common, where already a
posse of men sent by the Sheriff of the county were keeping a space
clear round a tall post which had been set into the ground, and which
was the stake.

Sir John Shelton, who now assumed complete command of the proceedings,
gave several loud orders. The people were pressed back with oaths and
curses by the yeomen of the escort, and Dr. Taylor was hurried quickly
towards the stake.

The long ride from London had not been without a certain quiet and
dignity; but from this moment everything that was done was rude,
hurried, and violent. The natural brutality of Shelton and his men
blazed up suddenly. What before had been ineffably sad was now changed
to horror, as John Commendone sat his horse by the side of the man whose
safety he was there to guard, and watched the final scene.

Dr. Taylor, who was standing by the stake and disrobing, wished to speak
to the people, but the yeomen of the guard were so busy about him that
as soon as he opened his mouth one or another of these fellows thrust a
fist or tipstaff into his mouth. They were round him like a pack of
dogs, snarling, buffeting him, making him feel indeed the bitterness of
death.

This was done by Sir John Shelton's orders, no doubt committed to him
from London, for it was obvious that any popular feeling in the martyr's
favour must be suppressed as soon as possibly could be done.

If Dr. Taylor had been allowed to speak to the surging crowd that knew
and loved him, the well-known voice, the familiar and beloved
exhortations might well have aroused a fury against the ministers of the
law which they would be powerless to withstand.

Dr. Taylor himself seemed to recognise this, for he sat down upon a
stool 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 were
bringing up bundles of furze and freshly cut faggots to the stake, and
as he was obviously not about to address the people, the guard was a
little relaxed.

He saw pressing on the outskirts of the crowd an old countryman, with a
brown wrinkled face.

"Soyce," he called out cheerily, "I pray thee come and pull off my
boots, and take them for thy labour. Thou hast long looked for them, now
take them."

The ancient fellow, who was indeed the sexton of Hadley Church, came
trembling up, and did as the rector asked.

Then Dr. Taylor rose up, and put off his clothes unto his shirt, and
gave them away. Which done, he said with a loud voice, "Good people! I
have taught you nothing but God's Holy Word and those lessons that I
have taken out of God's blessed Book, the Holy Bible."

He had hardly said it when a sergeant of the guard, named Homes, gave
him a great stroke upon the head with a waster, and said, "Is that the
keeping of thy promise, thou heretic?"

The venerable head, now stained with blood, drooped, and for a moment
the vitality and vigour seemed to go from the Rector. He saw that it was
utterly useless, that there was no hope of him being allowed to address
his folk, and so he knelt down and prayed in silence.

While he was praying a very old woman, in poor rags, that was standing
among 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 she
screamed loudly and clung to the Rector's knees.

"Tread her down with horses; tread her down," said Sir John Shelton, his
face purple with anger.

But even the knight's men would not do it, and there was such a deep
threatening murmur from the crowd that Shelton forbore, and the old
woman 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 set
himself 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 his
hands folded together, and his eyes towards heaven, praying continually.

Four men set up the faggots and piled them round him, and one brought a
torch to make the fire.

As the furze lit and began to crackle at the bottom of the pile, the man
Homes, either really mad with religious hatred, or, as is more probable,
a brute, only zealous to ingratiate himself with his commander, picked
up a billet of wood and cast it most cruelly at the Doctor. It lit upon
his 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 round
shuddering with horror, the Rector began to say the Psalm _Miserere_ in
English.

Sir John shot out his great red hand and struck the martyr upon the lips
with his open palm.

"Ye knave," he said, "speak Latin; I will make thee."

At that, John Commendone, scarcely knowing what he did, leapt from his
horse and caught Shelton by the shoulder. With all the strength of his
young athletic frame he sent him spinning away from the stake. Sir John
staggered, recovered himself, and with his face blazing with anger,
rushed at the young man.

At that the King suddenly wheeled his horse, and interposed between
them.

"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 the
accent were significant. With a glare of fury at Johnnie, he slunk aside
to 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 the smoke rolled up
around him, and red tongues of flame began to be brightly visible in the
sunlight, he held up both his hands, and said, "Merciful Father of
heaven, for Jesus Christ my Saviour's sake, receive my soul into Thy
hands."

So stood he still without either crying or moving, with his hands folded
together, until suddenly one of the men-at-arms caught up a halbert and
struck him on the head so that the brains fell out, and the corpse sank
into the fire.

"Thus," says the chronicler, "the man of God gave his blessed soul into
the hands of his merciful Father, and his most dear and certain Saviour
Jesus Christ, Whom he most entirely loved, faithfully and earnestly
preached, obediently followed in living, and constantly glorified in
death."




CHAPTER III

THE MEETING WITH JOHN HULL AT CHELMSFORD


John Commendone, Sir John Shelton, and the King of Spain walked up a
flight of broad stone steps, which led to the wide-open door of Mr.
Peter Lacel's house on the far side of Aldham Common.

It was now about ten o'clock in the morning, or a little after.

As soon as the body of the martyr had fallen into the flames, Sir John
had wheeled round upon his horse, and, attended by his men, had trotted
away, breaking through the crowd, who had rushed to the smouldering pyre
and were pressing round it. They had gone some three hundred yards on to
the Common at a quick pace.

"I don't like this at all, Sire," Sir John had muttered to the King.
"The people are very turbulent. It will be as well, I think, that we go
to the 'Crown.' It is that large house on the other side of the Common.
There we shall find entertainment and refreshment, for I am told it is a
good inn by a letter from the Sheriff, Mr. Peter Lacel--whom I had
looked to see here as was duly arranged."

Then Sir John had stopped suddenly.

"He cometh," he cried. "That is Mr. Lacel with his yeomen," and as the
knight spoke Johnnie saw a little party upon horseback galloping towards
them. Foremost of them was a bluff, bearded country gentleman, his face
agitated and concerned.

"Good Sir John," said the gentleman as he reined up his horse, "I would
not have had this happen for much money. I have mistook the hour, and
was upon some county business with two of the justices at my house. Is
it all over then? Hath Dr. Taylor suffered?"

"The runagate is stone dead," Shelton replied. "It is all over, and hath
passed off as well as may be, though I like not very much the demeanour
of the people. But how do you, Mr. Lacel?"

"I do very well, thank you," the Sheriff answered, "but I hope much, Sir
John, that this mischance of mine will not be accounted to me as being
any lack of zeal to Her Grace."

Shelton waved his hand. "No," he said, "we know you very well, Mr.
Lacel. Lack of loyalty will never be put to your charge. But now,
doubtless, you will entertain us, for we have ridden since early dawn,
and are very tired."

Mr. Lacel's face shone with relief. "Come you, Sir John," he said, "come
you with these gentlemen and your men forthwith to the Manor. You must
indeed be weary and needing refreshment. But what of yonder?"

He pointed in front of him, and Sir John turned in his saddle.

A few hundred yards away a dense crowd was swaying, and above their
heads even now was a column of yellow smoke.

"There is no need for you there, Mr. Lacel," Sir John replied. "The
Sheriff of London and his men are doing all that is needful. I am here
with mine, and we shall all be glad to taste your hospitality after this
business. This,"--he made a little gesture of the hand towards
Johnnie--"is Mr. Commendone, Sir Henry Commendone's son, of Kent,
attached to the King's person, and here to-day to report of Dr. Taylor's
burning to the Queen. This"--here he bowed towards Philip--"a Spanish
nobleman of high degree, who is of His Majesty's Gentlemen, and who hath
ridden with us."

"Bid ye welcome, gentlemen," said Mr. Lacel, "and now, an ye will follow
me, there is breakfast ready in the Manor, and you can forget this nasty
work, for I doubt none of you like it better than myself."

With that the whole party had trotted onwards towards the Sheriff's
house.

The men-at-arms were met by grooms and servants, and taken round to the
buttery. John, Shelton, and the King walked up the steps and into a
great hall, where a long table was laid for their reception.

The King, whose demeanour to his host was haughty and indifferent, spoke
no word at all, and Sir John Shelton was in considerable embarrassment.
At all costs, the King's incognito must be preserved. Mr. Lacel was a
Catholic gentleman of Suffolk, a simple, faithful, unthinking country
squire, who, at the same time, had some local influence. It would never
do, however, to let the Sheriff know that the King himself was under his
roof, and yet His Highness's demeanour was so reserved and cold, his
face so melancholy, frozen, and inscrutable, that Shelton was
considerably perplexed. It was with a sense of great relief that he
remembered the King spoke but little English, and he took Mr. Lacel
aside while serving-men were placing chairs at the table, and whispered
that the Don was a cold, unlikeable fellow, but high in the Royal
favour, and must be considered.

"Not a testoon care I," Mr. Lacel answered. "I am glad to see ye, Sir
John, and these Court gallants from Spain disturb me not at all. Now,
sit ye down, sit ye down, and fall to."

They all sat down at the table.

The King took a silver cup of wine, bowed to his host, and sipped. His
face was very yellow, his eyes dwindled, and a general air of cold and
lassitude pervaded him. Suddenly he turned to Commendone, who was
sitting by his side watching his master with eager and somewhat
frightened attention.

"Senor," he said, in Spanish, "Senor Commendone, I am very far from
well. The long ride hath tired me. I would rest. Speak to Sir John
Shelton, and ask this worthy _caballero_, who is my host, if I may
retire to rest."

Johnnie spoke at once to Mr. Lacel, explaining that the Spanish nobleman
was very fatigued and wished to lie down.

The Sheriff jumped up at once, profuse in hospitality, and himself led
the way, followed by the King and Commendone, to an upper chamber.

They saw the King lie down upon the bed, and curtains pulled half-way
over the mullioned windows of the room, letting only a faint beam of
sunlight enter there.

"Thy friend will be all right now, Mr. Commendone," said the squire.
"These Spanish gentlemen are not over-strong, methinks." He laughed
roughly, and Johnnie heard again, in the voice of this country
gentleman, that dislike of Spain and of the Spanish Match, which his own
father shared.

They went out of the room together, and Johnnie shrugged his
shoulders--it was absolutely necessary that the identity of the King
should not be suspected.

"Well, well, Mr. Lacel," he said, linking his arm within his host's, and
assuming a friendly country manner--which, of course, came perfectly
natural to him, "it is not for you and I to question or to make comment
upon those gentlemen from over-seas who are in high favour in London
just now. Let us to breakfast."

In a minute more they were sitting at the table, where Sir John Shelton
was already busy with wine and food.

For a few minutes the three men ate in silence. Then Mr. Lacel must have
from them every detail of the execution. It was supplied him with great
vigour and many oaths by Sir John.

Mr. Lacel shook himself.

"I am indeed sorry," said he, "that I was not at the execution, because
it was my bounden duty to be there. Natheless, I am not sorry for
myself. To see a rogue or masterless man trussed up is very well, but
Dr. Rowland Taylor that was Rector here, and hath in times past been a
guest at this very table--well, I am glad I did not see the man die. Was
a pleasant fellow, could wind a horn or throw a falcon with any of the
gentry round, had a good lusty voice in a chorus, and learning much
beyond the general."

"Mr. Lacel, Mr. Lacel," Sir John Shelton said in a loud and rather
bullying voice, "surely you have no sympathy nor liking for heretics?"

"Not I, i' faith," said the old gentleman at the top of the table,
striking the thick oak with his fist. "I have been a good Catholic ever,
and justice must be done. 'Twas the man I liked, Master Shelton, 'twas
the man I liked. Now we have here as Rector a Mr. Lacy. He is a good
Catholic priest, and dutiful at all his services. I go to Mass three
times a week. But Father Lacy, as a man, is but a sorry scrub. He eateth
nothing, and a firkin of ale would last him six months. Still,
gentlemen, ye cannot live on both sides of a buckler. Poor Roly Taylor
was a good, honest man, a sportsman withal, and well loved over the
country-side--I am glad I saw not his burning. Certainly upon religion
he was mad and very ill-advised, and so dies he. I trust his stay in
purgation be but short."

Sir John Shelton put down his tankard with a crash.

"My friend," he said, "doth not know that His Grace of London did curse
this heretic? I myself was there and heard it."

The ruffian lifted his tankard of wine to his lips, and took a long
draught. His face was growing red, his eyes twinkled with half-drunken
cunning and suspicion.

"Aye," he cried, "I heard it--'And by the authority of God the Father
Almighty, and of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of St. Peter and Paul, and of
the Holy Saints, we excommunicate, we utterly curse and ban, commit and
deliver to the Devil of hell, ye that have in spite of God and of St.
Peter, whose Church this is, in spite of holy saints, and in spite of
our most Holy Father the Pope, God's Vicar here on earth, denied the
truths of Holy Church. Accursed may ye be, and give body and soul to the
Devil. We give ye over utterly to the power of the Fiend, and thy soul
when thou art dead shall lie this night in the pains of hell-fire, as
this candle is now quenched and put out.'"

As he finished, Sir John knocked over a tall glass cruet of French
vinegar, and stared with increasing drunkenness at his host.

Mr. Lacel, simple gentleman that he was, was obviously disgusted at his
guest. He said very little, however, seeing that the man was somewhat
gone in liquor, as Johnnie also realised that the stale potations of the
night before were wakened by the new drink, and rising up into Shelton's
brain.

"Well, well, Sir John," Mr. Lacel replied, "I am no theologian, but I am
a good son of the Church, and have always been, as you and those at
Court--those in high places, Sir John," he said it with a certain
emphasis and spirit--"know very well."

The quiet and emphatic voice had its effect. Shelton dropped his
bullying manner. He was aware, and realised that Mr. Lacel probably knew
also, that he was but a glorified man-at-arms, a led captain, and not at
all in the confidence of great people, nor acquainted with private
affairs of State. He had been puffed up by his recent association with
the King in his vile pleasures, but a clever ruffian enough, he saw now
that he had gone too far.

He saw also that John Commendone was looking at him with a fixed and
disdainful expression. He remembered that the young courtier was high in
the good graces of the King and Queen.

"I' faith," he cried, with an entire change of manner--"I' faith, old
friend Peter, I was but jesting; we all know thou art loyal to Church
and State, their law. Mr. Commendone, I ask you, hast seen a more----"

Johnnie's voice cut into the man's babbling.

"Sir John," he said, "if I were you I would go upstairs and see how the
Spanish gentleman doeth."

He looked very keenly, and with great meaning, at the knight.

Sir John pushed his chair from the table. "Spine of God," he cried
thickly, "and I was near forgetting His Highness. I will to him at
once."

He stumbled away from the table, pulled himself together, and, following
Mr. Lacel's butler, who had just come into the hall, ascended the broad
stairway.

Mr. Lacel looked very curiously at Johnnie.

"Sir," he said in a low voice, looking round the hall to see if any
servant were within earshot, "that drunkard hath said more than he
meant. I am not quite the country fool I seem to be, but least said is
soonest mended. I have known Sir John Shelton for some years--a good man
in the chase, a soldier, but a drunken fool withal. I know your name,
and I have met your father at the Wool Exchange in London. We are both
of Catholic houses, but I think none of us like what is going on now,
and like to go on since"--here he dropped his voice almost to a whisper,
and glanced upwards to the gallery which ran round the hall--"since Her
Grace had wedded out of the kingdom. But we must say nothing. Who that
gentleman upstairs is, I do not seek to know, but I tell you this, Mr.
Commendone, that, heretic or none, I go to-morrow morning to Father Lacy
and give him a rose-angel to say masses for the soul of a good dead
friend of mine. I shall not tell him who 'tis, and he's too big a fool
to ask, but----"

The old man's voice caught in his throat. He lifted his cup, and
instinctively Johnnie did the same.

"Here's to him," Mr. Lacel whispered, "and to his dame, a sweet and
gracious lady, and to his little lad Thomas, and the girl Mary; they
have oft sat on my knee--for I am an old widower, Mr. Commendone--when I
have told them the tale of the babes in the wood."

Tears were in the Sheriff's eyes, and in the eyes of the young man also,
as he raised his cup to his lips and drank the sad and furtive toast.

"And here," Mr. Lacel continued, lifting his cup once more, and leaning
forward over the table close to his, "and here's to Lizzie, whom dear
Dr. Taylor adopted to be as his own daughter when she was but a little
maid of three. Here's to Elizabeth, the sweetest girl, the most blithe
companion, the daintiest, most brave little lady that ever trod the
lanes of Suffolk----"

He had hardly finished speaking, and Johnnie's hand was trembling as he
lifted the goblet to his lips, when there was a noise in the gallery
above, and Sir John Shelton, pale of face, and followed by the butler,
came noisily down the oak stairs.

The knight's manner was more than a little excited.

"Mr. Commendone," he said in a quick but conciliatory voice, "His
Highness--that is to say, the Spanish gentleman--is very fatigued, and
cannot ride to London to-day."

He turned to Mr. Lacel.

"Peter," he said, and his voice was now anxious and suave, the voice of
a man of affairs, and with something definite to say, "Peter, I must
claim your hospitality for the night for myself and for my Spanish
friend. Also, I fear, for my men."

Mr. Lacel bowed. "Sir John," he said, "my poor house is very gladly at
your disposal, and you may command me in all ways."

"I thank you," Sir John answered, "I thank you very much. You are doing
me a service, and perhaps other people a service which----" He broke off
shortly, and turned once more to Commendone. "Mr. Commendone," he said,
"it is requisite that you will at once to horse with your own servant
and one of my men, and ride to London--Excuse me, Peter, but I have a
privy word to say to the Esquire."

He drew Johnnie aside. "You must ride post-haste to the Queen," he said,
"and tell her that His Majesty is very weary or eke unwell. He will lie
the night here and come to London with me in the morning, and by the
Mass, Mr. Commendone, I don't envy you your commission!"

"I will go at once," Johnnie answered, looking at his watch.

"Very good, Mr. Commendone," Sir John answered. "I am not of the Privy
Closet, as you know. You are in communion with Her Grace, and have been.
But if all we of the guard hear is true, then I am sorry for you.
Natheless, you must do it. Tell Her Grace of the burning--oh, tell her
anything that commendeth itself to you, but let her not think that His
Highness is upon some lover's business. And of Duck Lane not a word, not
a single word, as you value your favour!"

"It is very likely, is it not, Sir John," Commendone answered, "that I
should say anything of Duck Lane?"

The sneer in his voice was so pronounced that the big bully writhed
uneasily.

"Surely," he replied, "you are a very pattern and model of discretion. I
know it well enough, Mr. Commendone."

Johnnie made his adieux to his host.

"But what about your horses, sir?" the old gentleman asked. "As I
understand it, you ride post-haste to London. Your nag will not take you
there very fast after your long ride."

"I must post, that is all," Johnnie answered. "I can get a relay at
Chelmsford."

"Nay, Mr. Commendone, it is not to be thought of," said the squire.
"Now, look you. I have a plenty horses in my stables. There is a roan
mare spoiling for work that will suit you very well. And what servants
are you taking?"

Sir John Shelton broke in.

"Hadst better take thy own servant and two of my men," he said. "You
will be riding back upon the way we came, and I doubt me the country
folk are too friendly."

"That is easy done," said Mr. Lacel. "I can horse your yeomen also. In
four days I ride myself to Westminster, where I spend a sennight with my
brother, and hope to pay my duties at the Court when it moveth to
Whitehall, as I hear it is about to do. The horses I shall lend you, Mr.
Commendone, can be sent to my brother's, Sir Frank Lacel, of Lacel
House."

"I thank you very much, sir," Johnnie answered, "you are very kind." And
with that he said farewell, and in a very few minutes was riding over
Aldham Common, on his way back to London.

Right in the centre of the Common there was still a large crowd of
people, and he saw a farm cart with two horses standing there.

He made a wide detour, however, to get into the main road for Hadley,
shrinking with a sudden horror, more poignant and more physically
sickening than anything he had known before, from the last sordid and
grisly details of the martyr's obsequies.

... No! Anything would be better than to see this dreadful cleaning
up....

The big rawbone mare which he was riding was fresh and playful. Johnnie
was a consummate horseman, and he was glad of the distraction of keeping
the beast under control. She had a hard mouth, and needed all his skill.

For four or five miles, followed by his attendants at a distance of two
or three hundred yards, he rode at a fast canter, now and then letting
the mare stretch her legs upon the turf which bordered the rough country
road. After this, when the horse began to settle down to steady work, he
went on at a fast trot, but more mechanically, and thought began to be
born within him again.

Until now he had seemed to be walking and moving in a dream. Even the
horrors he had seen had been hardly real. Inexperienced as he was in
many aspects of life, he yet knew well that the man with an imagination
and sensitive nerves suffers far more in the memory of a dreadful thing
than he does at the actual witnessing of it. The very violence of what
he had seen done that day had deadened all the nerves, forbidding full
sensation--as a man wounded in battle, or with a limb lopped off by
sword or shot, is often seen looking with an amazed incredulity at
himself, feeling no pain whatever for the moment.

It was now that John Commendone began to suffer. Every detail of Dr.
Taylor's death etched themselves in upon his brain in a succession of
pictures which burnt like fire.

As this or that detail--in colour, movement, and sound--came back to him
so vividly, his heart began to drum, his eyes to fill with tears, or
grow dry with horror, the palms of his hands to become wet. He lived the
whole thing over again. And once more his present surroundings became
dream-like, as he cantered through the lanes, and what was past became
hideously, dreadfully real.

Yet, as the gallant mare bore him swiftly onwards, he realised that the
horror and disgust he felt were in reality subservient to something else
within him. His whole being seemed quickened, infinitely more alert,
ready for action, than it had ever been before. He was like a man who
had all his life been looking out upon the world through smoked or
tinted glasses--very pleased and delighted with all he saw, unable to
realise that there could be anything more true, more vivid.

Then, suddenly, the glass is removed. The neutral greyness which he has
taken for the natural, commendable view of things, changes and falls
away. The whole world is seen in an infinity of light and colour
undreamed of, unexpected, wonderfully, passionately new.

It was thus with Johnnie, and the fact for some time was stunning and
paralysing.

Then, as the brain adjusted itself slowly to fresh and marvellous
conditions, he began to question himself.

What did it mean? What did it mean to him? What lay before?

Quite suddenly the explanation came, and he knew.

It was the face of a tall girl, who stood by St. Botolph's tower in the
ghostly dawn that had done this thing. It was her voice that had rent
aside the veil; it was her eyes of agony which lit up the world so
differently.

With that knowledge, with the quick hammering of love at a virgin heart,
there came also an enormous expectation. Till now life had been pleasant
and happy. All the excitements of the past seemed but incidents in a
long tranquillity.

The orchestra had finished the prelude to the play. Now the traverse was
drawn aside, and action began.

As the young man realised this, and the white splendour of the full
summer sun was answered by the inexpressible glow within, he realised,
physically, that he was galloping madly along the road, pressing his
spurs to his horse's flanks, riding with loose rein, the stirrups behind
him, crouching forward upon the peaked saddle. He pulled his horse up
within two or three hundred yards, though with considerable difficulty,
the animal seeming, in some subtle way, to share and be part of that
which was rioting within his brain.

He pulled her up, however, and she stood trembling and breathing hard,
with great clots of white foam covering the rings of the bit. He
soothed her, patting the strong veined neck with his hand, bringing it
away from the darkening hide covered with sweat. Then, when she was a
little more at ease, he slipped from the saddle and led her a few paces
along the road to where in the hedge a stile was set, upon which he sat
himself.

He held hold of the rein for a minute until he saw the mare begin to
crop the roadside grass quietly enough, when he released her.

For a mile or more the road by which he had come stretched white and
empty in the sun. There was no trace of his men. He waited there till
they could come up to him.

He began to talk to himself in slow, measured terms, his own voice
sounding strange in his ears, coming to them with a certain comfort. It
was as though once more he had regained full command and captaincy of
his own soul. There were great things to be done, he was commander of
his own legions, and, like a general before a battle, he was issuing
measured orders to his staff.

"So that it must be; it must be just that; I must find Elizabeth"--his
subconscious brain heard with a certain surprise and wonder how the slow
voice trembled at the word--"I must find Elizabeth. And then, when I
have found her, I must tell her that she, and she alone, is to be my
wife, and my lady ever more. I must sue and woo her, and then she must
be my wife. It is that which I have to do. The Court is nothing; my
service is nothing; it is Elizabeth!"

The mare raised her head, her mouth full of long sweet grass, and she
looked at him with mild, brown eyes.

He rose from the stile, put his hand within his doublet, and pulled out
a little crucifix of ebony, with a Christ of gold nailed to it.

He kissed it, and then, singularly heartened and resolute in mind, he
mounted again, seeing, as he did so, that his men were coming up behind.
He waited till they were near and then trotted off, and in an hour came
to the outskirts of Chelmsford town.

It was now more than two hours after noon, and he halted with his men at
the "Tun," the principal inn of the place, and adjacent to a brewery of
red brick, where the famous Chelmsford ale--no less celebrated then than
now--was brewed.

He rode into the courtyard of the inn, and the ostlers came hurrying up
and took his horse away, while he went into the ordinary and sat down
before a great round of beef.

The landlord, seeing a gentleman of quality, bustled in and carved for
him--a pottle-bellied, voluble man, with something eminently kindly and
human in his eye.

"From the Court, sir, I do not doubt?" he said.

Johnnie nodded.

"If I mistake not, you are one of the gentlemen who rode with the
Sheriff and Dr. Rowland Taylor this morning?"

"That was I," Johnnie answered, looking keenly at the man.

"I would have wagered it was, sir. We saw the party go by early. Is the
Doctor dead, sir?"

Johnnie nodded once more.

"And a very right and proper thing it is," the landlord continued, "that
such should die the death."

"And why think you that, landlord?" Johnnie asked.

The landlord scratched his head, looking doubtfully at his guest.

"It is not for me to say, sir," he replied, after a moment's hesitation.
"I am but a tradesman, and have no concern with affairs of State. I am a
child in these things, but doubtless what was done was done very well."

Johnnie pushed away the pewter plate in front of him. "My man," he said,
"you can speak freely to me. What think you in truth?"

The landlord stared at him for a moment, and then suddenly sat down at
the table.

"I don't know, sir," he said, "who or what you may be. As thou art from
the Court, thou art a good Catholic doubtless, or wouldst not be there,
but you have an honest face, and I will tell you what I think. Under
King Hal I gat me to church, and profited well thereby in that reign,
for the abbey being broke up, and the friars dispersed, there was no
more free beer for any rogue or masterless man to get from the buttery,
aye, and others of this town with property, and well-liked men, who
would drink the monks' brew free rather than pay for mine own. So, God
bless King Henry, I say, who brought much custom to mine inn, being a
wise prince. And now, look you, I go to Mass, and custom diminisheth not
at all. I have had this inn for thirty years, my father before me for
fifty; and in this inn, sir, I mean to die. It is nothing to me whether
bread and wine are but bread and wine, or whether they be That which all
must now believe. I am but a simple man, and let wiser than I decide,
keeping always with those who must certainly know better than I.
Meanwhile I shall sell my beer and bring up my family as an honest man
should do--God's death! What is that?"

He started from his chair as Johnnie did likewise, for even as the man
spoke a most horrid and untoward noise filled all the air.

Both men rushed to the bulging window of leaded glass, which looked out
into the High Street.

There was a huge shouting, a frightful stamp and clatter as of feet and
horses' hooves upon the stones, but above all there came a shrill,
snarling, neighing noise, ululating with a ferocity that was not human,
a vibration of rage, which was like nothing Commendone had ever heard
before.

"Jesus! But what is this?" Johnnie cried, flinging open the casement,
his face suddenly white with fear--so utterly outside all experience was
the dreadful screeching, which now seemed a thousand times louder.

He peered out into the street and saw people rushing to the doors and
windows of all the houses opposite, with faces as white and startled as
his own. He looked to the right, for it was from there the pealing
horror of sound was coming, but he could see nothing, because less than
twenty yards away the High Street made a sudden turn at right angles
towards the Market Place.

"It is some devil, certes," the landlord panted. "Apollyon must have
just such a voice. What----"

The words died away upon his lips, and in a moment the two men and all
the other watchers in the street knew what had happened.

With a furious stamping of hooves, round the corner of an old timbered
house, leaping from the ground in ungovernable fury, and in that leaping
advancing but very slowly, came a huge stallion, black as a coal, its
eyes red with malice, its ears laid back over its head, the huge
bull-like neck erect, and smeared with foam and blood.

Commendone had never seen such a monster; indeed, there were but few of
them in England at that time--the product of Lanarkshire mares crossed
with the fierce Flanders stallions, only just then introduced into
England by that Earl of Arran who had been a suitor for the hand of the
Princess Elizabeth.

The thing seemed hardly horse, but malignant demon rather, and with a
cold chill at their hearts the landlord and his guest saw that the
stallion gripped a man by one arm and shoulder, a man that was no more a
man, but a limp bundle of clothes, and shook him as a terrier shakes a
rat.

The bloody and evil eyes glared round on every side as the great
creature heaved itself into the air, the long "feather" of silky hair
about its fetlocks waving like the pennons of lances. There was a
dreadful sense of _display_. The stallion was consciously and wickedly
performing, showing what it could do in its strength of hatred--evil,
sentient, malign.

It tossed the wretched man up into the air, and flung him lifeless and
broken at its fore feet. And then, horror upon horror, it began to pound
him, smashing, breaking, and treading out what little life remained,
with an action the more dreadful and alarming in that it was one
absolutely alien to the usual habits of the horse.

It stopped at last, stiffened all over, its long, wicked head stretched
out like that of a pointing dog, while its eyes roved round as if in
search of a new victim.

There was a dead silence in the street.

Then Johnnie saw a short, thick-set man, with a big head and a brown
face, come out from the archway opposite, where he had been standing in
amazement, into the full street, facing the silent, waiting beast.

Something stabbed the young man's heart strangely. It was not fear for
the man; it was quite distinct from the breathless excitement and
sickening wonder of the moment.

Johnnie had seen this man before.

With slow, very slow, but resolute and determined steps, the man drew
nearer to the stallion.

He was within four yards of it, when it threw up its head and opened its
mouth wide, showing the great glistening yellow teeth, the purple lips
curling away from them, in a rictus of malignity. From the open mouth,
covered with blood and foam, once more came the frightful cry, the mad
challenge.

Even as that happened, the man, who carried a stout stick of ash such as
drovers used, leapt at the beast and struck it full and fair upon the
muzzle, a blow so swift, and so hefty withal, that the ash-plant snapped
in twain and flew up into the air.

The next thing happened very swiftly. The man, who had a short cloak
upon his arm, threw it over the stallion's head with a sudden movement.
There was a white flash in the sunshine, as his short knife left his
belt, and with one fierce blow plunged deep into the lower portion of
the stallion's neck just above the great roll of fat and muscle which
arched down towards the chest.

Then, with both hands at the handle of the knife, the man pulled it
upwards, leaning back as he did so, and putting all his strength into
what he did, cutting through the living veins and trachea as a butcher
cuts meat.

There was a dreadful scream, which changed upon an instant to a cough, a
fountain of dark blood, and the monster staggered and fell over upon its
side with a crash.

A minute afterwards Commendone was out in the High Street mingling with
the excited crowd of townspeople.

He touched the sturdy brown-faced man upon the shoulder.

"Come into the inn," he said. "I have somewhat to say to you, John
Hull."




CHAPTER IV

PART TAKEN IN AFFAIRS BY THE HALF TESTOON


It was seven o'clock in the evening when John Commendone arrived at the
Tower. He went to the Queen's Gallery, and found that Her Majesty had
just come back from Vespers in St. John's Chapel, and was in the Privy
Garden with some of her ladies.

Mr. Ambrose Cholmondely was lieutenant of the guard at this hour, and
Johnnie went to him, explaining that he must see the Queen at once.

"She won't see any one, Commendone," young Mr. Cholmondely answered. "I
really cannot send your name to Her Grace."

"But I must see Her Grace. It is highly important."

Cholmondely looked at Commendone.

"You have ridden far and fast," he said. "You might even be the bearer
of despatches, my friend John. But I cannot send in your name to the
Queen. Even if I could, I certainly would not do so when you are like
this, in such disorder of dress. You've come from no battle-field with
news of victory. If the matter urgeth, as you say, then you have your
own remedy. The King Consort lies ill in his own lodging; he hath not
been seen of any one since supper last night. I don't know where you
have been or what you have been doing, and it is no concern of mine, i'
faith, but you can very well go to the King's quarters, where, if your
business is as you say, one of the dons or Spanish priests will speedily
arrange an audience for you with Her Grace."

Johnnie knew the rigid etiquette of the Court very well.

Technically young Mr. Cholmondely was within his rights. He had received
orders and must obey them. Upon the other hand, no one knew better than
Commendone that this young gallant was a fool, puffed up with the favour
of ladies, and who from the first had regarded him as in some sense a
rival--was jealous of him.

John realised in a moment that no one of the Court except the Queen and
King Philip's private gentlemen knew of His Highness's absence. It had
been put about that he was ill. It would have been an easy thing for
Johnnie to turn away from the gate of the Privy Garden, where, in the
soft sunset light, Mr. Cholmondely ruffled it so bravely, and find
Father Diego. But he was in no mood at that moment for compromise. He
was perfectly certain of his own right to admission. He knew that the
tidings he bore were far more important than any point of etiquette. He
was cool and suave enough as a general rule--not at all inclined, or a
likely person, to infringe the stately machinery which controlled the
lives of monarchs. But now he was in a mood when these things seemed
shrunken, smaller than they had ever been before. He himself was
animated by a great private purpose, he bore a message from the King
himself to the Queen; he was in a state of exaltation, and looking at
the richly dressed young courtier before him, remembering what a
popinjay and lap-dog of ladies he was, he felt a sudden contempt for the
man who barred his way.

He wouldn't have felt it before, but he was older now. He had bitten in
upon life, an extraordinary strength and determination influenced him
and ran in his blood.

"Mr. Cholmondely," he said, "nevertheless, I will go to the Queen, as I
am, and go at once."

Cholmondely was just inside the gates which led to the Privy Garden,
strolling up and down, while outside the gates were two archers of the
Queen's Guard, and a halberdier of the garrison, who was sitting upon a
low stone bench.

Johnnie had passed the men and was standing within the garden.

"You will, Mr. Commendone?"

Johnnie took a step forward and brushed the other away with his left
arm, contemptuously, as if he had been a serving-man. Then he strode
onwards.

The other's sword was out of his scabbard in a second, and he threw
himself on guard, his face livid with passion. Johnnie made no motion
towards his own sword hilt, but he grasped the other's light rapier with
his right hand, twisted it away with a swift muscular motion, broke it
upon his knee and flung the pieces into Cholmondely's face.

"I go to Her Majesty," he said. "When I have done my business with her,
I will see you again, Mr. Cholmondely, and you can send your friend to
my lodging."

Without a further glance at the lieutenant of the guard he hurried down
a broad gravelled path, edged with stocks, asters and dark green borders
of box, towards where he knew he would find the Queen.

Cholmondely stood, swaying and reeling for a second. No word escaped
him, but from his cheek, cut by the broken sword, came a thin trickle of
scarlet.

Johnnie had turned out of the broad walk and into the terraced
rose-garden, which went down to the river--where he saw a group of
brightly-dressed ladies, rightly conjecturing that the Queen was among
them--when he heard running steps behind him.

Cholmondely had almost caught him up, and a dagger gleamed in his right
hand. A loud oath burst from him, and he flung himself upon Commendone.

At the exact moment that he did so, the ladies had turned, and saw what
was going on; and while the two young men wrestled together,
Cholmondely vainly trying to free his dagger-arm from Commendone's
vice-like grip, there came a loud, angry voice which both knew well,
booming through the pergolas of roses. The instant the great voice
struck upon their ears they fell away from each other, arms dropped to
their sides, breaths panting, eyes of hate and anger suddenly changed
and full of apprehension.

There were one or two shrieks and feminine twitters, a rustle of silk
skirts, a jangle of long silver chatelaines, and like a bouquet of
flowers coming towards them, the queen's ladies hurried over the lawn;
Her Grace's small form was a little in advance of the rest.

Queen Mary came up to them, her thin face suffused with passion.

"Sirs," she shouted, "what mean you by this? Are gentlemen of Our Court
to brawl in Our gardens? By the Mass, it shall go very hard with you
gentlemen. It----"

She saw Commendone.

Her voice changed in a second.

"Mr. Commendone! Mr. Commendone! You here? I had looked to see you hours
agone. Where is----"

She had nearly said it, but a warning flash from the young man's eyes
stayed the wild inquiry upon her lips. Clever as she was, the Queen
caught herself up immediately.

"What is this, sir?" she said, more softly, and in Spanish.

Johnnie sank on one knee.

"I have just come to the Tower, M'am," he said, "with news for Your
Majesty. As you see, I am but just from my horse. I sought you
post-haste, and were told that you were here. Unfortunately, I could not
persuade Mr. Cholmondely of the urgency of my business. He had orders to
admit no one, and daring greatly, I pushed past him, and in the
execution of his duty he followed me."

The Queen said nothing for a moment. Then she turned upon Cholmondely.

"And who are you, Mr. Cholmondely," she said in a cold, hard voice, "to
deny the Esquire Our presence when he comes with special tidings to Us?"

Cholmondely bowed low.

"I did but hold to my orders, Madam," he said, in a low voice.

The Queen ground her high-heeled shoe into the gravel.

"Your sword, Mr. Cholmondely," she said, "you will hand it to the
Esquire, and you will go to your lodging to await our pleasure."

At that, the lieutenant of the guard gave a loud sob, and his face
became purple.

The Queen looked at him in amazement and then saw that his scabbard was
empty.

In a moment Johnnie had whipped out his own riding-sword and pressed it
into Mr. Cholmondely's hand.

"Stupid!" he said, "here thou art. Now give it me in order."

The Queen had taken it all in immediately. The daughter of a King to
whom the forms and etiquette of chivalry were one of the guiding
principles of life, she realised in a moment what had occurred.

"Boys! Boys!" she said, impatiently. "A truce to your quarrels. If Mr.
Commendone robbed you of your sword, Mr. Cholmondely, he hath very well
made amends in giving you his. You were right, Mr. Cholmondely, in not
admitting Mr. Commendone to Our presence, because you knew not the
business upon which he came. And you were right, Mr. Commendone, in
coming to Us as you did at all hazards. Art two brave, hot-headed boys.
Now take each other's hand; let there be no more of this, for"--and her
voice became lowing and full of menace again--"if I hear so much as the
rattle of thy swords against each other, in future, neither of thee will
e'er put hand to pummel again."

The two young men touched each other's hand--both of them, to tell the
truth, excessively glad that affairs had turned out in this way.

"Get you back to your post," the Queen said to the lieutenant. "Mr.
Commendone, come here."

She turned swiftly, passing through her ladies, who all remained a few
yards behind.

"Well, well," she said impatiently, "hath His Highness returned? Hath
he borne the fatigue of the journey well?"

Most carefully, with studied phrases, furtively watching her face, with
the skill and adroitness of an old courtier, Johnnie told his story. At
any moment he expected an outburst of temper, but it did not come. To
his surprise, the Queen was now in a quiet and reflective mood. She
walked up and down the bowling green with him, her ladies standing apart
at one edge of it, nodding and whispering to see this young gallant so
favoured, and wondering what his mission might be.

The Queen asked Johnnie minute questions about Mr. Peter Lacel's house.
Was it well found? Would His Highness find proper accommodation to lie
there? Was Mr. Lacel married, and had he daughters?

Johnnie assured Her Grace that Mr. Lacel was a widower and without
children. He could plainly see that the Queen had that fierce jealousy
of a woman wedded late. Not only the torturing of other women, but also
the stronger and more pervading dislike of a husband living any life,
going through any experiences that she herself did not share. At the
same time, he saw also that the Queen was doing her very best to
overcome such thoughts as these, was endeavouring to assume the matron
of common sense and to put the evil thing away from her.

Then, just as the young man was beginning to feel a little embarrassed
at the quick patter of questions, wondering if he would be able to be
as adequate as hitherto, remembering guiltily where he had met the King
the night before, the Queen ceased to speak of her husband.

She began to ask him of Dr. Rowland Taylor and his end.

He told her some of the details as quietly as he could, trying to soften
the horror which even now overwhelmed him in memory. At one question he
hesitated for a moment, mistaking its intent, and the Queen touched him
smartly on the arm.

"No, no," she said, "I don't want to hear of the runagate's torment. He
suffered rightly, and doubtless his sufferings were great. But tell me
not of them. They are not meet for our ears. Tell me of what he said,
and if grace came to him at last."

He was forced to tell her, as he knew others would tell her afterwards,
of the sturdy denial of the martyr till the very end.

And as he did so, he saw the face, which had been alight with tenderness
and anxiety when the King's name was mentioned, gravely judicial and a
little disgusted when the actual sufferings of the Archdeacon were
touched upon, now become hard and cruel, aflame with bigotry.

"They shall go," the Queen said, rather to herself than to him. "They
shall be rooted out; they shall die the death, and so may God's most
Holy Church be maintained."

At that, with another and astonishing change of mood, she looked at the
young man, looked him up and down, saw his long boots powdered with
dust, his dress in disorder, him travel-stained and weary.

"You have done well," she said, with a very kindly and eminently human
smile. "I would that all the younger gentlemen of our old houses were
like you, Mr. Commendone. His Highness trusts you and likes you. I
myself have reason to think well of you. You are tired by your long
ride. Get you to your lodging, and if so you wish it, you shall do as
you please to-night, for when His Highness returns I will see that he
hath no need of you. And take this from your Queen."

In her hand the Queen carried a little volume, bound in Nile-green skin,
powdered with gold heraldic roses. It was the _Tristia et Epistolae ex
Ponto_ of Ovid, which she had been reading. Johnnie sank upon one knee
and took the book from the ivory-white and wrinkled hand.

"Madam," he said, "I will lose my life rather than this gracious gift."

"Hey ho!" the Queen answered. "Tell that to your mistress, Mr.
Commendone, if you have one. Still, the book is rare, and when you read
of the poet's sorrows at Tomi, think sometimes of the giver who--and do
not doubt it--hath many sorrows of her own. It is an ill thing to rule
We sometimes think, Mr. Commendone, but God hath put Us in Our place,
and We must not falter."

She turned. "Lady Paget," she called, "I have done with this young spark
for the nonce; come you, and help me pick red roses, red roses, for my
chamber. The King loveth deep red roses, and I am told that they are the
favoured flower of all noble gentlemen and ladies in the dominions of
Spain."

Bowing deeply once more, and walking backwards to the edge of the
bowling green, Johnnie withdrew.

He passed through the flower-bordered ways till he came to the gate of
the garden.

Outside the gate this time, on the big gravelled sweep which went in
front of the Palace, Cholmondely was walking up and down, the blood
dried upon his cheek, but not washed away. He turned in his sentinel's
parade as Johnnie came out, and the two young men looked at each other
for a moment in silence.

"What's it to be?" Johnnie said, with a smile--"Lincoln's Inn Fields
to-morrow morning? Her Grace will never know of it."

"I was waiting for you, Johnnie," the other answered. "No, we'll not
fight, unless you wish it. Come you to the Common Room, and the pantler
shall boil his kettle and brew us some sack."

Johnnie thrust his arm into the other's and together they passed away
from the garden, better friends at that moment than they had ever been
before--friends destined to be friends for two hours before they were to
part forever, though during these hours one of them was to do the other
a service which would help to alter the whole course of his life.

They went into the Common Room, and the pantler was summoned and ordered
to brew them a bowl of sack--simply the hot wine and water, with added
spices, which our grandmothers of the present time sipped over their
cards, and called Negus.

Commendone sunk down into a big oak chair, his hands stretched out along
the arms, his whole body relaxed in utter weariness, his dark face now
grown quite white. There were lines about his eyes which had not been
there a few hours before. The eyes themselves were dull and glassy, the
lips were flaccid.

Cholmondely looked at him in amazement. "Go by, Jeronymo!" he said,
using a popular tag, or catch-word, of the time, the "What ho, she
bumps!" of the period, though there were no music-halls in those days to
popularise such gems of phrase. "What ails you, Esquire? I was
frightened also by Her Grace, and, i' faith, 'tis a fearful thing to
hear the voice of Majesty in reproof. But thou camest better out of it
than I, though all was well at the end of it for both of us. Is it with
you still?"

Johnnie shook his head feebly. "No," he said, lifting a three-handled
silver cup of sack to his lips. "'Twas not that, though I was sorely
angered with you, Ambrose; but I have had a long journey into the
country, and have returned but half an hour agone. I have seen
much--much." He put one hand to his throat, swallowing as he spoke, and
then recollecting himself, adding hurriedly, "Upon affairs of State."

The other gallant sipped his wine. "Thou need'st not have troubled to
tell me that," he said dryly. "When a gentleman bursts into the Privy
Garden against all order he is doubtless upon business of State. What
brought you to this doing I do not know, and I don't ask you, Johnnie.
All's well that ends well, and I hope we are to be friends."

"With all my goodwill," Commendone answered. "We should have been
friends before."

The other nodded. He was a tall, handsome young man, a little florid in
face, but of a high and easy bearing. There was, nevertheless, something
infinitely more boyish and ingenuous in his appearance than in that of
Commendone. The latter, perhaps of the same age as his companion, was
infinitely more unreadable than the other. He seemed older, not in
feature indeed, but in manner and capability. Cholmondely was explicit.
There was a swagger about him. He was thoroughly typical. Johnnie was
cool, collected, and aware.

"To tell you the truth, Commendone," Cholmondely said, with a light
laugh which rang with perfect sincerity, "to tell you the truth, I have
been a little jealous of you since you came to Court. Thou art a
newcomer here, and thou hast risen to very high favour; and then, by the
Mass! thou dost not seem to care about it all. Here am I, a squire of
dames, who pursue the pleasures of Venus with great ardour and not ever
with success. But as for thee, John Commendone of Kent, i' faith, the
women are quarrelling for thee! Eyes grow bright when thou comest into
the dance. A week agone, at the barrier fight in the great hall, Cicily
Thwaites, that I had marked out for myself to be her knight, was looking
at thee with the eyes of a duck in a tempest of thunder. So that is
that, Johnnie. 'Tis why I have not liked thee much. But we're friends
now, and see here----"

He stepped up to the young man in the chair and clapped his hand upon
his shoulder. "See here," he went on in a deeper voice, "thou hast well
purged the dregs and leaven of my dislike. Thou gav'st me thy sword when
hadst disarmed me, and I stood before Her Grace shamed. I don't forget
that. I will never forget it. There will never be any savour or smell of
malice between thou and me."

The wine had roused the blood in Commendone's tired veins. He was more
himself now. The terrible fatigue and nerve tension of the past few
hours was giving place to a sense of physical well-being. He looked at
the handsome young fellow before him standing up so taut and trim, with
the sunlight pouring in upon his face from one of the long open windows,
his head thrown slightly back, his lips a little parted, bright with the
health of youth, and felt glad that Ambrose Cholmondely was to be his
friend. And he would want friends now, for some reason or other--why he
could not divine--he had a curious sense that friends would be valuable
to him now. He felt immeasurably older than the other, immeasurably
older than he had ever felt before. There was something big and stern
coming into his life. The diplomatic, the cautious, trained side of him
knew that it must hold out hands to meet all those that were proffered
in the name of friend.

Cholmondely sat down upon the table, swinging his legs backwards and
forwards, and stroking the smooth pointed yellow beard which lay upon
his ruff, with one long hand covered with rings.

"And how like you, Johnnie," he said, "your attendance upon His Majesty?
From what we of the Queen's Household hear, the garden of that service
is not all lavender. Nay, nor ale and skittles neither."

Johnnie shrugged his shoulders, his face quite expressionless. In a
similar circumstance, Ambrose Cholmondely would have gleefully entered
into a gossip and discussion, but Commendone was wiser than that, older
than his years. He knew the value of silence, the virtue of a still
tongue.

"Sith you ask me, Ambrose," he answered, sipping his wine quietly, "I
find the service good enough."

The other grinned with boyish malice. There was a certain rivalry
between those English gentlemen who had been attached to King Philip
and those who were of the Queen's suite. Her Majesty was far more
inclined to show favour to those whom she had put about her husband than
to the members of her own _entourage_. They were picked men, and the gay
young English sparks resented undue and too rapid promotion and favour
shown to men of their own standing, while, Catholics as most of them
were, there was yet an innate political distrust instilled into them by
their fathers and relations of this Spanish Match. And many courtiers
thought that, despite all the safe-guards embodied in the marriage
contract, the marriage might yet mean a foreign dominion over the
realm--so fond and anxious was the Queen.

"Each man to his taste," Cholmondely said. "I don't know precisely what
your duties are, Johnnie, but for your own sake I well hope they don't
bring you much into the companionship of such gentry as Sir John
Shelton, let us say."

Johnnie could hardly repress a start, though it passed unnoticed by his
friend. "Sir John Shelton?" he said, wondering if the other knew or
suspected anything of the events of the last twenty-four hours. "Sir
John Shelton? It's little enough I have to do with him."

"And all the better."

Johnnie's ears were pricked. He was most anxious to get to know what was
behind Cholmondely's words. It would be worth a good deal to him to have
a thorough understanding of the general Court view about the King
Consort. He affected an elaborate carelessness, even as he did so
smiling within himself at the ease by which this boy could be drawn.

"Why all the better?" he said. "I care not for a bully-rook such as
Shelton any more than you, but I have nothing to do with him."

"Then you make no excursions and sallies late o' nights?"

Commendone's face was an elaborate mask of wonder.

"Sallies o' nights?" he said.

The other young man swung his legs to and fro, and began to chuckle. He
caught hold of the edge of the table with both hands, and looked down on
Johnnie in the chair with an amused smile.

"And I had thought you were right in the thick of it," he said. "Thy
very innocence, Johnnie, hath prevented thee from seeing what goes on
under thy nose. Why, His Highness, Sir John Shelton, and Mr. Clarence
Attwood leave the Tower night after night and hie them to old Mother
Motte's in Duck Lane whenever the Queen hath the vapours and thinketh
her lord is in bed, or at his prayers. Phew!"--he made a gesture of
disgust. "It stinketh all over the Court. I see, Commendone, now why
thou knowest nothing of this. The King chooseth for his night-bird
friends ruffians like Shelton and Attwood. He would not dare ask one
that is a gentleman to wallow in brothels with him. But be assured, I
speak entirely the truth."

Johnnie shrugged his shoulders once more. "I know nothing of it," he
said, with a quick, side-long glance at Ambrose Cholmondely. "I am not
asked to be Esquire on such occasions, at any rate."

"And wouldst not go if thou wert," Cholmondely said, loudly. "Nor would
any other gentleman that I know of--only the very scum and vermin of the
Court. The game of love, look you, is very well. I am no purist, but I
hunt after my own kind, and so should we all do. I don't bemire myself
in the stews. Well, there it is. And now, much refreshed by this good
wine, and much heartened by our compact, I'll leave thee. I must get
back to guard at the garden gate. Her Grace will be leaving anon to
dress for supper. Perchance to-night the King will be well enough to
make appearance. While thou hast been away, he hath been close in his
quarters and very sick. The Spanish priests have been buzzing round him
like autumn wasps. And Thorne, the chirurgeon from Wood Street, a very
skilful man, hath, they say, been summoned this morning to the Palace.
Addio!"

With a bright smile and a wave of his hand, he flung out of the room.

Johnnie finished the lukewarm sack in his goblet. He had learnt
something that he wished to know, and as he saw his friend pass beyond
the windows outside, his feet crunching the gravel and humming a little
song, Johnnie smiled bitterly to himself. He knew rather more about
King Philip's illness than most people in England at that moment. And as
for Duck Lane--well! he knew something of that also. As the thought came
to him, indeed, he shuddered. He remembered the great ham-like face of
the procuress who kept this fashionable hell. He heard her voice
speaking to him as, very surely, she spoke to but few people who visited
her there. He thought of Ambrose Cholmondely's fastidiousness, and he
smiled again as he wondered what the Esquire would say if he only knew.

It was not a merry smile. There was no humour in it. It was bitter,
cynical, and fraught with something of fear and expectation.

He had drunk the wine, and it had reanimated him physically; but he rose
now and realised how weary he was in mind, and also--for he was always
most scrupulous and careful about his dress--how stained and travel-worn
in appearance.

He walked out of the Common Room, his riding sword and spurs clanking as
he did so, mounted the stairway of the hall and entered the long
corridor which led to his own room.

He had nearly got to his doorway when he heard, coming from a little way
beyond it, a low, musical, humming voice. He remembered with a start
that there was an interview before him which would mean much one way or
the other to his private desires.

During the interview with the Queen and the squabble with Ambrose
Cholmondely--as also afterwards, when he was drinking in the Common
Room--he had lost mental sight and grip of his own private wishes and
affairs. Now they all came back to him in a flash as he heard the
humming voice coming from the end of the corridor--

    "Bartl'my Fair! Bartl'my Fair!
    Swanked I and drank I when I was there;
    Boiled and roast goose and baiting of bear,
    Who plays with cudgels at Bartl'my Fair?"

He turned into his own room and looked round. He saw that some of his
accoutrements had been taken away. There were vacant pegs upon the
walls. He sat down upon the small low bed, bent forward, clasped his
hands upon his knees, and wondered whether he should speak or not. He
wondered very greatly whether he dare make a query, start an
investigation, nearer to his heart than anything else in the world.

At Chelmsford he had run out of the Tun Inn and touched the burly man
who had killed the maddened stallion on the shoulder. He had brought him
into the ordinary, sat him down in a chair, put a great stoup of ale
before him, and then begun to talk to him.

"I know who you are," he said, "very well, because I was one of the
gentlemen riding from town to Hadley with your late master, Dr. Taylor.
I saw you when his Reverence was wishing good-bye outside St. Botolph,
his church, and I heard the words your master said--eke that you were
the 'faithfullest servant that ever a man had.' What do you here now,
John Hull?"

The man had drunk his great stoup of ale very calmly. The daring deed in
which he had been engaged had seemed to affect his nerves in no way at
all. He was shortish, thick-set, with a broad chest measurement, and a
huge thickness between chest and back. His face was tanned to the colour
of an old saddle, very keen and alert, and he was clean-shaved, a rather
odd and distinguishing feature in a serving-man of that time.

He told Johnnie that, now he knew, he recognised him as one of the
company who rode with Dr. Taylor to his death. He had followed the
cavalcade almost immediately, and on foot. The way was long, and he had
arrived at Chelmsford faint and weary with very little money in his
pouch, and been compelled to wait there a time for rest and food. His
design was to proceed to Hadley, where he knew he could get work and
would be welcome.

Mr. Peter Lacel, he told Johnnie in the inn, would doubtless employ him,
for though a Catholic gentleman, he had been a friend of the Rector's in
the past.

"You want work, then?" Johnnie had said. "You do not wish to be a
masterless man, a hedge-dodger, poacher, or a rogue?"

"Work I must have, sir," John Hull replied, "but it must be with a good
master. Mr. Peter Lacel will take me on. Masterless, I should be a very
great rogue."

All this happened in the dining-room of the Chelmsford inn, Johnnie
sitting in his chair and looking at the thick, brown-faced man with a
cool scrutiny which well disguised the throbbing excitement he felt at
seeing him--at meeting him in this strange, and surely pre-ordained
fashion.

"I'll tell thee who I am," Johnnie had said to the man, naming himself
and his state. "That the Doctor spoke of you as he did when going to his
death is enough recommendation to me of your fidelity. I need a servant
myself, but I would ask you this, John Hull: You are, doubtless, of a
certain party. If I took you to my service, how would you square with
who and what I am? A led man of mine must be loyal."

Hull had answered but very little. "Ye can but try me, sir," he said,
"but I will come with you to London very joyfully. And I well think----"

He stopped, mumbled something, and stood there, his hands stained with
the blood of the horse he had killed, rather clumsy, very much
tongue-tied, but with something faithful and even hungry in his eyes.

Johnnie's own servant was a man called Thumb, a dissolute London fellow,
who had been with him for a month, and who had performed his duties in a
very perfunctory way. Life had been so quick and vivid, so full of
movement and the newness of Court life, that the Groom of the Body had
hardly had time to remember the personal discomfort he endured from the
fellow who had been recommended to him by one of the lieutenants of the
Queen's Archers. He had always meant to get rid of him at the first
opportunity. Now the opportunity presented itself, though it was not for
mere convenience that Commendone had engaged his new servitor.

He had not the slightest doubt in his own mind that the man was sent to
him--put in his way--by the Power which ruled and controlled the
fortunes of men. Living as he did, and had done for many years, in a
quiet, fastidious, but very real dream and communion with things that
the hand or body do not touch and see, he had always known within
himself that the goings-in and goings-out of those who believe depend
not at all upon chance. Like all men of that day, Commendone was deeply
religious. His religion had not made him bigoted, though he clung to the
Church in which he had been brought up. But, nevertheless, it was very
real to him. There were good and bad angels in those days, who fought
for the souls of men. The powers of good and evil were invoked....

The Esquire was certain that this sturdy John Hull had come into his
life with a set purpose.

He was riding back to London with one fixed idea in his mind. One word
rang and chimed in his brain--the word was "Elizabeth!"

He had left Chelmsford with John Hull definitely enrolled as his
servant, had hired a horse for him from the landlord of the "Tun," and
had taken him straight to the Tower. When he had entered within the
walls, he had told his man Thumb that he would dismiss him on the
morrow, and pay him his wages due. He had told him, moreover, that--just
as he was hurrying to the Privy Garden with news for the Queen--he must
take John Hull to his quarters and put him into the way of service. For
a moment, Thumb had been inclined to be insolent, but one single look
from the dark, cool eyes, one hinted flash of anger upon the oval
olive-coloured face, had sent the Londoner humbly to what he had to do;
while the fellow looked, not without a certain apprehension, at the
thick-set quiet man who followed him to be shown his new duties....

    "The Spanish don came over seas,
          Hey ho nonino;
    A Gracious Lady tried to please,
          Hey ho nonny.

    The country fellows strung their bows,
          Hey ho nonino;
    What 'twill be, no jack man knows!
          Hey ho nonny."

Johnnie jumped up from his bed, strode out of the room, walked a yard or
two down the corridor, and entered another and larger room, which he
shared with three other members of the suite.

It was the place where they kept their armour, their riding-boots, and
some of their swords.

As he came in he saw that Hull was sitting upon an overturned barrel,
which had held quarels for cross-bows.

The man had tied a piece of sacking round his waist and over his
breeches, and was hard at work.

Johnnie's three or four damascened daggers were rubbed bright with hog's
lard and sand. His extra set of holster pistols gleamed fresh and
new--the rust had been all removed from flint-locks and hammers; while
the stocks shone with porpoise oil.

And now the new servant was polishing a high-peaked Spanish saddle, and
all the leather trappings of a charger, with an inside crust of barley
bread and a piece of apple rind.

Directly the man saw his new master he stood up and made a saluting
motion with his hand.

Johnnie looked at him coldly, though inwardly he felt an extreme
pleasure at the sight of his new recruit so lately added to him, so
swift to get to work, and withal so blithe about it.

"You must not sing the songs I have heard you singing," he said,
shortly. "Don't you know where you are?"

"I had forgotten, sir," the man replied. "I have a plaguey knowledge of
rhymes. They do run in my head, and must out."

"They must not, I assure you," Johnnie answered, "but I like this well
enough. Hast got thee to work at once, then."

"I love it, sir. To handle such stuff as yours is rare for a man like
me. Look you here, sir"--he lifted up a small dagger which he withdrew
from its sheath of stag's leather, dyed vermilion--"Hear how it
ringeth!"

He twanged the supple blade with his forefinger, and the little
shivering noise rang out into the room.

The man's keen, brown face was lit up with simple enjoyment. "I love
weapons, master," he said, as if in apology.

Johnnie knew at once that here was the man he had been looking for for
weeks. The man who cared, the faithful man; but he knew also, or thought
he knew, that it was but poor policy to praise a servant unduly.

"Well, well," he said, "you can get on with your work. To-morrow
morning, I will see you fitted out as becometh my body servant. To-night
you will go below with the other men. I have spoken to the intendant
that I have a new servant, and you will have your evening-meat and a
place to lie in."

He turned to go.

With all his soul he was longing to ask this man certain questions. He
believed that he had been sent to him to tell him of the whereabouts of
the girl to whom, so strangely, at such a dreadful hour, he had vowed
his life. But the long control over temperament and emotion which old
Father Chilches had imposed upon him--the very qualities which made him,
already, a successful courtier--stood him in good stead now. The
dominant desire of his heart was to be repressed. He knew very well, he
realised perfectly clearly, how intimate a member of Dr. Taylor's
household this faithful servant--"the faithfullest servant that ever man
had"--must have been. And knowing it, he felt sure that the time was not
yet come to ask John Hull any questions. He must arouse no suspicions
within the man's mind. Hull had entered his service gladly, and promised
to be more than adequate and worthy of any trust that could be reposed
in him. But he had seen Johnnie riding away with his beloved master, one
of those who had taken him to torture and death. The very shrewdness and
cleverness imprinted upon the fellow's face were enough to say that he
would at once take alarm at any questioning about Dr. Taylor's family,
at this moment.

John Hull scraped with his foot and made a clumsy bow as his new master
turned away. Then, suddenly, he seemed to remember something. His face
changed in expression.

"God forgive me, sir," he said, "indeed, I had near forgot it. When I
went into your chamber and took this harness for cleaning, there was a
letter lying there for you. I can read, sir; Dr. Taylor taught me to
read somewhat. I took the letter, fearing that it might be overlooked or
e'en taken away, for there are a plaguey lot of serving-men in this
passage. 'Tis here, sir, and I crave you pardon me for forgetting of it
till now."

He handed Johnnie a missive of thick yellow-brown paper--such as was
woven from linen rags at Arches Smithfield Factory of that day. The
letter was folded four-square and tied round with a cord of green silk,
and where the threads intersected at the back was a broad seal of dull
red wax, bearing the sign of a lamb in its centre.

Johnnie pulled off the cord, the wax cracked, and the thick yellow paper
rustled as he pulled it open.

This was the letter:

     "HONOURED SIR,--This from my house in Chepe. Thy honoured
     father who hath lately left the City hath left with me a sum of
     money which remaineth here at your charges, and for your
     disposal thereof as you may think fit. This shall be sent to
     you upon your letter and signature, to-morrow an you so wish.

     "Natheless, should you come to my house to-night I will hand it
     into your keeping in gold coin. I will say that Sir Henry
     expressed hope that you might care to come to my poor house
     which has long been the agency for Commendone. For your
     father's son, sir, there will be very open welcome.

     "Your obt. svt.,
        and good friend,
          ROBERT CRESSEMER,
            Alderman of ye City of London."

Commendone read the letter through with care.

His father had been most generous since Johnnie had arrived at Court,
and the young man was in no need of money. Sir Henry had, indeed, hinted
that further supplies would be sent shortly, and he must have arranged
it with the Alderman ere he left the City.

Johnnie sighed. His father had always been good to him. No desire of his
had ever been left ungratified. Many sons of noblemen at Court had
neither such a generous allowance nor perfect equipment as he had. He
never thought of his father and the old house in Kent without a little
pang of regret. Was it worth it all? Were not the silent woods of
Commendone, with their shy forest creatures, better far than this
stately citadel and home of kings?

His life had been so tranquil in the past. The happy days had gone by
with the regularity of some slow-turning wheel. Now all was stress and
turmoil. Dark and dreadful doings encompassed him. He was afloat upon
strange waters, and there was no pilot aboard, nor did he know what port
he should make, what unknown coast-line should greet his troubled eyes
when dawn should come.

These thoughts were but fleeting, as he sat in his bedroom, where he had
taken the letter from Mr. Cressemer. He sent them away with an effort of
will. The past life was definitely over; now he must gather himself
together and consider the immediate future without vain regrets.

As he mounted the stairs from the Common Room he had it in mind to
change from his riding costume and sleep. He needed sleep. He wanted to
enter that mysterious country so close to the frontiers of death, to be
alone that he might think of Elizabeth. He knew now how men dreamed and
meditated of their loves, why lovers loved to be alone.

He held the letter in his hand, looking down at the firm, clear writing
with lack-lustre eyes. What should he do? sleep, lose himself in happy
fancies, or go to the house of the Alderman? He had no Court duties that
night.

He knew Robert Cressemer's name well. Every one knew it in London, but
Commendone had heard it mentioned at home for many years. Mr. Cressemer,
who would be the next Lord Mayor, was one of those merchant princes who,
ever since the time of that great commercial genius, Henry VII, had
become such an important factor in the national life.

For many years the Alderman, the foundation of whose fortune had been
the export of English wool, had been in intimate relations, both of
business and friendship, with Sir Henry Commendone. The knight's wool
all went to the warehouses in Chepe. He had shares in the fleet of
trading vessels belonging to Cressemer, which supplied the wool-fairs of
Holland and the Netherlands. The childlike and absolutely uneconomic act
of Edward VI which endeavoured to make all interest illegal, and
enacted that "_whoever shall henceforth lend any sum of money for any
manner of usury, increase, lucre, gain or interest to be had, received,
or hoped for, over and above the sum so lent_," should suffer serious
penalties, had been repealed.

Banking had received a tremendous impetus, Robert Cressemer had
adventured largely in it, and Sir Henry Commendone was a partner with
him in more than one enterprise.

Of all this Johnnie knew nothing. He had not the slightest idea how rich
his father was, and knew nothing of the fortune that would one day be
his.

He did know, however, that Mr. Cressemer was a very important person
indeed, the admired and trusted confidant of Sir Henry, and a man of
enormous influence. Such a letter, coming from such a man, was hardly to
be neglected by a young courtier. Johnnie knew how, if one of his
colleagues had received it, it would have been shown about in the Common
Room, what rosy visions of fortune and paid bills it would invoke!

He read the letter again. There was no need to go to Mr. Cressemer's
house that night if he did not wish to do so. He was weary, he wanted to
be alone to taste and savour this new thing within him that was called
love. Yet something kept urging him to go, nevertheless. He could not
quite have said what it was, though again the sense that he stood very
much alone and friends were good--especially such a powerful one as
this--crossed his mind. And, as an instance of the quite unconscious but
very real revolution that had taken place in his thoughts during the
last forty hours, it is to be noted that he _did_ feel the need of
friends and supporters.

Yet he was high in favour with the King and Queen, envied by every one,
certain of rapid advancement.

But he no longer thought anything of this. Those great ones were on one
side of a great _something_ which he would not or could not define. He
was on the other, he and the girl with eyes of crushed sapphire and a
red mouth of sorrow.

It would be politic to go.... "I'll put it to chance," he said to
himself at length. "How doth Ovid have it?...

    "'_Casus ubique valet; semper tibi pendeat hamus:
            Quo minime credas gurgite, piscis erit_.'

I remember Father Chilches' translation:

    "'There's always room for chance, so drop thy hook,
    A fish there'll be when least for it you look.'

Here goes!"

He opened his purse to find a coin with which to settle the matter, and
poured out the contents into his palm. There were eight or nine gold
sovereigns of Henry VIII, beautiful coins with "_Hiberniae Rex_" among
the other titles, which were still known as "double ryals," three gold
ducats, coined in that year, with the Queen and King Consort
_vis-a-vis_ and one crown above the heads of both, and one little silver
half testoon.

He put the gold back in his purse and held out the small coin upon his
hand. "What is't to be, little testoon?" he said whimsically, looking at
the big M and crown, "bed and thoughts of her, or the worshipful Master
Cressemer and, I don't doubt, a better supper than I'm likely to get in
the Tower? 'M,' I go."

He spun the coin, and it came down with the initial uppermost. He
laughed and flung it on to a shelf, calling John Hull to help him change
his dress.

Nothing told him that in that spin he had decided--or let it better be
said there was decided for him--the whole course of his life. At that
actual moment!

Thus the intrusion of the little testoon.




CHAPTER V

THE FINDING OF ELIZABETH


At a little before nine in the late twilight, Commendone left the Tower.
He was attended by John Hull, whom he had armed with the short
cutlass-shaped sword which serving-men were allowed to wear.

He might be late, and the City was no very safe place in those days for
people returning home through the dark. Johnnie knew, moreover, that he
would be carrying a considerable sum in gold with him, and it was as
well to have an attendant.

They walked towards Chepe, Johnnie in front, his man a yard or so
behind. It was summer-time, but even in summer London went to bed early,
and the prentices were returning home from their cudgel-play and
shooting at the butts in Finsbury fields.

The sky was a faint primrose above the spires of the town. The sun, that
tempest of fire, had sunk, but still left long lines in the sky, lines
which looked as if they had been drawn by a vermilion pencil; while,
here and there, were locks, friths, and islands of gold and purple
floating in the sky, billowed and upheaved into an infinity of distant
glory.

They went through the narrow streets beneath the hundreds of coloured
signs which hung from shop and warehouse.

At a time when the ordinary porter, prentice, and messenger could hardly
read, each place of business must signify and locate itself by a sign. A
merchant of those days did not send a letter by hand to a business
house, naming it to the messenger. He told the man to go to the sign of
the Three Cranes, the Gold Pig on a black ground, the Tower and Dragon
in such and such a street.

London was not lit on a summer night at this hour. In the winter, up to
half-past eight or so the costers' barrows with their torches provided
the only illumination. After that all was dark, and in summer there was
no artificial light at all when the day had gone.

They came up to the cross standing to the east of Wood Street, which was
silhouetted against the last gleams of day in the sky. Its hexagonal
form of three sculptured tiers, which rose from one another like the
divisions of a telescope, cut out a black pattern against the coloured
background. The niches with their statues, representing many of the
Sovereigns of England, were all in grey shadow, but the large gilt cross
which surmounted it still caught something of the evening fires.

To the east there was the smaller tower of octagonal form, which was the
Conduit, and here also the top was bathed in light--a figure standing
upon a gilded cone and blowing a horn.

The gutters in the streets were dry now, for the rain storm of two days
ago had not lasted long, and they were sticky and odorous with vegetable
and animal filth.

The two men walked in the centre of the street, as was wiser in those
days, for--as still happens in the narrow quarters of old French towns
to-day--garret windows were open, and pails were emptied with but little
regard for those who were passing by.

When they came into Chepe itself, things were a little less congested,
for great houses were built there, and Johnnie walked more quickly. Many
of the houses of the merchant princes were but little if at all inferior
to the mansions of the nobility at that time. They stood often enough in
gloomy and unfrequented courts, and were accessible only by inconvenient
passages, but once arrived at, their interiors were of extraordinary
comfort and magnificence.

Johnnie knew that Mr. Cressemer's house was hereabouts, but was not
certain of the precise location. He looked up through the endless
succession of Saracens' heads, Tudor roses, blue bears, and golden
lambs, but could see nothing in the growing dark. He turned round and
beckoned to John Hull.

"You know the City?" he said.

"Very well, master," the man answered, looking at him, so Johnnie
thought, with a very strange expression.

"Then, certes, you can tell me the house of Master Robert Cressemer, the
Alderman," said Johnnie.

Hull gave a sudden, violent start. His eyes, always keen and alert, now
grew wide.

"Sir," he said, "I know that house very well, but what do you there?"

Johnnie stared at him in amazement for a moment. Then the blood mantled
in his cheeks.

"Sirrah," he said, "what mean you by this? What is it to you where I go
or what I do?"

There was nobody in their immediate vicinity at the moment, and the
thick-set serving-man, by a quick movement, placed himself in front of
his master, his right hand upon the newly-provided sword, his left
playing with the hilt of the long knife which had served him so well at
Chelmsford.

"I said I would be loyal to ye, master," the fellow growled, "but I see
now that it cannot be. I will be no servant of those who do burn and
slay innocent folk, and shalt not to the Alderman's if thou goest with
evil intent."

An enormous surprise almost robbed the young man of his anger.

Was this man, this "faithfullest servant," some brigand or robber, or
assassin, in disguise? What could it mean? His hand was upon his sword
in a moment, it was ready to flash out, and the accomplished fencer who
had been trained in every art and trick of sword-play, knew well that
the strength of the thick-set man before him would avail nothing. But
he waited a moment, really more interested and surprised than angered or
alarmed.

"I don't want to kill you, my good man," he said, "and so I will give
you leave to speak. But by the Mass! this is too much; an you don't
explain yourself, in the kennel and carrion you lie."

"I beg your pardon, sir," Hull answered, his face taking into it a note
of apology, "but you come from the Court; you rode with those bloody
villains that did take my dear master that was to his death. Are you not
now going with a like intent to the house of Mr. Cressemer?"

"I don't know," Johnnie answered, "why I should explain to you the
reason for my visit to His Worship, but despite this gross impudence, I
will give you a chance, for I have learnt to know that there is often an
explanation behind what seemeth most foul. The Alderman is one of the
oldest and best friends my father, the Knight of Kent, hath ever had.
The letter thou gavest me two hours agone was from His Worship bidding
me to supper. And now, John Hull, what hast to say before I slit you?"

For answer, John Hull suddenly fell upon his knees, and held out his
hands in supplication.

"Sir," he said, in a humble voice, "I crave that of your mercy and
gentleness you will forgive me, and let this pass. Sure, I knew you for
a gallant gentleman, and no enemy to my people when first I saw you. I
marked you outside St. Botolph's Church, and knew you again at
Chelmsford. But I thought you meant harm...."

His voice died away in an inarticulate mumble. He seemed enormously
sincere and penitent, and dreadfully embarrassed also by some knowledge
or thought at the back of his mind, something which he feared, or was
unable to disclose.

Johnnie's heart was beating strangely, though he did not know why. He
seemed to tread into something strange and unexpected. Life was full of
surprises now.

All he said was: "Make a fool of thyself no longer, John Hull; get up
and lead me to His Worship's. I forgive thee. But mark you, I shall
require the truth from you an

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