By What Authority? Part 48

"Yes, your Grace," said Anthony, "I do judge of the general body of doctrine, and of the effect upon the soul as a whole; but that is not the same as taking each small part, and making all hang upon that."

"Well, Mr. Norris," said the Archbishop, "I do not think we can talk much more now. It is new to me that these difficulties are upon you. But I entreat you to talk to me again as often as you will; and to others also--Dr. Redmayn, Mr. Chambers and others will be happy if they can be of any service to you in these matters: for few things indeed would grieve me more than that you should turn Papist."

Anthony thanked the Archbishop very cordially for his kindness, and, after receiving his blessing, left his presence. He had two or three more talks with him before he left, but his difficulties were in no way resolved. The Archbishop had an essentially Puritan mind, and could not enter into Anthony's point of view at all. It may be roughly said that from Grindal's standpoint all turned on the position and responsibility of the individual towards the body to which he belonged: and that Anthony rather looked at the corporate side first and the individual second.

Grindal considered, for example, the details of the Catholic religion in reference to the individual, asking whether he could accept this or that: Anthony's tendency was rather to consider the general question first, and to take the difficulties in his stride afterwards. Anthony also had interviews with the Archdeacon and chaplain whom Grindal had recommended; but these were of even less service to him, as Dr. Redmayn was so frankly contemptuous, and Mr. Chambers so ignorant, of the Romish religion that Anthony felt he could not trust their judgment at all.

In the meanwhile, during this last fortnight of Anthony's Lambeth life, he received a letter from Mr. Buxton, explaining what were the Spiritual Exercises to which he had referred, and entreating Anthony to come and stay with him at Stanfield.

"Now come, dear Mr. Norris," he wrote, "as soon as you leave the Archbishop's service; I will place three or four rooms at your disposal, if you wish for quiet; for I have more rooms than I know what to do with; and you shall make the Exercises if you will with some good priest. They are a wonderful method of meditation and prayer, designed by Ignatius Loyola (one day doubtless to be declared saint), for the bringing about a resolution of all doubts and scruples, and so clearing the eye of the soul that she discerns G.o.d's Will, and so strengthening her that she gladly embraces it. And that surely is what you need just now in your perplexity."

The letter went on to describe briefly the method followed, and ended by entreating him again to come and see him. Anthony answered this by telling him of his resignation of his post at Lambeth, and accepting his invitation; and he arranged to spend the last three weeks before Easter at Stanfield, and to go down there immediately upon leaving Lambeth. He determined not to go to Great Keynes first, or to see Isabel, lest his resolution should be weakened. Already, he thought, his motives were sufficiently mixed and perverted without his further aggravating their earthly const.i.tuents.

He wrote to his sister, however, telling her of his decision to leave Lambeth; and adding that he was going to stay with a friend until Easter, when he hoped to return to the Dower House, and take up his abode there for the present. He received what he thought a very strange letter in return, written apparently under excitement strongly restrained. He read in it a very real affection for himself, but a certain reserve in it too, and even something of compa.s.sion; and there was a sentence in it that above all others astonished him.

"J. M. has been here, and is now gone to Douai. Oh! dear brother, some time no doubt you will tell us all. I feel so certain that there is much to explain."

Had she then guessed his part in the priest's release? Anthony wondered; but at any rate he knew, after his promise to the Queen, that he must not give her any clue. He was also surprised to hear that James had been to Great Keynes. He had inquired for him at the Tower on the Monday after his visit to Greenwich, and had heard that Mr. Maxwell was already gone out of England. He had not then troubled to write again, as he had no doubt but that his message to Lady Maxwell, which he had sent in his note to Isabel, had reached her; and that certainly she, and probably James too, now knew that he had been an entirely unconscious and innocent instrument in the priest's arrest. But that note, as has been seen, never reached its destination. Lady Maxwell did not care to write to the betrayer of her son; and Isabel on the one hand hoped and believed now that there was some explanation, but on the other did not wish to ask for it again, since her first request had been met by silence.

As the last days of his life at Lambeth were coming to an end, Anthony began to send off his belongings on pack-horses to Great Keynes; and by the time that the Sat.u.r.day before Mid-Lent Sunday arrived, on which he was to leave, all had gone except his own couple of horses and the bags containing his personal luggage.

His last interview with the Archbishop affected him very greatly.

He found the old man waiting for him, walking up and down Cranmer's parlour in an empty part of the room, where there was no danger of his falling. He peered anxiously at Anthony as he entered.

"Mr. Norris," he said, "you are greatly on my mind. I fear I have not done my duty to you. My G.o.d has taken away the great charge he called me to years ago, to see if I were fit or not for the smaller charge of mine own household, and not even that have I ruled well."

Anthony was deeply moved.

"My lord," he said, "if I may speak plainly to you, I would say that to my mind the strongest argument for the Church of England is that she brings forth piety and goodness such as I have seen here. If it were not for that, I should no longer be perplexed."

Grindal held up a deprecating hand.

"Do not speak so, Mr. Norris. That grieves me. However, I beseech you to forgive me for all my remissness towards you, and I wish to tell you that, whatever happens, you shall never cease to have an old man's prayers. You have been a good and courteous servant to me always--more than that, you have been my loving friend--I might almost say my son: and that, in a world that has cast me off and forgotten me, I shall not easily forget. G.o.d bless you, my dear son, and give you His light and grace."

When Anthony rode out of the gateway half an hour later, with his servant and luggage behind him, it was only with the greatest difficulty that he could keep from tears as he thought of the blind old man, living in loneliness and undeserved disgrace, whom he was leaving behind him.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES

Anthony found that Mr. Buxton had seriously underestimated himself in describing his position as that of a plain country gentleman. Stanfield was one of the most beautiful houses that he had ever seen. On the day after his arrival, his host took him all over the house, at his earnest request, and told him its story; and as they pa.s.sed from room to room, again and again Anthony found himself involuntarily exclaiming at the new and extraordinary beauties of architecture and furniture that revealed themselves.

The house itself had been all built in the present reign, before its owner had got into trouble; and had been fitted throughout on the most lavish scale, with furniture of German as well as of English manufacture.

Mr. Buxton was a collector of pictures and other objects of art; and his house contained some of the very finest specimens of painting, bronzes, enamels, plate and woodwork procurable from the Continent.

The house was divided into two sections; the chief living rooms were in a long suite looking to the south on to the gardens, with a corridor on the north side running the whole length of the house on the ground-floor, from which a staircase rose to a similar corridor or gallery on the first floor. The second section of the house was a block of some half-dozen smallish rooms, with a private staircase of their own, and a private entrance and little walled garden as well in front. The house was mostly panelled throughout, and here and there hung pieces of magnificent tapestry and cloth of arras. All was kept, too, with a care that was unusual in those days--the finest woodwork was brought to a high polish, as well as all the bra.s.s utensils and steel fire-plates and dogs and such things. No two rooms were alike; each possessed some marked characteristic of its own--one bedroom, for example, was distinguished by its fourpost bed with its paintings on the canopy and head--another, by its little two-light high window with Adam and Eve in stained gla.s.s; another with a little square-window containing a crucifix, which was generally concealed by a sliding panel; another by two secret cupboards over the fire-place, and its recess fitted as an oratory; another by a magnificent piece of tapestry representing Saint Clara and Saint Thomas of Aquin, each holding a monstrance, with a third great monstrance in the centre, supported by angels.

Downstairs the rooms were on the same scale of magnificence. The drawing-room had an exquisite wooden ceiling with great pendants elaborately carved; the dining-room was distinguished by its gla.s.s, containing a collection of coats-of-arms of many of Mr. Buxton's friends who had paid him visits; the hall by its vast fire-place and the tapestries that hung round it.

The exterior premises were scarcely less remarkable; a fine row of stables, and kennels where greyhounds were kept, stood to the north and the east of the house; but the wonder of the country was the gardens to the south. Anthony hardly knew what to say for admiration as he went slowly through these with his host, on the bright spring morning, after visiting the house. These were elaborately laid out, and under Mr.

Buxton's personal direction, for he was one of the few people in England at this time who really understood or cared for the art. His avenue of small clipped limes running down the main walk of the garden, his yew-hedges fashioned with battlements and towers; his great garden house with its vane; his fantastic dial in the fashion of a tall striped pole surmounted by a dragon;--these were the astonishment of visitors; and it was freely said that had not Mr. Buxton been exceedingly adroit he would have paid the penalty of his magnificence and originality by being forced to receive a royal visit--a favour that would have gone far to impoverish, if not to ruin him. The chancel of the parish-church overlooked the west end of his lime-avenue, while the east end of the garden terminated in a great gateway, of stone posts and wrought iron gates that looked out to the meadows and farm buildings of the estate, and up to which some day no doubt a broad carriage drive would be laid down. But at present the sweep of the meadows was unbroken.

It was to this beautiful place that Anthony found himself welcomed. His host took him at once on the evening of his arrival to the west block, and showed him his bedroom--that with the little cupboards and the oratory recess; and then, taking him downstairs again, showed him a charming little oak parlour, which he told him would be altogether at his private service.

"And you see," added Mr. Buxton, "in this walled garden in front you can have complete privacy, and thus can take the air without ever coming to the rest of the house; to which there is this one entrance on the ground floor." And then he showed him how the lower end of the long corridor communicated with the block.

"The only partners of this west block," he added, "will be the two priests--Mr. Blake, my chaplain, and Mr. Robert, who is staying with me a week or two; and who, I hope, will conduct you through the Exercises, as he is very familiar with them. You will meet them both at supper: of course they will be both dressed as laymen. The Protestants blamed poor Campion for that, you know; but had he not gone in disguise, they would only have hanged him all the sooner. I like not hypocrisy."

Anthony was greatly impressed by Father Robert when he met him at supper.

He was a tall and big man, who seemed about forty years of age, with a long square-jawed face, a pointed beard and moustache, and shrewd penetrating eyes. He seemed to be a man in advance of his time; he was full of reforms and schemes that seemed to Anthony remarkably to the point; and they were reforms too quite apart from ecclesiasticism, but rather such as would be cla.s.sed in our days under the t.i.tle of Christian Socialism.

For example, he showed a great sympathy for the condition of the poor and outcast and criminals; and had a number of very practical schemes for their benefit.

"Two things," he said, in answer to a question of Anthony's, "I would do to-morrow if I had the power. First I would allow of long leases for fifty and a hundred years. Everywhere the soil is becoming impoverished; each man squeezes out of it as much as he can, and troubles not to feed the land or to care for it beyond his time. Long leases, I hold, would remedy this. It would encourage the farmer to look before him and think of his sons and his sons' sons. And second, I would establish banks for poor men. There is many a man now a-begging who would be living still in his own house, if there had been some honest man whom he could have trusted to keep his money for him, and, maybe, give him something for the loan of it: for in these days, when there is so much enterprise, money has become, as it were, a living thing that grows; or at the least a tool that can be used; and therefore, when it is lent, it is right that the borrower should pay a little for it. This is not the same as the usury that Holy Church so rightly condemns: at least, I hold not, though some, I know, differ from me."

After supper the talk turned on education: here, too, the priest had his views.

"But you are weary of hearing me!" he said, in smiling apology. "You will think me a schoolmaster."

"And I pray you to consider me your pupil," said Mr. Buxton. The priest made a little deprecating gesture.

"First, then," he said, "I would have a great increase of grammar schools. It is grievous to think of England as she will be when this generation grows up: the schooling was not much before; but now she has lost first the schools that were kept by Religious, and now the teaching that the chantry-priests used to give. But this perhaps may turn to advantage; for when the Catholic Religion is re-established in these realms, she will find how sad her condition is; and, I hope, will remedy it by a better state of things than before--first, by a great number of grammar schools where the lads can be well taught for small fees, and where many scholarships will be endowed; and then, so great will be the increase of learning, as I hope, that we shall need to have a third university, to which I should join a third Archbishop.r.i.c.k, for the greater dignity of both; and all this I should set in the north somewhere, Durham or Newcastle, maybe."

He spoke, too, with a good deal of shrewdness of the increase of highway robbery, and the remedies for it; remarking that, although in other respects the laws were too severe, in this matter their administration was too lax; since robbers of gentle birth could generally rely on pardon. He spoke of the Holy Brotherhood in Spain (with which country he seemed familiar), and its good results in the putting down of violence.

Anthony grew more and more impressed by this man's practical sense and ability; but less drawn to him in consequence as his spiritual guide. He fancied that true spirituality could scarcely exist in this intensely practical nature. When supper was over, and the priests had gone back to their rooms, and his host and he were seated before a wide blazing hearth in Mr. Buxton's own little room downstairs, he hinted something of the sort. Mr. Buxton laughed outright.

"My dear friend," he said, "you do not know these Jesuits (for of course you have guessed that he is one); their training and efficiency is beyond all imagining. In a week from now you will be considering how ever Father Robert can have the heart to eat his dinner or say 'good-day' with such a spiritual vision and insight as he has. You need not fear. Like the angel in the Revelation, he will call you up to heaven, hale you to the abyss and show you things to come. And, though you may not believe it, it is the man's intense and simple piety that makes him so clear-sighted and practical; he lives so close to G.o.d that G.o.d's works and methods, so perplexing to you and me, are plain to him."

They went on talking together for a while. Mr. Buxton said that Father Robert had thought it best for Anthony not to enter Retreat until the Monday evening; by which time he could have sufficiently familiarised himself with his new surroundings, so as not to find them a distraction during his spiritual treatment. Anthony agreed to this. Then they talked of all kinds of things. His host told him of his neighbours; and explained how it was that he enjoyed such liberty as he did.

"You noticed the church, Mr. Norris, did you not, at your arrival, overlooking the garden? It is a great advantage to me to have it so close. I can sit in my own garden and hear the Genevan thunders from within. He preaches so loud that I might, if I wished, hear sermons, and thus satisfy the law and his Reverence; and at the same time not go inside an heretical meeting-house, and thus satisfy my own conscience and His Holiness. But I fear that would not have saved me, had I not the ear of his Reverence. I will tell you how it was. When the laws began to be enforced hereabouts, his Reverence came to see me; and sat in that very chair that you now occupy.

"'I hear,' said he, c.o.c.king his eye at me, 'that her Grace is becoming strict, and more careful for the souls of her subjects.'

"I agreed with him, and said I had heard as much.

"'The fine is twenty pounds a month,' says he, 'for recusancy,' and then he looks at me again."

"At first I did not catch his meaning; for, as you have noticed, Mr.

Norris, I am but a dull man in dealing with these sharp and subtle Protestants: and then all at once it flashed across me.

"'Yes, your Reverence,' I said, 'and it will be the end of poor gentlemen like me, unless some kind friend has pity on them. How happy I am in having you!' I said, 'I have never yet shown my appreciation as I should: and I propose now to give you, to be applied to what purposes you will, whether the sustenance of the minister or anything else, the sum of ten pounds a month; so long as I am not troubled by the Council. Of course, if I should be fined by the Council, I shall have to drop my appreciation for six months or so.'

"Well, Mr. Norris, you will hardly believe it, but the old doctor opened his mouth and gulped and rolled his eyes, like a trout taking a fly; and I was never troubled until fifteen months ago, when they got at me in spite of him. But he has lost, you see, a matter of one hundred and fifty pounds while I have been at Wisbeach; and I shall not begin to appreciate him again for another six months; so I do not think I shall be troubled again."