The King's Achievement Part 28

Chris told his father presently of what the Prior had said as to Ralph's a.s.sistance in the matter of the visit that the two monks had paid to the Tower; and asked an interpretation.

Sir James sat quiet a minute or two, stroking his pointed grey beard softly, and looking into the hearth.

"G.o.d forgive me if I am wrong, my son," he said at last, "but I wonder whether they let the my Lord Prior go to the Tower in order to shake the confidence of both. Do you think so, Chris?"

Chris too was silent a moment; he knew he must not speak evil of dignities.

"It may be so. I know that my Lord Prior--"

"Well, my son?"

"My Lord Prior has been very anxious--"

Sir James patted his son on the knee, and rea.s.sured him.

"Prior Crowham is a very holy man, I think; but--but somewhat delicate.

However their designs have come to nothing. The bishop is in glory; and the other more courageous than he was."

Chris also had a few words with Mr. Carleton before he went to bed, sitting where he had sat in the moonlight two years before.

"If they have done so much," said the priest, "they will do more. When a man has slipped over a precipice he cannot save his fall. Master More will be the next to go; I make no doubt of that. You are to be a priest soon, Chris?"

"They have applied for leave," said the monk shortly. "In two years I shall be a priest, no doubt, if G.o.d wills."

"You are happy?" asked the other.

Chris made a little gesture.

"I do not know what that means," he said, "but I know I have done right.

I feel nothing. G.o.d's ways and His world are too strange."

The priest looked at him oddly, without speaking.

"Well, father?" asked Chris, smiling.

"You are right," said the chaplain brusquely. "You have done well. You have crossed the border."

Chris felt the blood surge in his temples.

"The border?" he asked.

"The border of dreams. They surround the Religious Life; and you have pa.s.sed through them."

Chris still looked at him with parted lips. This praise was sweet, after the bitterness of his failure with Ralph. The priest seemed to know what was pa.s.sing in his mind.

"Oh! you will fail sometimes," he said, "but not finally. You are a monk, my son, and a man."

Lady Torridon retired into her impregnable silence again after her sallies of speech on the previous evening; but as the few days went on that Chris had been allowed to spend with his parents he was none the less aware that her att.i.tude towards him was one of contempt. She showed it in a hundred ways--by not appearing to see him, by refusing to modify her habits in the smallest particular for his convenience, by a rigid silence on the subject that was in the hearts of both him and his father. She performed her duties as punctually and efficiently as ever, dealt dispa.s.sionately and justly with an old servant who had been troublesome, and with regard to whom her husband was both afraid and tender; but never asked for confidences or manifested the minutest detail of her own accord.

On the fourth day after Chris's arrival news came that Sir Thomas More had been condemned, but it roused no more excitement than the fall of a threatening rod. It had been known to be inevitable. And then on Chris's last evening at home came the last details.

Sir James and Chris had been out for a long ride up the estate, talking but little, for each knew what was in the heart of the other; and they were just dismounting at the terrace-steps when there was a sound of furious galloping; and a couple of riders burst through the gateway a hundred yards away.

Chris felt his heart leap and hammer in his throat, but stood pa.s.sively awaiting what he knew was coming; and a few seconds later, Nicholas Maxwell checked his horse pa.s.sionately at the steps.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n them!" he cried, with a crimson quivering face.

Sir James stepped up at once and took him by the arm.

"Nick," he said, and glanced at the staring grooms.

Nicholas showed his teeth like a dog.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n them!" he said again.

The other rider had come up by now; he was dusty and seemed spent. He was a stranger to the father and son who waited on the steps; but he looked like a groom, and slipped off his horse deftly and took Sir Nicholas's bridle.

"Come in Nick," said Sir James. "We can talk in the house."

As the three went up together, with the strange rider at a respectful distance behind, Nicholas broke out again in one sentence.

"They have done it," he said, "he is dead. Mother of G.o.d!"

His whip twitched in his clenching hand. He turned and jerked his head beckoningly to the man who followed; and the four went on together, through the hall and into Sir James's parlour. Sir James shut the door.

"Tell us, Nick."

Nicholas stood at the hearth, glaring and shifting.

"This fellow knows--he saw it; tell them, d.i.c.k."

The man gave his account. He was one of the servants of Sir Nicholas'

younger brother, who lived in town, and had been sent down to Great Keynes immediately after the execution that had taken place that morning. He was a man of tolerable education, and told his story well.

Sir James sat as he listened, with his hand shading his eyes; Nicholas was fidgetting at the hearth, interrupting the servant now and again with questions and reminders; and Chris leaned in the dark corner by the window. There floated vividly before his mind as he listened the setting of the scene that he had looked upon a few days ago, though there were new actors in it now.

"It was this morning, sir, on Tower Hill. There was a great company there long before the time. He came out bravely enough, walking with the Lieutenant that was his friend, and with a red cross in his hand."

"You were close by," put in Nicholas

"Yes, sir; I was beside the stairs. They shook as he went up; they were crazy steps, and he told the Lieutenant to have a care to him."