c. 
 
 . . 
 
FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 BY 
 
 G. G. COULTON 
 
 Author of " From St. Francis to Dante" " Medieval Studies 
 Translator of "Pearl" 
 
 And he, by friar's lantern led .... 
 
 MILTON 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14, FLEET STREET 
 
 1906 
 
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CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGB 
 
 i. THE CURATE'S HOME 9 
 
 II. THE LADY CHAPEL 24 
 
 III. A NEW WORLD 36 
 
 IV. VISITATION 49 
 
 V. DISILLUSION 61 
 
 VI. TRAMPING WITHOUT TEARS . . . .76 
 
 VII. THE SICKNESS OP HOPE 99 
 
 VIII. RIVAL INFALLIBILITIES 112 
 
 IX. DARKNESS AND CRUEL HABITATIONS . .124 
 
 X. FROM THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER . .135 
 
 XI. AFTER-DINNER REFLECTIONS .... 145 
 
 XII. THE BROKEN REED OF AUTHORITY . .157 
 
 XIII. BROTHER MAURICE 166 
 
 XIV. MY LADY POVERTY 175 
 
 XV. THE SECOND CRUCIFIXION OF ST. FRANCIS . 186 
 
 XVI. DOUCETTE 197 
 
 XVII. THE EVERLASTING HILLS . . . .212 
 
 XVIII. THE WEARY BURDEN OF SELF . . .217 
 
 XIX. BITTERNESS OF DEATH 235 
 
 XX. OUT OF THE DEEP WATERS .... 243 
 EPILOGUE . . ' . . 247 
 
FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE Rev. Herbert Rashleigh passed a letter very 
 solemnly over the breakfast table to his wife, who had 
 sat for the last ten minutes in oppressive silence with 
 Master Rashleigh on one side and Miss Rashleigh on 
 the other. Rashleigh's breakfast was usually of the 
 heartiest; indeed he had long been well-known in 
 Oxford athletic circles as " The Rasher " ; yet this 
 morning the neglected ham and eggs had grown colder 
 and colder, while father's face had darkened from 
 minute to minute in embarrassing silence. Cyril 
 Wilde, his dearest friend and quondam fellow-curate^ 
 had just " gone over," and here is the letter which 
 Mrs. Rashleigh read rapidly to herself. 
 
 " MY DEAR HERBERT,: I have crossed the Rubicon. 
 But let me tell you everything in order. I wrote last 
 when I had just left Cornham for a few weeks' quiet 
 in London, to enable me to make up my mind. I 
 went straight up to Father Angus, of St. Polycarp's, 
 
10 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 Piccadilly, and found him at lunch. We had straw- 
 berries, and plenty of them, and ice, and plenty of it ; 
 and after lunch I confessed to him and received abso- 
 lution^ an.d/ra: tJi evening looked in to the Oratory 
 for 4 Benediction. I went to bed as uncertain as ever. 
 
 r\ Jfe$t:V}ay*.l '.preached at, the High Celebration at St. 
 
 * Pblyearp'-s, aniid-clbiids of incense: my last sermon 
 in an Anglican Church ; and came home to lunch 
 again with Father Angus. More strawberries and 
 more ice. Then I went off and performed what some 
 of our Protestant friends would call ' a glaring act of 
 schism,' by attending Vespers at the Oratory, and a 
 most consoling function it was. As we sang O Roma 
 Felix, I wondered when I should next sing that hymn ? 
 Would it be as an outcast, a stranger and foreigner to 
 the City of God, or within her bulwarks ? That ques- 
 tion, thank Heaven, has now been answered. I had 
 to go next day to a friend's wedding at Liverpool, and 
 during the three days I was there I heard Mass every 
 day in the Catholic cathedral, to the great disgust of 
 my High Church friends, who bitterly complained that 
 I never entered an Anglican Church at all which was 
 true. Well, I won't bother you with too many details ; 
 the main point is that, during the next few weeks, I 
 definitely made up my mind to one thing I would at 
 least resign my Anglican curacy. I knew it was no 
 good consulting the Bishop of Brixton or Fathers 
 Angus and Smoothey. I knew what they would say, 
 and nothing they could say could alter my belief that, 
 apart from Rome, a Christian was outside the Church 
 of Christ and in a state of schism. This being so, 
 
THE CURATE'S HOME 11 
 
 one must get out of the state of schism just as out of 
 any other bad or wicked state in which one happened 
 to he. So I wrote a letter to a Catholic priest, a 
 friend of mine in London, and went straight off to the 
 Oratory, where I heard Vespers again. I had been 
 familiar with this church for many years. I had paid 
 it furtive visits as a schoolboy : what attracted me was 
 the Plain Song Mass music then but not now in 
 use. I remember one day being quite overcome on 
 hearing some monks chant the last antiphon in the 
 seventh (the angelic) mode at the Vespers of a Con- 
 fessor. And sometimes I wish I was a Dominican, in 
 order to enjoy the Salve Regina softly sung beside me 
 when in extremis. I humbly hope to enjoy Plain Song 
 in the heavenly country, and to be, in my mansion, as 
 far removed from Hummel in B flat, and Gounod in 
 some other key, as possible. However, to return to 
 the Oratory. After service I went into the Common 
 Eoom to see my friend, who was not there only 
 another father whom I knew. We had a long con- 
 versation. I had no difficulties. The Roman Church 
 was the Church, and there was an end of it. He 
 suggested delay. I declined delay. Delay ? Why, 
 I might be tempted by the devil, and take the next 
 train to Liverpool or elsewhere. So, late at night, 
 in the dimly-lighted church, I was received into the 
 One Fold of Christ. There was no enthusiasm, there 
 was no elation, there was no gush. It was an act of 
 reason, an act of faith. Long had I been a Catholic 
 in sympathy, in sentiment, in desire ; now I was one 
 no longer in fancy, but in fact. It was over. I went 
 
12 FRIAR'S LANTEEN 
 
 to bed in communion with the Apostolic See. Nothing 
 else seemed of the slightest importance. 
 
 " And now, my dear Herbert, let me affectionately 
 urge something of this upon you. In the old days at 
 St. Chad's, you used to feel as strongly as I did the 
 starveling meanness of our * prayerbooky ' services, 
 and the uncertain claim of the Anglican schism to 
 true Apostolic authority. If only you could realise 
 the comfort of sleeping night after night on the bed- 
 rock of St. Peter. . . I " 
 
 " Well, my dear ? " asked Herbert, as his wife threw 
 the letter back across the table with a gesture of 
 impatience. 
 
 " I think it's very fortunate," answered that gentle 
 lady with unwonted firmness in her voice, and a flush 
 of defiance on her cheek; "it's very fortunate that 
 young men who are made like that can find a church 
 of this kind to go over to. ... Come here, Ursula, 
 and let me wipe your mouth." 
 
 Rashleigh was just such a curate as you may find in 
 hundreds of parishes nowadays : a rather favourable 
 specimen of the High Church curate of the newest 
 generation. At Oxford, where he took a pass degree, 
 his studies (if studies they could be called) had been 
 anything rather than theological or historical. He 
 had just scraped through Smalls and Mods, and passed 
 his Greats by the skin of his teeth. But he had 
 rowed in the 'Varsity Trials and played cricket and 
 football for his college ; and he remained a very fair 
 specimen of the ordinary unregenerate and grown-up 
 
THE CUBATE'S HOME 18 
 
 schoolboy until he made up his mind to take Holy 
 Orders, and went to St. Chad's Theological College. 
 Here he found himself under the influence of a man, 
 narrow indeed and ignorant of the world, hut thoroughly 
 earnest and enthusiastic. His principal had a passion 
 for the Middle Ages, as that period is understood by 
 orthodox theologians of the present day. He had 
 read most of the Church Histories, was familiar with 
 the lives of the saints as seen through the spectacles 
 of modern compilers, and had even read deeply for 
 himself in the " Fathers." That is, he had studied 
 with loving care a dozen or two of the ascetic and 
 mystical writings in which the great men of the Middle 
 Ages tried to escape from the sordid realities of life 
 around them by dreaming of a new heaven and a new 
 earth ; he had studied these books, and jumped to the 
 conclusion that the men who wrote so beautifully must 
 have lived in a beautiful age. In the same spirit of 
 uncritical reverence, he had spent years in familiarising 
 himself with those allegorical interpretations of the 
 Bible which reigned supreme in days when not one 
 learned theologian in a thousand had even a smattering 
 of the original languages, when a host of barefaced 
 forgeries had gained unquestioned credit by the side of 
 genuine documents, and when the man who had read 
 that Pompey was Emperor of Kome, and that Britain 
 had been colonised by Brutus, passed for a man of 
 sound historical learning. It had never occurred to 
 Canon Beeton that to judge of an age only by its few 
 greatest men is as misleading as it would be to estimate 
 the comparative national wealth of England and 
 
14 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 America by comparing the King's income with that of 
 President Roosevelt. He had no real knowledge of 
 the social conditions under which those saints had 
 lived who, at this enormous distance, and through 
 half-a-dozen pairs of spectacles, seemed to him so 
 superhuman in virtue. He had never studied the 
 gradual growth of their legends ; and when the record 
 told him how these men had stayed the course of winds 
 and tides, and raised dead men from the grave, his 
 heart scarcely dared to give a downright No ! He had 
 no suspicion that even St. Francis, perhaps the most 
 Christ-like of all who have tried to follow in our Lord's 
 steps, began his career of sanctity with a commercial 
 transaction of very dubious honesty; and that St. 
 Dominic, a name almost as great, once plucked a 
 wretched sparrow alive because it hindered his studies, 
 and because he therefore believed it to be the devil. 
 Canon Beeton never dreamed that the same church- 
 men who tell us of the miracles of the saints, sometimes 
 tell us also the processes by which other miracles were 
 manufactured, and expect us to share their own 
 admiration of these pious frauds. Like many other 
 extreme religious enthusiasts, he was really a sceptic 
 who, instead of struggling quietly day by day to 
 moderate his critical faculties, had taken the easier 
 course of trampling them altogether under foot except 
 where they also flattered his prejudices. Nobody saw 
 more clearly than he, nobody dissected more unmerci- 
 fully, the shams and weaknesses of modern society. 
 He was a pitiless critic of all modern thought except 
 that of his own school; yet he clung with the most 
 
THE CUBATE'S HOME 15 
 
 uncritical devotion to what he believed to he the spirit 
 of the Middle Ages. Though Nature had cut him out 
 rather for a geologist than for an artist, he adored 
 Gothic architecture with a passion out of proportion 
 even to its marvellous artistic merit. These buildings 
 were part of his theological faith ; and, as he paced the 
 cathedral aisles, they bred in him a positive loathing 
 for all in modern life that was not framed on the 
 cathedral model. Feeding on his own fancies, under 
 the happy conviction that he was feeding on pure truth, 
 he grew day by day to identify a certain style in archi- 
 tecture, certain tricks of the stonemason, the painter, 
 and the gilder, with a sound rule of faith. He would 
 talk, as others had talked before him, of " a Catholic 
 pattern" in wall-stencilling or in church tiles; and 
 sometimes, rapt in ecstasy, he looked up to the delicate 
 tracery and colouring of the groined roof with something 
 of that same superstition which had tempted the 
 Hebrews to worship the hosts of heaven instead of the 
 God Who had made them. His reading, earnest as it 
 was, had never gone deep enough to make him realise 
 the true facts of medieval society. He never dreamed 
 how definitely the greatest medieval saints had looked 
 upon the highest architecture and painting rather as 
 hindrances than helps to true devotion. Still less did 
 he imagine that the brain which had planned those 
 marvels of wreathed stone was the brain of an artist 
 no more ascetic, no more decorous in his private life, 
 than many a popular artist of to-day : or that the very 
 stones of the cathedral had been paid for partly out of 
 the fines of unchaste priests, partly by a traffic in 
 
16 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 indulgences which one of the greatest medieval chan- 
 cellors of Oxford described as more immoral still. 
 Moreover, even if he had stumbled across these facts 
 in his reading, they would have made little impression 
 on him ; for, though altogether above conscious 
 untruth, he was one of those men who persuade them- 
 selves very readily that what they wish is true and 
 good ; what they dislike, false and wicked. A man 
 thus constituted can easily build himself a very pretty 
 Utopia in the past. The Canon's conception of the 
 medieval church, clear-cut as it seemed to him, was 
 really a combination of two entirely distinct images, of 
 a kind familiar to photographers. He took his sky (to 
 keep up the metaphor) from the Middle Ages, and his 
 foreground from what he loved most in the modern 
 world ; the whole formed a very pretty picture, without 
 too obvious marks of joining. He wished himself back 
 in the Ages of Faith much as the gentleman in Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes' poem wishes himself " a boy again," 
 yet "would have his wife and children too." He 
 longed for a time when most men clung, outwardly at 
 least, to the same form of faith ; yet he never reflected 
 that modern toleration, modern justice, and the 
 enormous decrease of crime in the past 600 years 
 all those liberties and decencies, in short, which we of 
 the twentieth century are 'apt to accept too thanklessly 
 as the natural birthright of humanity have really been 
 worked out during the past four centuries only by the 
 constant shock of divergent opinions. In short, Canon 
 Beeton had read history only to find what pleased and 
 edified him; and history, like every other oracle of 
 
THE CURATE'S HOME 17 
 
 God, answers a man in the spirit in which he approaches 
 it. Hating modern Nonconformity, he sought in the 
 Middle Ages of his fancy an Utopia which might justify 
 his dislike of the modern world. To this creature of 
 his own imagination he clung with the enthusiasm of a 
 poet who sees nothing hut wrinkles in the everyday 
 wife of his hosom, and nothing but divine charms in 
 some other woman who does not lahour under the dis- 
 advantage of heing his own. And as the Canon, 
 behind his big round spectacles and his ignorance of 
 the world, had many qualities of a real poet, it is no 
 wonder that the students of St. Chad's caught his 
 aversion to the Reformation and admiration for the 
 Middle Ages, and clung to these ideas perhaps all the 
 more obstinately for their greater ignorance. Herbert 
 Rashleigh was only one of many who went in as philis- 
 tines, rough athletes, or careless place-seekers, and 
 came out High Churchmen of a pattern that would 
 have made poor Keble's hair stand on end. Not being 
 an intellectual man, and having found the examining 
 chaplains indulgent on many points, he had been 
 ordained in a state of almost incredible ignorance as 
 to the history of that Church in which he was now a 
 priest. He might have been able to give you the date 
 of the Nicene Council, and a more or less vague account 
 of what happened there ; but of English Church history 
 since the Conquest he could have told you next to 
 nothing. Only he knew very well that the Communion 
 Service of the Anglican Church ought to be called 
 Mass ; that the so-called Reformation had made no 
 real doctrinal change in England ; that the so-called 
 F.L. B 
 
18 FBIAK'S LANTERN 
 
 Reformers had all been either fools or knaves ; that 
 his Bishop had as little moral right as material power 
 to control his actions ; and that he himself could not, 
 without unfaithfulness to the Catholic cause, give up 
 his incense or his " Hail Mary ! " Moreover,' he was 
 all the more certain of these things because he could 
 not have referred you to even the vaguest historical 
 evidence for any one of them. The little leaven of 
 St. Chad's had simply leavened his whole lump. 
 
 There are few more delightful experiences in youth 
 than this to pick up half-a-dozen shibboleths, to 
 chatter them daily with our own particular friends, 
 and to have the added pleasure of pitying outsiders as 
 old-fashioned philistines. But it would be unfair to 
 imply that Herbert learned no more than this at St. 
 Chad's ; for he learned some things which satisfied far 
 deeper needs of his nature. He had come to an age 
 at which a man welcomes some personal assurance of 
 religion ; and there is no great religious system, how- 
 ever absurd a face it may show to outsiders, which has 
 not, when taught by living man to living man, enough 
 of true nobility in it to fill a whole life. Moreover, 
 with his increasing seriousness of mind, Herbert had 
 felt doubts not the less disquieting because they were 
 vague and ill-defined, about his future parochial work. 
 He knew very well that he was not above the very 
 moderate intellectual average of the Oxford passman, 
 and that his future flock would contain plenty of 
 cleverer or better educated people of his own age, let 
 alone his seniors. He was an honest man, unwilling 
 to undertake the cure of souls without a reasonable 
 
THE CUEATE'S HOME 19 
 
 hope that he could influence men for good : but how 
 was this to he done ? A few months at St. Chad's 
 brought him comfortable assurance on this point, for 
 he learned the doctrines of Apostolical Succession and 
 of the Sacraments in their most absolute form. No 
 man need trouble himself unduly about ignorance of 
 history and theology, so long as he can bring God's 
 bodily presence into the church by a daily miracle ; so 
 long as he is the chosen and almost exclusive channel 
 for conveying divine absolution to the repentant sinner. 
 Herbert left St. Chad's a changed man, and yet not 
 so deeply changed after all. He was still a very 
 honest, rather matter-of-fact English gentleman, and 
 the veneer of medievalism, though very complete, was 
 only skin-deep. He still kept a healthy sense of 
 humour on every point but one, and, like most of his 
 class, he enjoyed life, outside the four walls of the 
 church, very much as other good people do. The last 
 two generations, which have witnessed so remarkable 
 a revival of the picturesque side of medieval religion, 
 have been less favourable to its ascetic side; and if 
 Thackeray were alive to sketch the High Church 
 curate of to-day, he would no longer represent him as 
 having dined off "a little water and a parched pea." 
 Herbert became curate in a populous town, and worked 
 hard among the poor. After some years, feeling the 
 need of a helpmeet for him, he married the only 
 daughter of a rich manufacturer, his churchwarden. 
 Though he was too wise to ruin his body by unneces- 
 sary asceticism, he overtaxed it a good deal by his 
 hard work in the slums. His wife, too, was rather 
 
 B2 
 
 y - 
 
20 FRIAK'S LANTERN 
 
 delicate since the birth of their third child, and our 
 friend exchanged his town work for a sole charge 
 under Archdeacon Crossways, in a healthy upland 
 district of the Midlands. Here the semi-rural suburb 
 of Green Hill formed practically his own separate 
 parish, and he exchanged services only occasionally 
 with the Archdeacon or his curate at Minster Summer- 
 leigh. In his little district he was soon everybody's 
 friend but his own. He missed, in spite of himself, 
 that whirl and bustle of town life which had kept him 
 from over-much thought. Having now less of the real 
 evils of life to cope with, he became more solicitous of 
 small matters; adopted every new point of ritual or 
 ceremony that came in his way; believed implicitly 
 that, being modern Roman, these things must also be 
 primitive and Catholic; and began to ask himself, 
 logically enough, why he should go thus far in con- 
 formity to the See of Peter without going any further. 
 In short, he was one of the many who, when the 
 " crisis " came, found himself deeply pledged to 
 incense, to "reservation," and to the " Hail Mary." 
 
 Archdeacon Crossways was a rather advanced High 
 Churchman of the old type. He had shaken hands 
 with Newman in his Anglican days, and had been a 
 trusted pupil of Keble's ; but he had a solid look of 
 English common-sense, wore an unbecoming Newgate 
 fringe and a white tie, and in other similar ways aroused 
 grave doubts of his Catholic orthodoxy among the 
 more advanced men of the new generation. He was 
 very sorry to see this trend of thoughts in Rashleigh's 
 mind, but a great deal too wise to say much about it. 
 
THE CURATE'S HOME 21 
 
 He hoped that the curate's own common sense would 
 gradually make him see the impossibility of his posi- 
 tion, and that some favourable conjuncture might 
 enable him to regain his footing ; but now, instead of 
 the chance he hoped, came the " crisis " and the 
 Archbishop's decision. To this decision the Arch- 
 deacon bowed loyally and immediately, being, indeed, 
 rather relieved than otherwise to get rid of extreme 
 ceremonies which he had only inherited from his pre- 
 decessor. It was the old story : a weak and vain 
 rector had allowed himself to be led on by a clique of 
 maiden ladies and half-pay officers, who, having nothing 
 else in the world to fill their twenty-four daily leisure 
 hours, spent lives perfectly useless to their fellow-men 
 in the elaboration of the worship of God. 
 
 Herbert, then, had absolutely refused to abide by 
 the Primate's decision, and it was with difficulty that 
 the Archdeacon prevailed upon him not to defy his 
 Bishop from the first. He promised to think the 
 matter over quietly for a month, and at the end of 
 that time, if conformity still seemed impossible, to 
 retire quietly from his charge. But the Archdeacon, 
 who had the greatest regard for his sterling qualities, 
 was saddened to see how little signs of compromise 
 the passing weeks brought. On the contrary, Herbert 
 seemed more and more to avoid all intercourse with 
 his rector, and to spend more and more time with 
 Father Duvet, the Roman Catholic priest of the little 
 town. 
 
 I will not weary you, dear reader, with a description 
 of my second hero, Father Duvet. In the nature of 
 
22 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 things, one Roman Catholic priest is very much like 
 another in manners and other externals. I will only 
 add that Father Duvet was a very good companion in 
 secular life, and that nobody would have suspected him 
 of fasts and mortifications, except so far as these could 
 be inferred from the rule of his Church. Though far 
 slimmer than most Continental priests, Father Duvet 
 was rather stouter than the average Englishman, with 
 round, chubby cheeks like a baby, and a very hearty 
 laugh of his own. A man of some natural ability, he 
 had profited by that special professional training with 
 which his Church takes care to equip her priests. 
 Without having read for himself a single treatise of the 
 Fathers, or knowing very clearly whether St. Basil 
 wrote in Greek or Latin, he could quote you hundreds 
 of the most convincing snippets from their works, and 
 had the apologetic pamphlets of the so-called Catholic 
 Truth Society at his fingers' ends. But he made no 
 ill-timed display of these things ; on the contrary, he 
 seemed anxious to show the townsfolk of Summerleigh 
 (who had at first objected strongly to the planting of 
 his little tin chapel in their midst) that a Catholic 
 priest is a yery sociable and harmless individual ; and 
 he, like Herbert, would often drop in to smoke and 
 chat with the college masters at their Saturday night 
 reunions in Findlay's rooms, under the roof of the old 
 Minster Lady Chapel. 
 
 It was to this rendezvous that the two priests might 
 have been seen walking together on the Saturday night 
 following the receipt of Cyril Wilde's letter, and pre- 
 ceding the fatal Monday on which Herbert had finally 
 
THE CUKATE'S HOME 28 
 
 to pronounce himself. Stubborn at first, he had 
 become unsettled of late : nay, in his heart of hearts, 
 he was half conscious of having slid into a false posi- 
 tion, and would have been glad of any sudden event 
 that would enable him to draw back and yet save his 
 face. But the more this uncomfortable doubt worked 
 in his inner heart, the more he tried to convince him- 
 self that his mind was made up, and that Catholic 
 Principle commanded him to stand firm. He was thus 
 very divided and uneasy in his mind, and very glad to 
 catch at this chance of dismissing the whole subject 
 for a few hours. 
 
 The lights of Findlay's lamps showed cheerfully 
 through the traceried windows of what had once been 
 the Lady Chapel. Father Duvet remarked upon the 
 beauty of the effect. " But it's a sad sight ! " he 
 added. 
 
 " It's more than that, my dear fellow," said Herbert, 
 putting his arm in his friend's as he opened the door; 
 " it's a crime ! " 
 
CHAPTEE II 
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL 
 
 " HULLO, Ritual and Rome arm-in-arm ! " 
 
 " Shut up, Blacker, will you no beastly shop here 
 of any kind. Find a seat, you fellows : Jones '11 give 
 you drink and cigars. I go diamonds ! " 
 
 "And I double ! " replied Smith ; so the mischievous 
 spark was quenched for a while. 
 
 Hardly, however, had the players got into the second 
 hand, when voices came loudly from that corner. 
 
 " I say, are you fellows at it again? " 
 
 "Well, you can't say I raised the subject this 
 time," said Blacker. "If Father Duvet hadn't 
 spoken. . . ." 
 
 " I ! " said Father Duvet, the picture of astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " Well, this time we'll have it out," said Herbert 
 interrupting. 
 
 "Do what you like, only don't call yourself a 
 martyr." 
 
 " Did I call myself a martyr ? " 
 
 " The Padre did. He spoke of Protestant intoler- 
 ance." 
 
 " I didn't put it as bluntly as that." 
 
THE LADY CHAPEL 25 
 
 " No, you never do, old man. But perhaps you 
 will explain bluntly, just for once, why a parson is to 
 be allowed to draw a salary for flying in the face of 
 all he swore when they made him a parson, and calling 
 his nonconformity ' conscientious objections ' ! " 
 
 "You didn't read Cardinal Vaughan's speech at 
 the Catholic Truth Conference about the King's 
 declaration?" 
 
 " Is it likely !" 
 
 " Well, he put the matter in a nutshell. The King, 
 after having gained the English crown by taking this 
 blasphemous oath, might well become convinced, by 
 God's grace, of the truth of Catholicism. In that 
 case he would at once see that his coronation oath had 
 been unjust, immoral, and untrue : it would therefore 
 cease to bind him, and he would rightly retain the 
 crown, all foolish oaths notwithstanding. You should 
 study the cardinal's whole speech : his reasoning is 
 absolutely faultless. To put it in terms of our friend 
 Rashleigh's present position, it would run : " No oath 
 to do a wrong thing is binding. I am convinced by 
 now that to sacrifice any particle of Catholic practice 
 because of popular outcry. . ." 
 
 " The outcry of this mob of bishops, I suppose you 
 mean?" 
 
 " Or even coercion from any superior authority on 
 earth, save One " dropping his voice reverently 
 " * Who alone can bind or loose the consciences of all.' 
 Our friend Eashleigh is convinced by now that this 
 would be a base and cowardly act, and so far from its 
 being wrong for him to repudiate an oath taken years 
 
26 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 ago in ignorance, it would be a sin in him not to 
 repudiate it." 
 
 " And to go on drawing his screw, of course." 
 
 " Do you suppose it is that miserable money that 
 restrains me ? " asked Herbert angrily. He had in 
 fact looked upon himself as a very real martyr during 
 the few weeks of mental struggle, and relished the 
 Padre's defence almost as little as Blacker' s attack. 
 
 "We needn't be personal I'm speaking of the 
 principle. Of course, you wouldn't starve in any 
 case ; I only wish I was as free to chuck my work here 
 when the fancy takes me, with as little reason as you 
 to worry about 8. d. ! " 
 
 " Then, perhaps, as you say, we may drop the 
 money question," replied Herbert, overlooking the 
 reference to his wife's fortune with dignified reserve. 
 "Is it a small thing to divorce a man from his 
 parish, and cut him off hopelessly from the work and 
 the people who have become peculiarly his own ? " 
 
 " Why not, when his own conscience cuts him adrift 
 from the conditions under which he obtained a peculiar 
 ownership in that work and those people ? You have 
 a refuge nowadays which has never been possible 
 except in modern times and in Protestant countries 
 you may set up a church of your own without the 
 least interference from the police or anybody else, 
 and burn as much incense as you like, and preach 
 what you like. What's to hinder you ? " 
 
 " Only my own conscience, and the guilt of schism," 
 replied Herbert with lofty contempt. 
 
 " Exactly ! The bishops and all the rest of it are 
 
THE LADY CHAPEL 27 
 
 necessary to your ecclesiastical existence, though you 
 have not the least idea of submitting your slightest 
 whim to their authority, and (thanks to the Pro- 
 testantism which you repudiate) you are able to do 
 this quite safely kicking up your heels as rebels, and 
 posing as martyrs all the while ! " 
 
 "You are right," put in Father Duvet, blandly, 
 "you are right in one thing only. Whatever there 
 is of disobedience to authority in this modern world 
 whatever there is of anarchy is an inheritance from 
 the Reformation." 
 
 "Anarchy! 0, thanks for that word! That's 
 just what we have here an ecclesiastical anarchist, a 
 dynamiter, whose conscience tells him to slay every- 
 one in authority, and who is at the same time deeply 
 pained that the authorities do not take more trouble 
 to protect him from the bloodthirsty crowd ! What 
 protects you from Kensit and his rabble ? Only the 
 laws of the land, which you repudiate whenever they 
 touch the Church." 
 
 " Go on, go on." 
 
 " And there's only one remedy for anarchism of any 
 kind. Give the men whose consciences won't allow 
 them to stand by the formulas to which they swore 
 obedience and give those members of the congrega- 
 tion who follow their example a quiet spot, far away 
 from everybody, to worship in together ; and we shall 
 soon have a stream of repentant anarchists sneaking 
 back to worship unobtrusively with the rest of the 
 world, and like the rest of the world ! " 
 
 " I suppose," said Herbert, puffing angrily at his 
 
28 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 pipe, but making a violent effort to speak in tones of 
 calm contempt, " I suppose you know you're talking 
 utter rot all this time." 
 
 " So he is never mind Blacker, he's a born 
 rotter ! " 
 
 "Have another go of whisky, old man." 
 
 But Blacker was pertinacious. " Look here, Rash- 
 leigh, think this one question frankly over, and 
 answer me now. Who are your mainstays in this 
 matter among your congregation ? Isn't one of them 
 Colonel Rickshaw, who a dozen years ago turned the 
 whole Portsmouth garrison upside down because some- 
 body put up a cross and some candles or something 
 mildly papistical but who now, since he's retired and 
 has twelve hours a day to quarrel in, has become a 
 red-hot Car-tholic ? " 
 
 Herbert laughed. " I believe the Colonel was 
 Calvinistically inclined in his youth, and I do know 
 he cheats confoundedly at croquet in his old age. 
 Go on." 
 
 " Well, then you've got Miss Clackmannan, heaven 
 save the mark ! and Miss Wigglesby, and the two 
 Miss Redheads I never like to speak evil of any 
 womenkind, and God made these, I suppose, after 
 all and then you had, until lately, the fat old virgin 
 who made a hell of the whole Cottage Hospital 
 Sister Mary, I think they called her, and who's gone 
 over to the Padre here and, Padre, I can't too much 
 admire your consummate tact in keeping her in her 
 proper place. Believe me, Rashleigh, (for I hear of 
 things behind your back), those are literally the 
 
THE LADY CHAPEL 29 
 
 only people in your whole congregation who would 
 advise you to go on resisting your Bishop. Now, 
 think it over honestly a moment, and tell me how 
 you'd like to find yourself with a congregation of that 
 sort, even if you could get it without any guilt of 
 schism." 
 
 Herbert had never faced this question in the brutal 
 nakedness in which Blacker put it now ; and, being an 
 honest man, he felt embarrassed for a reply. But he 
 was relieved by Anstey chiming in from another 
 corner. 
 
 " Apropos of Sister Mary, Bashleigh, do you know 
 that she prays daily that you may be led to join her 
 no offence to you, Padre, for you're a man of the 
 world, I know, and have a sense of humour. She 
 told Miss Wigglesby the other day that the one bitter 
 drop in her cup was to leave you out in the cold, and 
 so she was having a novena sung to the intention that 
 you and Lord Halfwayhouse might learn what true 
 Catholicism is." 
 
 " Oh, you can see that without any novenas or 
 masses," said Blacker. " Take a return ticket to 
 Rome, or any Italian town, stop a week and take stock 
 of all you see there, and especially watch the clergy 
 and see what a low type they mostly are." 
 
 " You're very rude to-night, Blacker." 
 
 "Not at all; I simply state a fact. Have you ever 
 been to Rome ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Then believe one who has ; or rather wait and let 
 me fetch a big photo I have somewhere of a couple 
 
30 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 of hundred clergy come together for some solemn 
 function ; and you shall see if you can pick out of the 
 whole lot a couple of dozen whom, on the strength of 
 their phiz, you would trust with sixpence ! There 
 were two of them once at the next table to me at 
 an inn at Constance ; they didn't know that I under- 
 stood Latin, and were talking pretty freely to each 
 other. . . ." 
 
 " But, my dear Blacker, you may spare us all these 
 details, because, even if those particular clergy were 
 as you say, the fact would still remain that Catholicism 
 bears no share of the responsibility. Read Newman's 
 essay on ' The Social State of Catholic Countries no 
 Prejudice to the Sanctity of the Church.' The fact 
 is, that the poison of anarchy has now penetrated 
 everywhere ; and it seems as if, by some mysterious 
 dispensation of Providence, the races which are 
 capable of the most devoted Catholicism are exposed 
 also to the dangers of the most virulent atheism." 
 
 "Very mysterious, as you say, Padre; and you 
 think things were really better before the virus of 
 Anarchy came in with the Reformation? " 
 
 " Certainly ! England was more prosperous then 
 than it is now, in the truest sense, which supposes 
 unity of faith, content and happiness among the masses 
 of the people, a certain degree of sobriety and morality, 
 and so on. Read Monsignor J. S. Vaughan's splendid 
 Faith and Folly.' " 
 
 " A most attractive and appropriate title ! But do 
 you seriously mean that, if you had the chance, you 
 would go back to the Middle Ages ? " 
 
THE LADY CHAPEL 81 
 
 " Certainly, if in God's decrees it were possible. 
 The Catholic Church was then indeed the Catholic 
 Church." 
 
 " And Kashleigh too ? Oh yes, of course, your 
 true Eitualist is plus royaliste que le roi." 
 
 "Z ... J ... Yes, I would go back," replied 
 Herbert, first hesitatingly and then defiantly. " Yes," 
 he went on, warming to the idea, " whenever I pass 
 the grey walls of this magnificent minster, I dream of 
 what it was in its bright unsullied youth 
 
 * Oh, the good old times of England ! Ere, in her evil day 
 Prom their holy faith and their ancient rites the people 
 
 fell away; 
 When her gentlemen had hands to give, and her yeomen 
 
 hearts to feel; 
 And they raised full many a bead-house, but never a bastile ! ' 
 
 You know those pathetic lines, Father Duvet. And if 
 I had been born by God's grace in those days when 
 Merrie England was Merrie England indeed when 
 the worker lived on the land " 
 
 " And when more than half the population were 
 serfs, chained to the land, bought and sold with the 
 land." 
 
 " Why not ? Is there not something worse than 
 mere bodily servitude ? At least, in those days, I 
 would have lived my own spiritual life, far from this 
 madding crowd of Nonconformists and Agnostics, 
 dispensing God's sacraments daily to a flock that 
 believed " 
 
 " And Mrs. Eashleigh ? . . . " 
 
 " And Mrs. . . . how dare you, sir, refer to my 
 
32 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 wife? That is the second time you have most 
 unwarrantably brought her name in. You will please 
 not refer to it again." 
 
 " Look here, you fellows, leave that wrangling, and 
 listen to Colonel Cooke's yarns. More wonderful than 
 all your Catholic miracles, Rashleigh, and more reason- 
 able than all your scepticism, Blacker. If anyone 
 wants to talk with the Witch of Endor, or fly on a 
 brazen horse, or sit on a piece of carpet and wish 
 himself to Jericho, here's your man ! " 
 
 " Here are two people who are wishing themselves 
 back in the Middle Ages, so they're just the men for 
 the Colonel. The one can't live in a country whose 
 sovereign is forced to take a blasphemous oath, and the 
 other loses all joy in life at the thought of having to 
 obey his Bishop. Now, then, Colonel, trot out your 
 miracles ! " 
 
 The Colonel had risen from his chair, a little dark 
 man with bushy black eyebrows. " I am quite ready 
 to do my best," he said, with an ironical smile. " But 
 it needs first of all the hearty consent, for the moment 
 at least, of the gentlemen themselves." 
 
 " Consent ! Why, my dear Colonel, you have their 
 earnest prayers, and the prayers of a lady who says 
 masses daily " 
 
 "A lady 'who says masses,'" interjected Father 
 Duvet, with a smile rather of pity than of anger. 
 
 " Who says masses daily that they may live to see 
 a real Catholic England." 
 
 " If I have really their own prayers and those of their 
 friends, I may be able to do something. But I don't 
 
THE LADY GHAPEL 88 
 
 pretend to do these things myself except now and then, 
 under specially favourable circumstances. Only, if 
 you had seen what I have seen . . . Will somebody 
 bring two basins of water and put them on the table 
 here?" 
 
 The rest of the company gathered round the table, 
 impressed by the Colonel's business-like manner, and 
 looking forward to some practical joke ; for your 
 schoolmaster is your only true grown-up schoolboy. 
 Rashleigh and Duvet rose too, they scarcely knew why, 
 except that everybody else had got up. Blacker and 
 Findlay came in, bearing each a basin of water from the 
 nearest bedrooms, which they laid solemnly on the 
 table in the middle of the room. 
 
 " If you really care to try the experiment," began 
 the Colonel. 
 
 "I object very strongly to making a fool of myself 
 to please the present company," protested Duvet. 
 
 " Oh, if the gentlemen are unwilling to make the 
 experiment, of course I say no more." 
 
 " Except that we shall draw our own conclusions," 
 added Blacker. 
 
 All Blacker's words were as red rags to Rashleigh. 
 "You may draw what conclusions ..." He paused, 
 and everybody understood the pause : ten years ago 
 he would have said in the immortal words of Besant 
 
 and Rice "what conclusions you d please." . . . 
 
 " Look here, Duvet, let's treat the fool according to 
 his folly and lend ourselves to this trick, and have 
 peace and quietness for the rest of the evening." 
 
 ' The simple point is, do you really wish to go back 
 
 F.L. C 
 
84 FRIAK'S LANTERN 
 
 in vision to the Middle Ages ? " said the Colonel, fixing 
 them from underneath his bushy eyebrows. " Without 
 that, I am powerless." 
 
 " Certainly I do," said Rashleigh, who had worked 
 himself up into a state of wishing anything so long as 
 it were only in contradiction to Blacker. " Not that 
 I believe for one moment in any of your rotten visions ; 
 but if it were possible to live in the days before the 
 Reformation, certainly I would. So far, at least, I 
 entirely agree with my friend here." 
 
 " And your friend wishes it too? " 
 
 " I protest against the whole of this silly farce," 
 said Duvet with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. 
 " But, if anybody is really interested to know what I 
 think on the serious part of the question a subject 
 too serious perhaps" (he added, in a lower and more 
 unctuous tone) "to be discussed amid cigar-smoke and 
 glasses of whisky so far as that is concerned, every 
 Catholic knows that we are in exile now, and that our 
 golden age was five or six hundred years ago when 
 these walls were built which I only hope we have not 
 desecrated by irreverent mirth." He looked up at the 
 delicate vaulting of the ceiling, and felt that he had 
 scored a point. 
 
 " Then take hands, gentlemen, and each plunge 
 your faces into this water just for thirty seconds or 
 so as long as you can go comfortably without taking 
 fresh breath and do your best for a moment to ima- 
 gine yourself under this vaulted roof at the time when 
 it was first dedicated to sacred uses." 
 
 But the priest still hung back, and the company 
 
THE LADY CHAPEL 35 
 
 looked half-puzzled, half-amused, not knowing how 
 far to take the whole thing seriously. Rashleigh, 
 however, grasped his friend's hand, and cried, " Let's 
 have the silly trick over at once and get rid of all 
 these Kensitisms, and smoke our pipes in peace ! " 
 
 " The greatest of your popes were given to dabbling 
 in magic, I've always understood," said the Colonel, 
 fixing his piercing eyes now on Duvet. 
 
 " Oh, if you imagine I hang back because I believe 
 in your magic ! . . . What are we to do, then ? " 
 
 " Simply plunge your face in the water, till you find 
 you want to breathe again. And think of this building 
 in all its glory, and yourself part of its glory, in the 
 grand old times." 
 
 Archdeacon Crossways, who sometimes lent his 
 weighty patronage to Findlay's reunions, entered at 
 this moment. He stood spell-bound to see his curate 
 and the Romanist priest, hand in hand, in the act of 
 dipping their faces into two basins of water. They 
 for their part were blissfully unconscious of his 
 presence, and thought only of what the Colonel had 
 suggested to them ; for there was something mesmeric 
 in the little man's manner. 
 
 There was a dead silence in the room as they dipped 
 their faces. Then a sudden darkness ; a shifting of 
 solid walls like the changes of a kaleidoscope, a feel- 
 ing that the floor was sinking under them a choking 
 and a reeling of the brain and then the two friends 
 found themselves sitting alone, gasping for breath, on 
 the cold floor of the church aisle, with the moonlight 
 slanting in through the painted paries. 
 
 c2 
 
88 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 himself that he liked this " there's nothing prayer- 
 booky about the whole thing. It looks so thoroughly 
 Catholic." 
 
 " H'm ! I've always heen accustomed to associate 
 a little more splendour of expression with the true 
 Catholic worship. But of course one must make 
 allowance for these earlier ages." 
 
 "And remember, we are at a time when Protest- 
 antism doesn't exist. Not even Wycliffe at least I 
 think not Wycliffe comes after 1320, doesn't he ? " 
 
 " I think he does," answered Father Duvet, doubt- 
 fully. . . . " This is rather awkward in some ways," 
 he added. " I wish we'd known beforehand; we might 
 have prepared ourselves, you know." 
 
 Meanwhile the daylight broadened ; and, their first 
 curiosity sated, our pilgrims began to take serious 
 stock of their situation. With all their theoretical 
 admiration of the Middle Ages, they had just enough 
 inkling of real history to know that strange things 
 had been done in those times ; that faith had at least 
 sometimes shown itself in mad superstitions, and that 
 superstition is apt to mistake everything unfamiliar 
 or uncanny for a work of the devil's. All the gates of 
 the minster were locked, except one little turret door 
 which led by a winding stair to a room above the 
 porch. Creeping up on tiptoe, and peering in through 
 the crack of the unfastened door, they found to their 
 relief that this room was untenanted : yet it bore some 
 signs of occasional habitation. In one corner, at the 
 head of a disordered pallet-bed, stood a bow and 
 quiver, a rebeck, and a short sword. In another 
 
A NEW WORLD 39 
 
 corner hung a forester's suit of Lincoln green, a 
 pair of tight hosen striped yellow and red, and a 
 short jacket of no less startling colours. A cassock 
 and a pair of sober grey hosen were thrown on the 
 bed. A crucifix, a set of rough wooden beads as big 
 as marbles, a plain oak chest, a rickety joint-stool, 
 and a dice-box completed the furniture of the apart- 
 ment. The whole room was in such dirt and disorder 
 that it looked rather like a lumber-room than a priest's 
 chamber ; but the sight of the clothes overbore all 
 other reflections in our friends' minds. Necessity 
 knows no law ; it was obviously impossible to flaunt 
 the barbarous dress of the twentieth century in 
 medieval England ; and, after all, two or three 
 sovereigns left on the bed would more than reward 
 the owner for the two suits of clothes which, on closer 
 inspection, were evidently neither very new nor very 
 clean. Herbert had now every reason to congratulate 
 himself on the happy chance that had brought him to 
 Findlay's rooms with nearly ,40 of school-money 
 in his pocket. Whatever temptation he and Father 
 Duvet might otherwise have felt to quarrel over the 
 clothes was set at rest by the obvious adaptation of 
 the cassock and grey hosen to Rashleigh's long limbs, 
 and of the more elastic parti-coloured nether garments 
 to the stout little priest. Much of their superfluous 
 length was taken up by their horizontal extension, as 
 he drew them with some difficulty up his burly legs ; 
 the rest was hidden at one end by a pair of high-laced 
 brown hunting-boots, and at the other by the jacket, 
 which reached to a far more decent length on his 
 
40 FBI AITS LANTEEN 
 
 body than on its original owner's. The cassock, on 
 the other hand, was not much too short for Herbert, 
 and, after pinning his watch and money-hag carefully 
 to the breast of his shirt, and slipping his handker- 
 chief, his wife's portrait, and his letters up the sleeves 
 of his cassock, he stuffed both the discarded suits 
 hastily up the chimney, and found leisure to amuse 
 himself with poor Father Duvet's attempts to settle 
 comfortably into his own mountebank's costume. 
 
 " Wouldn't the green have been better ? " he 
 laughed. 
 
 " No, I think not, my dear fellow. You see I 
 looked carefully at both of them, and "... the 
 speaker seemed to lose his thread a moment, and 
 bent suddenly down to pinch his calf ..." And . . . 
 what was I saying ? . . . Oh, yes . . . no, I think 
 this was the least ... I think it was the better of 
 the two. Besides," he added, with a somewhat forced 
 laugh, " one may as well look the part while one is 
 about it ... If yours were tighter, and a few more 
 buttons, it would really look very much like a modern 
 cassock." 
 
 " Very to look at. Well, we must make the best 
 of them for a while, till we can get away and buy new 
 clothes without suspicion. We must walk circum- 
 spectly, old fellow, and give no offence. It'll be 
 rather difficult at first, of course. We ... we must 
 tell the truth, mustn't we ? " 
 
 " Oh, of course . . . with natural reservations, that 
 is." 
 
 ' Yes, yes, with natural reservations. After all, it 
 
A NEW WORLD 41 
 
 is but a passing trial of our faith, and it will be a great 
 
 privilege to see real unadulterated Catholicity 
 
 Good heavens ! " 
 
 Duvet turned round at this startled exclamation, 
 and saw a big red face at the window, strained into an 
 expression of intense pain, and followed slowly by a 
 big red body which struggled with surprising elasti- 
 city through the narrow gap left by one broken stan- 
 chion, and soon stood beside them on the floor. The 
 new comer sat down on his pallet, and wiped his 
 streaming brow with a corner of his hood. " 'Twill 
 be my death some day," he panted, in what sounded 
 like a broad north-country dialect. " 'Twill be my 
 death; and then they'll be loth to lack honest John 
 Cartwright ! But how came ye here, masters ? " 
 
 " Not by your way," answered Bashleigh with some 
 disgust, noting now for the first time a rope-ladder 
 that hung from the window-bars. 
 
 " Cokkes bones ! hearken now how daintily 'a 
 speaketh, as 'twere some castle madam, with the 
 ends of a's lips and the tip of a's tongue ! * Not by 
 your way!' 1 ' he repeated, mimicking the modern 
 accent " then I take it I must have forgot once 
 more to lock the minster doors ; i' faith, I was much 
 troubled last night, and I must bear the brunt on't 
 again in Chapter ! Well, well, John Cartwright's 
 back is broad enough to bear it all ! ' Not your way,' 
 quotha. Nay, thou cainard, but that will come soon 
 enow, when ye shall have been here a month or twain, 
 and shall have learnt the smack of fat Marjorie 
 Higgins' ale ! Ey, benedicite ! our two new vicars- 
 
40 FRIAR'S LANTEBN 
 
 body than on its original owner's. The cassock, on 
 the other hand, was not much too short for Herbert, 
 and, after pinning his watch and money-bag carefully 
 to the breast of his shirt, and slipping his handker- 
 chief, his wife's portrait, and his letters up the sleeves 
 of his cassock, he stuffed both the discarded suits 
 hastily up the chimney, and found leisure to amuse 
 himself with poor Father Duvet's attempts to settle 
 comfortably into his own mountebank's costume. 
 
 " Wouldn't the green have been better ? " he 
 laughed. 
 
 " No, I think not, my dear fellow. You see I 
 looked carefully at both of them, and "... the 
 speaker seemed to lose his thread a moment, and 
 bent suddenly down to pinch his calf ..." And . . . 
 what was I saying ? . . . Oh, yes . . . no, I think 
 this was the least ... I think it was the better of 
 the two. Besides," he added, with a somewhat forced 
 laugh, " one may as well look the part while one is 
 about it ... If yours were tighter, and a few more 
 buttons, it would really look very much like a modern 
 cassock." 
 
 " Very to look at. Well, we must make the best 
 of them for a while, till we can get away and buy new 
 clothes without suspicion. We must walk circum- 
 spectly, old fellow, and give no offence. It'll be 
 rather difficult at first, of course. We ... we must 
 tell the truth, mustn't we ? " 
 
 " Oh, of course . . . with natural reservations, that 
 is." 
 
 ' Yes, yes, with natural reservations. After all, it 
 
A NEW WORLD 41 
 
 is but a passing trial of our faith, and it will be a great 
 
 privilege to see real unadulterated Catholicity 
 
 Good heavens ! " 
 
 Duvet turned round at this startled exclamation, 
 and saw a big red face at the window, strained into an 
 expression of intense pain, and followed slowly by a 
 big red body which struggled with surprising elasti- 
 city through the narrow gap left by one broken stan- 
 chion, and soon stood beside them on the floor. The 
 new comer sat down on his pallet, and wiped his 
 streaming brow with a corner of his hood. " 'Twill 
 be my death some day," he panted, in what sounded 
 like a broad north-country dialect. " 'Twill be my 
 death ; and then they'll be loth to lack honest John 
 Cartwright ! But how came ye here, masters ? " 
 
 " Not by your way," answered Rashleigh with some 
 disgust, noting now for the first time a rope-ladder 
 that hung from the window-bars. 
 
 " Cokkes bones ! hearken now how daintily 'a 
 speaketh, as 'twere some castle madam, with the 
 ends of a's lips and the tip of a's tongue ! ' Not by 
 your way ! ' " he repeated, mimicking the modern 
 accent "then I take it I must have forgot once 
 more to lock the minster doors ; i' faith, I was much 
 troubled last night, and I must bear the brunt on't 
 again in Chapter ! Well, well, John Cartwright's 
 back is broad enough to bear it all ! ' Not your way,' 
 quotha. Nay, thou cainard, but that will come soon 
 enow, when ye shall have been here a month or twain, 
 and shall have learnt the smack of fat Marjorie 
 Higgins' ale ! Ey, benedicite ! our two new vicars- 
 
42 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 choral, as help me God ! and dight already in the 
 dresses of John Hall and Barnaby Bates that hung on 
 our wall here ! " 
 
 " If you want the gold . . ." cried Herbert, feeling 
 for his bag. 
 
 " Nay, nay, bring out your gold to-night at the ale- 
 house, and that shall be seen. John Cartwright is 
 old and weary, and would fain sleep now ; but ye shall 
 find him a good fellow by the pot and the dice-box in 
 his own good time. Peter ! fellow, thou that art clad 
 as a squire, knowest thou that this is the day of the 
 Archbishop's visitation? " 
 
 " Methinks, sirrah, my garments will pass muster 
 as well as thine," replied Duvet, doing his best to 
 imitate the speech and accent of his interlocutor. 
 
 "Pass mustard! ay, that's the word; pass mustard 
 and verjuice and vinegar when little Ralph Grey 
 cometh to visit this Chapter, with his assessors and 
 his scribes, and his score of stout varlets riding at his 
 heels. God's body ! 'a made me stand barefoot in 
 my shirt of penance within this same minster three 
 years agone, before the bones of holy St. Waltheof on 
 the altar there, with a waxen taper of three pounds 1 
 weight in my hand, and a fellow at my heels with a 
 rod of birchen twigs, which had smarted me sore had 
 he not been mindful to lay on as upon a friend and 
 fellow-sufferer. But, Mary ! all that is now clean 
 forgot. There is none that could accuse me now but 
 one, and she durst not for very fear. . . . And now, 
 my masters, your butterfly shall change into your sad- 
 faced worm again." 
 
A NEW WOELD 43 
 
 During all this monologue John Cartwright had 
 been busy unlocking and rummaging in the chest, 
 from which he presently produced a cassock and 
 hosen only one degree less rusty than those worn by 
 Kashleigh, and envied now by Duvet, who was 
 seriously disquieted by the hints of a coming archi- 
 episcopal visitation. " Gramerc}^ friend," he now put 
 in, " canst thou not lend me a cassock I would say, 
 a long black robe such as that. I have gold . . ." 
 
 "Nay, nay, 'go thou to them that sell,' as holy 
 Lazarus said to the rich fool in the Gospel. And 
 when once the visitation is begun, see thou which of 
 us twain shall draw the longer cut thou, who pratest 
 as if thou wert come flying hither as an angel from 
 heaven, or poor honest John Cartwright, who crept 
 in but now through the shot-window, but who has a 
 capam rotundam, botanatam et clausam to don for the 
 presence of the Lord Archbishop. . . . Cokkes 
 bones ! " he murmured, letting himself fall on the old 
 stool and holding his head in his hands; "would to 
 God I were still in my warm bed at Green Hill, as I 
 had surely been but for his lordship, sacristan or no 
 sacristan ! " 
 
 Green Hill ! The words brought a sudden twinge of 
 regret to Rashleigh's heart. They reminded him 
 again of his wife and children sleeping through this 
 summer dawn in the little rose-wreathed cottage, so 
 near in space and yet five or six centuries away. 
 He took out his handkerchief and blew his nose 
 violently. 
 
 " Peter ! " cried honest John, " what have we here ? 
 
44 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 A fellow who beareth a napkin in his sleeve to wring 
 his nose withal ! " 
 
 "How else should he?" asked Rashleigh in un- 
 guarded wonder. 
 
 " How else ? " John Cartwright suited the action 
 
 to the word. 
 
 * * * 
 
 " 'Tis thus that the ploughman doth in my country," 
 remarked Rashleigh. 
 
 " 'Tis thus that my lord the King doth in my 
 country, thou barrel full of folly, as I have seen with 
 mine own sinful eyes, before the shrine of holy St. 
 Waltheof here save only that a's royal hood was of 
 scarlet silk lined with minever and curiously embroi- 
 dered with gold and seed-pearls and a's royal nose, 
 as I may safely swear, of less manly proportions and 
 a sicklier hue than that of honest John Cartwright. 
 The Lord King beareth no napkin in a's sleeve nay, 
 nor a's gracious father neither, when a dined here at 
 the cost of the chapter on the way to his last war 
 against the Scots. ... A napkin to wring a's nose 
 withal ! " he caught the corner of the handkerchief 
 and twitched it roughly from Rashleigh's sleeve, bring- 
 ing out at the same time that miniature photograph of 
 Mrs. Rashleigh which the curate had put away so 
 carefully. Rashleigh stooped hastily to pick up this 
 dear memento, but the other had pounced on it like a 
 hawk, caught by the glitter of the silver frame. 
 
 " Give me that picture ! " cried Herbert. 
 
 " His leman, as I live," sneered Cartwright, holding 
 the picture at arm's length. Herbert, purple with 
 
A NEW WORLD 45 
 
 passion, gripped him by the throat, shook him like a 
 rat, and flung him on the wretched bed, from which, 
 as he recovered breath, he began to gasp out foul 
 oaths and threats of vengeance. Meanwhile Rashleigh 
 glared defiance at him as he wound the chain of the 
 portrait carefully round his neck. 
 
 " Come down into the church," cried Duvet, fearing 
 further violence ; and Kashleigh allowed himself to be 
 led quietly down the stairs. 
 
 " Do you know that you have incurred the greater 
 excommunication ipso facto, by laying violent hands 
 on a priest ? " 
 
 " My dear Duvet, I would have laid violent hands 
 on the Pope himself! . . . Pardon me, old fellow; 
 
 . . I'll do any penance for this afterwards, but don't 
 talk to me just now. There are things you can't 
 understand." 
 
 " Remember the trial of our faith." 
 
 "Yes, yes, I was wrong very wrong and hasty. 
 But I say, old man, no handkerchief! He didn't 
 even know one when he saw it ! And do you suppose 
 they ever sweep this church ? " 
 
 The broad daylight did indeed show that the church 
 floor followed Italian rather than modern English 
 traditions in the matter of cleanliness ; but the two 
 friends picked their way speedily towards the vestry, 
 hastened by the clamorous ringing of the minster bells, 
 and by the sight of two or three other figures hurrying 
 on before them. 
 
 It was evidently their best policy to show as bold a 
 front as possible ; so Duvet followed close on 
 
46 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 Rashleigh's heels, and seeing a row of surplices hanging 
 near the door, caught the first that came to hand. It 
 was fortunate for him that the real medieval surplice 
 was very far from the correct modern Catholic pattern ; 
 in those ruder days, a short surplice was a shame and 
 a reproach to its wearer: the correct model was as 
 long and ample as the Low Church garment of a genera- 
 tion ago; and that into which Duvet had slipped 
 covered him now to the very heels of his hoots. The 
 rest had already gone forward into the choir ; Rash- 
 leigh and Duvet followed them, and took their places, 
 as two new vicars-choral, in the lower stalls. Here, in 
 the choir, the dim light that filtered in through the 
 narrow windows of painted glass was eked out by some 
 score of wax tapers, and for the first few minutes 
 Rashleigh felt himself again. But the singing had 
 just begun, and to his unpractised ear it sounded a 
 very undignified gabble. Moreover, the officiants 
 lounged about in their stalls, laughed and talked with 
 each other at intervals, and invariably began the 
 responses half-way through the verse. They behaved, 
 in short, in the way so familiar to students of medieval 
 chapter visitations, but so little suspected by the 
 general public of to-day. It seemed to poor Rashleigh 
 that he must have found his way to a particularly 
 unfortunate stall; the seat and sides were smeared 
 with candle-grease, and there were other indications 
 which reminded him uncomfortably of his late enemy 
 Cartwright. Try as he might he could not shut out 
 the voices of men and women chatting irreverently in 
 the aisle behind the beautiful fretwork of the screen ; 
 
A NEW WOBLD 47 
 
 with which voices was presently mingled that of honest 
 John, coming in late as usual to his somewhat fitful 
 and irregular service of God. A moment after, the big 
 red-faced man came swaggering in, took his place in a 
 stall exactly opposite to our friends, and began amusing 
 himself with a stentorian fauburdon, or bass-accom- 
 paniment out of his own head, which seemed to afford 
 him a satisfaction proportionate to the confusion which 
 it spread among the rest of the choir. Like Chaucer's 
 
 friar, 
 
 " His eyen twinkled in his hed aright 
 As don the sterres in a frosty night," 
 
 and he winked across at the end of each verse towards 
 some kindred spirit who had begun fauburdoning also, 
 after his own fashion, in a stall above Duvet's head. 
 
 Duvet himself, who had been in Italy, was far less 
 distracted than Eashleigh by all these little eccentri- 
 cities, and had succeeded in picking up the thread of 
 the psalmody very much to his own satisfaction. It 
 pleased him to think what an indispensable guide he 
 would be to Rashleigh in this their new life, and how 
 soon he would bring him to see that there was no mean 
 between modern agnosticism and whole-hearted sub- 
 mission to the See of St. Peter. So he threw out his 
 chest and chanted in his best what-a-good-boy-am-I 
 
 voice, "In scecula sceculo-o-orum Good God! 
 
 what was that?" 
 
 " Hot waxula waxulo-o~orum," chanted the faubur- 
 don above his head in brutal glee. It was indeed wax, 
 a drop of burning wax, and poor Duvet's tonsure was 
 fresh and clean-shaved for Sunday ! The mere wound 
 
48 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 of the flesh may indeed heal after a week or so, but 
 there are wounds of the heart which bleed silently for 
 ever. In later years, when he had developed an 
 interest in medieval records proportionate to his earlier 
 indifference, it was with keen sympathy that he read the 
 sad words penned in 1330 by good Bishop Grandisson 
 of Exeter : " We have heard, not without grave dis- 
 pleasure, how certain Vicars and other Ministers of our 
 Cathedral, to their own damnation and to the scandal 
 of the Church, laugh and titter together at the solemn 
 time of Divine Service ; and some who occupy the 
 upper stalls cast in jest the droppings or snuffings of 
 their candles, purposely and unprovokedly, upon the 
 hair or the bare crowns of those below them ; whereby 
 the Devil taketh occasion to breed open discord or 
 secret rancour between one minister and another." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 VISITATION 
 
 THE Archbishop had come : he had been received, 
 as was his due, in solemn procession and with peals 
 of bells ; High Mass had been sung, and Preciosa had 
 been read in the Chapter-house. The edifying legend 
 for this day was that of St. Oudoce of Llandaff, who, 
 lacking a cup to drink from, fashioned from a pat of 
 butter which stood before him a golden goblet, " which 
 is still kept as a holy relic." And now, enthroned in 
 state above the Chapter, the great prelate was enquiring 
 into the finances, the public morals, and the spiritual 
 state of the dean, the canons, and the vicars-choral. 
 His lordship himself looked extremely bored by the 
 whole affair, and threw as much of the work as he 
 could upon his clerk, a sharp-featured man who, but 
 for his dress and tonsure, might at any moment have 
 passed for a smart London lawyer. Our two friends 
 had ensconced themselves in a quiet corner, Father 
 Duvet wrapped in an old blue cloak which he had 
 found in a cupboard, and which concealed fairly com- 
 pletely his unclerical garb ; and Rashleigh, too much 
 interested in the drama before him to consider whether 
 he himself ran any risk. As the clerk droned out in a 
 
 F.L. D 
 
50 FRIAB'S LANTEEN 
 
 monotonous voice the usual articles of enquiry, the 
 Archbishop nodded in lazier and lazier good humour 
 at the satisfactory nature of each reply, and congratu- 
 lated himself that the tone of the Chapter should be 
 so much improved since his last visit three years ago. 
 The dean had indeed reported certain small negligences 
 and laxities in the services and other common duties ; 
 one or two of the clergy had made similar trifling 
 complaints for their own parts ; it had been found 
 that some of the church furniture, books, and vest- 
 ments needed repair ; otherwise, Summerleigh Minster 
 showed a very clean bill, and the Archbishop was on 
 the point of dismissing the Chapter with his blessing, 
 when the clerk rose and whispered a word in his ear, 
 looking as he spoke towards our friend Cartwright. 
 This gentleman, with his crony, Bull, had specially 
 amused our two friends by the lamb-like innocence 
 which they had displayed under the Archbishop's 
 interrogations. From these interrogatories it appeared 
 that they, with three or four others, had anything but 
 a spotless record for the past. In fact, what with 
 breaches of the rule of clerical celibacy, tavern-haunting, 
 dice-playing, brawling at divine services, and other 
 slighter offences, the Archbishop, on looking through 
 the notes of past visitations, found a very heavy list 
 against each of these names. He expressed, however, 
 as in duty bound, the charitable hope that all this had 
 been amended ; and, while no voice was raised to 
 protest the contrary, all the interested parties had 
 answered in chorus that these past offences had 
 long since been repented and washed out by due 
 
VISITATION 61 
 
 ecclesiastical penance. The Archbishop had seemed for 
 a moment to hesitate, at which the suspected parties 
 claimed with one accord to be admitted to " corn- 
 purgation." l The Archbishop replied courteously 
 that, there being no accuser on this occasion, he need 
 not trouble them even to go through that form ; and 
 it seemed strange that Cartwright, instead of appearing 
 relieved at this reply, should scowl across the room 
 at a ferret-faced vicar-choral in the other corner and 
 shake his fist furtively at him. Carefully as it was 
 concealed, this gesture attracted just enough notice 
 from the clerk to make him look in the direction for 
 which it was intended, and there he marked a pair of 
 red and restless eyes that had long been trying to 
 eatch a glance from him, and of which the one most 
 remote from Cartwright now closed into an unmis- 
 takable wink. Hence his whisper to the Archbishop, 
 which caused the prelate to break off abruptly in his 
 bland periods. "But," he continued, "forasmuch as 
 the wisdom of our predecessors hath oftentimes thought 
 fit to supplement the public visitation by a private 
 visitation also, we now command that all canons and 
 
 1 The most usual procedure for tlie trial of clerical offenders 
 in the Middle Ages ; it consisted in the accused swearing to his 
 own innocence, with the support of a certain number of other 
 persons who might offer to swear belief in the truth of his oath. 
 Once safely through this ordeal, the accused was acquitted ; and 
 to those who do not know the real life of the Middle Ages it 
 must seem strange indeed that so deliberate a temptation to 
 perj ury should have been commonly offered. Q-ascoigne, the great 
 Chancellor of Oxford, in the fifteenth century, publicly branded 
 this system as offering " an occasion of intolerable iniquity." 
 
 D2 
 
52 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 vicars-choral depart from hence into the church, there 
 to await our good pleasure, save only those whom we 
 shall designate to he examined here privily hy our- 
 selves." At this the countenances of most of the 
 clergy fell visibly; and Cartwright muttered under 
 his hreath a foul oath. 
 
 There was no help for it, however ; so all trooped 
 out into the church. A woman slipped rapidly forward 
 from behind one of the choir pillars where she had 
 been lurking, and came up to Cartwright with a pale, 
 anxious face. 
 
 " How fares it this time, dear heart ? " 
 
 A curse and a blow from the ruffian, and the poor 
 creature turned and crept off without a word through 
 the priests' door. It was only by the motion of her 
 shoulders that Rashleigh saw she was sobbing. 
 
 " Coward ! " he cried, taking a step towards Cart- 
 wright ; but the brute had turned away, and a moment's 
 reflection showed how useless it would be to interfere. 
 Moreover, overwearied and hungry as he was, Rash- 
 leigh felt after the events of the past night as if this 
 were all a mere dream a pageant big indeed with 
 teaching for himself, but quite beyond his control. 
 Each fresh sight and sound found him believing, yet 
 not believing ; a state of double consciousness which 
 had become so familiar to him during his late attempts 
 to justify his ecclesiastical position that it struck him 
 with no incongruity now. Indeed, it amused far more 
 than it shocked him to watch through the carved screen 
 how the minster clergy walked and stood about in 
 groups, talking and gesticulating all together " like so 
 
VISITATION 65 
 
 many foreigners," as he thought, while each waited 
 for the fatal summons to appear before the Archbishop. 
 After a while there was a general stir: the special 
 interviews seemed to be over, and the clergy began 
 trooping into the Chapter-house again. Kashleigh 
 and Duvet lingered doubtfully behind their pillar until, 
 finding themselves espied by the ferret-eyed vicar- 
 choral, they made a virtue of necessity and followed 
 the rest. 
 
 The Archbishop had already scolded himself purple 
 in the face, and looked dangerously apoplectic. A 
 torrent of accusations still flowed from his mouth : 
 grave and petty offences strangely mingled together, 
 as it seemed to Eashleigh. The clerk, business-like 
 and impassive, sat by his side, registering crime and 
 punishment with the matter-of-fact brevity with which 
 they may be found recorded in the still-surviving regis- 
 ters of Kipon, Southwell, Beverley, Wells, Exeter, and 
 half a dozen other great churches. As he wrote each 
 paragraph, he read it aloud for approval. Several of 
 the clergy were found to have relapsed into inconti- 
 nence, but had shed salutary tears and given promise 
 of amendment : they were therefore let off again with a 
 solemn warning, and stood together in one corner of 
 the Chapter-house, their eyes still swollen, and their 
 cheeks still furrowed with grimy rivulets. Cartwright 
 was again accused of incontinence, convicted, and con- 
 fessed : Item, of revealing the secrets of the vicars' 
 hall to Christina Saynton. Item, of walking in the 
 aisles during service and talking with suspected charac- 
 ters in the choir. Item, of entering the choir late and 
 
54 FEIAE'S LANTEEN 
 
 leaving early. Item, of sleeping during service. Item, 
 of singing fauburdon during his waking moments, to 
 the discomfort of his fellow vicars. Item, of striking 
 Ferret-eyes with a dagger. At which accusation, 
 honest John thrust his hand again into his bosom, 
 with a malignant scowl at Ferret-eyes, who shrank 
 nearer to the Archbishop. The prelate caught the 
 gesture and the look, and commanded that the offender 
 should forthwith forfeit his weapon : a punishment 
 which would seem of little efficacy so long as there 
 were other daggers to be had at Summerleigh. Cart- 
 wright alone of all the offenders troubled to shed no 
 tears; he knew his own case had gone beyond that 
 stage, and was prepared to bear punishment which, 
 after all, would be partly spiritual. For his incon- 
 tinence, which by Chapter statute ought to have cost 
 him his benefice long ago, he was sentenced to a fine 
 of 13s. 4d., and three days' suspension from sacred 
 duties. For the assault he was fined a pound the 
 equivalent of some d20 modern currency and, after 
 begging the Archbishop's pardon on his knees and 
 making a surly promise of amendment which sounded 
 as if he had learned it by rote on former occasions, he 
 rose again and was on the point of retiring. At this 
 moment he caught sight of our two friends standing 
 close by, and his eyes light up with malicious joy. 
 " My Lord Archbishop," he cried, " an it be so dear 
 a game to kiss a wench or lay one's finger on one's 
 fellow clerk, what think ye of these men here ? Here 
 is one who beareth in his sleeve the portrait of his 
 leman framed all in silver, and another who hideth a 
 
VISITATION 55 
 
 squire's dress under his old cloak foul brawlers and 
 swashbucklers both : I bear yet on my throat the 
 prints of this man's fingers." 
 
 " What is this man's name ? " asked the Archbishop, 
 frowning at Kashleigh; " and how is it that thou and 
 thy fellow were not at my privy examination even 
 now?" 
 
 "We are but newly come this morning, my lord," 
 answered Duvet persuasively; " poor vicars-choral, at 
 your lordship's service." 
 
 "Ay, sent here doubtless by Master Bittering and 
 Master Swerdeston, who contumaciously absent them- 
 selves from all our visitations, and who serve their 
 stalls or shall I say desecrate the same by sending 
 hither vagabond priests for a few weeks at a time ! Is 
 it not so ? are ye not here in the name of Masters 
 Bittering and Swerdeston ? " 
 
 " Even so, my lord," replied Duvet, treading as he 
 spoke on Rashleigh's toe. 
 
 " And thou, is this defamation true : hast thou indeed 
 the portrait of thy leman in thy sleeve ? " 
 
 "My lord," said Rashleigh, "it is true." He saw 
 the uselessness of all explanation before a judge in 
 whose law there was no room for honest clerical mar- 
 riage. He made up his mind to accept the inevitable 
 misunderstanding as a punishment for his sins, and 
 was ready to accept cheerfully any penalty which might 
 be inflicted. 
 
 " Another of them ! " sighed the Archbishop wearily, 
 turning to his clerk. " Write now that this vicar- 
 choral by what name shall we call thee? " 
 
56 FRIAR'S LANTEKN 
 
 "Herbert Eashleigh, my lord." 
 
 Luke, the clerk, made an ear-trumpet of his hand 
 and raised his eyebrows enquiringly. 
 
 " Herbert Ragsleeve ! " cried out Cartwright from 
 behind him. " Beareth a linen rag in a's sleeve to 
 wring a's nose withal, for all the world like a clouted 
 babe ! " 
 
 "Herbert, surnamed Ragsleeve," wrote the clerk 
 without a change of muscle, and repeating his words 
 in the same indifferent voice, " confesseth to the truth 
 of the accusation wherewith he is defamed with . . . 
 what name shall I write for the woman ? " 
 
 " Write Agnes," answered Rashleigh from between 
 his clenched teeth, after a moment's pause. 
 
 " What, Agnes Webster, with whom three years 
 agone Master John Cartwright . . . ? " 
 
 " No, my lord." 
 
 " Agnes, called the Red, with whom Master Bull and 
 Sir Geoffrey Malin . . . ? " 
 
 " My lord," said Rashleigh, controlling himself by 
 another mighty effort, " she dwelleth not here : it is 
 in the diocese of London, where I received my holy 
 orders, that we first lived as man and wife." 
 
 " Ay, as man and wife of the devil's joining ! " 
 cried the Archbishop, with more warmth than he had 
 hitherto shown ; " even as a member of Christ is 
 joined with a harlot . . . God in Heaven ! when will 
 this plague depart from Thy afflicted Church ? . . . 
 And the Archdeacon hath taken gold of thee for all 
 these years, that thou mightest wallow undisturbed 
 in thy sin ? . . . We have heard only too truly how 
 
VISITATION 57 
 
 these things are done in our brother's diocese of Lon- 
 don ; but may the Almighty look to it ! " . . . The 
 Archdeacon, I say, took gifts to leave thee in thy sty ? " 
 
 " The Archdeacon left me undisturbed, my lord." 
 
 "Body of God!" cried the Archbishop again. 
 " Well might the learned and holy father, John of 
 Salisbury, write his treatise on the question whether 
 any archdeacon can come to salvation ! Ay, and 
 bishops and archbishops too, for we must fear to be 
 found on the one part like Eehoboam, who had no 
 mercy, but drave the Lord's folk to rebellion, or, on 
 the other part, like unto Eli, that suffered the wicked- 
 ness of his evil sons. . . . Your letters of orders ? " 
 he asked abruptly. 
 
 " They are not here, my lord." 
 
 " It is even as I suspected. Thou shalt bring them 
 to me before the Feast of St. Michael next ensuing in 
 my palace of York, or wheresoever else I may be 
 found, on pain of a fine of W to the fabric of St. 
 Peter's Minster in York. And for thy swinish sins 
 already committed thou shalt pay forthwith to that 
 same fabric, together with thes thy companions in 
 iniquity, the sum of one mark each, in good coin of 
 the realm. . . . Who is this thy fellow, dressed like 
 a ribald or popinjay swashbuckler?" For while the 
 prelate had been rating poor Kashleigh the Dean and 
 other zealous members of the Chapter had seized the 
 chance of further diverting attention from themselves 
 by stripping poor Duvet of his old blue cloak and dis- 
 playing him in all his shame of red and yellow stripes. 
 " By whom wast thou ordained ? " 
 
58 FRIAR'S LANTEKN 
 
 Duvet cast a piteous look at Rashleigh. "I ... 
 was ordained in a far-off diocese." 
 
 " But by what bishop, Sir Popinjay? " 
 
 " By the Lord Bishop of Plymouth," blurted out 
 Duvet, with as much assurance as he could muster. 
 
 The Archbishop looked puzzled, and conferred one 
 moment with his clerk. " There is no such diocese in 
 this realm," he presently continued ; " who then is 
 this bishop of whom thou pratest ? " 
 
 "He is a bishop," replied Duvet, stoutly, "in 
 partibus infidelium." It was galling to find himself at 
 such a disadvantage in Rashleigh' s presence, and yet 
 among true Catholics. 
 
 The Archbishop's brow darkened. "Ha, Plymouth ! " 
 cried he, as a new light dawned on him. " Plymouth ? 
 Dartmouth, thou wouldst have said. Speakest thou 
 not of that vagabond friar whereof my brother of 
 Exeter hath lately reported to me ? of that lord who 
 beareth himself here in England as Bishop of Damascus 
 in partibus infidelium, and who trailed his folly through 
 the town of Dartmouth some months since, flaunting 
 among the lewd folk of the market-place and the 
 tavern a certain ring which he boasteth himself to have 
 received from our lord the Pope, together with a 
 commission to perform episcopal acts in these our 
 English dioceses, thereby defrauding the lawfully 
 appointed prelates of this realm ? Speakest thou of 
 that same deceiver, or have we yet others of the same 
 sort, seducing the silly and ignorant folk, and giving 
 daily occasion of scandal to the weaker brethren ? " 
 " My lord," stammered the unfortunate priest. 
 
VISITATION 59 
 
 " Master Luke," interrupted the Archbishop, with- 
 out paying further attention to Father Duvet, "thou 
 shalt engross the same injunction for this piebald 
 hedge-priest as for the other two vicars-choral whereof 
 it hath been detected to me that they ride abroad in 
 gaudy and secular apparel and bear themselves to the 
 scandal of their priestly dignity. And I pray ye, 
 Master Dean, that ye see more closely to the correction 
 of such offences within this your minster, and that ye 
 amend in your own house that ye wot of, and whereof 
 I spake to you even now in private." He passed his 
 hand wearily over his brow. " Are we at an end now, 
 Master Scayff?" 
 
 " Your lordship's predecessor of pious memory, in 
 inflicting fines for concubinage to the profit of St. 
 Peter's fabric, was ever wont to require further an 
 abjuration of the suspected woman." 
 
 " Well thought of, Master Scayff. Do thou read the 
 abjuration, and let these six culprits come forward and 
 swear." 
 
 The clerk turned up the page in his register and 
 read out in a matter-of-fact voice the formula by which 
 A. B. solemnly abjured henceforth for ever the com- 
 pany of C. D., whether in sickness or in health, 
 excepting only in church or market and in the presence 
 of honest company. The other five laid their hand on 
 the Book of Gospels and took the oath with a glib 
 unction born of long familiarity, but Kashleigh stood 
 silent without raising his hand to the book. The blood 
 mounted again to the Archbishop's face. " By St. 
 John of Beverley ! " he began. 
 
60 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 " My lord ! " pleaded Rashleigh, meekly kneeling 
 with bowed neck at the prelate's feet, and thus dis- 
 playing, as ill-luck would have it, a thick crop of hair 
 destitute of the least pretence of tonsure. The Arch- 
 bishop seized him passionately by these unlucky locks 
 and tugged with such good will that Rashleigh found 
 himself grovelling in the dust the very literal dust, 
 with other nameless admixtures on the Chapter-house 
 floor, in which position, before he could rise, the in- 
 furiated prelate spurned him thrice with a riding-boot 
 painfully pointed at the toe. The next moment Rash- 
 leigh had risen and stood with clenched fists facing the 
 Archbishop, who for his part seemed again on the 
 verge of an apoplectic fit. Half a dozen sturdy priestg 
 threw themselves upon Rashleigh. " Take the ribald 
 hence," roared the prelate, " and feed him with the 
 bread of affliction and the water of affliction until I 
 determine further concerning him." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 DISILLUSION 
 
 EASHLEIGH had been some three hours now in the 
 gloomy room which served both as library and as prison 
 to the canons and vicars-choral of Summerleigh Minster. 
 The heavy oak presses had once no doubt been full of 
 books, but the most valuable had disappeared one by 
 one during half-a-dozen generations of steady mis- 
 management and rapidly increasing debts; and the 
 dilapidated and mouldering remnants lay strewn at 
 random about the shelves or the ground. The win- 
 dows were high and narrow, admitting no air but 
 through an occasional broken pane; an odour of damp 
 and decay struggled with other less savoury suggestions 
 that came from the rushes on the floor. The unin- 
 viting pallet, on which Rashleigh flung himself at first, 
 soon proved pregnant of even more than met the eye. 
 He raised a pile of books which enabled him to peep 
 through one of the lancet windows ; here he could see 
 the west end of the minster, a corner of the church- 
 yard, and a bit of the Vicar's Close. The early evening 
 sun lingered lovingly on the clean white fa9ade, fresh 
 from the mason's chisel, and played merrily on the 
 gilded vanes that flickered on the pinnacles behind. 
 
62 FBIAK'S LANTERN 
 
 Here and there a white coif or a gay garment flitted 
 across the churchyard path ; and all the pleasant sounds 
 of a summer evening came faintly to his ears. But even 
 this scene had its strange contrasts ; the graves were over- 
 grown with nettles, among which geese snatched at the 
 scanty blades of grass ; and hogs wallowed or rooted 
 up the ground as their fancy took them. On one of 
 the stones, half hidden hy a projecting buttress, sat a 
 dingy ragged figure of a girl, raising her face now and 
 then from her hands to look wistfully towards the 
 Vicar's Close. He could see little of her features 
 through the cracked pane which served him as an 
 uneasy spy-hole ; but what little he could see reminded 
 him painfully of his own wife. However, he stead- 
 fastly put away that thought as a temptation ; he was 
 come to see the ages of faith, to live in the ages of faith, 
 and to learn all that God had to teach him through 
 this vision, with a mind as unclouded as might be by 
 all earthly ties or earthly interests. He climbed down 
 again, and arranged two or three other books as a seat. 
 He set himself to meditate, to meditate strictly : what 
 was God's will with him in all this ? But it was very 
 difficult to fix his thoughts, even apart from the physical 
 discomforts of his present state. Darkness crept over 
 his prison, and, when next he climbed to the window, 
 the windows of the vicars' hall were bright with lights. 
 It was evident that the good vicars, having supped at 
 five with other honest folk, were celebrating in a 
 "rere-supper " their deliverance from the snares of 
 the Archbishop. The ragged girl's figure hung about 
 the door of the hall now, he could see it every now and 
 
DISILLUSION 63 
 
 then, dark against those festive lights. He dropped 
 down at last, faint and languid with hunger ; he even 
 braved the dingy pallet again, and lay there yearning 
 even for his bread of affliction and water of affliction. 
 When, however, the key turned in the door, it was to 
 admit no less welcome a visitor than Duvet, bearing a 
 savoury steaming dish and a pitcher of wine. Duvet's 
 eyes sparkled and his face was flushed, doubtless with 
 the intoxication of the good news he brought. 
 
 " We sent the Archbishop off in the best of humours 
 at six o'clock," he said, " and you're going to be let 
 out to-night, the Dean says. The Archbishop was very 
 sorry to have lost his temper with you ; you'll be glad 
 to hear that he confessed and got absolution before he 
 sat down to supper. I say, they do know how to cook 
 for a fast-day, these fellows ! What do you think of 
 that rice boiled in milk and almonds ? Doesn't it melt 
 in your mouth ? " 
 
 "Kipping!" murmured Eashleign, in whose mouth 
 half the plateful had already melted. 
 
 " And if you'd seen the salmon, straight out of the 
 water this morning, and with such a curd on it. The 
 Dean told them to send you some, but there was none 
 left. Our friends Cartwright and Bull did wonders ; 
 they're at their wine still, so's the Dean. I left him 
 bawling out ' Bibamus papaliter / ' and telling racy 
 anecdotes. I say, old man, we've got among rather a 
 queer lot of clergy here. I never dreamed that grown- 
 up men could behave and talk so exactly as we used to 
 do in the Scotch College at Rome." 
 
 " I know nothing about Borne," answered Rashleigh 
 
64 FKIAE'S LANTERN 
 
 a little drily, " but it is plain to me that our experience 
 with these particular men is designed for a special 
 trial of our faith." 
 
 " I think you do them injustice," answered Duvet, 
 with an optimism perhaps not altogether unconnected 
 with his recent convivialities. " They seem to me very 
 decent folk at the bottom. The Dean was delighted 
 at one or two Irish stories I brought out for his benefit ; 
 and I flatter myself I'm in high favour with him at 
 present. It all depends on getting hold of men by the 
 right end, after all ; or perhaps it is," he continued, in 
 a somewhat patronising tone, " that I understand them 
 better ; there is a certain subtle flavour of Catholicism 
 that nobody can catch without having lived all his life 
 among Catholics. Even your great Newman, now . . . 
 But then," he added, as if suddenly recollecting him- 
 self, " I don't suppose you'd agree with me there. 
 Taste the wine and tell me what you think of it." 
 
 Rashleigh, who had by no means relished the tone 
 of this last speech, took Duvet's advice ; and, having 
 wiped his mouth, he heaved a sigh half of satisfaction, 
 half of regret to see his empty plate. 
 
 " Did you say/asi-day ? " he thought aloud. 
 
 " Yes ; it was Saturday last night in Findlay's rooms, 
 and now I find out it is Wednesday here ! We must 
 have gone a deuce of a long way back. Anything damp 
 left in that jug? Good, then now we'll get to busi- 
 ness. You're to be let out to-night, and no more fuss 
 about making you abjure, on condition that you go 
 on foot and get the Holy Father's absolution." 
 
 "Willingly," said Rashleigh, who, if he could 
 
DISILLUSION 65 
 
 honestly have analysed his own inmost thoughts, 
 would have found himself ready to go anywhere away 
 from this place, even though it were to Jericho, for 
 the Grand Turk's absolution. 
 
 " And I am to find some other parish or cure for 
 myself. The archbishop's clerk was rather apologetic 
 to me, in private, for being so hard on us two ; he 
 said the archbishop had had a good deal of trouble 
 about these things, and must make an example or two 
 here and there, and the only chance of doing this was 
 with newcomers^ for the old lot simply stick together 
 en bloc. They practically snap their fingers at him 
 directly his back is turned, and do no penance at all, 
 except where he finds it serious enough to bring his 
 whole power to bear for the expulsion of one of them. 
 So I shall go with you now, and we'll have a pleasant 
 journey together ; you don't know what a jolly place 
 Eome is ! D'ye know, I think there was one pro- 
 pitious moment when I could have got our pilgrimage 
 knocked off, if it had seemed worth while; but I 
 thought how, after al 1 the journey would be the 
 pleasantest thing for both of us. No peas in our 
 shoes, you know ! " he added, laughing a little immoder- 
 ately at his own wit. Presently, however, he relapsed 
 into sudden seriousness. " Look here, my dear fellow, 
 why on earth didn't you think of pleading to the 
 Archbishop that you were not in Holy Orders ? I was 
 doing all I could to catch your eye and give you a hint." 
 
 " Not in Holy Orders . . . Why, you have always 
 admitted to me privately that you believed our Anglican 
 ordination. . . ," 
 
 F.L. B 
 
66 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 " Oh, of course, of course, I am not one of those 
 who think that your orders are necessarily invalid. I 
 have always understood the Pope's decision as allowing 
 such latitude for a charitable hope as to justify me in 
 looking upon you as a fellow-priest. But here, you 
 must observe, we approach the subject from another 
 point of view. Your priesthood, real or supposed, puts 
 you in a cruelly false position, which it is impossible for 
 you to explain to these men. Here, then, the Holy 
 Father's decision comes in like an angel from, heaven. 
 You are speaking to men who bow absolutely to the 
 ruling of Rome on all points ; therefore you are (from 
 their point of view, mind) telling no more than the 
 strict truth in saying that you are not in Holy Orders. 
 Besides, even from your own point of view, is there 
 not sufficient doubt to justify . . . ? " 
 
 " Look here, Duvet, suppose we drop this subject 
 now, for I see we are as far as ever from understanding 
 each other." There was very much in Duvet's manner 
 and ways of thought that jarred now upon Rashleigh. 
 Perhaps he did not realise how patronising his own 
 manner had been in the past, and how much tact it 
 had needed on Duvet's part to avoid anything like an 
 open rupture. For all Rashleigh' s arguments always 
 rested on the tacit assumption that the Roman Catholics 
 of England are mere intruders on the national Church 
 interlopers in whose excuse a great deal may be said, 
 but intruders still. The events of last night had 
 necessarily reversed this position. Duvet was the 
 host now in England, and Rashleigh the mere toler- 
 ated guest ; and with the instinctive consciousness of 
 
DISILLUSION 67 
 
 this on both sides began the little rift within the lute. 
 Kashleigh was not sorry when Duvet went away with 
 the empty dish and jug, calling out an airy " Au revoir, 
 my dear fellow ; you'll see I shall make it all right for 
 you to-night! " 
 
 "He's already just like the priests one meets in 
 France and Belgium," said Kashleigh to himself, 
 " with their confounded patronising airs and their 
 open sneers when we try to explain our thoroughly 
 Catholic position and our uncompromising hatred of 
 Protestantism." 
 
 Duvet came back in half-an-hour's time with another 
 jug and half a loaf of fine bread for Kashleigh. " They're 
 as jolly as sandboys," he said, " over there in the 
 vicar's hall ; the Dean is gone, and the fun was 
 getting a little too fast and furious for me. I noticed 
 that our friend Cartwright had got his dagger back, 
 too. The clerk has sent over our parchments, which 
 we have to sign to-morrow. I can't make head or tail 
 of them by this dilapidated lantern." 
 
 Kashleigh puzzled for a moment over the crabbed 
 writing, and found reason to regret again that he 
 hadn't learnt more about the Middle Ages before 
 taking a trip thither. Meanwhile a forbidding man- 
 servant opened the door and dragged two mattresses 
 into the room, while Duvet deposited in the corner a 
 second jug of wine which he had brought. " I thought 
 I'd share your durance," he explained. " I really 
 don't know that the rushes of the hall floor were any 
 cleaner than these. Good-night, my good man, good- 
 night, and God bless you ! " he added, waving his hand 
 
 E 2 
 
68 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 urbanely, as the fellow only stared in bewilderment at 
 what to his ears was unintelligible gibberish. . . . 
 " And now, my dear Rashleigh, have you had the good 
 sense to bring your baccy-pouch with you ? . . . That's 
 right, that's right," he went on, waxing the more 
 garrulous in proportion to Rashleigh's gloom. . . . 
 " I meant to remind you when I put up my own pipe, 
 only you gave me so much ado to keep you apart 
 from honest John. ... A good two ounces, I see; 
 that will last us some time, and then I daresay we 
 shall have to get on without it. ... Cheer up, 
 old fellow ! Fill your own pipe, and we'll take turn 
 and turn with the jug, and make the best of our 
 little excursion into the Middle Ages. We shall be 
 very grateful to the old Colonel, after all. . . . Am I 
 talking nonsense ? " he asked, with sudden gravity. 
 Rashleigh made no reply, and the priest applied once 
 more to the Oracle of the Sacred Bottle, after which 
 he burst out into equally sudden and unaccountable 
 laughter. 
 
 " My brain reels with trying to think it out hang 
 it, old man ! Care killed a cat. It's a poor heart 
 that never rejoices. Here's to you again, and now 
 for the matches, and don't look so gloomy, my dear 
 fellow." 
 
 Rashleigh silently handed the little silver match-box 
 which Agnes had given him in the early days of their 
 engagement. He, too, found that his brain reeled 
 with the attempt to realise his present position. He 
 could only set his teeth and wait resolutely for what- 
 ever the future might bring somewhat gloomily at 
 
DISILLUSION 69 
 
 first, it must be owned, since he lacked many of Duvet's 
 reasons for optimism, whether spiritual or spirituous. 
 He filled his pipe, however, and took a hearty pull at 
 the flagon ; and the two were presently discussing their 
 proposed journey as eagerly as a pair of modern tourists. 
 They would cross from Harwich to some Flemish port. 
 Kashleigh had more than once managed to slip over 
 that way for a fortnight's holiday in Belgium, and had 
 the pleasantest recollections of the passage. The idea 
 of getting a far longer holiday now, under even freer 
 conditions, appealed strongly to the Bohemian that 
 there is at the bottom of every healthy Englishman ; 
 and he looked forward to seeing real Catholic life 
 among uncontaminated Catholic folk with an interest 
 unspoiled by this unfortunate beginning at Summer- 
 leigh, where things were obviously altogether excep- 
 tional. As Duvet very justly remarked, nobody ever 
 dreamed that everybody had been equally edifying, or 
 that there had been no black sheep here and there, 
 even in the ages of faith. "And mark me, Kash- 
 leigh," he went on, " there's a deal more good than 
 you had the chance of seeing, even in the roughest of 
 them. A very excellent light red wine this not a 
 headache in a hogshead of it, I'll warrant you. They 
 are really very amusing fellows, those vicars-choral, if 
 one takes them as one finds them. Cartwright told 
 me a story about the Archdeacon. ..." 
 
 The archidiaconal story proved a little too full- 
 flavoured for Kashleigh's taste ; and he announced his 
 intention of going to sleep. Duvet insisted on 
 sitting up to finish his pipe, which, however, had 
 
70 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 taken most unaccountably to going out at frequent 
 intervals during the past half-hour. He lit it again 
 for the dozenth time, presented the extinct match with 
 elaborate care to his friend, and threw the little silver 
 box away. He then explained with the most plausible 
 solemnity that he had hit upon this device to see 
 whether Rashleigh had taken too much wine : he 
 was glad to see Rashleigh had not taken too much 
 wine not that it was easy to take too much of that 
 wine, however for there wasn't a headache in a hie 
 hogshead of it. When Rashleigh, after an unquiet 
 night, rose with the first rays of the morrow's dawn, 
 he saw his friend sleeping heavily among the rushes, 
 with his spectacles on the bridge of his nose, and 
 the half- smoked pipe firmly clenched in his right 
 hand. 
 
 The archiepiscopal injunctions lay by the burnt-out 
 lantern, and Rashleigh began to puzzle at them afresh. 
 Little by little he caught some glimmerings of the 
 sense ; but the first fact borne in upon his mind was 
 that there was frequent mention of the port of Kingston- 
 upon-Hull . . . the said port of Kingston-upon-Hull 
 . . . the port of Kingston-upon-Hull aforesaid . . . 
 and no mention at all of Harwich ! The Archbishop 
 had evidently exercised his legal option of prescribing 
 to our pilgrims, not only their final goal, but also the 
 port of embarkation ; and here was checkmate already to 
 Rashleigh's plan ! He had so hoped to revisit on this 
 Romeward journey those dear familiar cities which he 
 loved already for the respite from everyday Protest- 
 antism which he had enjoyed under their venerable 
 
DISILLUSION 71 
 
 walls ! He explained the difficulty to Duvet, who 
 was awake by now, and less blandly optimistic than 
 we saw him last night. 
 
 "Well, it's very plain," said Duvet somewhat 
 impatiently : " the Archbishop writes Kingston-upon- 
 Hull you can't make it into anything but that." 
 
 " Yes, but the Archbishop . . ." 
 
 " My dear fellow, a Catholic bishop is a bishop : 
 you musn't make any mistake about that in our present 
 position," replied Duvet with some asperity. 
 
 " But I don't see . . ." 
 
 " No, and it isn't a case of seeing or not, but of 
 obeying or not : I'm afraid your Anglican ideas mis- 
 lead you sadly there." 
 
 " Not at all," replied Rashleigh hotly : " it is you 
 Eoman Catholics who, with your preconceived notions, 
 have never understood the attitude of Anglican 
 Catholics on this point . . ." 
 
 " Give me a match, my dear fellow, as we aren't to 
 have any breakfast yet." 
 
 "And who never will listen . . ." 
 
 " Oh, I'll listen, now that I have my pipe," replied 
 his friend with exasperating patronage. 
 
 " I need hardly explain to you then, or to any 
 Catholic, that the obedience which a bishop claims by 
 Act of Parliament, or under threat of procedure in a 
 secular court, is null and void to begin with : it would 
 be the merest Erastianism to suffer ourselves to be 
 controlled in spiritual things by a Parliament which is 
 open to Jews, Turks, and infidels. The obedience 
 which we owe then, is moral and spiritual : not in 
 
72 FBIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 secular court, but in foro conscicntia. Consequently 
 we are often forced in conscience to go behind the 
 actual commands of any particular bishop, and appeal 
 to a higher Catholicity behind him, from which alone 
 they can derive any binding force. That is the 
 strength of our position. Your bishop tells you to 
 do an unreasonable thing : you are forced to do it, 
 whether you will or no. But 7, in a similar case, am 
 free. He cannot touch me in the secular court, and in 
 the spiritual court I appeal far away over his head, 
 to Catholic antiquity." 
 
 "But who is to judge of Catholic antiquity? You 
 may conceivably be appealing to some supposed 
 ancient custom, or ancient consensus of opinion, which 
 never in fact existed. That's where you find the need 
 of one supreme defining authority, and that's the 
 fatal weakness of your position." 
 
 " On the contrary, that's precisely our main strength. 
 I may be wrong as to the fact, of course ; but in my 
 conscience I am right ; and I act according to my 
 conscience, unfettered by erastian shackles on the 
 one hand, or by the un-Catholic decisions of modern 
 bishops on the other. Nobody can dislodge me from 
 my position except possibly by a harsh exercise of 
 the law which is sure sooner or later to shock our 
 English sense of fair play, and therefore defeats its 
 own end by rendering the aggressor odious. And thus 
 it is that, under God's providence, the priesthood of 
 Great Britain, by their persistent struggle to revive 
 pre-Beformation customs and doctrines, have been 
 the means of bringing even a larger portion of the 
 
DISILLUSION 73 
 
 episcopate to a more Catholic frame of mind. We 
 lower clergy realise what they too often do not 
 realise a higher law emanating from their Master 
 and ours, enshrined in the decrees of the earlier 
 councils and popes, and annulling the petty modern 
 ordinances of mere earthworms. For after all, what 
 is a single bishop, in the face of our whole heritage of 
 Catholic doctrine and ceremonies ? " 
 
 "Except one Bishop," put in Duvet, in a low and 
 solemn voice. 
 
 " So that, in fact, if at times we seem to disobey 
 them, it is only in order that we may obey them in the 
 higher sense. We humble priests, who see only too 
 plainly the drawn sword of the Angel of God, can we 
 march on to destruction at the bishop's bidding, as 
 though we were as blind as they to the angelic vision 
 that bars the way ? " 
 
 "If I understand your metaphor, you are comparing 
 yourself to the ... to the patient animal which served 
 Balaam ..." 
 
 "To a certain extent ... in short . . . but of 
 course no comparison will bear running to death." 
 
 " Oh, certainly not : I only mean that one can't 
 expect to find all asses up to the moral and intellectual 
 standard of Balaam's ; and that God generally chooses 
 other mouthpieces for religious teaching . . . Pardon 
 for my interruption." The priest began to blow neat 
 rings of smoke again, as if there were no more 
 absorbing interest in the world. 
 
 "Well, take a concrete instance. I presented, as 
 you know, my own boy and girl of six and four at the 
 
74 FEIAR'S LANTEEN 
 
 Bishop's last confirmation. The Bishop refused to 
 confirm them, although I showed him Hollabone's 
 " Confirmation and Communion of Infants " with Lord 
 Halfwayhouse's preface. Face to face with the 
 evidence, he couldn't deny that the custom seemed 
 hoth primitive and Catholic except that, of course, 
 he brought up the usual Protestant cavils as to the 
 proper use of the term Catholic. When I demolished 
 those, he simply met me with, * It has never been 
 permitted in the Anglican Church, and I shall not 
 permit it now.' So I followed the course Lord Half- 
 wayhouse advised. 'You, my lord, set the Holy 
 Ghost at naught by fixing a limit of age to His opera- 
 tions in my children : therefore I am in duty bound to 
 set at naught your vain prohibitions by admitting 
 these two infants, confirmed or unconfirmed, to the 
 incalculable privileges of holy communion.' And 
 there the matter stands at present : for I rest firmly 
 on the bed-rock of antiquity." 
 
 " Yes," remarked Duvet blandly, as if he were 
 speaking to his own smoke-rings ; " and yet the so- 
 called Reformation, which we both deplore, was carried 
 out under that same plea of antiquity. However, we 
 needn't argue that now, for I feel sure you will soon 
 see for yourself how truly Manning spoke when he 
 condemned the appeal to history as a treason and a 
 heresy. After all, now that I think the matter over, 
 I don't see why we shouldn't go by Harwich, as you 
 are so bent upon it and seem to know that route so 
 well. No doubt the Archbishop would have allowed 
 us that port as well as Hull, if he had realised what 
 
DISILLUSION 75 
 
 plain reasons there were for it, and, from all I can see, 
 when once we have left Summerleigh, he will he none 
 the wiser, so long as we take care not to stumhle into 
 his way again. So there's one question happily 
 settled ; I only wish we could as easily settle the 
 question of breakfast." 
 
CHAPTEK VI 
 
 TRAMPING WITHOUT TEARS 
 
 A FORTNIGHT had passed since the events related in 
 our last chapter, and the two wanderers were no longer 
 far from Harwich. They had tramped, hy easy stages, 
 halfway across England, enjoying in their own country 
 all the fresh delights of a tour abroad. A great part 
 of the way had been familiar to both of them under 
 its modern aspect, and they found a never-failing 
 pleasure in wandering through the fens and forests that 
 obscured so many well-known spots. They had turned 
 aside for a few miles to see the somewhat squalid 
 manufacturing village of the Midlands, without any of 
 the redeeming advantages of a real town, in which 
 Kashleigh had passed his boyhood. Here they found 
 a delicious hamlet of a dozen houses and a half a 
 dozen outlying farms, embosomed in thick groves of 
 oak and ash, and mirrored in a crystal stream. It is 
 true, they found the church, now one of the glories of 
 England, in a shameful state of disrepair ; here, as at 
 Summerleigh, beasts trod down the grass in the 
 churchyard, and a medieval Parson Trulliber had 
 used the church itself partly as a barn, partly as a 
 brewhouse. Moreover, this was only one out of many 
 
TRAMPING WITHOUT TEAES 77 
 
 disillusions. Very many of the parish priests whose 
 hospitality they enjoyed on the way, proved to he as 
 lax in their conception of clerical celibacy as 
 Cartwright and Bull themselves. In an equally large 
 proportion of cases, the rector was either a mere hoy 
 still at the University, or had obtained leave of non- 
 residence to dance attendance upon some great man 
 elsewhere, leaving the actual cure of souls to the 
 tender mercies of a meagre hireling at ten marks a 
 year. The state of the churches, of their furniture, 
 and of the books was frequently such as to shock all 
 our tourists' ideas of decorum ; windows often unglazed 
 or broken, walls that threatened ruin and roofs that 
 let the rain in ; service books torn or wanting, even 
 the pyx itself sometimes wanting altogether, and often 
 sordid or lacking that lock upon which the bishops 
 always insisted as a safeguard against theft for 
 purposes of witchcraft or seduction. Here and there 
 moreover, they had worse disappointments still. 
 They had intended to say Mass daily, like good and 
 proper priests, and, on Eashleigh's expressing some 
 diffidence as to how he could manage this, Duvet 
 volunteered to show him the way. The Archbishop's 
 letters (in which nothing was said of suspension) were 
 credentials sufficient to persuade the first parish priest 
 whom they asked to allow Duvet to officiate for him, 
 but the result was disastrous. While Duvet's elaborate 
 Eoman genuflexions scandalised a congregation accus- 
 tomed to the simpler English medieval use, he himself, 
 on the other hand, went hopelessly astray among the 
 tattered volumes, which together did service for the 
 
78 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 Missal. He was compelled at last to plunge despairing 
 into the page that lay open before him, where he 
 presently found himself reciting that lesson long since 
 bowdlerised away by the Roman authorities in which 
 the medieval breviary recounted, to the honour of Pope 
 Leo, his condemnation of Pope Honorius for heresy. 
 However, not a soul in the church understood him, 
 and, even if they had understood, it is probable that 
 nobody but Rashleigh would have been particularly 
 shocked to hear that a pope here and there had been 
 condemned for heresy. On the whole, even the most 
 unexpected of their experiences rather amused than 
 scandalised Rashleigh. It was not only that his 
 companion could always explain away each incident 
 quite plausibly by quotation's from Newman's lectures, 
 for in many cases Rashleigh did not even listen to 
 Father Duvet, but let his thoughts wander at will. 
 The fact is, that this midsummer vagabondage appealed 
 strongly to the elemental savage within him. He felt 
 as we feel on our Continental holidays, where the 
 crowded market, the quaint dresses and uncouth 
 speech, the very squalor and unhealthiness of those 
 picturesque old-world streets, seem to exist simply 
 for our amusement ; simply as actors and scenery in a 
 theatre for which we have bought tickets in the front 
 stalls. Which of us, when Othello is played, distresses 
 himself seriously about the morals of lago ? Behind 
 all this was the keen physical exhilaration of a foot- 
 tour, after a long period of routine work, in this 
 perfect summer weather; the charm of this scenery 
 that changed hourly from meadow to cornland, from 
 
TRAMPING WITHOUT TEARS 79 
 
 cornland to forest ; the plain but abundant fare, for, 
 even where the parson proved churlish, there was 
 always the farmer's wife ready to regale our clerical 
 pilgrims with milk and butter and eggs and home- 
 brewed beer ; the healthy life that began daily with 
 the dawn, and took its sleep with the birds and beasts 
 when the last red had faded out of the evening sky. 
 He scarcely missed even his wife and children, except 
 to wish them by his side at the moments when his 
 enjoyment was keenest, and to promise himself the 
 pleasure of relating these things soon at his own table. 
 As to scruples of conscience, he cast them far behind 
 him, to lie undisturbed till he should fall at the Holy 
 Father's feet and be absolved from all. For sentiment 
 is your one mighty worker of miracles, and this 
 Bohemian holiday had now wrought in Rashleigh 
 what the strawberries and ice, the love of plain-song 
 and the hatred of Gounod, the pleasure of scandalising 
 High Church friends and rising superior to the Prayer- 
 book, had done for his friend Wilde. He considered 
 himself already practically in communion with the 
 See of Peter. The one material evil that might have 
 seriously troubled this rosy view of the medieval 
 world had hitherto been conspicuously absent. 
 Everywhere they had heard of highway robbers and 
 cut-throats, but had never met with any trace of these 
 men, who still seemed as mythical to them as to the 
 modern Italian traveller. What with their pilgrims' 
 passport, and what with the untroubled summer 
 weather, they had found their journey so easy as to 
 convince them that the material discomforts of the 
 
80 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 Middle Ages have been grossly exaggerated by pre- 
 judiced Protestant writers. The houses, it is true, 
 were far from modern ideas of cleanliness, but our 
 friends could nearly always find a bed in the hay of 
 the barn. The morning tub was altogether lacking, 
 but there was always some clear stream at hand to 
 swim in. Of course, there had been rough experiences 
 here and there, but these had always been such as, to 
 men full of animal spirits and started on a brief 
 holiday, only heightened the pleasant sense of novelty 
 and contrast, just as already they had laughed a 
 hundred times over the ludicrous scenes at Sumnier- 
 leigh. A similar adventure had come about in the 
 good town of Bury St. Edmunds. As they passed 
 through the motley crowds that thronged the narrow 
 streets, it had moved Rashleigh's pity deeply to see 
 so many deluded pilgrims worshipping at what he 
 knew to be an empty shrine. For he had read Father 
 Mackinlay's book, and had found it as convincing as, 
 during the past year or two, all Roman reasoning had 
 seemed to him. He saw no real difficulty in the fact 
 that the monks of Bury had always, up to the very 
 Reformation, encouraged the belief that they still 
 possessed the bones of St. Edmund, for, as Dom 
 Mackinlay argues, Louis VIII might (in spite of the 
 silence of chroniclers) have been at Bury when he 
 invaded England ; might have stolen the bones with 
 the deepest secrecy, and might have recommended 
 equal secrecy, for the next two hundred and fifty years, 
 to the triumphant clergy of Toulouse, to whom he 
 might have given the precious relics. After those two 
 
TRAMPING WITHOUT TEARS 81 
 
 hundred and fifty years were passed, the Toulousans 
 did undoubtedly boast the bones of " St. Aymund, an 
 English king's confessor," which, for all Catholic 
 purposes, are plainly to be identified with those of 
 St. Edmund, English king and martyr. As to the 
 difficulty that St. Edmund's body was incorrupt, 
 whereas the Aymund bones, when inspected at 
 Toulouse, were found in the ordinary state of unsanc- 
 tified corruption, that melancholy change can easily be 
 explained (as Romanist advocates very reasonably 
 argue) by the subtle and poisonous effects of the 
 Reformation. All this had been put with striking 
 force by Father Duvet, and had commended itself to 
 Rashleigh, who had already swallowed even more 
 baseless theories from the same source. Moreover, to 
 doubt of the Toulouse relics seemed equivalent to 
 assuming that the whole Catholic world had gone mad. 
 If the whole story was as baseless as mere Protestants 
 had argued, was it credible that the Pope should have 
 accepted it, should have used his immense authority 
 to procure the relics for the new Cathedral of 
 Westminster, and should have rewarded the complais- 
 ance of the cure of St. Sernin with the title of 
 Monsignor ? That a shrewd man of business like the 
 Duke of Norfolk should have lent himself enthusi- 
 astically to the project ? That Cardinal Yaughan and 
 the whole Roman hierarchy in England should have 
 raised such triumphant paeans at the bringing of the 
 bones to Arundel, in anticipation of their final removal 
 to Westminster ? That Father This and Abbot That, 
 and all the Romanist historians who are credited by 
 
 F.L. p 
 
82 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 ritualists with so profound a knowledge of medieval 
 history, should have lent at least the weight of their 
 silence to support the impassioned arguments of Dom 
 Mackinlay ? The mere supposition was absurd and 
 insulting, and Rashleigh's mind was soon made up ; 
 he had never troubled to look at the later corre- 
 spondence in the Times, nor had Father Duvet thought 
 fit to allude to it. Moreover, scarcely three weeks 
 ago, Rashleigh found himself at Arundel, had seen 
 with his own eyes the shrine in which the blessed 
 bones were laid, and had bought at the church door a 
 Catholic Truth Society pamphlet describing the whole 
 story in that style of pious supposition which so often 
 does duty for historical writing among Romanist 
 writers. He had felt, therefore, no shadow of doubt 
 that, at this present moment, the holy relics were no 
 longer at Bury, but at Toulouse, and that the poor 
 deluded folk were worshipping here at an empty shrine. 
 Now, Rashleigh was one of those impulsive people with 
 whom a conviction is apt to find prompt expression in 
 word or act ; nor was he as yet a sufficiently educated 
 Catholic to realise that nobody is in the least bound 
 to believe in any particular relics, from which it would 
 seem to follow that there is not the least harm in 
 worshipping St. Aymund by mistake for St. Edmund, 
 not even so much as would make it worth your while 
 to undeceive the common people, when you have learnt 
 the truth yourself. On the contrary, it seemed to 
 Rashleigh that here for once he might use his privilege 
 of modern knowledge to disabuse the poor ignorant 
 folk of Bury, and abolish a custom so displeasing to 
 
TEAMPING WITHOUT TEAES 83 
 
 God as the bowing down of multitudes daily before a 
 mere mass of marble and gold and jewels. In spite, 
 therefore, of Duvet's emphatic nods and winks, 
 Eashleigh proceeded at once, on arriving at the shrine, 
 to enlighten its guardians and the general public as to 
 the true historical facts. They seemed to take it at 
 first as a bad joke ; and Duvet succeeded in passing 
 to his friend a slip of paper in which he had written, 
 " Hold your tongue ; Cardinal Vaughan gave them up 
 long ago." Rashleigh's mind, however, was not so 
 nimble in its operations as Duvet's, and he simply 
 looked up and asked " Gave what up ?" 
 
 " The bones the Toulouse and Arundel bones." 
 Duvet spoke very rapidly in a very low voice, and 
 turned away as if he were examining with special 
 interest the artistic marvels of the shrine. 
 
 " Why on earth didn't you tell me, then?" But 
 his friend was already too deeply interested to hear 
 him. 
 
 "Friends," continued Rashleigh to his audience; 
 while Duvet, with a startled glance and a gesture of 
 violent disapproval, sidled towards the cloister door ; 
 "Friends, I am bound to modify my statement." 
 They looked blankly at the man who addressed them 
 so fluently in such unintelligible gibberish, and yet so 
 like in some ways to their mother English. Eashleigh 
 made a violent effort to express himself in Anglo-Saxon. 
 " My tongue has outrun my wit, friends ; I should have 
 said, not that the blessed bones of St. Edmund were 
 certainly taken hence by King Louis VIII. of France 
 some hundred years since, but that they may in all 
 
 F 2 
 
84 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 likelihood so have been stolen, and taken to the city of 
 Toulouse, in France, where men now worship them. 
 Wherefore, seeing that this shrine of yours may so 
 well prove to be empty of holy relics, and your 
 worship therefore unpleasing to God. ..." By 
 this time the monk in charge had realised that Rash- 
 leigh was talking seriously, and the discussion began 
 in earnest. It was not of long duration. Rashleigh, 
 fortunately for himself, had chosen a moment when 
 there were only two or three worshippers at the shrine 
 beyond the professional guardians ; and now, seeing 
 one murderous-looking penitent draw from his sleeve 
 a two-edged misericorde, or dagger, twelve inches long, 
 while two sturdy cripples hobbled towards him with 
 their heavy crutches uplifted, he slipped hastily 
 out by a side door, caught up his friend (who had 
 taken fifty yards' start) about the end of the cloister, 
 and the two rushed out of the great Norman gate just 
 as the porter, roused by the hue and cry, tumbled out 
 of his lodge one moment too late to close the wicket 
 in their face. Fortunately for our friends, the monks 
 and the townspeople of Bury had for a couple of 
 generations been at even bitterer feud than usual. 
 Only a few years ago the citizens had stormed the 
 abbey, which they looked upon as a very bastile of 
 oppression ; and the monks, with the king's justice at 
 their back, had exacted terrible vengeance for this 
 deed of violence. Any enemy of the abbey was there- 
 fore rather a popular character at this moment in 
 Bury town ; and the citizens carefully abstained from 
 officious interference as our friends scudded down the 
 
TRAMPING WITHOUT TEAES 85 
 
 street and gained the open road. Here, after they 
 had run fifty yards or so, Eashleigh thought he might 
 safely pause and look round ; but he turned and fled 
 again on perceiving the elder of the two guardians of the 
 shrine, who had issued from a postern in the abbey walls, 
 and was now selecting a smooth round pebble from 
 the brook, the size of a moderate hen's egg, which he 
 fitted into the end of a cleft stick. Poor Rashleigh's 
 flight was not so swift but that this missile, launched 
 with a skill evidently bred of lifelong use, caught him 
 low in the back, staggering him for a moment with its 
 impact, but adding very considerably to his speed 
 when he got under way again, Duvet meanwhile had 
 sped on without pause, which was very prudent and 
 fortunate. For, when once the citizens had learnt the 
 true heinousness of this slur cast on St. Edmund's 
 bones, upon which most of them depended for their 
 livelihood as definitely as the Ephesians depended on 
 Diana, they too swarmed out of the gate like bees ; 
 and Duvet, who was now again in the rear, was horrified 
 to see an arrow quiver in the ground at his side. But 
 the two fugitives had now reached the crown of a little 
 rise in the road ; a few more yards downhill brought 
 them to a wood, into which they plunged sideways ; 
 and soon the voices of their pursuers died away behind 
 them. 
 
 For all this, Duvet sped on until exhausted nature 
 could do no more ; and his first word, when he could 
 speak at all, was to reproach Eashleigh with his mad 
 folly. 
 
 " What ! " panted Eashleigh. " Would you have 
 
86 FBIAK'S LANTEKN 
 
 them go on worshipping false or non - existent 
 relics ? " 
 
 " My dear Eashleigh, didn't you understand that 
 note I passed you? St. Edmund's body is at Bury, 
 and not at Toulouse ; Cardinal Vaughan acknowledged 
 that publicly long ago at the Catholic Truth Society 
 Conference, and then it transpired that all our best 
 historians had known it all along, and had only held 
 their tongues on the proper Catholic principle of 
 economy of truth.*' 
 
 " And on what principle did yon hold your tongue 
 about ail this to me ? " 
 
 " I . . . why, I supposed you knew of it. The 
 Times was full of it, all the papers were full of it ; you 
 can imagine what a howl of irreverence and unseemly 
 jeers they set up at what they called the Komanist 
 recantation." 
 
 " My dear Duvet, isn't that economy of truth rather 
 penny-wise and pound-foolish ? But I think you must 
 have been mistaken ; for, when I looked in at Arundel 
 only a few weeks ago, the verger had no doubt about 
 St. Edmund's body, and he sold me a penny pamphlet 
 describing his transportation to Toulouse. Is that 
 possible, if Cardinal Vaughan had long ago given up 
 the theory of their authenticity ? " 
 
 " I don't know what's possible," replied Duvet 
 sulkily; "I only know what I heard at the Catholic 
 Truth Conference with my own ears. The Cardinal 
 thanked Sir Ernest Clarke for exploding the myth, 
 and showed how the mistake was not at all an awkward 
 matter for the Church, since she pretended to no 
 
TRAMPING WITHOUT TEARS 87 
 
 divine guidance to certainty in such matters as relics. 
 Of course, every Catholic knows that one may accept 
 or reject them as one pleases." 
 
 " When you say * every Catholic knows,' are you 
 talking of the twentieth or the fourteenth century ? " 
 There was a touch of bitter irony in Rashleigh's tone ; 
 he had not yet accustomed himself to certain subtleties 
 of his new faith. 
 
 " Oh, the common people are pretty much the same 
 everywhere, as Newman says ; and you mustn't go to 
 them for a model of Catholicity." 
 
 "And the monks?" 
 
 " Oh, the monks and priests often share the 
 prejudices of the common folk ; the Church never 
 pretends to such absolute divine guidance as to exempt 
 her from the operation of such-like natural laws. A 
 certain amount of savoir faire is necessary everywhere ; 
 when we meet rough and prejudiced people, we must 
 respect their prejudices, or suffer for it. I have not 
 the least doubt that any real theological scholar here 
 in the Middle Ages would tell you exactly what 
 Cardinal Vaughan told us." 
 
 "Perhaps, perhaps," answered Rashleigh, doubtfully. 
 "But I don't think your modern theological scholar 
 would be so ready with his dagger as that pimple-faced 
 ruffian in the church, or so handy with the stone and 
 the split stick as that burly monk. I must teach my little 
 boy that trick when we get back again. I verily thought 
 he had stove in my back ! Well, I suppose we must 
 be grateful to him after all ; for he's effectually warned 
 us off trying to argue with common folk about relics." 
 
88 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 " Who speaketh of common folk and relics ? " broke 
 in a voice behind them, which made them both start 
 to their feet in something like panic fear. 
 
 " Common folk and relics," echoed Duvet, with a 
 readiness which did all possible credit to his presence 
 of mind. " We spake of no such thing, reverend sir ; 
 your ears have doubtless played you false." 
 
 "I commend your prudence, young sir," replied the 
 stranger, a grey old priest ; " but you need have no 
 fear with me, who have no love for the religion of the 
 common folk, nor over-much belief in those relics 
 which they choose for special honour and worship. 
 I see by your garb that we are all three priests ; and, 
 since indeed I heard more of your talk than ye readily 
 believe, I tell you once more that ye need hide nought 
 from me, who have seen much of man's wickedness 
 during the three-score years and ten which God hath 
 allotted to me in these truly accursed times." 
 
 " Holy father," replied Rashleigh, " we spake even 
 of this matter, whether he who knows certain relics to 
 be false may yet leave the common people to worship 
 them as true/' 
 
 "I will relate," replied the old man, "that which 
 befell mine own self one short year agone. But first 
 learn that I am that Thomas Bramston who, under 
 God's grace to me a miserable sinner, professed sacred 
 theology with no small honour of man for twenty years 
 at the University of Cambridge ; until, weary of the 
 disputes of the schools, I withdrew to a cure of souls 
 in this small village. Cure of souls ? nay, rather, cure 
 of devils uncouth, barbarous, haters of the light, 
 
TKAMPING WITHOUT TEAES 89 
 
 robbers of God's tithes" and here the "old man's 
 shrunken face flushed dark red, and the veins stood 
 out on his forehead. 
 
 " Have patience, father," pleaded Eashleigh, laying 
 his hand on that of the stranger, who reminded him 
 strangely of his own father. " Eemember that even 
 Christ pleased not Himself, but endured great con- 
 tradiction of sinners against Himself." 
 
 " Ay, ye have read St. Paul's Epistles ? " asked the 
 old man with some surprise. " And ye have read in 
 St. Peter's Second Epistle how in the last days men 
 shall arise railing in matters whereof they are ignorant, 
 enticing unsteadfast souls, for whom the blackness of 
 darkness hath been reserved. Verily ours are these 
 last days whereof he spake the days wherein iniquity 
 hath increased but God shall suddenly make an end, 
 for His last judgment is at hand, and though men 
 
 feast and are drunken as in the days of Noah Nay, 
 
 suffer me a space, young brother, and I will return to 
 my tale. Know, then, that a most famous abbey of 
 these parts had sent men through the land, as is their 
 custom, to show their relics to the faithful and collect 
 from their offerings gold to repair the late sad ruin 
 of their church by fire. In my presence the preacher 
 brought forth a small casket, which he extolled as 
 containing some of that very bread which our Lord 
 had pressed with His own human teeth upon earth ; 
 and, marking some lack of belief in his hearers, 
 ' Lo here,' quoth he, ' this reverend scholar, who 
 hath won such fame among all other professors of 
 divine science at our most renowned University of 
 
90 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 Cambridge ; behold, if ye lewd folk doubt, tbis learned 
 man will rise up, if need be, to bear witness tbat 
 I speak truth.' Whereat, I avow, I blushed, and 
 had it not been that others were present in whose 
 behoof he spake rather than in his own men to 
 whom I owed reverence then should I doubtless 
 have exposed the lie. But what can one man do, when 
 not even our monks or our clergy abstain from their 
 chase after filthy lucre nay, rather defend these their 
 vain imaginings by heretical reasonings concerning 
 our very faith, as with mine own ears I have heard ! 
 As the wise Boethius saith, ' men might well call me 
 a madman if I reasoned with such madmen as these.' " 
 
 " Yet these were, or should have been, men learned 
 in their own religion," put in Rashleigh. 
 
 "Ay, say should have been, young man; say not 
 were. I have taught at Cambridge, and I know the 
 lives of these men, and the darkness of that ignorance 
 which knoweth not its own folly. Thou, too, hast 
 doubtless seen somewhat thereof, and knowest how 
 many of them comprehend not even the words of those 
 holy offices which in the church they mumble and 
 mutilate with their lips ! And as for the common folk, 
 verily, as Holy Scripture saith of the Samaritans, each 
 hath fashioned a God of his own. For, grudging the 
 honour paid to the greater saints, they (as it is ever 
 proper to the baser sort to be envious) must needs 
 claim each for himself a share of some mock saintling, 
 so that each town what say I? each peddling 
 hamlet must invent a patron and relics of its own ; or 
 at least must fabricate, with impious piety, brand-new 
 
TRAMPING WITHOUT TEAES 91 
 
 and lying legends for those saints whose worship is 
 lost in the darkness of ancient times ! Yet how can 
 a man worship that which he knoweth not, even 
 though the thing itself he holy, without grievous peril 
 to religion and Holy Church ? Would to God, indeed, 
 that such relics were even holy, or even of matters 
 indifferent. I myself have seen the bones of a base 
 country boor worshipped on the altar of the most 
 High God what do I say, of a boor? nay, worse 
 still, of a certain Abbot Pyro, concerning whom, when 
 I had studied in the life of St. Samson, I found this 
 to be the one note of his sanctity : that, being drunken 
 with wine, he had fallen into a well, and so died in 
 his sins ! But so many of these things have been 
 done under my very eyes as time would fail me to 
 tell of, by men who, supposing gain to be godliness, 
 sell profane bones as the relics of God's saints ! Mean- 
 while old wives and base wenches chant daily at their 
 work the lewd tales of fabled saints, while the clergy 
 hold their peace ; or if one bolder than the rest should 
 rebuke them, he must do it at the risk of his life and 
 limb. But that is one of the burdens of this iniquitous 
 generation, until God shall come and make a clean 
 sweep of all." 
 
 " God's patience is long," put in Duvet, who was 
 less moved by the old man's vehemence than amused 
 to think that this world which seems so full of life in 
 the twentieth century should, in the fourteenth, have 
 appeared to be in the very last stage of senile decay. 
 " God's patience is long, and the world may last 
 centuries yet." 
 
92 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 " There speak the vain fancies of rash youth," 
 sighed the old man; "but I have lived ... I have 
 lived . . . threescore years and twelve. Long and weary 
 have been the days of my pilgrimage, and much evil 
 have I seen upon the earth, and much have I read of 
 the evils of past times ; almost as intolerable, if that 
 were possible, as our own. Not a hundred years have 
 passed since the great friar, Roger Bacon, saw no 
 hope for the world but in some good pope shortly to 
 come : and what popes have we had since then ? Boni- 
 face VIII., Clement V., men not worthy to untie the 
 shoe-strings of the popes whom Bacon saw, and weighed, 
 and found wanting. . . . And now . . . Nay, nay, 
 young brother, it is my one solace, as I mark the 
 field growing thicker and thicker with tares, to 
 think that within a brief space perchance even before 
 these grey hairs have gone down to the grave 
 Christ will come in glory to break the wicked like a 
 potter's vessel, and to reign with His saints for ever 
 and ever." 
 
 There was an indescribable pathos in the old man's 
 earnestness, to those listeners who knew the plain 
 prose of his impatient dream ; and, for the only time 
 since those first few minutes of disappointment in 
 Surnmerleigh Minster, Rashleigh began to suspect, 
 uneasily, a deeper moral squalor beneath the surface 
 of the merely picturesque dirt and dilapidation to 
 which he and Duvet had hitherto confined their 
 attention -just as some chance sight may compel the 
 tourist for once to look deeper into the life of a 
 townsfolk, where hitherto he has simply looked upon 
 
TRAMPING WITHOUT TEARS 93 
 
 their tumble-down houses as existing for the sake of 
 picturesqueness and amusement. 
 
 There was a silence, after which the old man invited 
 them to his house, and gave them such hospitality as 
 he could afford. They learned many strange things 
 that night, and went on their way next morning with 
 an uncomfortable knowledge that the spirit of this 
 fourteenth-century world might appear very sordid 
 indeed to an intellectual man who was seriously trying 
 to do his duty in it, and not merely tramping through 
 it as a tourist. 
 
 But the sun was bright, the birds and the flowers 
 gay ; the optimism of youth and health and freedom 
 asserted itself again ; and, as they skirted the marshy 
 flats a dozen miles or so from Harwich, the world 
 seemed again as beautiful as ever. It was a glorious 
 evening; the level sun slanted through red fir-stems 
 and fell across their road, resting at last upon a white- 
 walled, reed-thatched cottage beside a bend of the 
 river, just weather-worn enough to be at its most 
 picturesque stage. 
 
 "What a perfect picture!" cried Rashleigh; "let 
 us stop and drink it in at our leisure." 
 
 " We must get on to some village," replied Duvet, 
 to whom supper was always a sacred time. 
 
 " No, no, let's ask for a bed and a crust of bread 
 here. And besides that, I want to talk to you: sit 
 down on this log here. Some good angel has brought 
 us face to face with this scene to answer all my 
 doubts. This morning I was seriously unhappy, and 
 even distrustful of the goodness of God." 
 
94 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 " The old parson has upset you ? " 
 
 " Yes, the old parson. God's fresh sunrise dispelled 
 a good deal of that melancholy long ago ; but every 
 now and then during the day * . . Now, however, I 
 see clearly that all that was a mere temptation of the 
 devil, and this scene seems I can't express one-tenth 
 of what I see in it, but I will try." 
 
 " I think I know what you mean," replied Duvet, 
 without enthusiasm. 
 
 " Well, let me try. What is it, to begin with, that 
 we see in this scene, and which we could never have 
 seen in our twentieth-century England ? First of all, 
 there is the deep unspeakable peace of it all. The 
 very reflection of the white walls seems to sleep more 
 tranquilly on the quiet stream than anything I have ever 
 found before. And the little house itself is such per- 
 fection of rural beauty almost rude, I might have 
 called it in other days divine simplicity is the only 
 word I can find for it now." 
 
 " Exactly/' 
 
 " One feels as one feels about our noble cathedrals : 
 the men who built this house and who haunted it in their 
 lifetime, had something which is lacking to us. On 
 the edge of a virgin forest, standing almost like a 
 hermitage in the wilderness (for we have not met a 
 single soul since noon along all this woodland way) 
 look at this harmony in white and grey and fresh green, 
 with God's pure blue sky above, and just enough 
 warmth from the setting sun to kindle it into life and 
 to remind us that at this very moment, perchance, 
 every soul in that simple cottage is kneeling before the 
 
TEAMPING WITHOUT TEAES 95 
 
 image of the Blessed Virgin, while their evening 
 sacrifice rises straight to God through an air undefiled 
 by factory-smoke. I tell you, I have never yet felt so 
 deeply how nature, subdued yet undefiled by man, 
 speaks to us of God. Here we are in His own 
 cathedral, rich with the incense of these prayers that 
 rise up from every town and hamlet and secluded farm- 
 stead throughout the land : and when I think how, a 
 year or two ago, I might have thought myself happy to 
 kneel at this sacred moment of sundown in some dingy 
 London church copied from Westminster Abbey by 
 Pearson, before an over-painted, over-gilded reredos 
 of florid Perpendicular by Bodley a glut of archi- 
 tectural ornament, but in our hearts spiritual barrenness 
 and separation from the True Vine while here the 
 simple open-air Angelus by the way, Duvet, how is 
 it we have never seen anyone saying their Angelus in 
 the fields during all these weeks ? " 
 
 " I suppose it isn't yetinven that is, perhaps Holy 
 Church may not yet have ordained it." 
 
 " Well, here is nature's Angelus. Let us say ours 
 here." . . . When they moved on again, Eashleigh 
 put his arm in Duvet's, and tears stood in his honest 
 grey eyes. " There are moods of mere sentiment," he 
 murmured, " that teach diviner truths than all the 
 arguments of history. If only I could have my dear 
 ones with me now, for two or three short hours, to 
 come and eat their simple pottage here with us, and 
 then sit talking with the honest village folk on the 
 bench outside the door, while my bairns tumbled about 
 on the turf with theirs ! " 
 
96 FBIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 4t I have been thinking," put in Duvet, who had heen 
 just a little bored by the length and intensity of 
 Rashleigh's raptures, " that it's queer we don't see 
 anybody about." 
 
 "So did I for one moment: but, while we were 
 saying the Angelus, I felt sure I saw the head of a man 
 just on the other side of that rough fence. Only you 
 will laugh at my idea I could have sworn he wore a 
 regular London chimney-pot. For one second he 
 seemed to look at us. I said ' Retro Sathanas ! ' and in 
 a moment he was gone. It was a ghost of our past 
 life, reminding us to make the most of this short 
 pilgrimage to the Holy City. No wonder that good 
 and evil spirits are more visible to men's eyes in these 
 days of diviner simplicity ! " 
 
 By this time they had approached the cottage, which 
 looked somewhat less peaceful at a front view and from 
 a few yards off. The wet turf all round the door was 
 trampled into a quagmire by the feet of cattle and men ; 
 the door stood half open, staggering on a single hinge ; 
 blank closed shutters on one side, with a staring open 
 window on the other, gave a leering and deboshed look 
 to the white front. And, as the spirit of sentiment is 
 apt to blow whither it listeth, Eashleigh now felt, in 
 spite of himself, as if an air of sin and death breathed 
 round this spot which, a few minutes before, had 
 seemed an earthly paradise. The travellers' knock at 
 the door, timidly repeated and repeated, woke only a 
 dismal echo from the forest, and Rashleigh, reading on 
 Duvet's face the same gruesome forebodings as on his 
 own, pulled himself together with an effort, and walked 
 
TRAMPING WITHOUT TEARS 97 
 
 into the single room which formed almost the whole of 
 a medieval dwelling. When his eyes had grown 
 accustomed to the dim light, he found the whole 
 earthen floor of the hovel littered in the wildest con- 
 fusion. The family chest, with its lid awry like the 
 door, lay on its side in the middle of the hall, half 
 across the black ashes that marked where the fire-place 
 had been. Torn and squalid clothing lay scattered 
 about ; and Rashleigh, mechanically picking up one 
 of these poor rags, felt something half-slimy, half- 
 sticky, which sickened him with nameless disgust. 
 At the same moment Duvet gripped his arm, and 
 pointed with trembling finger to where, on the opposite 
 wall, the dim light from the door fell on the print of 
 a child's hand, stamped in blood upon the plaster by 
 some devil drunk with murder. It was evident that 
 the whole place was a reeking shambles. Rashleigh 
 never quite knew how he got out : the next thing he 
 remembered, long afterwards, was sitting by the river 
 in the dusk, and washing from his fingers a clot of 
 blood to which a few long grey hairs still clung. 
 
 "It's what the parson told us of last night," whis- 
 pered Duvet to him in a hoarse voice. 
 
 "It's all the devils of hell!" answered Rashleigh. 
 " For God's sake, let's get away from this infernal 
 place." 
 
 They tramped along that road the whole night 
 through, starting at their own shadows in an open 
 space, and quickening their jaded pace at the least 
 rustling in the forest. Once they could have sworn 
 that they saw a man meving stealthily before them, 
 
 F.L. G 
 
98 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 but he vanished in a moment among the trees. Yet 
 even their ghastly fears availed but little to spur on 
 their outworn bodies, and midnight found them still in 
 the forest. The moon set now, and Duvet found the 
 less reason to stumble onwards ; so he presently threw 
 himself on the ground and announced his intention of 
 going no further without a rest. This was impossible 
 by the roadside : but Rashleigh looked about and 
 presently found a little hollow, thick with undergrowth 
 of bracken, into which they sank down, and were soon 
 fast asleep. 
 
CHAPTEK VII 
 
 THE SICKNESS OF HOPE 
 
 KASHLEIGH woke first at daybreak, very fresh and 
 very hungry ; he roused Duvet, and the two trudged 
 onward. Half a mile's walk brought them out of the 
 forest to the open flats by the river, where they took 
 their morning swim and came out deliciously refreshed, 
 but even more ravenous than before. Already, as they 
 tramped briskly along the road in this pure sunshine, 
 the events of last night seemed only a half-forgotten 
 nightmare. But neither Eashleigh nor Duvet referred 
 to those events ; they walked on in unwonted silence, 
 each wrapt in his own thoughts. Suddenly Kashleigh 
 darted forward and picked up a glove that lay by the 
 wayside a pale mouse-coloured kid glove, with dark 
 ribbing, for all the world like a gentleman's glove 
 from Bond Street. Duvet caught his breath at 
 the sight of it, and came hurriedly nearer ; while 
 Rashleigh, with trembling fingers, turned the palm 
 inside out. There, plain enough, was the stamp of a 
 fashionable London maker ! Duvet clutched his arm. 
 " Do you know," said he, " my spirit told me when I 
 woke this morning. Thank God ! I mean . . . that 
 is ... of course you are impatient, as I am, to tell our 
 
 G 2 
 
100 FKIAK'S LANTERN 
 
 friends of our wonderful experience in this strange 
 vision." 
 
 " It really seems," answered Rashleigh, very slowly, 
 and with a tremor in his voice which he did all he 
 could to control ; " it really seems as if we must have 
 woken up again ! And . . . and . . . it really must be 
 so ; as you say, we ought to be very thankful for all 
 we shall be privileged to tell. Now that it is all over, 
 what a delightful time we see it has been ! " 
 
 "Oh, delicious!" 
 
 " The freshness, the simplicity of it all ! " 
 
 " And the true patriarchal faith ! " 
 
 "And sterling genuineness of the people, under 
 their rough outside ! " 
 
 " Ah, that was indeed Merrie England, the England 
 of the Middle Ages ! But now it is all over ; we must 
 go back to the work- a- day world ! " Duvet heaved a 
 sigh, which, if he had only been a play-actor, might 
 have earned him a grave in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Neither looked at the other as they exchanged these 
 exclamations of rapture ; and each thought in his 
 inmost heart that the other protested a little too much. 
 I am sure you are intelligent and observant, dear 
 reader ; so you must frequently have heard two ladies 
 outbidding each other in praise of a third whom neither 
 dares openly to abuse in the presence of the other. 
 So our two friends vied with each other in praise of 
 the good old times, while with one accord they instinc- 
 tively quickened and quickened their pace to get back 
 into the open day of modern civilisation. 
 
 "If we aren't farther from Harwich than I think, 
 
THE SICKNESS OF ;OPE 
 
 we shall be there in time for the boat train," said 
 Eashleigh eagerly. " That will take us to London by 
 half-past seven." 
 
 " Need we be in such a hurry ? Couldn't we go to 
 a hotel first and get some breakfast ? " 
 
 " Oh, blow breakfast ! And then we can catch the 
 9.15 from St. Pancras, and be at Summerleigh by lunch 
 time." 
 
 " But how can we travel in this outlandish dress ? " 
 
 " Hang the dress, I tell you. . . Why, at the very 
 worst, they'll only take us for expelled French Keli- 
 gious, and treat us with the same half-contemptuous 
 kindness." 
 
 " Yes," replied Duvet; but presently he added in a 
 tone of some anxiety : " Won't you stop first at the 
 Oratory, and see your friend Cyril Wilde ? " 
 
 " No, not this time. It isn't that I've the least 
 thought of changing my mind, old man, only you don't 
 know how I want to get home again now ! I didn't 
 know it myself, till I found five minutes ago that it 
 was in my power. Heaven knows what may have 
 happened there all this time ! As we were walking 
 along just now, I was thinking all the while of what 
 we saw last night . . . but that's six centuries behind 
 us now, thank God ! Only the sweet savour of faith 
 will remain in our hearts. . . I say, won't it be 
 ripping to tell all our friends ! " 
 
 Here a sudden turn of the road brought fresh and 
 more definite evidence. Not a hundred yards ahead 
 of them was another unmistakably modern figure, 
 walking almost as fast as themselves. He wore a 
 
LANTEEN 
 
 rather battered chimney-pot hat, a frock coat of the 
 most fashionable cut, but very much the worse for 
 wear, and what had apparently at one time been laven- 
 der trousers. He was evidently a tramp of the semi- 
 professional class, a broken-down photographer or 
 watchmaker perhaps ; but there could be no doubt of 
 his modernity, and Eashleigh could have rushed after 
 him and hugged him to his bosom. " Sir ! " he called 
 out politely. The figure turned half-round, but with- 
 out stopping nay, rather increasing its pace after the 
 first hasty glance. 
 
 " Sir ! " cried Rashleigh again. The figure seemed 
 unwilling to break into an actual run, yet determined 
 to put on all possible speed short of that. 
 
 " Sir ! " cried Rashleigh for the third time, starting 
 to run himself and calling as he ran, " I only ..." 
 
 At this the gentleman in the shabby-genteel clothes 
 turned round ; and, pretending to have heard now for 
 the first time, even took a step or two to meet Rash- 
 leigh, and held out his hand with well- simulated 
 cordiality. " By my halidame," he began, in a 
 finicking London voice, and with exaggerated bon- 
 homie. " By my halidame, masters, well met ! What 
 cheer, my bantocks, what cheer ? " Here was such 
 proof positive as we get sometimes abroad, when we 
 suspect a stranger to be English by his appearance, 
 and are assured of it the moment he addresses us in 
 French. Moreover, the face and voice were both well 
 known to Rashleigh, who glanced one moment at the 
 stranger's waistcoat, and there saw further proof, if 
 proof had been needed. 
 
THE SICKNESS OF HOPE 108 
 
 " Have I not," he asked, " the honour of address- 
 ing Lord Halfwayhouse, President of the Anglican 
 Catholic Society? And is not this your lordship's 
 glove ? " 
 
 " That is my name," said the stranger, after a 
 moment's hesitation. " Provided," he added, "that I 
 am indeed the man I thought I was ten days ago." 
 
 " Then I am doubly glad to see your lordship, for I 
 know now that we are in the twentieth century again." 
 
 " If that is all your proof," answered the peer 
 dejectedly, "I fear I can give you hut cold comfort. 
 Ten days ago I should have doubted the sanity of any 
 man who addressed me as you do now ; but to-day 
 I seem to understand ; and, unless I am happily 
 mistaken, you are companions in misfortune with 
 myself. . . Yet it is something even to have gained 
 two companions in misfortune." 
 
 " Thank you, my lord," replied Kashleigh, in atone 
 in which one grain of gratitude struggled feebly with 
 ninety-nine grains of disappointment. " But do I 
 understand you aright . . . ? " 
 
 " Do I understand myself?" broke in the other 
 impatiently. " If I dared say what seems to me the 
 truth, and yet at the same time too incredible to be 
 true, I should tell you how, just ten days ago, unless 
 my reckoning has failed me, I received a letter from a 
 pious member of one of our sisterhoods who has lately 
 joined the Roman schism. It bore the stamp of 
 Summerleigh, in the Midlands. The writer, evidently 
 with the most charitable intentions, informed me that 
 she had caused a novena of masses to be sung in order 
 
104 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 that I might be vouchsafed a vision into the true 
 essence of Catholicism, as it was before the Deforma- 
 tion. My chaplain, a very excellent young man, who 
 has lately but that is another matter my chaplain, 
 I say, asked me whether I would really wish to go 
 back to the Middle Ages if I could. I was a little 
 impatient that morning, I own it. We may have 
 become heated in discussion. There are certain things 
 which grate unspeakably at times upon all finely strung 
 nerves like mine ; and then perhaps a discussion arises 
 in which each goes farther than he had originally 
 intended. I said and indeed I did feel it at the 
 moment I said that I thought no age so despicable 
 as our own. Mr. Addlestrop Smalley, who had also 
 heard mass at St. Fadric's, and was walking home- 
 wards with us, hastened to express himself even more 
 strongly ; and we ended by calling heaven to witness 
 that, if the change were possible, we would go back at 
 that moment to the Middle Ages. Hardly had the 
 words left our mouths, when I found myself . . . 
 here ! " He looked round as he spoke with an air of 
 utter desolation, a shrug of the shoulders, and a 
 movement of his outstretched palms which would 
 have seemed indescribably comic to Rashleigh at any 
 moment of less bitter disappointment. It was neces- 
 sary, however, to say something. " You are going to 
 Harwich ? " he asked at last. 
 
 " I don't know where I am going to ! " and the peer 
 repeated the same despairing gesture. "I am positively 
 drifting about my native country like a tramp ! " 
 
 "I can't believe it's true," replied Rashleigh, 
 
THE SICKNESS OF HOPE 105 
 
 answering his own thoughts, and striding on quicker 
 than ever. " And, conie what may, I mean to he in 
 Harwich hy six o'clock, and catch the hoat-train." 
 
 Duvet put his finger to his lips, and dropped behind 
 with Lord Halfwayhouse, who at once began enter- 
 taining him with an account of his adventures. He 
 and Mr. Smalley had not been fortunate enough to 
 find medieval clothes to creep into at his transforma- 
 tion ; on the contrary, the change had taken place in 
 broad daylight, in the streets of London ; and, but 
 for a friendly friar who had protected them as 
 strangers from a far-off country, the populace would 
 have stoned them out of hand. "The friar asked 
 me where we came from; and, heaven forgive me, I 
 told him China. What was my horror when he 
 replied that he had been there too, with Marco 
 Polo ! But the next moment relieved me, for he 
 professed to have recognised my costume at once, 
 and began to explain to the bystanders how none 
 but great barons in China wear tight trousers and 
 a long black coat ; and how my silk hat Mr. Smalley 
 had a panama and a Norfolk jacket was a sign that 
 I must be some near kinsman of the Emperor's. 
 That set me at my ease, and I answered out of my 
 head all the questions that they put me , for, of course, 
 at a conjuncture like this, self-preservation is our one 
 paramount duty. But still, whatever I answered, the 
 good old friar nodded his head and said, ' True, true, 
 I have seen that with mine own sinful eyes ! ' and 
 then capped my story with some more astounding 
 fiction of his own. I think he must have told his 
 
106 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 Chinese stories so long that he really believed he had 
 been there. But he saved my life, that's certain ; 
 and charity covereth a multitude of sins. When the 
 people found I was a kinsman of the great Khan's, 
 nothing was too good for me. The Lord Mayor 
 took me into his house. The King sent for me to 
 Westminster, where (as I may aver without undue 
 vanity) I created a veritable sensation. When they 
 asked me to describe China, I told them about 
 modern England railways, telegraphs, and other petty 
 triumphs of our materialistic civilisation the only 
 difficulty was to tone them down enough to persuade the 
 people of their truth ! But put not thy trust in princes ! 
 My first misfortune was, that I gave the King my watch 
 as a present. This brought me into high favour for a 
 moment ; but next day I found my lord of Canterbury 
 had persuaded his Majesty to let it soak for seven 
 hours in holy water. Of course it stopped hopelessly, 
 and that naturally proved that his grace's worst suspi- 
 cions were true. Finally, the Archbishop confiscated 
 it for religious purposes ; and next day a report was 
 already abroad that, on opening the casket in which 
 he had locked it, he had found nothing but a venomous 
 toad ; which again had changed under his eyes to a 
 bat, and flown out of the window. The day after, the 
 common talk was that I had attempted to poison the 
 King by putting a toad in his goblet ; only the Arch- 
 bishop had made the sign of the cross over it, and 
 the venomous beast had flown out in the likeness of a 
 winged dragon. I could see that the King himself 
 began to believe in this toad. But what ruined me 
 
THE SICKNESS OF HOPE 107 
 
 was a clumsy inadvertence of my own. I always felt 
 great compassion for this poor King Edward II. . . " 
 " What, we are under Edward II., are we ? " 
 The learned peer looked the priest gravely from tip 
 to toe. " Edward II., 1807 to 1327," he replied, in a 
 tone of great dignity and condescension. " Of course 
 I knew, as every educated man knows, that this poor 
 monarch was or rather, we must now say, would be 
 shamefully murdered within the course of this very 
 year 1327. In an imprudent moment I let this slip 
 from me in private conversation. A friend warned me 
 just in time. I slipped off to the Lord Mayor again ; 
 and, luckily for me, within a few hours the well-known 
 revolt broke out in London. By the greatest good 
 fortune, the populace murdered the Bishop of Exeter 
 with other distinguished men of the King's party ; 
 and Mr. Smalley and I escaped in the confusion, 
 though as homeless outlaws. For myself, you see me 
 here, living indeed, but in a guise unbefitting a peer of 
 the realm. As to my dear friend Mr. Addlestrop 
 Smalley a man ready at all times to shed his heart's 
 blood in defence of Catholic principles I may say, 
 alas, with the most literal truth, ' Some evil beast hath 
 devoured him ! ' A herd of wild swine came suddenly 
 upon us in this great forest. I climbed a tree ; my 
 poor friend was less prompt or less fortunate. His 
 Book of Hours, trampled and torn almost beyond 
 recognition, with a few blood-stained fragments of Jaeger 
 underclothing, were all that I found of a man who, 
 under happier auspices, had made the bench of bishops 
 tremble at his nod. As for myself burning with 
 
108 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 sympathy for those Catholic folk, I am compelled 
 to dwell among them as a heathen among heathens ! 
 I dare not even beg for such rags as would render me 
 less obvious to their prejudices. I have subsisted for 
 three mortal days on such husks as the swine have left 
 me ; and now my one hope lies in you. I will wait here 
 in the woods, on the outskirts of the town. You, of your 
 charity, will buy me suitable clothes and bring them 
 out to me, that I may be once more a man among 
 men ! " 
 
 Duvet was ready to do all in his power to save 
 his lordship ; meanwhile he told briefly his own story 
 and Rashleigh's : passing lightly over their difficulties 
 and laying stress mainly on all the pleasant novelties 
 they had seen. In a few minutes the road turned 
 another corner, and they came to a little knoll under 
 the edge of a wood, from whence the ground sloped 
 gently down again to the river and the marshes, 
 leaving a broad view of the estuary and the open 
 sea. At the mouth of the river, only four or five 
 miles distant, lay the little town of Harwich not, 
 as we see it now, with its slender spire and slate 
 roofs and great machine-made quay crowded with 
 warehouses and steamboats but a tiny collection of 
 red-roofed and thatched houses, above which rose 
 a small white church tower. And here, under the 
 edge of the wood, they found Rashleigh sitting on the 
 ground, his face buried in his hands. He looked up 
 as he heard their steps, and pointed without a word to 
 the peaceful little old-world village that meant the 
 wreck of all his hopes. The tears stood in his eyes, for 
 
THE SICKNESS OF HOPE 109 
 
 all that he could do ; only now, when his hopes were 
 dashed utterly to the ground, did he know how com- 
 pletely all the desire of his heart had hung upon a 
 common modern railway train. 
 
 " Cheer up, my friend," cried the peer, with well- 
 meant but somewhat patronising encouragement. " I 
 myself have sometimes been almost as despondent 
 during my uphill fight for our Catholic liberties. 
 It is a common enough experience that a single ill- 
 advised word causes lifelong regret ; we have all three 
 spoken unadvisedly with our lips, and here we are ! " 
 
 "But, with all deference to your lordship," said 
 Duvet, " and all sympathy with what is unfortunate in 
 your personal plight (which, however, the first change 
 of clothes will at once set right), I cannot but think 
 that it is a great privilege. . ." 
 
 " Oh, a great privilege, no doubt," replied the peer 
 with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. " I 
 may even say er yes, a great privilege, as you say. 
 Only ... it may, of course, be merely the unlucky 
 accident of my present position, but I own that I 
 am somewhat disappointed in these people. They 
 seem to me to fall very, very far short of what, 
 with their unique Church privileges, they might have 
 been. Making all allowances, I have found a great 
 want of savoir faire among these people, with a 
 corresponding lack of ordinary courtesy and con- 
 sideration for those who differ from them. I was 
 able to see this all the more clearly, as I took care to 
 tell the King that, though of Chinese birth, I was a 
 baptised Christian. Yet, over and over again, when I 
 
110 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 spoke in an unquestionably Catholic sense, and could 
 have proved my words by the most irrefragable 
 patristric evidence, my words were scouted by men 
 who called themselves competent theologians, as 
 evident Chinese corruptions of the faith ! Again, I 
 have met many worthy people, many kind-hearted, 
 but scarcely one you will not think me snobbish for 
 using our modern word scarcely one whom I should 
 call a gentleman. And the language that even ladies use 
 have you listened at all to the talk of the women ? " 
 
 " Let us make a distinction, my lord," put in Duvet 
 in his soft voice. " The divine economy seldom 
 lavishes all its gifts at once ; and, when a nation has the 
 supreme gift of faith, we constantly see that God denies 
 her, as comparatively unnecessary, many of those lesser 
 virtues which, being more obvious, are often regarded 
 as the only virtues by unthinking people. Your 
 lordship is no doubt aware of the Catholic distinction 
 between the theological and the natural virtues." 
 
 " Without undue vanity," replied the nobleman 
 with some hauteur, " I had hoped that my public 
 statements at different times, and my well-known 
 but after all, you are of the Roman allegiance, and are 
 therefore not bound to know it. No, sir, after making 
 all possible allowances, I confess to finding myself 
 grievously disappointed. I may perhaps claim with- 
 out undue egotism to know something of the religious 
 spirit of the Catholic past. It is, in fact, this know- 
 ledge, and the sympathy bred of accurate knowledge, 
 which have perhaps given me such small prominence 
 as I have enjoyed, and have enabled me to be of such 
 
THE SICKNESS OF HOPE 111 
 
 small use to the Church as (under God's mercy) I 
 have been humbly enabled to be. Yet I grieve to 
 say that even among the so-called upper classes 
 here nay, among the very clergy themselves, I have 
 seldom found that je ne sais quoi of subtle grace which 
 one always recognises in a real earnest Catholic. And, 
 the common people . . . sir, I am compelled to speak 
 of the common people as absolute barbarians. I took 
 many opportunities of catechising them, and I found 
 the majority not only ignorant of the very rudiments 
 of the faith, but most unwilling I may say most 
 aggressively unwilling to suffer themselves to be 
 taught. No," added Lord Halfwayhouse, in that tone 
 which leaves nothing more to be said, "I am grievously 
 disappointed in these people." 
 
 The three travellers were now within a couple of 
 miles of Harwich, and it seemed prudent to leave the 
 beaten track for the shelter of a belt of trees that 
 skirted the marsh. Here they found, some half-mile 
 from the town, a quiet hollow, in which they left the 
 disconsolate peer, who besought them earnestly and 
 repeatedly to return as soon as possible with some sort 
 of medieval garments. " And you will do your best," 
 pleaded he, " to procure me such as have not already 
 been worn by others ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid the slop-shop isn't invented in these 
 days, my lord." 
 
 "Well, at least you will be careful who has worn them. 
 If you had seen what I have seen ! . . . I trust to your 
 kindness to do your best," he pleaded again in a pathetic 
 voice when they were already almost out of earshot. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 RIVAL INFALLIBILITIES 
 
 IT seemed prudent, as Duvet pleaded, to go first 
 and see about their own passage to the Continent 
 hefore undertaking this commission for their new 
 friend, so they went straight down to the port. Here, 
 after several hours' search and much altercation with 
 divers shipmen, they at last found a French skipper, 
 with whom Duvet drove a fairly satisfactory bargain. 
 He was willing to take them to Kochelle for a heavy 
 consideration, but would not be ready to start until 
 next morning at ebb-tide. This bargain at last con- 
 cluded, they found their way to a huckster who, after 
 making a favour of changing 10 of Kashleigh's out- 
 landish sovereigns into half their value in coin of the 
 realm, produced at their request some shabby hosen 
 and shabbier coats, out of which Rashleigh picked 
 those which seemed most passable to the naked eye. 
 With these rolled up under his arm, and a great loaf 
 of bread under Duvet's, they took their way through 
 the narrow streets towards the rendezvous outside the 
 town. On the market place they found signs of great 
 excitement among the people : some hurrying across 
 the square, and the rest talking together with a most 
 
KIVAL INFALLIBILITIES 118 
 
 un-English wealth of gesticulation. The fat hutcher 
 standing at his shop-door next to the town hall had a 
 communicative look, so Eashleigh stopped to ask him 
 what was the matter. 
 
 " 'Tis said they have taken the chief of the robber- 
 crew," answered the man of flesh. " An that be so, 
 there will soon be fresh meat in this market-place, but 
 not of my slaughtering. We shall see a merry game ; 
 the shambles is a poor sight in comparison ! " 
 
 " Poor wretch ! " ejaculated Eashleigh, half under 
 his breath, 
 
 " ' Poor wretch,' quotha ! who hath slain more 
 simple women and children, not to speak of men, than 
 the worst wolf in the forest ! ' Poor wretch,' quotha! 
 And whose garments hath 'a under 'a's arm, and with 
 what outlandish tongue doth 'a speak ? There be 
 two of the band yet abroad, my masters, outlandish 
 men both ; whence come ye ? " 
 
 "We be poor priests, my friend," pleaded Duvet 
 smoothly. 
 
 " 'Poor priests, my friend! ' " echoed the butcher. 
 "Aye, priests it may be and yet I misdoubt me 
 sore priests it may be, yet not therefore friends of 
 mine. I have known more than a few that have been 
 mere devourers of tithes, fawners upon the rich and 
 oppressors of the poor. If thy comrade here be 
 indeed a priest, these be no priestly garments that 
 he beareth . . . For a poor friend, quotha? Aye, 
 red velvet and fine green cloth of Flanders (though 
 somewhat worn, forsooth) for a poor friend ! Look 
 ye here, my masters, ye shall give account to the 
 
 F.L, H 
 
114 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 mayor and aldermen of this free town . . . What ! 
 here cometh the poor wretch your friend ! " 
 
 Sure enough, at that moment an angry crowd came 
 surging into the market place, collected round a knot 
 of some half-dozen mounted men who had much ado 
 to force their way along. And, in the midst of this 
 group, with his hands tied to an archer's stirrup, 
 ambled no less a personage than Lord Halfwayhouse. 
 The unfortunate nobleman was fitting his trot as best 
 he could to the capricious motions of the horse, and 
 seeking all the time to turn his face away from the 
 unsavoury mud and street refuse with which the 
 crowd continually pelted him. He was bareheaded, 
 in his trousers and shirt, displaying very con- 
 spicuously a broad pair of scarlet silk braces worked 
 by some devoted female hand with a medieval pattern 
 in gold thread. Rashleigh started forward with a 
 sudden impulse, but Duvet clutched him by the arm. 
 "Are you mad?" he whispered. "If that butcher 
 turns round and sees us still here we are lost men. 
 This way," he added, as the whole crowd, butcher and 
 all, swept by and left them for a moment alone. A 
 turret door stood open at one corner of the town- 
 hall, into which Duvet half dragged his friend, and 
 stealthily turned the key in the lock. He put his 
 hand on Rashleigh's mouth to check the protests 
 which rose to his lips, and pointed through the tiny 
 loophole, through which, themselves hidden in shadow, 
 they could see one corner of the square. The butcher 
 flitted past, with grisly oaths, and followed by a half- 
 dozen other equally excited men. " They were here 
 
KIVAL INFALLIBILITIES 115 
 
 even now," he cried; " quick, to the East Gate and 
 to the Port, and we shall have them yet ! " 
 
 " Come up," whispered Duvet, and they crept on 
 tip-toe up the stair. At the top, they found them- 
 selves in the space between the vault of the great hall 
 and the timber roof. It was evidently used now as a 
 lumber-room for the miscellaneous properties of the 
 yearly miracle-play. Gaudy but faded dresses hung 
 on nails ; scaffold timbers leaned against the wall ; 
 coils of rope, paste-board monsters, and grimacing 
 masks were heaped up in one corner. The whole 
 garret was dimly lighted by a few slits here and there, 
 and by two great round holes that opened downward 
 through the keystones of the vault into the vault 
 itself. It was evident, from the babel of voices, that 
 the prisoner had now been brought in. 
 
 "Can we leave him like this?" whispered Eash- 
 leigh. 
 
 " Can we help leaving him ? What evidence could 
 we give on his behalf? If he cannot clear himself, 
 what means have we of clearing him ? " 
 
 " Well, at any rate, we may hope the judges will 
 soon find out his innocence now they have got him 
 away from the rabble." 
 
 " You may be sure of that," said Duvet ; " even the 
 lay judges. If it were a clerical court, of course there 
 would be no question of his safety. Nothing has done 
 the Church such cruel injustice as the modern Pro- 
 testant idea which ascribes to the poor Inquisition all 
 those horrors which are indeed often justly chargeable 
 to the lay courts of the Middle Ages. On the contrary, 
 
 H 2 
 
116 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 the Church always did her utmost to alleviate those 
 horrors : read Father Sydney Smith ..." 
 
 At this moment a loud cry rose from the hall : 
 " The Lord Bishop ! Make way for the Lord Bishop! " 
 
 " Do you hear ? " whispered Duvet. " Thank God, 
 he is safe now." 
 
 The hubbub had sunk into a mere buzz, and every 
 inflection of the Bishop's clear voice was audible to 
 our friends, who had crept close to one of the round 
 air-holes. "Children," he was saying, "this is no 
 robber whom we have taken, but worse than a robber. 
 John the Scot with his band of outlaws have indeed 
 slain men's bodies, but this is one of those who slay 
 men's souls a heretic, yea, and a prince of heretics. 
 Behold this long black robe and the tall black mitre 
 wherewith our brother the sheriff found him decked : 
 these are the mass-robes of Satan wherein these human 
 fiends perform by night their abominable rites. We 
 have found also about his person writings sufficient to 
 damn him ten times over a mass-book in the vulgar 
 tongue, yet an outlandish kind of English, too ; and 
 in the same tongue another scroll, written likewise 
 with marvellous delicacy and exactness upon paper, 
 as by no mortal hand, and addressed to the members 
 of some synagogue of Satan styled the Anglican 
 Catholic Society : in which scroll some person 
 unknown, speaking in a style of more than Papal 
 authority, doth ordain to the members of his sect 
 certain dogmas of his own in matters of rites and 
 ceremonies and canonical obedience, without which 
 dogmas, as his style doth most plainly intend, there 
 
EIYAL INFALLIBILITIES 117 
 
 can be no hope of salvation for priests or people ! At 
 the end of which scroll, in the place where the 
 signature of our lord the Pope is wont to stand, is 
 written in a larger hand, hut in the same outlandish 
 characters, the single letter H. Which letter signifieth 
 without doubt the name Haeret ; whereby it is evident 
 that this prisoner of ours is a descendant and a follower 
 of that John Haeret, so called from the obstinacy 
 wherewith he did ever adhere to his own false and 
 damnable doctrines, from whom all sects of heretics 
 do take their origin and their name. Ha, fellow, what 
 sayest thou for thyself? " 
 
 " My lord," gasped the prisoner, so faintly that 
 our friends could scarcely catch his words, "the 
 society whereof you speak is neither secret nor 
 unlawful." 
 
 " Hath it been approved by the Vicar of Christ ? 
 What say'st thou, ha?" 
 
 " My lord, it is a society truly Catholic." 
 
 " Ay, Catholic, so say all heretics in speaking of 
 their own damnable errors. But I will examine thee 
 in due form, as laid down by the holy and learned 
 inquisitor Bernard Gui, friar preacher and Bishop of 
 Tuy. Mark well my questions, sir prisoner and ye, 
 good folk, mark ye well his answers, and see whether 
 the heretic stand not presently confessed ! Believest 
 thou that Christ was born of a virgin ? " 
 
 " With all my heart." 
 
 " Now mark me, brethren," cried the Bishop, "that 
 is the first subtlety of these heretics, even as the 
 learned and subtle Bernard hath noted. For in saying 
 
118 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 ' With all my heart,' this fellow doth but intend to 
 say within himself, ' With all my heart I cling to mine 
 own damnable heresy.' Mark now again. Believest 
 thou, fellow, in one Catholic Church ? " 
 
 " I believe," said the accused, speaking as slowly 
 and as distinctly as possible, and taking care this time 
 to repeat each word exactly as the question had been 
 put to him : " I believe in one Catholic Church." 
 
 " Ha, fox ! " cried the Bishop, " there we have thee 
 again ! This is that second subtlety noted by Bernard, 
 of those who, saying with their lips ' The one Catholic 
 Church,' intend in their false hearts their own syna- 
 gogue of Satan, which they foully feign to be the one 
 Catholic Church. What, villain, thou wilt bandy 
 words with me ? Now, mark me well this third time. 
 Believest thou that God Almighty made the world and 
 all things therein? " 
 
 "My lord," answered the wretched prisoner with a 
 groan, " how could I believe otherwise ? Am I not a 
 Christian ? I protest, my lord, so far as in me lies, 
 I have ever striven in every point to believe as a good 
 Christian should." 
 
 The Bishop answered only with a greasy chuckle in 
 his throat. " Bernard, Bernard ! how didst thou 
 paint these heretics to the life ! Mark me, my masters, 
 how this villain hath answered me with the fourth 
 subtlety familiar to these wolves in sheeps' clothing : 
 namely, with the subtlety of feigned astonishment! 
 'Good Christian,' quotha ! and we should hearken 
 to all that plead themselves good Christians, how 
 then should we ever find means to convict these 
 
EIVAL INFALLIBILITIES 119 
 
 heretics of their damnable doctrines ! . . . What, 
 fellow, wilt thou next plead, as is the wont of thy 
 brethren, that thou art but a simple man, ignorant of 
 all subtle doctrines, and fearful of replying before a 
 spiritual judge to delicate questions of faith, as being 
 fraught with pitfalls wherein the ignorant may lightly 
 stumble?" 
 
 "Nay, my lord" this time in a firm and defiant 
 tone, which showed that the Bishop, after long 
 scratching Lord Halfwayhouse, had at last caught the 
 President of the Anglican Catholic Society " no, my 
 lord, I utterly repudiate any such plea, which I should 
 be the last man to put forward. Those who know me 
 and my name is a household word to millions are 
 well aware that I have never shrunk from any dis- 
 cussion in matters of faith, however high or deep or 
 intricate." 
 
 " So far as I follow the sense of thy words," replied 
 the Bishop (for Lord Halfwayhouse in his excitement 
 had lapsed into the most sonorous modern controversial 
 style), "thou avowest thyself to be the archpriest, the 
 pope, of these heretics ? " 
 
 " No pope, my lord, for it is against our conscience 
 to own allegiance to the Bishop, I will not say of 
 Eome, but to any Bishop whatever, except in so far 
 as his decrees are consonant with true Catholic custom, 
 which we, who have studied so much more deeply than 
 the episcopal bench, naturally know far better than 
 they. Catholic, my lord, is a Greek word, meaning 
 originally universal, and the great mallet of the 
 heretics, Vincentius Lirinensis, defines things Catholic 
 
120 FRIAK'S LANTERN 
 
 as ' those which have heen held ever, everywhere, and 
 by all Christians.' Now, my lord, incense is in this 
 sense a Catholic custom pardon this digression, but 
 it is of the utmost importance that I make my views 
 perfectly clear to you; and I must express myself 
 here, as I always have done, in my own way. Incense, 
 my lord, is so far a Catholic custom that, though it 
 was almost certainly not used in Christian churches 
 during the first ages of persecution, and, when first 
 introduced, it was employed less with a ceremonial 
 intent than to cleanse the vitiated air of the sacred 
 building ; yet we find definite traces of its use in some 
 parts of Christendom some three centuries after our 
 Lord's death, so that, at this distance of time, we may 
 say in the true or theological sense that it has been 
 held ever, everywhere, and by all ; from which it 
 follows that it is the duty of all true Catholics to 
 spurn the petty tyranny of such Bishops as forbid the 
 use of incense. So, too, with the Hail Mary ! I 
 cannot do without my Hail Mary ! The Bishop says 
 I must. As a layman, I am untouched by his decision, 
 since the last 400 years have gradually freed the 
 laity from episcopal control. But, you will say, a 
 cleric following my doctrines would come into 
 conflict with his Bishop. Not so, my lord ; it is we 
 who stand on the rock of antiquity, against which the 
 Bishop may rage in vain. What though we hear 
 nothing of the worship of the Blessed Mary for many 
 years after her death? What though certain early 
 fathers would seem definitely to reject it? When 
 once we find this worship in Catholic history, it dawns 
 
RIVAL INFALLIBILITIES 121 
 
 as a growing light through the mists of ages first 
 faintly, then clearer and clearer until at last it shines 
 in all its modern glory, the most Catholic of Catholic 
 customs. Do you follow me, my lord ? " 
 
 The Bishop, who had been struck dumb by this 
 torrent of strange words, found his voice at last. " If 
 I understand thee aright, thou defiest the constituted 
 authority of Bishops, and blasphemest the Holy Mother 
 of God." 
 
 " Merciful heavens, how can my plain words be so 
 mistaken ! Hear me then one moment more. My 
 lord, I find it hard to gather my thoughts : your 
 myrmidons have been somewhat rough with me . . . 
 My lord, in the land wherein I dwell . . . and yet it is 
 the same land as this ; yet again it is another land . . . 
 Yes," he broke out with a scornful laugh, "I never 
 knew till to-day how much better a land ; and I shall 
 be a wiser man my whole life after. Yet even here I 
 will cleave to my faith ; and no man shall say that Lord 
 Halfwayhouse ever feared the face of mortal Bishop. 
 I owe you in one sense the deepest respect and obedi- 
 ence, my lord ; but, in the higher sense, it is my 
 painful duty to withstand you to your face. It is not 
 my fault if I know more of these things than you. 
 Even as, in my own age, my theological studies raised 
 me, a humble layman, above the vulgar herd of the 
 Erastian episcopacy, so in these days I enjoy the advan- 
 tage of having been born nearly six hundred years later 
 than you, and traced the march of history . . . Nay, 
 hear me out this once . . . my head aches and reels, 
 and I scarcely hear my own words ... I hate Luther, 
 
122 FKIAR'S LANTEEN 
 
 Wycliffe, and all heresiarchs with all my heart and soul ; 
 the one aim of my life has been to make the Church of 
 England a joy and a praise upon earth. If the Bishops 
 resist that aim, they will drive out of their Church many 
 men whom she can ill spare . . . men who would 
 rather shed their heart's blood than obey any mere 
 outward authority against their own conscience and 
 their own knowledge of history. I have spoken, my 
 lord," added the prisoner, with a laugh which should 
 have been scornful, but which broke into a somewhat 
 hysterical falsetto. 
 
 There was a moment's pause, and then the smooth 
 voice of the Bishop was again heard. " My sons, we 
 have here the last subtility of your old and crafty 
 heretic. When all other subterfuges fail, and questions 
 unanswerable are pressed upon him, then he will say, 
 ' For God's sake, spare me now, for I am sick, and 
 cannot think ' ; and then if a breathing-space be allowed 
 him, he will retire to his bed and meditate what devilish 
 falsehood he may answer at his next question. Or, if 
 this too fail, at the very last he will feign himself mad, 
 or an idiot, even as King David let the spittle run down 
 upon his beard, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate. 
 He will utter speeches full of sound and fury, yet void 
 of sense, laughing loud between-whiles, and then 
 breaking out again into vain and impertinent words, 
 yet not without certain outward glimmerings of reason, 
 even as the beggars jangle at the church doors with 
 gacred phrases picked up magpie -fashion from them 
 that serve at the altar. All this hath Brother Bernard 
 duly noted, and scores of times have I noted it for 
 
RIVAL INFALLIBILITIES 123 
 
 myself. Yet few can feign so subtilly but that some 
 signs of the real man will come out ; and specially some 
 signs of that self-trust and vainglory which hath ever 
 been the root of all heresies. Furthermore, Holy 
 Church hath ever one effectual remedy for this feigned 
 madness. Having had recourse in vain to spiritual 
 persuasion, we may now leave the rest to the secular 
 arm. We ourselves will tarry in this hall, that our 
 sacred character be not denied by any guilt of blood ; 
 prithee, Master Mayor, let bring this fellow forthwith 
 into the inner chamber, where I doubt not your ser- 
 geants have all things in readiness. But first, my 
 master, see that ye divest him of this embroidered 
 blood-red scapular, wherein lieth doubtless some 
 devilish charm to protect his body against the Question. 
 And hark ye, Master Mayor, question him not too 
 roughly at the first ; when the prisoner's limbs are 
 once well stretched, a single turn will oft-times suffice, 
 more especially when due pains have been taken to set 
 forth in order unto him the divers pains which are yet 
 to follow, if need be, in case of obstinacy." 
 
 The Bishop ceased ; there was a momentary gurgle 
 as if the prisoner had tried again to speak, and had been 
 suddenly silenced by a rough grip of his windpipe. 
 Then hundreds of voices buzzed again round the hall, 
 and it was plain that the first act of this tragi-comedy 
 was over. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 DARKNESS AND CRUEL HABITATIONS 
 
 THE two friends looked at each other for a moment ; 
 in the dim light of their hiding-place each could read 
 blank dismay on the other's face. Duvet broke the 
 silence first with a rather forced attempt at cheerfulness. 
 " You needn't take it so seriously, old fellow," he 
 whispered. " I think I quoted to you once before 
 Father Rickaby's true and consoling assurance in his 
 Catholic Truth Society pamphlet : ' The Church Never 
 Persecutes.' Superficial appearances have been some- 
 times against her, but, when the matter is thoroughly 
 looked into, the prejudice always proves to have rested 
 upon some peculiarly Protestant misconception." 
 
 " But you heard him." 
 
 " Oh, that was merely an empty threat ill-advised, 
 I grant you, but only a threat after all." 
 
 " I don't know ; there was a business-like coolness 
 about the Bishop's directions which made my flesh 
 creep . . . What on earth did he mean about taking 
 off that ' blood-red scapular ' ? " 
 
 " Why, his braces, don't you see ? The Bishop has 
 never seen anything like modern braces, and he very 
 naturally sees in them some snare of the devil." 
 
DARKNESS AND CRUEL HABITATIONS 125 
 
 " Grood God ! what is there that may not damn a 
 wretched prisoner when he has once fallen into the 
 clutches of an ignorant and prejudiced old man ? " 
 
 "It's unlucky, of course, but we must make some 
 allowance for the times ; it would be foolish of us to take 
 the matter too tragically. Lord Halfwayhouse, fortu- 
 nately, seems to know his own mind. The Bishop will 
 goon cool down ; they will then find they have been 
 talking all the while at cross-purposes ; and presently 
 the whole matter will be explained." 
 
 " In that case, we could probably hasten the explana- 
 tion by going down ourselves." 
 
 " For heaven's sake, don't be such a fool ! . . . There 
 is such a thing as moderation in all things . . . The 
 Bishop has lost his temper as it is, would you further 
 irritate him by adding another incomprehensible factor 
 to the problem ? I don't for a moment deny the exist- 
 ence of a serious misconception at present, but we should 
 only complicate it by our uncalled-for interference." 
 
 " But if the Church ..." 
 
 " The Church never persecutes," hissed out Duvet 
 between his half-clenched teeth, cutting out each single 
 word as clearly as Miss Wirt cut the notes out of 
 Major Ponto's piano. 
 
 "But this Bishop?" 
 
 " This Bishop is not the Church. Is there no appeal 
 to Rome? There are some Catholic principles, my 
 dear Herbert, which you seem very slow to grasp." 
 
 "But will Rome conjure me back a fresh limb, if 
 these ruffians tear me one out of its socket ? It isn't 
 that I am not a thoroughly loyal Catholic, my dear 
 
126 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 Duvet, only I do like to square the truths you quote 
 from your Truth Society pamphlets with the facts as I 
 see them." 
 
 " Still, I think you might avoid anticipating diffi- 
 culties that never come. If there were any question of 
 real torture here, for instance ..." 
 
 At this moment he was interrupted by a blood- 
 curdling groan from the smaller room, followed by 
 agonised cries and protestations. A yell of savage joy 
 rose up from a thousand mouths in the hall, with an 
 under-current of coarse laughter, yet through all this 
 din they could still hear the unfortunate nobleman's 
 cries for mercy. Then the cries ceased, the hubbub 
 quieted down in the hall ; a door creaked heavily, and 
 suddenly there was a dead silence. 
 
 " Well, what saith the fellow," asked the Bishop 
 impatiently. 
 
 "My lord, he professeth himself to be a peer of 
 this realm, Lord Halfwayhouse by name." 
 
 " Lord Holofernes belike ! " quoth the Bishop, and 
 the crowd shouted again in derision. "Who ever 
 heard of such a lord in this realm of ours ? Give him 
 one turn more, my masters ! " 
 
 The door creaked again ; again the silence of 
 expectation was broken first by horrid groans and 
 cries, and then by the ghastly merriment of the hall, 
 sinking at last almost equally suddenly into dead 
 silence. 
 
 " My lord, he professeth himself now to be what- 
 soever your lordship would have him, saving only his 
 faith in Christ." 
 
DARKNESS AND CRUEL HABITATIONS 127 
 
 " Say rather, his faith in Antichrist ! But what sort 
 of a confession is this, 'that he will say whatsoever I 
 will ' ? See ye not, my masters, how he confesseth 
 himself thereby a child of Satan, who was a liar from 
 the beginning, in that he is ready now to swear to any 
 lie. Herein, my brethren, may ye see the diversity of 
 these new heretics from the ancient martyrs of the 
 Catholic faith ; for the martyrs, as it is written in the 
 scriptures, not only endured all manner of torments, 
 but scoffed at them and overcame them ; whereas these 
 others, even at the first sort of torments, are straight- 
 way overcome by the truth. Have ye not heard how 
 it is written of St. Reparata in the Martiloge ; how by 
 Decius the Emperor she was racked ; her flesh rent 
 with hooks, and her body sprinkled with boiling lead ; 
 then she was broiled like to St. Laurence, her breasts 
 and ribs burnt with fiery plates ; and then scourged 
 with thorny bushes, her wounds rubbed with vinegar, 
 salt and aqua vitce ; and at the last, after alt her tor- 
 ments, she was beheaded ; yet not for one moment did 
 she deny her faith ! Master Racksman, bear back 
 word to Master Mayor that this confession is no con- 
 fession ; let the fellow be examined point by point upon 
 the tenour of these articles here written, wherein the 
 main heads of all modern heresies are set forth in 
 order." 
 
 The shrieks, with accompaniment of jibes and 
 laughter, began again with redoubled intensity, and 
 Rashleigh started from where he lay, exclaiming aloud 
 " I can't stand this any longer ! " 
 
 "For God's sake, do nothing rash ... I don't 
 
128 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 understand it myself . . . there is some ghastly mis- 
 take here . . . But what can we do?" Duvet hurried 
 after his friend, who was moving towards the stair 
 head. 
 
 " You are not going down ? " 
 
 " I am going somewhere to get away from this hell ; 
 but I promise you I won't go into the street." 
 
 " You swear you won't ? " 
 
 " D you, yes ! " replied Bashleigh, with a literal 
 
 obedience which we may trust the recording angel 
 to forgive. 
 
 "I must go back," replied Duvet, more meekly; 
 " we cannot afford to remain in ignorance of what 
 these men intend." He crept to the opening just in 
 time to hear the Bishop's clerk reading out the articles 
 of the prisoner's last confession : 
 
 " Item, he confesseth to be the pope of these new 
 heretics, and that his true name and title among them 
 is the Lord Holofernes Haeret. 
 
 " Item, that the said black robes, and tall black 
 mitre, and blood-red scapula, are the insignia due 
 unto him as pope of these heretics, and that the 
 curiously written document found in an inner fold 
 of the said robes is indeed a Bull issued by him 
 under his said false authority as pope of antichrist, 
 counselling contradiction, defiance and resistance 
 to the Bishops of the Catholic Church lawfully 
 appointed, and exhorting steadfast adherence to all 
 ceremonies of his own heresy aforesaid, the ban 
 and prohibition of such lawfully-appointed Bishops 
 notwithstanding. 
 
DARKNESS AND CRUEL HABITATIONS 129 
 
 "Item, that the heretical ceremonies of his sect, 
 which in the said false Bull are not specifically stated, 
 are in truth as follows : 
 
 " Imprimis. He and his fellow heretics are wont to meet 
 at midnight in underground cellars or ruined 
 churches, or within the forest ; and there to sing 
 their mass to Satan. 
 
 " Secundo. The said Satan appearing among them in 
 the shape of a black cat upon the altar, all the said 
 heretics are by their said blasphemous law bound 
 to kiss his tail. 
 
 " Tertio. After the said blasphemous mass with profane 
 and devilish malice sung or said, then do all present 
 partake of the body and blood of Beelzebub in 
 this manner following : 
 
 " A knave child of nine weeks old, born out of 
 wedlock within this same synagogue of Satan, 
 is roasted at a slow flame until he be brought 
 to black ashes ; which aforesaid ashes are 
 mingled with wine in a flask, and given to drink 
 unto all present. 
 
 " Quarto. Item, all lights being suddenly extinguished, 
 the said heretics in this their conventicle of Satan 
 
 were ever wont Nay, my lord, I forget : 
 
 to this one article we could not bring him to own : 
 but rather he did protest himself to be a man of 
 clean life." 
 
 " And thou didst weakly condone this his damnable 
 obstinacy, and cease or relax thy questioning ? " 
 
 " Nay, my lord ; but presently thereupon he fell 
 into a sudden faintness, after that he had said and 
 
 F.L. j 
 
130 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 repeated words which seemed to us in no way pertinent 
 to our purpose." 
 
 " Read me then those words from thy notes, Master 
 Clerk." 
 
 " My lord, written down as nearly as I could catch 
 their import, and purged of all vain repetitions, they 
 run as here ensueth : ' Oh my lungs and liver : oh 
 goroo, goroo ! ' ' 
 
 "Ha, ha!" chuckled the Bishop, " thou callest 
 now on very demons for help ! Let us see now whether 
 they will come to help thee. Said I not truly, Master 
 Rackster, how that blood-red scapula was doubtless 
 the charm wherein he trusted, and for lack whereof the 
 pain gnaweth even now at his vitals. Thou hast taken 
 heed to sprinkle the rack and the prisoner from 
 moment to moment with holy water? " 
 
 "At every fresh turn, my lord." 
 
 "Keep it well sprinkled still, Master Rackster, and let 
 us see now whether his Goroo will come to help him." 
 
 " My lord," put in the clerk in a tone of some com- 
 passion, " meseemeth that we have already fulfilled all 
 that is of strict necessity. ' Decenter tormentatus,' 
 saith the holy Bernard, * a reasonable application of 
 torture,' after which, if the accused make no further 
 confession, he need be questioned no further." 
 
 " Well, well, we will look to that ; let us now see 
 him here in the hall ; bring ye him in forthwith." 
 Subdued groans were presently heard, with steps as of 
 men bearing a heavy burden, and this time the crowd, 
 with the living image of suffering before their faces, 
 seemed for the moment to forget their cruel jubilation. 
 
DAKKNESS AND CKUEL HABITATIONS 
 
 "We have sent for thee," began the Bishop, "that 
 these simple folk here may hear thee avow with thine 
 own lips that same confession and recantation which 
 
 my clerk hath taken down nay, hear me. 
 
 Eead forth, Master Clerk." And the clerk began 
 droning out his formal protocol again. " I, Holofernes 
 Haeret, falsely styling myself Lord of Halfwayhouse, 
 have fully avowed and confessed the articles herein- 
 after ensuing, of mine own free will, all seduction, 
 violence of tortures, persuasions, and bribes, ceasing 
 and having been removed ' 
 
 " Good God ! " groaned out the victim. 
 
 "My lord," broke in another voice, " can this indeed 
 be so?" 
 
 " What, Master Mayor, know ye not the forms of 
 justice in these matters requisite ? Our holy Mother 
 Church, being in all matters ever merciful, requireth 
 that the prisoner make his confession apart from all 
 torment ; so that, having now parted him from the 
 torture and put out of his sight all the instruments 
 thereof, we are bound to cause him to repeat his first 
 confession publicly and of his own free will. If, 
 blinded by malice and by the wiles of the devil which 
 God forbid he retract under this second examination 
 that which he hath already avowed in his first, then do 
 we adjudge this his instability in his evidence to be 
 such a fresh proof of his guilt as enableth us nay, 
 as compelleth us in very duty to put him again to the 
 
 question, and somewhat more sharply than before 
 
 Read on with the articles, Master Clerk." 
 
 "My lord," cried Lord Halfwayhouse, in a voice to 
 
 i 2 
 
132 FEIAR'S LANTEKN 
 
 which the burning indignation of cruel wrong lent 
 something of its former firmness : " once and for all, I 
 protest against whatsoever I have confessed, or shall 
 confess, under your devilish tortures. God only knows 
 what foul obscenities you have made me say things 
 that I learn now for the first time, and such as the very 
 fiends of hell could scarce have invented. I have 
 spent my life, my lord, among a people differing from 
 these of yours almost as men differ from brute beasts 
 where the speech of highborn men and women is at 
 least pure ; and where vice does at least pay the 
 homage of hypocrisy to virtue. Coming from such a 
 people to that state of society which I see around me 
 here " 
 
 "Lead him forth, Master Kackster," interrupted the 
 Bishop ; and the wretched prisoner broke off with a 
 heart-rending groan. 
 
 "My lord," broke in the Mayor's voice, "may not 
 this much suffice for one day ? " 
 
 " By the grace of God, Master Mayor, provoke me 
 not to wrath. What are these matters to thee ? ' ' 
 
 "My lord," answered the Mayor in a bold voice, 
 " it was your lordship's self who gave over this poor 
 wretch to the secular arm with a plea for mercy. My 
 brethren and I exercise the secular justice of this good 
 town ; true Catholics all, and ready to pay due respect 
 to Holy Church ; but, my lord, we have also within 
 our bosoms the hearts of men." 
 
 "And I too, Master Mayor, as God shall judge me 
 at the last day ; but at that dreadful doom I must 
 needs answer also for the souls of my flock ; and though 
 
DARKNESS AND CRUEL HABITATIONS 133 
 
 to you this fellow, even in his foul heresies, beareth 
 the likeness of a man, yet to us who bear the burden 
 of all the churches, he is worse than a wolf or an adder, 
 slaying and devouring, not indeed the bodies, -but the 
 immortal souls of men. And, Master Mayor, I would 
 have thee remember that the choice is not thine, to say 
 I will or will not } but that Holy Church can and will 
 smite with instant excommunication all that refuse 
 their help for the extermination of these wolves of 
 the soul. . . . Enough, Master Mayor; not for thy 
 proud words' sake, but of our own clemency, we remit 
 further question of this pestilent fellow until the 
 morrow. Let fetch the leeches, and see to his sores, 
 that we may be certified of his fitness to bear our 
 question on the morrow." 
 
 " My lord," protested a smoother voice, " doth not 
 our instruction forbid the renewing of any torment 
 once ended, and have not our best authorities defined 
 that such prohibition doth set the limit of a single 
 natural day for the question by torture ? " 
 
 " Thou art and ever wilt be a fool, Master Clerk ; it 
 is not six months since we examined this same point 
 together, and found how the learned Bernard setteth 
 forth that such a repetition on the second day must be 
 held not truly as a renewal, such as the law doth 
 indeed forbid, but as a continuation, such as lieth at the 
 full discretion of the judges. As to the third day, he 
 doth indeed admit grave doubt." 
 
 "My lord!" broke in a breathless voice, "the 
 wretched man hath even now given up the ghost, 
 under the very hands of Master Leech, who had twice 
 
134 FEIAE'S LANTERN 
 
 bled him, and was about to assure his cure by a third 
 blood-letting." 
 
 " Requiescat in inferno," replied the Bishop in a 
 solemn voice. " Ma} 7 he rest in hell, with those faith- 
 less Jews whom the folk slew in London at their last 
 rising. And now, my good folk, the day draweth to 
 eventide, and a runner hath even now brought me 
 tidings how my Lord Sheriff with his men pursueth 
 this devil's two comrades through the forest that lieth 
 towards Ipswich. Wherefore keep silence now, that I 
 may dismiss ye all with my blessing : and go ye all in 
 peace homewards to pray this night that Holy Church 
 be kept in quietness, and that all who trouble her may 
 be, within a brief space, even as this man here. 
 Dominus vobiscum, my good folk." 
 
 " Et cum spiritu tuo" droned the clerk ; and stuffing 
 his scrolls and ink-horn into his bosom, he went over 
 to the Blue Boar to drink a quart of penny ale with the 
 butcher. Duvet listened impatiently to the shuffling 
 and jostling of departing feet, until the last woman 
 had dragged out the last reluctant child,Uioping against 
 hope that the bad man might revive sufficiently to be 
 tortured again. At last the great doors closed with a 
 clangour of iron bars, the key grated harshly in the 
 lock, and all was silent. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 FKOM THE SNAKE OF THE FOWLER 
 
 DUVET crept stealthily downwards, delighted to 
 helieve that their pursuers were on the wrong scent, 
 but very sensible of the need for caution. Five 
 minutes later, Rashleigh, at the bottom of the stairs, 
 heard a step close above him, and Duvet's voice 
 whispering to him to come up. He followed his com- 
 panion upstairs, and Duvet began to tell all that had 
 happened, but Rashleigh had learnt it already from the 
 chatter of the crowd as they passed by his little loop- 
 hole. " They are not so unkind at the bottom, those 
 rough fellows," he said. " Now that it is done, nearly 
 all of them spoke as men heartily sorry for the job. 
 But I thought them very devils at first." 
 
 " You must make some allowance for their point of 
 view, my dear fellow. It is inconceivable to them 
 that men can doubt of the truths of the Catholic 
 religion except out of sheer malice." 
 
 " The more earnest of them may perhaps plead that 
 excuse, but if only you had heard the blasphemies to 
 which I listened during this last quarter of an hour, it 
 would have opened your eyes a bit. The old butcher 
 stood at his doors there, and said things about the 
 
136 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 Blessed Virgin out of mere grossness and thought- 
 lessness, no douht but he said things compared with 
 which all the heresies I ever read of would sound 
 harmless. And a drunken man, who wanted to open 
 
 our door " 
 
 " I have no doubt it is to some extent with these 
 
 people as it is with the modern Italians and Spaniards, 
 
 whose blasphemies are indeed foul beyond all belief. 
 
 We must beware, as Newman says, of judging a religion 
 
 by the common people. It seems as though, by some 
 
 mysterious law, extremes must always touch each other 
 
 in this life of ours ; and those nations which are most 
 
 conspicuous for true faith are also, on the other hand, 
 
 hotbeds of freemasonry and anti-clerical rage, and the 
 
 grossest atheism. As to this terrible scene, I have no 
 
 doubt whatever that it is simply another of our trials 
 
 in this strange vision which God has vouchsafed for 
 
 our probation. It is probable that Lord Halfwayhouse 
 
 is all this time safe in his own splendid mansion, and 
 
 that this is only a vision for our edification ; or, so far 
 
 as it has any object in reality, it may be sent to open 
 
 his lordship's eyes to his awful position he who stands 
 
 so literally on the very edge of the truth, and yet so 
 
 far away from it, while he still shuts his eyes to the 
 
 one thing needful. You must have seen by this 
 
 time that, when he professes to fight for Catholicity 
 
 against the Bishop, he is really advocating undisguised, 
 
 wilful private judgment. How can we know that 
 
 incense and the worship of the blessed saints have 
 
 been held ever, everywhere, and by all, except through 
 
 faith in the One infallible authority which tells us so? 
 
FROM THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 137 
 
 There is no trace of these things for centuries in mere 
 history ; nay, I am told that Origen, two hundred and 
 fifty years after our Lord's death, very emphatically 
 repudiated the idea of Catholics either possessing 
 images or paying them any reverence whatever. 
 Alone in the cold, comfortless twilight of history, we 
 do indeed wander hopelessly astray. But Christ's 
 Vicar tells me that those images, of which Origen 
 never heard, have yet been through all the ages 
 one of the chief channels by which Christians have 
 approached their Maker. Once the Pope has thus 
 spoken, the matter is removed forthwith from the 
 domain of history into that of indefeasible truth ; and 
 I believe at once nay, were it ten times more in- 
 credible, I believe all the more firmly, according to that 
 noble saying of Tertullian, credo quia incredibile. And 
 think, my dear friend, what a warning this is to us ! 
 If, before you had been reconciled in heart to the true 
 Church, you had been called suddenly to God's judg- 
 ment seat, how would you have answered His first 
 question, * Why, being so near to the truth as thou 
 wert being Catholic in all but one thing didst thou 
 yet close thine ears, like the deaf adder, to that 
 one thing necessary ? Depart from me, thou 
 accursed ' " 
 
 " No, hang it all, old man ! I can't believe it can 
 be quite so bad as that in heaven." 
 
 " Could you have believed it was as bad as this on 
 earth ? " enquired Duvet, who did not relish the inter- 
 ruption to his flowing periods, though he was, indeed, 
 conscious of having a little overstepped those delicate 
 
138 FKIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 refinements of argument with which modern Romanists 
 manage on the one hand to urge the extreme necessity 
 of Romanism to salvation, while on the other hand 
 they disclaim the straightforward brutality with which 
 
 their ancestors damned Protestants out of hand 
 
 "We are in the ages of faith," he went on, "and 
 faith does not merely consist in believing what happens 
 to he soft and pleasant to think of." 
 
 "No, indeed! .... I should very much like," 
 continued Rashleigh reflectivel} 7 , " to hear a frank 
 confession of faith from that man who was grumbling 
 at our door just now. I couldn't manage to be shocked 
 at him I was too amused all the time. He evidently 
 couldn't quite make out whether he had been drunk 
 when, some hours ago, he imagined himself to have 
 brought the key with him and unlocked it ; or whether 
 the impossibility of opening it now was due to present 
 intoxication. The butcher and other bystanders didn't 
 help him with the door, but only played chorus to his 
 blasphemies. His main complaint seemed to be that 
 he had to go right to the^other end of the town now for 
 the key, and to face his wife into the bargain." 
 
 "Do you mean this door of ours, this staircase 
 door?" 
 
 " I do. I suppose I ought really to have been 
 startled, only I can't for the life of me take these 
 things seriously, when once they are past. They 
 seem to shift and change in just the kaleidoscopic 
 sort of way that dreams do." 
 
 " Dream or no, we've got no time to lose. It must 
 be as dark as pitch outside ; there's a sea-fog, and one 
 
FROM THE SNAKE OF THE FOWLER 189 
 
 can scarcely see the light of the loopholes. I've found 
 a good coil of rope, and I should advise you to look 
 yourself out some good disguise among the old garments 
 up there." 
 
 " All right. But stay. I think I'll just put on the 
 clothes I bought for poor Lord Halfwayhouse." 
 
 "I the fact is I've got those on already," con- 
 fessed Duvet, and it was too dark for Rashleigh to see 
 whether he blushed or not. 
 
 " Hang it all ! Who the deuce gave you leave ? I 
 bought the things, didn't I ? " 
 
 " I suppose you did ; but that didn't occur to 
 me at the moment. You see, I thought you would 
 disguise yourself so much better by cutting all your 
 hair off. Mine hasn't grown enough to make much 
 difference." 
 
 " Have you got scissors for me, then ? " 
 
 " No ; but I felt sure you would have." 
 
 " You felt sure ? " 
 
 " That is I thought 
 
 "Well, as a matter of fact, I have ; but I didn't 
 think you'd have gone and sneaked my clothes, all the 
 same. However, it was you who did nearly all the 
 bargaining with the skipper, and he won't have looked 
 much at me to notice the difference of my appearance. 
 And I daresay I can find a rig-out here, too." He 
 lit a match and shaded it very carefully under his 
 cloak, as he rummaged about among the discarded 
 properties for something to suit his purpose. At last 
 he pitched upon a fusty old Franciscan frock and cowl, 
 into which he tied himself, not without some natural 
 
140 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 human qualms, with a bit of rope. The transformation 
 was so successful that Duvet was moved with envy, 
 and rummaged for another frock, hut in vain. And 
 there was no time to lose. 
 
 " Look here," he said ; " this is the safest side. I've 
 reconnoitred this loophole already. It looks into a 
 narrow lane." 
 
 The rope was fortunately not only strong, but so 
 long also that they were able to double it, and thus to 
 pull it away with them after use. The height was 
 nothing formidable they might almost have dropped 
 so far with impunity and a few minutes saw them 
 safely in the dark little lane, and the rope thrown away 
 behind a rubbish-heap. Just here and there they 
 met a citizen groping his way home to supper, who 
 naturally took them for honest fellow-citizens on the 
 same business. A word or two of greeting, and both 
 parties were lost again to each other in the fog. The 
 port was close by. A second narrow lane brought them 
 down to the wharf-side, where they seemed safe enough 
 now till dawn. They soon found a great stack of 
 wool-bales, among which they crept in silence, and in 
 a few minutes even Rashleigh had forgotten all the 
 horrors and perils of the day, and was sleeping the 
 sleep of the just. 
 
 He was wakened by Duvet shaking his arm, and 
 laying a hand on his mouth. It was broad daylight, 
 with only a few wisps of the night's fog still moving 
 over the river. " They are beginning to stir on 
 board the boat," said Duvet ; " shall we risk it now ? " 
 They crept quietly out, picked themselves clean of 
 
FROM THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER 141 
 
 wool-flocks behind the heap of sacks, and then, sallying 
 bravely forth, as though they had just come down from 
 their inn, hailed the vessel. Great was their relief to 
 see a boat cast loose almost at once and row towards 
 them, for there were two or three early loafers already 
 about on the quay. One of these, before the boat 
 had come to land, looked up and stared somewhat 
 suspiciously at Duvet. 
 
 " Good morrow, my son," said Rashleigh, in 
 a sepulchral voice, from under the depths of his 
 hood. 
 
 " Good morrow, holy father," replied the man, 
 looking still at Duvet, to whom he presently said, 
 " Hast thou heard aught of those other two heretics, 
 companions of him that was slain yestereve ? " 
 
 " Ay, marry ! that have I," answered Duvet without 
 a moment's hesitation. " Last night, somewhat before 
 curfew, when we were in the Town Hall, they were 
 there too. And right sorry, I warrant you, to find 
 themselves there ; but it was told me that they should 
 
 be taken away to-day about this hour An ye 
 
 make all haste now into the town, ye will doubtless 
 have seen them ere they depart " 
 
 " St. Edmund taught me that answer," added he, 
 with a smile, as the man thanked him civilly and hurried 
 off. " The saints' lives have other things than mere 
 theology to teach us, Rashleigh." 
 
 " What an actor you would make! " 
 
 " I do talk old English pretty well now, don't I ? 
 That comes of having been something of a linguist 
 from my youth. You may still have reason to thank 
 
142 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 your stars that you travel with a man who had his first 
 schooling in a French convent." 
 
 They reached the ship safely, and watched now 
 with feverish impatience all the little preparations 
 for departure. At last the captain gave orders to 
 weigh anchor; hut just at that moment their loafer 
 of half an hour ago came running out upon the quay, 
 with others straggling after him from the lane, all 
 gesticulating and shouting madly. One man ran to 
 a row-boat, which he hegan to cast loose from the 
 quay. 
 
 "What the are they all ahout ? " asked the 
 
 skipper in good nautical French. 
 
 "Put off, my master," answered Duvet, "it's that 
 red-faced villain to whom I dealt a clout of the head 
 this morning ere we left our inn for speaking ill of la 
 belle France, and who now, it seemeth, would fain raise 
 the town against us." 
 
 "Ay, is it so?" cried the skipper; "be easy, my 
 friend, Jean Reboul hath had such little affairs on his 
 hands before to-day ; the sail is filling apace, and not all 
 the monkey- tailed Englishmen on the seas will catch 
 us now." He walked to the gunwale and saluted the 
 shouting crowd on the quay with a gesture more 
 expressive than polite. " You are good French, sir," 
 said he to Duvet, "though your speech be somewhat 
 strange." 
 
 " Ay, for I have lived most of my life among those 
 English, and the tongue grows thick with their muddy 
 ale ; but the heart, mon ami, the heart " 
 
 " Aye, aye and your friend here ? " 
 
FEOM THE SNAEE OF THE FOWLEE 143 
 
 " My friend by birth is English, but the holy sons 
 of St. Francis are at home in all countries." 
 
 " Ay, and in all drinks too. I warrant he is not so 
 English but he will help us twain to empty a stoup of 
 right good Gascon wine." 
 
 The stoup was duly drained .without undue reluc- 
 tance on any hand, and the honest captain, having 
 swallowed his lion's share, saluted with a second 
 medieval gesture of contempt the fast-disappearing 
 crowd on the quay. 
 
 The breeze freshened rapidly after they had gained 
 the open sea, and soon it blew a real gale. A gale in 
 the Channel is bad enough at any time, but its horrors 
 were multiplied tenfold to our travellers by the want of 
 comfort and cleanliness on this little tossing cockle- 
 shell of a boat. The captain lost his bearings; for 
 three days and three nights he ran as best he could 
 before the gale, and all the while neither Eashleigh 
 nor Duvet could swallow a mouthful of food or even 
 call their souls their own. The persistence of the gale 
 at last changed the captain's mind with regard to his 
 two passengers, whom he began to regard in the light 
 of Jonahs, and more than once discussed openly the 
 advisability of throwing them overboard. An honest 
 man in his way, Jean Eeboul was still a sailor, and a 
 medieval sailor to boot, who, like Chaucer's shipman, 
 had thrown many a tall fellow into the sea before now. 
 Our friends were not only in no state to resist him, 
 but ready almost to accept even the sharpest remedy 
 for their present mewling and puking. However, it 
 fortunately happened that the wind abated so sensibly 
 
144 FKIAK'S LANTERN 
 
 on the fourth day as to persuade the captain again of 
 their innocence and themselves of the value of life 
 anywhere but on shipboard. Early on the fifth they 
 sighted land, and before noon they staggered ashore, 
 not, indeed, at La Rochelle, but at St. Valery. 
 
CHAPTEK XI 
 
 AFTER-DINNEB REFLECTIONS 
 
 IT was merry in the hall of the Bishop of Amiens ; 
 beards and smooth chins wagged there with a right 
 good will, though the beards were in a decided minority. 
 Below the salt all were shaven crowns ; only here and 
 there above it was a richly-dressed layman to be seen. 
 Our two friends were enjoying themselves with the 
 merriest, and Duvet was in his canonicals again, for 
 they had arrived at an opportune moment. Sir 
 Nicholas Grippegoutte, the miserly old rector of St. 
 Stephen-without-the-Gates, had been found dead in 
 his bed that morning, black in the face and, as some 
 averred, with the marks of the devil's fingers still plain 
 on his throat. The Bishop's servants, after ferreting 
 out from a score of different hiding-places some seven 
 hundred marks in specie, together with many bonds 
 for money lent out at usurious interest, had tossed the 
 more worthless contents of his house into the street. 
 Among these Duvet, coming by at the right moment, 
 had found a cappa, or regulation buttoned parson's 
 cloak, which had once been snuff-coloured, together 
 with a somewhat threadbare hosen to match. Thug 
 arrayed, he had accompanied Kashleigh to beg a little 
 
 F.L. K 
 
146 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 money of the Bishop for their pilgrimage to the Pope. 
 They found the prelate a stately full-blooded man 
 with red face and bushy white eyebrows slowly pacing 
 the cloister of his palace, chanting in a very fine bass 
 voice canticles in honour of the Blessed Virgin, and 
 only pausing at intervals to clear his throat with a 
 draught of iced Burgundy. As a goblet stood in a 
 niche at each corner of his cloister, it so happened that 
 these intervals were not infrequent, and the Bishop 
 was in one of his happiest moods. Moreover, he had 
 just received a full account of Sir Nicholas Grippe- 
 goutte's estate ; this was the third time within a month 
 that he had made similar rich hauls from intestate 
 clergy in his diocese, and his coffers were therefore 
 unusually full. So he had bidden our two friends to 
 dine with him that day ; " and ye shall tell me what is 
 a-doing in the realm of England, after which my 
 steward shall count you out forty shillings each in 
 good silver of Tours, and God speed ye to my lord 
 the Pope ! " 
 
 And now dinner was in full swing, and our friends, 
 so lately tossed on the deep, looked happily down 
 through a mist of steaming dishes and over a rolling 
 sea of shaven crowns towards the other end of the 
 great hall. 
 
 " Bibamus papaliter ! " cried the Bishop, " let us 
 drink like popes, and to the health of our Holy Father 
 John XXII., who hath set us so good an example. 
 To your health, my Lord Vidame, and to yours, 
 Master Archdeacon. What think ye, Brother Friar 
 thou there over against me at the table of this wine 
 
AFTER-DINNER REFLECTIONS 147 
 
 of Rochelle ? It hath cost me five sols the quart, as I 
 am a wretched sinner. Our own wines failed us last 
 year, nor should we have wherewithal to maintain our 
 proper state in this our palace to-day but for Sir 
 Nicholas and two or three more of his kind. He was 
 a niggard, that never spared a penny in his life to friend 
 or to stranger ; the fiend have his soul ! for a wretched 
 house he held all his lifetime ; and that which he 
 pinched together and hoarded up we spend here in our 
 mirth. Brother Friar, thou hast the face of an honest 
 man ; I warrant me thou art none of these new-fangled 
 verjuice-visaged papelards that wander about the 
 country preaching against such prelates as keep a state 
 accordant to their station in Holy Church." 
 
 "My lord," replied Duvet, "we have read the 
 Scriptures, and know full well that the labourer is 
 worthy of his hire." 
 
 " Ay, Sir Priest, and of a drink-penny over and 
 above his strict hire, and at times an ell or two of 
 good cloth to his back, an he have no churl to his 
 master. Freely have I ever given to the poor, and 
 freely hath the Lord given unto me. But as for these 
 new hypocrites and heretics who would fain have a 
 bishop go abroad like a beggar, they do but aim at 
 the ruin of all authority in Holy Church, whereby 
 they hope to gain freedom for their own damnable 
 doctrines. Why, masters, were St. Peter himself alive 
 in this most lamentable age of ours, little indeed would 
 his holiness and his apostleship profit him without 
 outward state and a strong arm withal. For, as saith 
 the Wise Man in Proverbs, * The poor is hated even 
 
 K 2 
 
148 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 of his own neighbour, but the rich hath many friends ' ; 
 and again, * All the brethren of the poor do hate him ; 
 how much more do his friends go far from him.' 
 Moreover, even the heathen philosopher Seneca writeth 
 in his epistle to Gallio concerning the happy life but 
 I see well, Friar, thou takest thy wine as an honest 
 man should, and when we are risen from this table my 
 steward shall give unto thy fellow the wherewithal to 
 come to the feet of our lord the Pope, whom Christ 
 and His saints preserve ! And thou shalt tell me, on 
 thy way homewards, whether thou hast found any 
 cardinal of them all to give thee better wine than I, or 
 to quote thee more readily from the Holy Scriptures 
 and the ancient philosophers. Bibamus papaliter, my 
 masters ! " 
 
 The reader will easily understand that our two 
 friends were doing all this while such justice to the 
 Bishop's good cheer as was natural in men who had 
 been starved and tempest-tossed for four whole days. 
 On a Friday, of course, there was no meat on the 
 Bishop's table, but the board groaned with sturgeon 
 and salmon, eel pasties and eel jellies, fat lampreys, 
 pike or carp stewed in Malvoisie, and great dishes of 
 rice and almonds boiled in milk ; moreover, there was 
 a ceaseless flow of generous wine and jovial talk. 
 " There may be queer spots in the Middle Ages/' 
 whispered Duvet to Rashleigh, " but we don't seem to 
 have much difficulty in falling on our feet again. 
 Bibemus . . . bib-bob-bibomus . . . estmalumLatinumsed 
 optimum vinum ! . . . What is that fellow singing over 
 across the table?" For a friar, who might have sat 
 
AFTER-DINNER REFLECTIONS 149 
 
 as a model for Chaucer's " worthy limitour, Huberd," 
 had produced from under the bench a small round 
 instrument like a banjo without a neck, and was trolling 
 forth one of those wicked bacchanalian ditties which 
 have been preserved by the hundred in old monastic 
 and cathedral libraries 
 
 " Sed in neutro gen ere vinum est divinum ; 
 Loqui facit socios optimum Latinum " 
 
 " That ain't so with me," remarked Duvet again. 
 " Lost most of my Latin on shipboard think it went 
 away into sea rest of it seems to be going here can't 
 understand half of what these fellows say. . . Bibomus, 
 sodales, bibomus / " he shouted enthusiastically to a fat 
 priest, his neighbour, as the company clattered their 
 cups on the oaken board in applause for the song. 
 For the next quarter of an hour Rashleigh heard him 
 muttering to himself, and ringing every possible 
 phonetic change in a vain attempt to hit upon the 
 first person plural present subjunctive of the verb 
 bibo. Then, overcome by the labours and anxieties of 
 the past five days, he laid his arms on the table and 
 slept like a happy child. 
 
 It was not so merry in the Bishop's prison at Amiens 
 as it had been in the Bishop's hall. True the little 
 cell was decidedly above the ordinary medieval stan- 
 dard of prison convenience, but it formed a cold and 
 comfortless lodging at the best. Bare stone walls 
 under a stone vault, a straw-littered floor, one tiny 
 
150 FBIAR'S LANTEEN 
 
 barred window high up in the wall, under which lay 
 the tower moat, foul with dead dogs and other name- 
 less refuse, this is where we must look now for our 
 two friends. They have slept heavily through the 
 night, worn out by their travail on the sea, and not 
 uncomforted by the Bishop's excellent Gascon wine ; 
 and now a pale ray of morning light, creeping in 
 through the loophole, has aroused them to a sense of 
 their present position. Sitting up in the filthy straw, 
 and each staring with haggard eyes at the other's 
 unkempt figure dimly visible in the half-gloom of this 
 mouldering dungeon, they looked, and felt themselves, 
 pitiable objects indeed. 
 
 " Why on earth couldn't you hold your tongue ? " 
 asked Duvet at last, and buried his throbbing temples 
 in his hands. 
 
 " But didn't you begin it ? " enquired Rashleigh, in a 
 tone more conciliatory, yet no less melancholy, than 
 his friend's. 
 
 " I only encouraged the Bishop to show off his 
 theological learning ; one could see he loved to talk, 
 and if you had only listened we might have learnt a 
 great deal that would have helped us to steer our way 
 through this incomprehensible medieval world." 
 
 "But, my dear Duvet, he took my breath clean 
 away ! " 
 
 " And mine too at first, but I had the good sense to 
 hold my tongue. And, after all, is not the Bishop in 
 the right?" 
 
 " You mean that the blessed saints do not enjoy 
 already the beatific vision of God's presence ? " 
 
AFTER-DINNER REFLECTIONS 151 
 
 "If the Holy Father has said so: and there seems 
 to be no doubt of that." 
 
 "How, then, can they intercede for us with a God 
 whom they don't see ? " 
 
 " If the Holy Father has said it " 
 
 " And the Blessed Virgin herself ! Can you possibly 
 believe that she " 
 
 " I can believe anything that the Holy Father has 
 said. I have often grave doubts of you, my dear 
 fellow : don't you see that it is the rankest heresy to 
 appeal against so plain a decree ? " 
 
 "If He has decreed it ... But is it possible? 
 Can He have said it with that solemnity which would 
 compel us to take His utterance as infallible ? " 
 
 " At any rate the Bishop had no doubt, and that's 
 the practical point. We must distinguish carefully, as 
 theologians and as men of sense, between absolute and 
 practical infallibility. How far a papal pronouncement 
 has been absolutely infallible, it is difficult to judge at 
 the time when it is made indeed, I may say almost 
 impossible. It may well seem at first sight to have 
 been delivered with every note of an ex cathedra 
 decree ; and yet the religious sense of the Church, 
 finding a voice in the infallible decree of some succeed- 
 ing pontiff, may detect in it some fatal flaw. You are 
 no doubt aware how, for many years, the Church 
 believed Pope Leo to have condemned Pope Honorius 
 as a heretic ; and how, until close upon the so-called 
 Reformation, this was solemnly recited every year in 
 the breviary. Yet, nowadays, any Catholic Defence 
 lecturer will show you how this rests upon a series of 
 
152 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 mere Protestant misconceptions. The absolute in- 
 fallibility of any pope's utterances, therefore, is not a 
 question which can be decided with any real certainty 
 for years it may be, not for centuries and centuries, 
 after that utterance was made. That is a pity, you will 
 say; for the present is precisely the time at which 
 certainty would be most convenient but we must 
 make allowance for human nature and the world as we 
 know it. Therefore we must often be content to do 
 without absolute infallibility, and to guide ourselves by 
 the practical infallibility which never fails the Church. 
 The Holy Father makes a pronouncemeut. He him- 
 self considers himself to have spoken infallibly : he has 
 by divine right the power of condemning as heresy any 
 opinion opposed to his pronouncement : and there, for 
 present purposes, you have practical infallibility. For, 
 mind ! it may be error and heresy to assert even the 
 truth itself, in opposition to the Sovereign Pontiff. I 
 will some day show you the matter argued out in the 
 Catholic Times." 
 
 " But we don't even know for certain that the Pope 
 has made such a pronouncement. A man by my side 
 whispered to me that the Pope had recently swallowed 
 his own words again, in deference to a protest from the 
 King and the University of Paris. He said the 
 Sovereign Pontiff now pleaded that he had only thrown 
 this doctrine out as a hint, a possibility ; and that he 
 was ready to stand corrected, in fair argument, even by 
 a woman or a boy." 
 
 " My dear Rashleigh, is that likely ? " 
 
 " Oh, if it comes to that, is this likely ? " and the 
 
AFTEK-DINNEK REFLECTIONS 153 
 
 curate looked round disconsolately at himself, his 
 friend, and the filthy dungeon. "Was the Harwich 
 business likely ? And yet I have a horrible suspicion 
 that it was thoroughly medieval." 
 
 "Yes: but there must be some limit to folly and 
 confusion and ineptitude ! Would the Holy Father 
 say such a thing, even if he thought it . . . that is . . . 
 in short, however madly a tyrannous despot (such as I 
 suppose the King of France probably to be) might rage 
 against him ? " 
 
 " All I know is, my neighbour seemed a very respect- 
 able and well-read fellow, and he assured me he had 
 seen the document with his own eyes at the university. 
 He said that the Pope excused himself by pleading he 
 was no theologian, in the scientific sense of the word." 
 
 " Forgeries, my dear fellow, forgeries ! Have we 
 not seen already how easy it is for the most palpable 
 lies to gain credence, in this age of few books and 
 difficult circulation of knowledge ? One would think 
 you had learned nothing from all our experiences. 
 Isn't the Bishop a better judge than we ? or do you 
 still cling to your Anglican contempt for episcopal 
 authority?" 
 
 " I don't doubt the reality of that authority here," 
 replied Rashleigh, wearily stretching his limbs in the 
 damp straw. Only . . . ' 
 
 " Only your conversion is still too fresh for you to 
 throw yourself heart and soul into the ages of faith. 
 It is idle to quibble whether the Bishop be right or 
 wrong in the abstract : the real question with him, as 
 with the Pope, is less speculative than practical. The 
 
154 FEIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 Bishop believes with his heart and soul that the Pope 
 has spoken infallibly. And the Bishop has power . . . 
 my dear fellow, you say you have not forgotten 
 Harwich." 
 
 " He has power to torture and burn us : but, if we 
 are really Catholic in creed ..." 
 
 "If? But who are you and I, that we should set 
 ourselves in a matter of faith against so great a prelate 
 the Vicar, I may say, of the Vicar of Christ ? It is 
 the old poisonous leaven of private judgment that still 
 works in your soul . . . Look here, I'll take you on 
 your own ground. Look without prejudice at the 
 quotations which the Bishop adduced, after the Pope, 
 from the Apocalypse and from St. Bernard. If St. John 
 saw the saints under the altar, still crying out * How 
 long ? ' surely it hardly looks as though they were 
 enjoying all that time the beatific vision? " 
 
 "I own that did stagger me," replied Rashleigh, 
 whom no sympathetic reader will blame for a readiness 
 to find any good reason for reconciliation with the 
 Bishop. 
 
 " To me, as I consider it calmly, it seems absolutely 
 conclusive. But that is not all: the force of the 
 scripture text is doubled, or more than doubled, by the 
 commentary of so great a father as St. Bernard. What 
 did your friend say to that ? " 
 
 " He hinted that one was not bound in faith to 
 believe all St. Bernard has written." 
 
 " What, St. Bernard ! one of the greatest of the 
 Latin fathers ! My dear fellow, it is as if we had 
 brought with us some subtle contagion of twentieth- 
 
AFTER-DINNER REFLECTIONS 155 
 
 century Protestantism which infects even the Catholic 
 minds around us here ! If you are seriously going to 
 pooh-pooh the definite interpretation of so great a 
 Father ..." 
 
 "I am very sorry to have said such a thing," con- 
 fessed Rashleigh wearily. " But what really staggers 
 me still is the difficulty about the intercession of the 
 blessed saints. If, as St. Bernard assures us they are 
 still under the altar . . . ' 
 
 " It is indeed mysterious, but not more so than the 
 unquestionably Catholic doctrine of Indulgences. The 
 merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ suffice for the for- 
 giveness of all sins without exception : and yet the 
 treasury from which the Holy Father draws for his 
 Indulgences is that of the superfluous good works of 
 these same blessed saints, who had no good works 
 except in so far as Christ's blood made them good. 
 If we allowed ourselves to be discouraged by such 
 superficial difficulties as this, how should you and I be 
 Catholics at all?" 
 
 " True," replied Rashleigh rather sadly ; for his 
 friend's arguments, however unanswerable, were hardly 
 consoling. 
 
 " That's right ! And now, when the Bishop's clerk 
 comes, as he promised, to ask our present decision, we 
 may tell him truly that we have both come over to his 
 lordship's way of thinking and, what is more, by 
 thinking over his lordship's own arguments. If my 
 stomach tells me truly, it must be late already, and 
 they cannot fail to come and see us soon." 
 
 He had scarcely finished speaking, when steps came 
 
156 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 down the corridor ; and in ten minutes' time our 
 friends were in the Bishop's presence. The jovial 
 prelate, goblet in hand, paused in the midst of his 
 praises of the Blessed Virgin. He listened condescend- 
 ingly to Father Duvet's humhle excuses and adroit 
 flattery ; and, being as placable as he was irascible, he 
 called for two fresh goblets and a dish of cakes, dis- 
 coursed learnedly for a stricken hour on the Lord 
 Pope's opinion that neither the saints were in their 
 final heaven, nor the wicked yet in hell, nor should be 
 until the day of judgment ; and then dismissed his 
 patient auditors with something more than the already 
 promised dole of silver. Thus fortified within and 
 without, they stepped forth with the prelate's blessing 
 from the palace gate, and went on their way rejoicing, 
 with their faces turned towards the mid-day sun. 
 
CHAPTEK XII 
 
 THE BROKEN BEED OF AUTHORITY 
 
 THE prison of the Bishop of Eouen is several 
 degrees less comfortable than that of his brother of 
 Amiens. The straw is somewhat further removed 
 from its first freshness ; the loophole a foot higher up 
 and several inches narrower ; poor Rashleigh is chained 
 to a pillar, and his fellow-prisoner this time is not 
 Father Duvet, but a real Franciscan friar or rather 
 his corpse, for he died of gaol-fever last night. The 
 gaoler, not knowing whither to look for his fee, has 
 not yet taken the trouble to remove the body. It is 
 natural, therefore, that Father Duvet, who has come 
 again to persuade Rashleigh out of his ill-timed 
 obstinacy, is a little impatient to be kept talking so 
 long. The present difference in opinion between the 
 two friends is, however, very simple. It happened 
 most unluckily that the Archbishop of Rouen held 
 opinions on the beatific vision diametrically opposed 
 to those of his brother of Amiens ; and that the travel- 
 lers reached his city on the very day on which news 
 had come of the conversion and death of Pope 
 John XXII. For that pontiff was now reported to 
 have signed on his deathbed a very full and formal 
 
158 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 retractation of the doctrine which he had held in spite 
 of the King and the University of Paris for three 
 years; and there was little doubt now that his suc- 
 cessor would solemnly proclaim that same doctrine to 
 he heretical, and its opposite the only true rule of 
 faith in this matter. When, therefore, the energetic 
 and orthodox Archbishop of Rouen heard that, in his 
 own city, a wandering priest and friar had incautiously 
 admitted their adhesion to the now damnable beliefs 
 of the defunct pope, it was natural that he should 
 cause them to be brought forthwith into his presence. 
 Here, in his own hall, the good prelate expounded the 
 full scriptural and patristic proofs ; but, though the 
 priest readily confessed his error, the friar not only 
 remained obstinate, but had even dared to reproach 
 his companion for this ready obedience to the living 
 voice of the Church. Nay, even after a night of 
 prison, Rashleigh was still obstinate, and Father 
 Duvet was already very angry. 
 
 "My dear Duvet," said Rashleigh at last, " would you 
 have me tell a damnable lie to get out of this place ? " 
 
 " I have not deserved this insult, Rashleigh. 
 I only want you to open your eyes to the plain 
 truth." 
 
 "I do my best," said Rashleigh wearily, " though 
 God knows these things are not so plain to me as they 
 seem to you ! You argued too well in the last prison. 
 I cannot see the falsehood now of what you proved to 
 me then." 
 
 " To me, dear friend, my present reasons seem as 
 much truer, as this prelate is a man of more holy and 
 
THE BROKEN REED OF AUTHORITY 159 
 
 Catholic life than the last. While I listened to that 
 old man at Amiens, cup in hand, preaching that the 
 damned should not see hell till the last judgment 
 heaven forgive me, but I could not help thinking how 
 his wish must be father to his thought ! " 
 
 " And yet you seemed to enjoy the old sinner's wine 
 as much as I did ! ... I can't help it, old man ; it 
 may be the defect of my theological training, but my 
 faith is not so pliable as yours." 
 
 " You cannot see how, in the Apocalypse, the giving 
 of those white robes to the saints under the altar refers 
 plainly to their full glorification as to their souls i.e., 
 to the full enjoyment of the beatific vision, even 
 though they must await the Resurrection for the 
 glorification of their bodies." 
 
 " But how about St. Bernard ? " 
 
 " St. Bernard ? . . . What has St. Bernard to do 
 with the matter, when once the Holy Father has 
 spoken ? But let us stick to one point at once ; 
 if the white robes of Revelation vi. don't refer to 
 the beatific vision, what else can they possibly 
 refer to ? " 
 
 "I don't know," answered Rashleigh doggedly; 
 " I only know that I can't change my mind in an hour. 
 Don't stay any longer now in this vile hole, but come 
 and see me again to-morrow." 
 
 After a few minutes' natural struggle between his 
 dread of this plague-stricken atmosphere and his reluc- 
 tance to leave his friend, Father Duvet withdrew, with 
 the promise to do what he could with the Archbishop 
 by explaining the cruel dilemma in which the late 
 
160 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 John XXII.'s exercise of private judgment had placed 
 them both. Poor Rashlelgh watched his departure 
 half-regretfully, half- contemptuously, and flung him- 
 self down upon the straw. It seemed hitterly hard 
 that he, who had so far bowed his stubborn will, and 
 even strained his conscience, to fall into line with what 
 had seemed orthodoxy, should now find himself a 
 heretic in virtue of that very self-sacrifice ! But pre- 
 sently he reminded himself that no doubt all this was 
 God's doing a trial of his faith, and perhaps a 
 chastisement for spiritual pride in the past and, 
 raising himself upon his knees, he remained long in 
 silent prayer. 
 
 At last the door opened and a surly gaoler brought 
 Rashleigh again into the prelate's presence. As they 
 passed through the hall he saw two archers tying 
 Duvet's hands behind his back. A third was plaiting 
 three bowstrings into a very good extempore cat-o'- 
 nine-tails. 
 
 " Isn't there a Bishopric of Gloucester in these 
 abominable times ? " cried the priest, gibbering with 
 horror at the fate that awaited him. 
 
 " God knows ! " cried Rashleigh, with less sympathy, 
 it must be owned, than he would have felt a day 
 before. 
 
 " Because I didn't choose to tell the Archbishop I 
 had been ordained by the Bishop of Plymouth you 
 remember the fuss we had about that at Summerleigh. 
 So I said Gloucester, at random, and he tells me there 
 never has been a Bishopric of Gloucester, and they 
 are going to scourge me for an impostor, and . . ." 
 
THE BROKEN REED OF AUTHORITY 161 
 
 The gaoler thrust Rashleigh through the heavy door, 
 which shut behind him. The Archbishop looked as 
 weary and worn as all good prelates had a right to 
 look in the Middle Ages. 
 
 This prelate was none other than Etienne de la 
 Marche, spoken of by admiring chroniclers after his 
 death as " The Pattern of Good Life." Sprung from 
 a knightly family, and imbued to the finger-tips with 
 knightly feeling, he had thrown himself, while yet a 
 boy-student at Paris, into a Franciscan cloister. Here 
 he had risen to the distinction of Doctor in Theology, 
 and had already made himself a name as a worthy 
 successor of Aquinas and Bonaventura, when the King, 
 in a moment of unworldly enthusiasm, forced the 
 Archbishopric of Rouen upon one who, by all men's 
 consent but his own, was fitter for that high office 
 than any other in the kingdom. Etienne had now 
 spent twenty years in the attempt to put down concu- 
 binage, tavern-hunting, and absenteeism among his 
 parish clergy, and to reduce the monasteries to some 
 sort of conformity to their Rule. In this he had fought, 
 and was still for a dozen years to fight, a more des- 
 perate and uphill battle than any which his ancestors 
 had waged against Norman rebel or Saracen unbeliever. 
 Thick- set, almost ungainly in his figure, with a head 
 too large even for his broad shoulders, and a nose 
 almost of too manly proportions even for his huge 
 head, he impressed even the most casual beholder with 
 a sense of extraordinary bodily and mental vigour 
 which his ascetic life had refined, and yet not impaired. 
 At an age when most men in the fourteenth century 
 
 P.L. L 
 
162 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 looked upon themselves as verging upon the grave, his 
 thick, hlack hair was still untouched with white, and a 
 pair of honest steel-grey eyes looked out with all the 
 fire of youth from under his bushy black eyebrows. His 
 voice, though somewhat harsh in ordinary talk, matched 
 the straightforward vigour of his words, and even at 
 times melted into a tone of manly sympathy which gave 
 to his speech the mingled dignity and tenderness of a 
 Hebrew prophet. " Stephen the Bishop was foul of 
 face," writes a chronicler who had known him well, 
 "but gracious in his speech as an angel from heaven." 
 Rashleigh, starved and defiant, looked him straight in 
 the face now, and felt that this Norman prelate was the 
 first typical English gentleman that he had yet seen 
 since that eventful night at Summerleigh. The Arch- 
 bishop, too, looked deep into Rashleigh's eyes, and 
 knew that he had here something very different from 
 the sordid culprits with whom he was commonly forced 
 to deal. 
 
 The discussion was not long ; no misunderstanding 
 lasts long between two perfectly honest men. Rash- 
 leigh told plainly how much the late pope's theories 
 had shocked him at first ; how they had seemed to rob 
 his " Hail Mary " of all its grace ; how he would have 
 been only too glad to repudiate them if he could only 
 have been sure that he was not over-persuading himself 
 again only in order to escape from prison. " For, my 
 lord, though your prison be a place of little ease, yet 
 I fear less ease still from a soul conscious of a daily 
 lie." 
 
 " And I, my son, though I would willingly send thee 
 
THE BROKEN REED OF AUTHORITY 168 
 
 back to the cell, or to the stake itself, for thine own 
 soul's health and the good of Mother Church, yet 
 dream not that I ever touch or mar God's image with 
 a light heart. It is a bitter cup. Daily I pray of my 
 God that it may pass away from me; nevertheless, 
 not as I will, but as He willeth. But these are days 
 of superabundant wickedness, my son, when all men 
 (I say) see clearly that Antichrist is either already 
 loosed, or presently about to be loosed. . . . Wilt 
 thou then forswear this thine error ? " added he, with 
 a sudden change of subject and a glance that seemed 
 to read to the bottom of Rashleigh's soul. Rashleigh 
 fell on his knees without reply, and felt the old man's 
 strong fingers playing with his yellow curls. "We 
 will have no writings, then, my son a word is a word 
 between two honest men. Thou art bound to the 
 court of our lord the Pope ? What then is thine 
 errand ? . . . Ah, God in heaven, woman is indeed a 
 burning fire, sweet poison, pitch that cleaveth if a man 
 do but touch her hand. . . . My son, thou speakest 
 even now of devotion to the Blessed Virgin ; set there 
 thy faith and thy love, that she may bring thee to her 
 Blessed Son. Hast thou not heard . . ." and here 
 the good prelate told two or three of those strange, 
 unedifying Mary-legends on which the wisest men of 
 those days dwelt with fond devotion. "But wherefore 
 hast thou no grave brother-friar for the companion of 
 thy pilgrimage? How hast thou fallen in with that 
 hedge-priest ?" 
 
 " My lord, we dwelt in the same town. . . ." 
 " Dwell no more in the same town with that man ! " 
 
 L 2 
 
164 FRIAR'S LANTEEN 
 
 The Archbishop's voice had grown harsh and com- 
 manding again. 
 
 " But, my lord, may I not plead . . . ? " 
 
 " Son, God has given me the gift to read men's 
 faces . . . Heaven help me for what I read too often 
 there ! Can a man touch pitch and not be denied ? 
 He hath lied to my face ..." 
 
 " My Lord, our travail and our troubles may have 
 turned his better judgment to unwisdom." 
 
 " Aye, son ; half-knave, half-fool. We want no 
 such clergy here ; we have too many already in this 
 poor realm of France. To-night he shall eat the 
 bread of affliction and drink the water of affliction ; 
 and to-morrow we will send him under safe guard to 
 the nearest port for England. . . . And thou, son, 
 thou shalt go to the Holy Father's court as companion 
 to Brother Maurice. . . . Nay, bow thy head as 
 yet." 
 
 The heavy hands rested this time both together on 
 Eashleigh's head, and for a moment he saw himself in 
 his old school-chapel again, an honest but unconverted 
 schoolboy, kneeling to be confirmed, and feeling only 
 dimly that the episcopal hands meant something 
 very solemn on his head. When he rose, and looked 
 with moist and grateful eyes at the Archbishop, the 
 great man's eyes were moist too, but all the more 
 grimly defiant. " Son," he said at last, " thou hast a 
 good heart, but a weak will at whiles. Thou wouldst 
 fain find rest in this life ; our Lord and Saviour found 
 there no rest. Hast thou not heard that word of the 
 Apostle Paul to his disciple : ' I have fought the good 
 
THE BKOKEN HEED OF AUTHORITY 165 
 
 fight ? ' Take that word into thine heart : ' I have 
 fought the good fight ! ' and whensoever thou kneelest 
 at God's altar, pray for me also, that my hands may 
 be strengthened and my faith confirmed. God go 
 with thee, son, for of this I am assured, that I shall 
 see thy face no more." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 BEOTHEE MAUEICE 
 
 BEOTHEE MAUEICE was a good average friar of the 
 third generation. He had spoken with men who had 
 been intimates of St. Francis himself, and was always 
 fully conscious of the fact that no Order had ever been 
 so saintly, so powerful, so dear to the Blessed Virgin 
 Mary, as his own. An easy-going optimist by nature, 
 he never doubted that the same kind Providence which 
 had called him from the world to the cloister, had also 
 earmarked for him a comfortable mansion in heaven ; 
 which, in the meanwhile, he was in no hurry to occupy. 
 For this world is, on the whole, a fair world, especially 
 in the eyes of a man well used to its ways ; and, during 
 his thirty and more years of religion, Brother Maurice 
 had seen as many men and cities as Ulysses himself, 
 with perhaps some even queerer sights. He was never 
 indifferent to sin or suffering, but he had seen too 
 much to be easily surprised at anything. Like a good 
 doctor or nurse, his mere instinctive loathing at the 
 sight of evil had become blunted in proportion as his 
 practical helpfulness had grown by experience. So 
 Rashleigh could have had no better escort than this 
 never-doubting, ever-ready, ever-cheerful little friar, 
 
BROTHER MAURICE 167 
 
 who knew by heart all the high roads in France, and 
 was hail-fellow-well-met with every creature that crawled 
 on them. It was from him that Rashleigh learned first, 
 to his unbounded astonishment, that there was no Popje 
 in these days at Rome, and that Avignon must be the 
 goal of their pilgrimage. 
 
 Amiens, Rouen, Chartres, Orleans, Nevers, Roanne, 
 over the mountains to Lyons, and down the Rhone in 
 a boat to Avignon it sounds like the heading to a 
 chapter of Ruskin ! They started at sunrise on a 
 glorious late September morning, and travelled by easy 
 stages. They lodged indifferently in castle or friary, 
 farmhouse or cottage, citizen's house or stately monas- 
 tery, as the whim seized Brother Maurice or as oppor- 
 tunity suited. Everywhere they followed the precept 
 of St. Francis, and ate without too scrupulous question 
 of all that was set before them. For, whether at castle 
 or at cottage, they had seldom occasion to shake the 
 dust from their feet and pass on elsewhere. On the 
 contrary, they found the warmest welcome from the 
 angel in the house, and often no less hearty hospi- 
 tality from the good man himself. If (as sometimes 
 happened) the master looked not too pleased at first 
 to find that two fresh friars had come this week, and 
 were in the act of devouring the very capon on which 
 he himself had counted for Sunday, yet he was soon 
 won over by the charms of Brother Maurice's talk, 
 addressed himself with a good grace to the drumsticks, 
 and brought forth a flagon of the best to enliven the 
 after-supper talk by the fire. Here, as they watched 
 the dying embers and applied themselves to the ebbing 
 
168 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 liquor, he would listen half through the night to tales 
 of ghosts and miracles which thrilled him with delicious 
 horror, and sent him to hed in every disposition to 
 accept with all faith and humility the good friar's 
 blessing on himself and his house. 
 
 They reached the Loire at the time of grapes, and 
 trudged for days and days among purple fruit and 
 sunburnt vintages, with all that crimson and gold of 
 the foreground, and deep blue of the distant hills, 
 that makes a fine autumn day too perfect to leave 
 room for the regret of summer and spring. Brother 
 Maurice saw no special harm in that unrestrained 
 merriment, and those twilight dances, which scanda- 
 lised so many of his contemporaries ; and Rashleigh, 
 though somewhat startled by the freedom of medieval 
 manners, adapted himself in the main to his guide's 
 optimism. The two had not been long together before 
 Rashleigh, tired of fencing clumsily with the more and 
 more pressing questions of his companion, begged leave 
 to make his formal confession in the next church they 
 should come to. Here he told in rough, and as far as 
 he could hope to be understood by a medieval mind, 
 the story of his life. The good friar Heard him at first 
 with sceptical impatience, then with growing interest, 
 and finally with that mixture of belief and pity which 
 men accord to a madman's tale which is evident!}' 
 earnest and has some elements of truth. He had no 
 doubt that Rashleigh was in fact some concubinary 
 priest from England, unhinged in his mind by the 
 tardy but overwhelming sense of his guilt, and on his 
 way now to obtain the Pope's absolution. Indeed, 
 
BROTHER MAURICE 169 
 
 whatever doubts he might have felt as to this main 
 fact were set at rest by the Archbishop of York's 
 instructions, which Rashleigh carried with him. As 
 to the stolen Franciscan frock, Brother Maurice readily 
 accepted Rashleigh's promise to enter the Order when 
 once the Pope should have given him leave ; and, mean- 
 while, what other garment was so safe for a poor sinner 
 to live or to die in? He received the confession, there- 
 fore, with his usual easy charity ; and, while offering 
 his younger companion all sorts of good advice on his 
 future conduct, he laid even more stress than usual, 
 in their daily conversations, on the frequency and evil 
 effect of those clerical failings. For, behind all Brother 
 Maurice's optimism, there was just one subject on 
 which he looked as steadily at the dark as at the bright 
 side and that subject was the faults of the parish 
 clergy. A dozen times a day he was reminded of 
 some scandalous anecdote from his own experience 
 or from the report of others as, for instance, that 
 almost incredible tale which Pope Alexander IV. told 
 to St. Bonaventura, and St. Bonaventura repeated to 
 his brethren of the grey frock. Under almost every 
 clerical cape or, almost as frequently, under the gay 
 lay attire which worldly priests commonly wore in 
 contempt of popes and councils and bishops and arch- 
 deacons Brother Maurice spied a potential enemy of 
 the Gospel of Christ and of the Seraphic Order ; and 
 his dislike and mistrust were often returned with 
 interest. Breaches of the secrecy of the confessional, 
 abuses of the sacrament of penance for purposes of 
 seduction, sordid adventures of all sorts, ignorance 
 
170 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 even of that small stock of Latin which was needed to 
 stumble through the daily services, poaching affrays, 
 undignified quarrels about tithes and offerings ; on all 
 these topics the good friar's merriment was merciless 
 and inexhaustible ; nor did he spare the older religious 
 orders, nor indeed any other order than his own. 
 Rashleigh very soon grew weary of these scandals, 
 which at first had amused even where they shocked 
 him. He would gladly have disbelieved in them 
 altogether, but Brother Maurice's proofs were so plain, 
 and his own eyes and ears told him so nearly the same 
 tale, that he could no longer doubt of the substantial 
 truth of these things, though their constant repetition 
 marred his romantic enjoyment of the journey, as the 
 unfortunate odours of an ancient town are apt to mar 
 our admiration of its architectural beauties. For the 
 good friar little realised how much his own Order also 
 lost in Rashleigh's estimation from many unconscious 
 self-revelations at moments when he himself was chiefly 
 concerned in boasting its superiority. The curate, 
 who, in his Anglican days, had been very fond of 
 modern devotional lives of St. Francis, and had indeed 
 a little bored his flock by the assiduity with which he 
 had harped on the Franciscan notes of evangelical 
 poverty and holy joy, was now continually reminded 
 how much ordinary human clay entered into the com- 
 position even of a typical medieval friar. The more 
 easily Rashleigh learned to talk Latin, and the more 
 persistently he questioned his companion on the 
 many religious problems which presented themselves, 
 the more it disappointed him to extract so little beyond 
 
BROTHER MAURICE 171 
 
 what the friar showed on the surface, and to everybody. 
 Brother Maurice showed a certain familiarity with the 
 Bible text, had always an explanation, however far- 
 fetched, for such texts as he knew, and mingled all 
 this with an extraordinary wealth of illustration from 
 popular tales and miraculous legends, often not only 
 incredible in themselves, but absolutely shocking to 
 the moral sense even of later Catholics. Rashleigh 
 thus learnt that the Virgin Mary is practically mistress 
 of creation ; that sacramental confession not only 
 removes the guilt of sin, but enables the penitent to 
 deny with a good conscience that he has ever sinned 
 a denial which God Almighty is ready to back up, if 
 need be, with as many miracles as may be necessary. 
 It was strange, too, to notice how familiarly the friar 
 criticised the Pope in an ordinary way, even though 
 he would attribute now and then to the Papacy an 
 authority not very far short of the modern doctrine of 
 infallibility. It was only, in fact, by noting how com- 
 mon these two contradictory points of view were, even 
 in the same mind, that Rashleigh began to realise 
 those childlike inconsistencies of the medieval mind 
 which no mere history can make clear to a modern 
 reader. There was very little in his actual experience 
 to remind him of what he had heard concerning the 
 ages of faith from his teachers at St. Chad's. Day 
 by day it was more clearly borne home to him that 
 these worthy men had blindly mistaken the most 
 enthusiastic devotional writings of a few picked men 
 for the real average man's religion in the Middle Ages. 
 Still, the friar's good humour and cheerful trust in 
 
172 FRIAK'S LANTEEN 
 
 God's providence were contagious ; and, but for one 
 thing lacking, his journey to Avignon would have 
 been one of the most delightful months of Rashleigh's 
 trip. But to him that one thing lacking seemed now 
 almost everything ... he was sick to see his wife and 
 children. The freedom from all past peril and conflict, 
 the sunshine, the sight of all these happy faces . . . 
 everything conspired to give him an almost physical 
 hunger after faces so long unseen, and voices unheard. 
 Not that he felt seriously uneasy on their account . . . 
 there was little room for such a feeling side by side 
 with his curious half-inarticulate yet ever-present 
 conviction that all this was a mere outward show 
 vouchsafed to him for a special reason. But all that 
 he saw or heard was obliged to filter through this 
 thought which floated ever on the top of his mind, and 
 often came in a half-whisper to his lips " What 
 would this world be, after all, without her and them ? " 
 Nor did it seem at all incongruous to him that in this 
 strange medieval life he should take the friar's cowl 
 and renounce all family ties, while looking forward all 
 the more passionately to the sight of wife and bairns 
 when this long period of probation should be past. 
 
 After a while they left the Loire and the now empty 
 vineyards, and climbed by rough forest tracks over the 
 mountains of the Lyonnais. At Lyons they joined a 
 caravan of travellers on one of those great barges 
 which through all the centuries have plied on the 
 Rhone. Here the idleness of the life, without even 
 the distraction of bodily exercise, left Rashleigh still 
 more at the mercy of his doubts and regrets. First 
 
BEOTHEK MAURICE 173 
 
 in autumn mist, then in soft and silent rain, he sat for 
 days and days watching the blurred, monotonous banks 
 glide past : then came day after day of storm, during 
 which the boat lay to and the passengers huddled 
 together in little inns full of debaucheries which even 
 Father Maurice found it hard to shame into some 
 sense of decency. At length came clearer weather, 
 but still raw and cold, which froze the friar's warm 
 Southern blood and rendered him as torpid as a winter 
 lizard : while even Rashleigh felt as though the boat 
 were remorselessly drifting down to some inhospitable 
 shore. In these past days, there had gradually grown 
 upon him a feeling of moral dissatisfaction which his 
 companion had been powerless to quiet. He realised 
 consciously . . . what he had only been learning 
 slowly and unconsciously hitherto . . . that Francis- 
 canism, even in the fourteenth century, was hardly the 
 Franciscanism of his high Anglican dreams. He had 
 taken the enthusiastic but unhistorical panegyrics of 
 Father This and Canon That too literally : and, 
 the more exaggerated had been his pre-conceived idea 
 of the average friar as an ascetic and super-sensuous 
 bridegroom of holy poverty, the more deeply Eashleigh 
 found himself now depressed by the visible facts. He 
 could not disguise from himself that there was as little 
 real asceticism in his present life as in that of an 
 ordinary busy twentieth-century parson ; and that 
 those few friars whom he had met wasted with fasting 
 or tied down to work in foul lanes and lazar-houses, 
 bore no larger proportion to the whole body than those 
 who in modern Anglicanism spend their whole life in 
 
174 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 the slums. Their so-called poverty, he felt, was in 
 many ways a sham ; though this was one of the few 
 subjects on which Brother Maurice grew impatient, 
 refusing to listen to the rare hints hy which Rashleigh 
 ventured to point the contrast in this respect between 
 the Franciscanism of the early legends and this present 
 life of theirs. Not only did he refuse to listen, indeed, 
 hut he also hinted not obscurely at the foul heresy of 
 those hypocrites who denied the right of successive 
 popes to smooth away the hardest points of St. Francis' 
 Rule. In spite of this, Rashleigh knew very well that 
 the only real privation to which his present life con- 
 demned him was that of the cold bath, bound up as it 
 was with certain other inconveniences unavoidable 
 even by crowned heads in those days, and doubly 
 inevitable to monks and friars who lived day and night 
 in the same clothes for months together. Yet even 
 these (as he soon felt compelled to own to his shame), 
 were inconveniences which he felt less and less from 
 day to day. After beginning in the fear that he would 
 never shake down comfortably into fourteenth-century 
 life, his chief fear now was that he would. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MY LADY POVERTY 
 
 RASHLEIGH was still in this dissatisfied state of mind 
 when the boat reached Valence, and moored there for 
 the day. Here, as once or twice before, our travellers 
 went up to the great house of the Grey Friars, where 
 Maurice had many old friends, and where they found 
 on this occasion Cardinal Vittorio Colonna and his 
 suite, stopping on their way to Avignon with a friar 
 whom they were taking to stand his trial for obstinate 
 heresy. The two new-comers, as guests, were brought 
 up to the high table for supper. Here Rashleigh was 
 in a very good position to verify all that he had heard 
 by the way as to the luxury and worldliness of the 
 papal courtiers, and to marvel once again at the utter 
 disrespect which the whole company showed in private 
 for him to whom in his public capacity they looked up 
 as to the Vicar of Christ. Especially offensive was 
 the Cardinal's buffoon, a foul-mouthed, half-crazy 
 creature, whose jests were flavoured with indecencies 
 and irreverences so gross that at times even the most 
 tolerant of the friars looked askance, and the Guardian 
 was at last driven to rebuke the fellow sharply. 
 
 " Nay, Sir Guardian," replied the Cardinal, " 'tis 
 
176 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 but a poor crack-brained creature, who knoweth as 
 little whereof he prateth as any jackdaw or popinjay of 
 them all." 
 
 "Aye, aye," chimed in the fool; "thou wert safer 
 be called mad, Sir Guardian, and rail on God and His 
 saints, than be called a friar and seek to serve them 
 after the pattern of the blessed St. Francis : ask my 
 Lord Cardinal if I lie : and an ye trust him not, go 
 ask the old patched frock in the prison down below 
 this hall." 
 
 " Though thou be mad, my man," answered the 
 Lord Cardinal, with a scowl, " yet forget not that a 
 madman's hide can feel the lash as well as a 
 Christian's. . . ." The fool found no answer ready; 
 and a friar who had been brought to the guest-table 
 in the middle of the meal put in his word of diversion. 
 
 "My Lord Cardinal, and ye masters all, with 
 respect to this cracked fool here (real or feigned), 
 it were scarce amiss to tell ye that which I heard even 
 on my journey hither. There was, a few weeks ago, 
 in the prison of my Lord of Rouen, a mock priest who 
 had shown false letters of orders, and who, under trial 
 by his lordship, was indeed able to sing mass after a 
 fashion, yet so uncouthly diverse from any use whether 
 in England, where he feigned himself to have been 
 ordained, or in any other Christian country, that he 
 was thereby convicted of imposture." (At this point 
 Brother Maurice trod on the toe of Rashleigh, who, 
 however, was all ears already.) " My Lord of Rouen 
 would therefore have sent him forthwith across the 
 seas but for some suspicion of heresy which he seemed 
 
MY LADY POVERTY 177 
 
 also to perceive in him. And while the Archhishop 
 yet doubted (for there is no cunning like unto that of 
 your true heretic) it so befell that the Friars Preachers, 
 who had already burned many at Cambrai, came also 
 to Rouen : whereupon this fellow, fearing for his own 
 skin, straightway feigned himself to be stark mad, 
 insomuch that even the learned prelate was deceived, 
 and sent him (after the custom in those parts) to be 
 cured by prayer and fasting at the shrine of St. Aicaire. 
 But mark ye here the finger of Almighty God ! There 
 was in that same company of pilgrims a most furious 
 madman, a clerk, who had lost his wits through over- 
 much study; yet not so mad but that he comprehended 
 somewhat of what his companions said, who spoke of 
 this English mock-priest as of a concealed heretic. 
 When, therefore, the two men were set together, bound 
 with cords, in the sanctuary before the shrine, and the 
 whole day had passed thus without effect, the one still 
 raving and the other still feigning himself so; at night, 
 when all men slept, this mad clerk was by the spirit 
 of God loosed of all his bonds, and moved to pile up 
 round the false heretic priest his companion such 
 straw and mats and movable benches as he could 
 find in the church. The other bore this with all 
 patience, thinking it to be mere play, and fearing to 
 withstand his fellow-pilgrim lest thereby he should 
 rouse his known fury. Then the clerk, fetching flame 
 from the lamp of the shrine, suddenly set fire to this 
 pile all round about : whereupon this heretic, after the 
 manner of his kind, began to cry aloud for help, and 
 the guardian awoke from his sleep. Yet mark here 
 P.L. M 
 
178 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 again the finger of God ! ... for that clerk, though 
 a weakling in body, and no man of war by trade, 
 seized on the sword which the guardian had laid by 
 his own side, and drave off all that would have extin- 
 guished the fire, until the flames had done their work. 
 And, what is more, no sooner had he fulfilled this 
 just judgment of God upon his false fellow-pilgrim 
 than he found himself loosed from the bands of that 
 demon that had hitherto possessed him, and went 
 forth from that sanctuary as whole in mind as any in 
 this hall." 
 
 "By the Blessed Rood," cried the Cardinal, "that 
 was well done of the madman ! What thinkest thou, 
 Sir Fool?" 
 
 " Truly, my lord, I think, as a poor fool, that 
 master madman proved himself a most excellent 
 Archbishop, and my Lord Archbishop a very perfect 
 madman." 
 
 "How now, thou misbegotten rogue, my lord of 
 Rouen a madman ? " 
 
 " Was it not even he who, a year agone, would fain 
 have persuaded the Holy Father that the prime cause 
 of the multiplication of heretics lay in the ignorance 
 of our prelates and clergy ? Mark now yourselves by 
 this example : what needs a bishop to know more of 
 Holy Scripture than this mad clerk knew ? What needs 
 he more than half a dozen words of good Church 
 Latin to say plainly, * Jacques Bonhomme, I hereby 
 burn thee for this world, and damn thee for the next, 
 in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost?'" 
 
MY LADY POVERTY 179 
 
 " Body of God ! " cried the Cardinal, " the fool 
 saith sooth ! St. Francis himself converted not so 
 many heretics with the sword of the spirit as mine 
 own unworthy self hath done, with the help of that 
 sword which our Lord, at His betrayal, gave to 
 St. Peter, and which by St. Peter's successor hath 
 been deputed to me. Would the Blessed Saints 
 Anthony of Padua or Peter Martyr ever have rid 
 the country of Dolcino and his three thousand fol- 
 lowers by the mere word of their mouth ? Nay, it 
 was as much as the Bishop of Vercelli could do with his 
 ten thousand Crusaders ; but thoroughly hath he done 
 that work, nor dare any man now speak the name of 
 Dolcino save with a curse. What boots it now to dispute 
 with texts of Holy Scripture against lewd folk to whom 
 we must needs forbid the reading of the Scriptures lest 
 they should perish in their own fond conceits ? Your 
 Bible-preacher doth but film over the putrid sore of 
 heresy with his seeming ointments : he flattereth with 
 his reasonings that spiritual pride which lieth at the 
 root of all rebellions against Holy Church : and even 
 such as seem outwardly converted will nourish still 
 the seed of heresy in their hearts. How say'st thou, 
 Master Guardian ? Had this foul ulcer ever broken 
 out in thine own Order but for this new-fangled fami- 
 liarity of lewd folk with the letter of holy writ ? . . . 
 which letter, as our Saviour saith, slayeth the simple 
 soul." 
 
 "My Lord Cardinal, methinketh that the poverty of 
 St. Francis taught better than your lordship's sword, 
 even though we give no credit to that which is darkly 
 
 M 2 
 
180 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 whispered among clergy and laity alike, how the sword 
 of the Inquisition doth too often rage rather against 
 the heretic's purse than against his errors ; and how 
 gold is a safer shield than innocence in these days 
 against the sword of St. Peter. We poor friars can 
 indeed meet all other arguments of the heretics with 
 words of Holy Scripture : hut we are dumh when they 
 point to that which we also see with our own eyes . . . 
 the luxury of all prelates and the vices of too many. 
 We see Lord Inquisitor going from place to place with 
 some two hundred fellows in his train, who spread 
 their drunkenness and debauchery over all the 
 country-side . . . even as the huntsman of the fable, 
 who did indeed rid the husbandman of his hare, yet 
 who destroyed in one day more growing corn than ten 
 hares might have eaten in a year ! " 
 
 "Aye, aye, Sir Friar, I have seen your poverty and 
 envied it : I, whom men call Prince of the Church, 
 yet who possess no palace comparable to this house of 
 the Poor Brethren, nor any vineyard that yieldeth me 
 one half of that silver which ye gather from within the 
 narrow bounds of your cloister-garth. I am old enough 
 to have spoken with your blessed Father Bonaventura 
 in this very friary, while as yet it was but a hovel in 
 comparison of its present magnificence yea, and to 
 have seen him weep bitter tears for sorrow of that 
 luxury which fattened even then beneath the outward 
 show of poverty in your Order. ' My brethren,' I 
 heard him say, * have long sucked men's purses ; and 
 now with the idleness of too many, their gluttony, the 
 riches which they still heap up at home while they 
 
MY LADY POVERTY 181 
 
 beg in the streets for more, they suck at last the very 
 blood of men's souls and destroy the Church which 
 they should edify ! Yea,' added he, ' I myself would 
 willingly give this poor body of mine to be ground to 
 powder if only I could thus bring back the Order to 
 that which the Holy Francis ordained for it.' Thus 
 spake that holy father, Sir Guardian ; and ye, who 
 have seen well nigh as many days as I, ye know full 
 well how it hath gone with your order since he was 
 taken from us." 
 
 " Far be it from me," replied the Guardian with a 
 bitter smile, "to gainsay my Lord Cardinal and my 
 Lord Inquisitor ; yet, if I mistake not, we have even 
 now in our prison a brother of our Order whom your 
 inquisitorship findeth too obstinate in his literal 
 following of our early rule, and who is like to burn at 
 last for the erroneous opinions of holy poverty which 
 your lordship would almost seem to share." 
 
 " Sir Guardian," replied the Cardinal, with some 
 real dignity, " an the sons of St. Francis had trod 
 more closely in their father's steps, many poor brethren 
 might well have remained within the fold, whom their 
 fellow-friars are now foremost in accusing to the Holy 
 Office as pestilent heretics and rebels against our lord 
 the Pope. It is not only cardinals and bishops against 
 whom the heretics mock openly, so as that no text of 
 Holy Scripture may close their mouths. . . . But 
 enough of this debate, which was none of my choice, 
 and which like so many others which we deplore among 
 us to-day could only end to the scandal of the Holy 
 Church. I note even now how yon stranger friar over 
 
182 FREAK'S LANTERN 
 
 the board gazeth upon us with mingled pain and 
 wonderment. If, as from his speech I guess, he is 
 from that land of England, which hath ever shown 
 itself faithful above all others to the Rule, he may well 
 wonder in his soul as he draweth near to the city 
 which, as we hear, his countrymen are wont to style 
 in open Parliament ' the sinful city of Avignon.' Is 
 it not so, Sir Englishman ? Art thou not sad to see 
 how quick is our Southern blood to boil up in wrath, 
 and our Southern tongues to jangle of things which all 
 men may think in Holy Church, but which no man 
 should speak aloud ? " 
 
 It was indeed an unlucky habit of my Lord 
 Cardinal's that he always would have the last word. 
 Rashleigh had, of course, been much struck, from the 
 very first, by the utter want of ordinary English self- 
 control and reticence even in England and among the 
 pillars of the medieval church ; and he had heard of, 
 though never seen, the fisticuffs which solemn clerics 
 not unfrequently exchanged within the very walls of 
 their churches. But what had struck him even more, 
 all through this conversation, was the callous indiffer- 
 ence to great and essential principles, whether of 
 Christianity or of monastic life, on the part of these men, 
 who had no hesitation in torturing or slaying those 
 who refused to tithe with them the mint and cummin 
 and anise about which they quarrelled. His old 
 Anglican ideas, often confused, but always heartily 
 enthusiastic, about Christ and St. Francis, had fer- 
 mented strangely for the last hour in his mind. Things 
 that he had dreamed of in his walks from one sick 
 
MY LADY POVERTY 188 
 
 bed to another, things he had said from the pulpit 
 to shame his congregation by the contrast between 
 modern materialism and the pure faith of the Middle 
 Ages, had now floated vaguely in his mind as he 
 listened to this discussion. Here at last, then, at the 
 Cardinal's direct appeal, the fire kindled, and he spake 
 with his tongue ; as frankly as if he merely thought aloud, 
 yet as vehemently as if he were speaking for conscience' 
 sake from his little Greenhill pulpit. 
 
 " My Lord Cardinal and you, Master Guardian 
 I have oft-times preached to my flock how St. Francis 
 chose for his bride the Lady Poverty, who for eleven 
 hundred years had been widowed of her first husband. 
 Yet, methinks, that here again, after scarce one 
 hundred years, the Lady Poverty is in her second 
 widowhood. Our Lord Jesus Christ had nowhere to 
 lay His head : He and His Apostles had neither silver 
 nor gold. . . ." 
 
 " What, neither silver nor gold ! " interrupted the 
 Cardinal, looking hard at Rashleigh. 
 
 " Neither silver nor gold, as I read my Bible, my 
 lord." The old pugnacious Adam was now well 
 roused in him; and he was in no mood to stand 
 correction on a point of Scripture text by a cardinal 
 who had already mutilated a saying of St. Paul's, and 
 put it into our Lord's mouth. 
 
 "Nor any other possession?" the Cardinal bent 
 his brows, and Eashleigh answered with still greater 
 determination, "nor any other possession." 
 
 " Neither singly nor in common ? " 
 
 " If not singly, why should they hold it in common ? 
 
184 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 We do indeed read of this in the Acts, but where can 
 you show ine any such story in Gospel history ? " 
 
 While these rapid sentences were bandied to and fro 
 between the two men, a whisper went round the hall 
 like wildfire, and all that jovial uproar sank into a dead 
 silence : two hundred jaws forgot to munch, and four 
 hundred horrified eyes were fixed on Rashleigh. In his 
 rash impulsiveness, the honest curate had fallen head- 
 long into a heresy for which that age had almost less 
 mercy than for any other. Fifty years ago, St. Bona- 
 ventura and St. Thomas Aquinas had stoutly main- 
 tained the absolute poverty of Christ and His Apostles ; 
 but here again Pope John XXII. had spoken ; and 
 there were now few surer roads to the stake than to 
 agree here with those saints of a generation ago. 
 
 The momentary silence gave place to an equally 
 sudden hubbub of voices. The Cardinal, sputtering 
 with indignation, the Guardian, cold and ironical, a 
 dozen Doctors of Divinity scenting a fine disputation, 
 set all at once upon our friend. Simple, honest, and 
 obstinate, Rashleigh stuck doggedly to his guns. The 
 whole bearing of these people was equally offensive to 
 his sense of justice and to his national pride ; and, 
 long before he realised how much he had said, he had 
 already gone too far to leave any room for compromise. 
 The Cardinal adjourned to the Chapter-house with his 
 clerk and a few chosen assessors ; and there the matter 
 was threshed out in due form. Rashleigh was con- 
 fronted with the usual arguments of those who tried 
 to cut the ground from under the feet of the spiritual 
 Franciscans by proving that even Christ and His 
 
MY LADY POVERTY 185 
 
 Twelve had not disdained to call some earthly posses- 
 sions their own. When Christ said to Peter, "Put 
 up again thy sword into his place," was not this the 
 plainest possible Scripture proof that at least one 
 apostle had enjoyed at least one piece of personal 
 property? The Cardinal, who had himself played 
 this trump card, was so incensed at the undisguised 
 scorn with which the culprit treated such an argument, 
 that he made short work of the rest of the examina- 
 tion. In five minutes Rashleigh was in a position to 
 institute the minutest comparisons between the convent 
 dungeon of Valence and the episcopal prisons of Amiens 
 and Rouen. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE SECOND CRUCIFIXION OF ST. FRANCIS 
 
 I AM heartily sorry to introduce my readers to so 
 much prison company, hut at the time of which I 
 write it was often easier to find an honest fellow inside 
 the church dungeons than outside. 
 
 Last night, when Rashleigh found himself thrust 
 suddenly into the pitchy darkness of this place, he 
 had felt it like an icy bath. Cowering in the straw, 
 first burning with righteous indignation and then 
 shivering with the damp that seemed to freeze him to 
 the bone, he had dozed only as one dozes through a 
 night of fever. Ever and anon he had heard the 
 clanking of chains, he knew not how many, and the 
 murmur either of several voices or of one voice in 
 several tones. In the morning twilight, he saw now 
 a face that reminded him strikingly of his dear old 
 tutor at St. Chad's. The same eyes, short-sighted, but 
 burning with intense enthusiasm ; the same stubborn, 
 unkempt hair, the same irregular, passionate features 
 which arrested the gazer's attention at once, and only 
 left him asking "Does the face most attract or repel 
 me ? " Rashleigh so clearly remembered asking him- 
 self that question during the first weeks at St. Chad's, 
 and hearing a fellow-student say, as if in answer to his 
 
SECOND CKUCIFIXION OF ST. FKANCIS 187 
 
 unspoken thoughts, " Satan might have made a big 
 sinner of him ; but God has made him into a real 
 saint." And here was just the same face before him 
 now, except for deeper lines of suffering, a more 
 frequent sprinkling of white hairs, and a look of sordid 
 neglect begotten of this filthy dungeon. It was like a 
 glimpse of his past life again ; and a spirit impelled 
 him to speak. 
 
 " Good morrow, father.'* 
 
 The old man started, and his short-sighted eyes 
 struggled to pierce the gloom. Eashleigh came nearer 
 and took him by the hand. 
 
 "Whoartthou, son?" 
 
 " A poor prisoner for conscience' sake, even as 
 thyself, reverend father." 
 
 " Aye, aye, another spy whom they send to take me 
 in my speech ! But I care not ; I have no secrets 
 from man ; no, nor from God. . . . Yet thy youthful 
 face and thy clear eye should promise honesty. Aye, 
 aye, so thou, too, hast spoken for the poverty of 
 Christ, and they have cast thee into this dungeon 
 with me. . . ." 
 
 Rashleigh saw here a chance of answering the 
 question which had exercised his mind during the 
 past few weeks ; how had the Franciscan Order 
 changed so deeply in so short a time ? Had Canon 
 This, and Father That, and all the edifying modern 
 writers whom he had studied at Summerleigh, simply 
 drawn on their imagination? His questions soon 
 loosed the old man's tongue ; for speech is a luxury 
 after so long a silence. 
 
188 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 " Thou wouldst fain know by what steps the spirit 
 of St. Francis hath departed from us ; hear then mine 
 own case. I will not boast of that which I was before 
 I entered into the Seraphic Order ; suffice it to say 
 that my forefathers were men of wealth and knightly 
 rank in the world, and that men praised me for that 
 vain learning of the schools, which bringeth no man 
 to salvation. Yea, I may say with the Apostle that I 
 was taught according to the perfect manner of the law 
 of the fathers ; yet all these things are as folly beside 
 the Cross of Christ. With my two brethren in the 
 flesh, knights both in the world, I entered in early 
 manhood into this Order ; in spite of my father's 
 threats and my mother's tears, we esteemed the 
 reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures 
 in Egypt, choosing to destroy our noble house here 
 on earth, that we might build ourselves a mansion in 
 heaven. Moreover, even here on earth have I found 
 my consolation . . . yea, in this dungeon itself He 
 maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; He leadeth 
 me beside the waters of comfort. Yet have I suffered 
 as the Apostle suffered perils in the wilderness, perils 
 in the sea, perils among false brethren. The body of 
 our holy father, St. Francis, was scarce cold in its 
 grave, before his false sons began to rage against his 
 Rule and testament with a fury which hath grown with 
 time. I have known Brother Nicholas, of Recanati, 
 upon whose bare and defenceless crown these false 
 brethren burned the testament of St. Francis, in cruel 
 derision for the strictness wherewith he clung to its 
 observance. I have spoken with brethren who were 
 
SECOND CRUCIFIXION OF ST. FRANCIS 189 
 
 present when the Blessed Antony of Padua was 
 scourged to the blood, by Franciscan hands, at the 
 very tomb of St. Francis ; and again when the Blessed 
 Csesarius of Spires was murdered by his gaoler for 
 no other cause than that he clung too closely to the 
 Rule. Yet what can such devils do against the soul ? 
 They, too, have gone now to their judgment ; they lie 
 in hell like sheep, and the raptures of the blessed in 
 Abraham's bosom are all the sweeter for the sight of 
 that worm that dieth not, and those flames that never 
 shall be quenched ! It is the Lord's doing, and it is 
 wonderful in our eyes ! Thank God, young brother, 
 that He chasteneth thee now for thy sins in this prison, 
 rather than in the flames of purgatory or the undying 
 torments of hell ! Yea, truly may we say again, ' He 
 maketh us to lie down in green pastures ! ' 
 
 " But how earnest thou hither, Father ? " 
 
 " Nay ; rather, how can any honest son of Francis 
 dwell elsewhere ? . . . I made my profession, and 
 spent my first years, among such as chose with all 
 sincerity to follow in the footsteps of the saint, which 
 were even as the steps of Jesus Christ on earth. Our 
 hovels wherein we slept we esteemed less our own than 
 the birds their nests and the foxes their holes : the 
 whole multitude of us was of one heart and soul ; and 
 if any would fain join us, he must first sell all that he 
 possessed and distribute unto the poor. And now . . ." 
 
 " And now, even he who runneth may read. But 
 how this change came to pass, we know not." 
 
 " Aye, but we know, who have watched this mystery 
 of iniquity grow before our very eyes. The whole 
 
190 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 world around us, as thou seest, is seated in wickedness. 
 Within the Order, even they who were at first most 
 strict have become tender to their own flesh in old age, 
 fostering their broken-down bodies in the infirmary 
 with forbidden meats and indulgences ; so that the 
 younger brethren, marking the present indulgences of 
 these their elders, and knowing nought of their past 
 mortifications, have waxed more wanton from genera- 
 tion to generation. They vaunt themselves in a certain 
 show of piety and outward ceremonies, while they have 
 utterly cast aside the law of holy poverty ; esteeming 
 gain to be godliness, compelling the simple brethren 
 to defile their souls with the bodily touch of silver and 
 gold, and thinking to do God service by shedding the 
 blood of the saints. In all the friaries even of St. 
 Francis' own province, the brethren have long since 
 builded forbidden store-houses and garners, with 
 cellars full of excellent wines, even as that rich fool of 
 whom God said, * This night thy soul shall be required 
 of thee.' And the spiritual brethren that would have 
 lived as St. Francis bade us, with the labour of their 
 hands or by begging their bread from day to day . . . 
 these holy brethren would our latter-day Pharisees 
 have constrained to fawn upon the rich for corn and 
 wine and oil to be laid up at home in such store-houses 
 of Satan. Among whom I also have been counted 
 worthy to suffer : we, who have ever professed our- 
 selves ready to render full obedience in all things 
 permitted by the Rule, first to the prelates of our own 
 Order and above all to our lord the Pope . . . yet all this 
 hath availed us nothing. They have chased us like 
 
SECOND CKUCIFIXION OF ST. FRANCIS 191 
 
 wild beasts from place to place : even among the holes 
 of the rocks where we would fain have served our God 
 in peace. Me indeed they found not for many years : 
 but others they took one by one, depriving them of 
 their breviaries and the very habit of the Order, 
 cutting them off from all sacraments of the Church, 
 leaving them to rot amid the filth and vermin of these 
 dungeons, and casting their bodies at last upon the dung- 
 hill . . . yet in all secrecy, lest their iniquities should 
 become known to the outer world. Me, therefore, they 
 have now taken last of all, and torn from me the grey 
 frock which I had of my master Angelo Clareno, and 
 which I had myself worn these twenty years . . . yet, 
 had they known it, they are but as Potiphar's wife, in 
 whose hands I have left my outer garment while my 
 soul hath escaped as from the snare of the fowler. For 
 here, in this dungeon, the Blessed St. Francis hath 
 clothed me with a habit not made with hands ; and 
 daily at dawn the angels bring me the holy wafer of 
 the Lord's body, whereby my soul is filled with ineffable 
 sweetness." 
 
 "But what so grievous faults, father, could these 
 men object against thee ? " 
 
 " What faults needed the wolf to object against the 
 lamb ? Our bodies are at their beck and call : we 
 have sworn them obedience in all things lawful ; and 
 thereby they take occasion against us even in things 
 most unlawful. What hath it availed us that Pope 
 Clement V. heard all accusations against us, and gave 
 us reason against our enemies, at the great Council of 
 Vienne ? What did the Holy Father's own letters of 
 
192 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 protection avail us, even before the perverse decrees of 
 that heretic whom men styled Pope John XXII. ? Art 
 thou from so far a land that thou knowest not that 
 decree whereby this man revoked the express Bull of 
 the holy Pope Nicholas IV., and made even the saintly 
 doctor Thomas Aquinas into a teacher of falsehood ? 
 Hast thou not heard of those sixty brethren whom he 
 made to be taken and tortured at Marseilles, and the 
 four who were burned like heretics for holding to the 
 poverty of Christ and the plain Rule of St. Francis ? 
 for when the Pope is heretic, then is it crime to hold 
 the faith with the saints of old." 
 
 " The Pope a heretic ? " 
 
 " Aye, brother, hast thou never read thy Breviary ? 
 Yet, as the doctors say, by the blessing of God it hath 
 never fallen that one heretical pope hath followed hard 
 upon another; but whensoever one hath preached 
 falsehood, another following after hath openly pro- 
 claimed his error, as we may see in the matter of the 
 late John XXII. It may be indeed that our present 
 Lord Benedict, whom God preserve, is that good pope 
 foretold by Abbot Joachim and so painfully awaited 
 these hundred years, who shall foster all true brethren 
 and repress the false, and purify with axe and fire 
 those clergy of our days who, in the words of the Holy 
 Council, are worse than Jews. For it must needs be 
 that such a time come at last." 
 
 " Believe me, father, there shall come a day when 
 the evil shall no more have power to cast the good into 
 prison." 
 
 " Would to God that they had no more power than 
 
SECOND CRUCIFIXION OF ST. FRANCIS 193 
 
 that, brother ! Thinkest thou that I care more for 
 these chains than for the straw whereon we lie ? 
 Flesh must perish, and we must feel the perishing 
 thereof. But who shall heal this leprosy of souls, this 
 leprosy of God's church, wherein thousands perish 
 daily, devoured by evil priests in false confession, or 
 by false pardoners from Rome with their penny- 
 preaching, or by heretics without the fold ? But for 
 this, I were no less at ease in this filth than in my 
 mountain hermitage : for God and His angels know 
 neither bolt nor bar, and with their converse the 
 very wilderness of this dungeon may blossom as the 
 rose. . ." 
 
 " Little enough of the rose to my nostrils ! " broke 
 in a voice behind them ; and Rashleigh turned to see 
 Brother Maurice at the door of the prison, with bis 
 daily imperturbable smile on his face. " What say'st 
 thou now, Brother Herbert? For I am come to 
 release thy feet from the stocks, seeing that thou didst 
 but speak unadvisedly with thy tongue yester-eve." 
 
 Rashleigh was silent : but the old man's eye kindled 
 with a light which showed how little his ascetic life 
 had quenched the fiery spirit of his race. He was as a 
 spiritual Don Quixote, whom this Sancho Panza would 
 fain persuade now out of his high-flown fancies, in the 
 name of common-sense and conformity to the spirit of 
 the times : and Rashleigh, with all his liking for 
 Brother Maurice, could not help noting the contrast. 
 Besides, he was already quite familiar with the style 
 of argument which the good-natured old Philistine 
 now proceeded to advance, standing all the while in the 
 
 F.L. N 
 
194 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 doorway with a not unnatural show of impatience to 
 get the job done. The whole thing was very plausible, 
 but very like poor Duvet over again : a subtle series 
 of suppressions and qualifications tending to prove that 
 black is practically dark grey : and dark grey not 
 essentially different from light grey, and light grey 
 morally the same as white ... or by a simple reverse 
 process, to argue similarly from white, through light 
 and dark grey, to black. All this was reinforced, 
 of course, by the same sort of Biblical quotations as 
 Rashleigh had already heard about St. Peter's sword. 
 As to the Rule of St. Francis, argued Brother Maurice 
 glibly, it must be evident to all men that the saint 
 used the words money, poverty, etc., not in the vulgar 
 material sense, but in the theological sense, thus anti- 
 cipating the interpretations of the Rule now given by 
 late popes : so that the saint's express commands 
 might be, and in fact must be, properly understood in 
 an exactly opposite sense to that which they are apt 
 to convey to the gross and unlearned multitude. 
 Rashleigh listened dreamily to this, with the vague 
 feeling that he had heard it all before, and that the 
 very face of Brother Maurice was in some way a resur- 
 rection from his own past, whether waking or sleeping. 
 The friar grew more impatient, more vehement : 
 he launched out against the so-called " Spiritual " 
 brethren . . . hypocrites, disobedient, sensual, oft- 
 times even heretics . . . 
 
 " Lies ! " cried the old man, pulling himself up to 
 his full height and speaking now for the first time ; 
 "lies, the old lies that were shown to be false before 
 
SECOND CEUCIFIXION OF ST. FKANCIS 195 
 
 Pope Clement V. in full Council ; yet ye hypocrites 
 learn them still like popinjays from your teachers, and 
 repeat like parrots without a glimmer of sense. Why 
 had your champions no proof to offer when the Blessed 
 John of Parma made his defence before the Cardinals 
 at Rome, or when Ubertino justified his brother- 
 Spirituals at the Council of Vienne ? " 
 
 " Holdest thou with this old madman and his 
 party?" asked Brother Maurice impatiently, but not 
 unkindly. 
 
 " Forgive me, father," answered Rashleigh, " but I 
 cannot hold with you and yours." At these words 
 the other lost all his short remainder of patience. 
 " Son," he replied, "it may be that three days in this 
 cell will bring thee to a better mind. In three days, 
 therefore, I will return and put the same question for 
 the last time ; after which I must deal otherwise with 
 thee. Thou hast doubtless not altogether forgotten a 
 certain story of thy past life and errors. . . ." 
 
 " Told to thy ear under seal of confession ! " 
 answered Rashleigh, scornfully. 
 
 " Under that seal, which Holy Church holdeth 
 sacred for all crimes save heresy alone ; for, as the 
 great Pope Innocent III. writeth, ' how should faith 
 be kept with him who hath kept no faith with God ? ' 
 I have loved thee, brother," he added, with a sudden 
 change of tone, "as a companion, and almost as a 
 son. . . ." 
 
 "... And I thee, father ; yetask menot to forget that 
 which mine own eyes and ears have seen and heard." 
 
 " Almost as a son ; yet whom the father loveth he 
 
 N2 
 
196 FRIAE'S LANTERN 
 
 chasteneth. And though Holy Church he ever 
 merciful, and hate the death of a sinner, yet must 
 she at times hand the obstinate rebel to be punished 
 by the secular arm. In three days I will come again 
 to hear thee further of this matter." 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 DOUCETTE 
 
 THE old friar had fallen into an ecstasy again, and 
 Rashleigh heard him muttering rapidly to himself 
 about John of Parma, Ubertino da Casale, and other 
 stranger and more unintelligible names. A ray of 
 real sunshine came through the narrow loophole ; it 
 was evidently bright southern weather again for all 
 who were not in prison to-day. The patch of sunshine 
 made a sort of cross upon the pillar ; at which the old 
 man began to laugh and crow like a baby to himself, 
 and dabble his fingers in the light. " Angels of God ! " 
 he muttered softly over and over again. . . " Angels of 
 God ! " The genial ray stirred Rashleigh's blood 
 also ; he sprang with a great effort, hooked his fingers 
 to the window-ledge, and drew himself up to look out. 
 It was a wider loophole than any he had seen in prison 
 before ; he could just squeeze his body to rest half on 
 the sill, and thrust his mouth and nose between the 
 bars to get a draught of comparatively fresh air. At 
 the sight of his face at the grating, a dark-haired girl 
 put her head out of an exactly opposite window that 
 overhung the narrow street and beckoned to him, with 
 her finger at her lips. A moment afterwards she had 
 
198 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 disappeared into the gloom of the chamher, from 
 which, after what seemed an eternity to Rashleigh' s 
 impatience, she appeared again at the window, holding 
 between her fingers a file, with which she made believe 
 to cut imaginary bars. To this she rapidly tied a 
 long piece of string, took her aim, and motioned 
 Rashleigh from the window. He slid down : a 
 moment afterwards the file came like an arrow through 
 the bars and fell upon the floor, while Rashleigh rapidly 
 pulled the string. In a moment he was at the loop- 
 hole again : the girl clapped her hands in glee, and 
 then, leaning out one moment as far as she could, and 
 looking rapidly up and down the street, she hummed, 
 to the tune of some old folk-song, " To-night knock 
 at the door." Rashleigh signed assent, and the 
 vision disappeared in the twinkling of an eye ; only, 
 at intervals during the rest of the day, he heard the 
 girl's cheerful voice as she sang over her work. Once 
 or twice he climbed again to the grating, but no more 
 faces were to be seen at the window. 
 
 The rest of that day seemed long indeed to Rash- 
 leigh. The greater part of this time he spent in trying 
 to persuade the old man to escape with him. But the 
 friar was inexorable. " I should but bring ruin on 
 thee, my son ; and they would soon find me again, as 
 hitherto they have tracked me from hermitage to 
 hermitage, wheresoever I had dreamed to serve God 
 in peace. It is His will now that I should seal my 
 faith with blood." After a time Rashleigh ceased to 
 persuade him, and even began to work for his own 
 escape without too much regret, for he could seldom 
 
DOUCETTE 199 
 
 shake off a feeling of unreality about all his present 
 life ; and this escape from prison, above all, seemed 
 just like a bit of amateur theatricals. He waited till 
 after curfew, and took every precaution his common- 
 sense suggested ; yet he felt all the while as though 
 nothing more were really required of him than to act 
 his part plausibly. He sometimes thought he saw 
 faces flitting in the gloom of the opposite window as 
 he worked ; once a man came to the door and looked 
 out. Meanwhile he filed away at his bars with more 
 and more confidence and rapidity as the night grew 
 darker and the wind howled more wildly, and in less 
 than a couple of hours he had done his work. A last 
 vain attempt to persuade his fellow-prisoner, and then 
 Kashleigh bade him a hurried farewell. The old man 
 clasped him in his arms and blessed him. " Thou, 
 young brother," he said, " may'st indeed live by God's 
 grace to see the good pope and the good emperor to 
 come ; and when men shall have beaten these prison 
 chains into ploughshares, or hung them up in memory 
 of our sufferings, thou shalt bear witness to posterity 
 that we died for no sordid cause ; and if there be still 
 men who speak ill of us, the truth shall stop their 
 mouths. And we, for our part, if God give us grace 
 to persevere, will intercede for thee with St. Francis 
 and the blessed martyrs who have gone before us. ... 
 How long, O Lord ; how long ! " Kashleigh tore 
 himself away, raised himself once more to the sill, and 
 squeezed through the narrow loophole. The drop 
 into the street was only five feet or so, and he hung 
 only long enough to listen whether all were safe. He 
 
200 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 seemed to hear voices now in the street. "Quick, 
 quick!" carne the whisper from the window; and the 
 door opened stealthily ajar as he dropped hastily upon 
 the rough pavement and staggered forward upon hands 
 and knees into the mud. Something fell out of his 
 breast and tinkled on the stones : it was his wife's 
 portrait. He groped hastily for it in the dark. 
 " Quick, quick ! " muttered a man's voice this time 
 at the door; " the King's Watch ! " 
 
 " One moment ! " whispered Rashleigh, groping 
 still in the mud. 
 
 The voices were loud and near now, with a flicker 
 of torches which flared round the corner upon the face 
 of the house, and rendered all the more hopeless the 
 gloom on this side, where the precious portrait lay 
 somewhere in the mud. In a fit of reckless obstinacy 
 Rashleigh brought out his matchbox, deaf to the now 
 clamorous warnings of his would-be preserver, who at 
 last closed the door with stealthy haste. Striking a 
 match, and shading it as best he could in his gown, 
 Rashleigh cast one hurried glance along the pavement ; 
 then a sudden glare drowned his own tiny flame, and 
 showed the glittering silver frame only one pace away. 
 To drop his matchbox, seize his prize, and spring 
 again to his feet, took him just one quarter of the 
 traditional moment : yet even so he was too late ! A 
 rough hand caught at his cowl behind ; three or four 
 evil-looking fellows were already round him, and in 
 front stood a man with a drawn sword, which shone 
 red in the torchlight. Rashleigh had no time for 
 sober thought. Something in the grasp on his collar 
 
DOUCETTE 201 
 
 behind reminded him of old days at Rugby football. 
 With one shake he wrenched himself free and plunged 
 forward, collared the captain round the waist, and 
 banged his head upon the cobbles, while his sword 
 flew away and clattered against the stone wall. The 
 next moment Rashleigh had caught up the sword and 
 struck at something. It felt first soft and then hard, 
 like trying to split a block of wood with a nail in it. 
 The sword felt shorter when he next struck with it, 
 but the blow only knocked sparks out of a torch ; the 
 rest of the torches seemed to disappear. He stepped 
 forward again and hit out wildly. This time he trod 
 on his own matchbox, which spurted out in crackling 
 flame under his foot. But Eashleigh saw nothing of 
 this ; he saw in its stead the light of forty-million 
 torches, comets, shooting stars ; for in that same 
 moment one of the watchmen's clubs had descended 
 on the back of his head, while at the next his assailant 
 had fled in horror from the devilish flames which his 
 blow seemed to have struck out underfoot. There 
 was a clattering of heavy boots down the street ; then 
 no sound again but the sough of the wind. 
 
 Again the door opened furtively. Two figures came 
 out and groped on the roadway ; stumbled over one 
 body, which, after a moment, they left where it lay ; 
 found another clad in a friar's gown, which they 
 brought softly in, and left the street to the wailing of 
 the wind for the rest of the night. 
 
 The disappearance of one or two of their comrades, and 
 the tale which the rest had to tell of the friar's devilish 
 prowess and the hell-fire crackling under his feet, 
 
202 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 discouraged anyfuture search by the King's Watch before 
 dawn. With the first morning twilight, the captain 
 strayed back to his guard-room dazed and swordless, 
 covered with mud and unable to remember one single 
 incident of the night. A few hours later the royal 
 bailiffs officially viewed the corpse of Simon Podevin, 
 and found what Master Thomas the Leech described 
 as " a wound in the head, of two inches in breadth and 
 six inches in length, and in depth even unto the brain ; 
 in which wound yet stuck the half of a falchion or 
 curved sword ; and of which wound the said Simon 
 Podevin had died without rites of the Church." Then, 
 when the evidence of the survivors had been taken, 
 and news of the broken prison arrived also, nobody 
 needed to enquire how a friar of this sort could have 
 got his file, or disappeared so completely after the 
 fray. There was one good old rule which saved much 
 weary speculation about cause and effect in the 
 Middle Ages : and no orthodox person in Valence 
 doubted that Brother Herbert the Englishman had 
 been in league with the devil, who had now carried 
 him off. 
 
 When first Rashleigh was conscious of life again, 
 he was in the dark : a kind of palpable darkness as of 
 a black wall, high up on which hung a dim square 
 light. Languidly and fitfully his weak eyes strove to 
 pierce this gloom, until he fancied he could trace 
 certain blurred hues of somewhat paler darkness, 
 perpendicular or horizontal or sloping, which stood 
 vaguely out against the rest. Finally, the square moon 
 grew into some semblance of a window, darkened in 
 
DOUCETTE 203 
 
 itself and heavily shaded from without, and dim also 
 with the weakness of Eashleigh's own weary hrain, 
 like a glimmering square of casement to dying eyes. 
 Dying, or slowly returning to life ? He asked himself 
 this question with but languid interest, and closed his 
 eyes again to a heavy sleep. 
 
 He dreamed of his wife and children ; it seemed 
 that he had left them only for a moment, yet a moment 
 so crammed with strange sights which he struggled now 
 to recount ; but a cool hand was laid on his brow, and 
 a gentle voice begged him to spare himself : and with 
 that the vision of his home melted gently into the 
 reality of this soft hand and voice. He tried to collect 
 his thoughts ; but presently the same voice began 
 murmuring a song ... a strange immemorial lullaby 
 in which he could catch no words, a drowsy chain 
 of soft syllables to which he listened in a reverie that 
 left no need for thought, until sleep came on him 
 again. 
 
 When next he woke, he no longer doubted of life : 
 on the contrary, he felt downright hungry. The same 
 darkness was there, and the same dim high window. 
 He was weary of that window. He tried to rise in his 
 bed, but there was no strength in his limbs ; his vain 
 effort forced an involuntary groan from his heart. In 
 a moment a girl's soft hand was again laid on his own; 
 and to Eashleigh's eyes, as they strained through the 
 gloom, her face was like an angel's from heaven. 
 
 "Where am I?" 
 
 " With friends. Lackest thou aught ? " 
 
 "I am hungry." 
 
204 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 " Anon, anon ! " The girl came back in a few 
 minutes with light cakes of beaten egg and fine flour, 
 and a cup of strong sweet wine. She laughed to see 
 him eat so well. And now she answered all his busy 
 questions. She herself was daughter of Gaucelm 
 Garric, a fisherman of Valence ; and the two together 
 had saved Rashleigh's life. They had carried him 
 straight down to the river at the back of their house, 
 and laid him in a boat, which she, Doucette, had rowed 
 down the river almost till dawn. Then she had carried 
 the unconscious Rashleigh across a mile of fields to 
 the house of her uncle Arnaut, the farmer of Mas 
 Latrie. Here in this barn she had watched him back 
 to life. " For my father and uncle both," she added 
 with a little hasty laugh, "are brethren of the Third 
 Order of St. Francis ; and we have ever been friends 
 to the Spiritual friars and foes to their foes." 
 
 Rashleigh's hard skull and solid brain had just 
 managed to resist a blow which, even if it had not 
 cracked his head like an egg-shell, might well have 
 permanently addled its contents. His recovery was 
 rapid now, but he was still obliged to keep in his 
 hiding place, although he was allowed to see the 
 light. Arnaut Garric was one of those thousands 
 who, by their sympathy with honest but unorthodox 
 folk, had incurred slight suspicion of heresy, and had 
 therefore been forced to take the oath of abjuration; 
 so that his name now stood on the long list of those 
 whom any relapse might bring to the stake. He 
 visited the barn oftener, and Doucette less often, as 
 Rashleigh grew stronger, until at last the patient found 
 
DOUCETTE 205 
 
 strength to rise and walk, first like a baby, under the 
 guidance of his two preservers. Very soon, however, 
 thanks partly to a convalescent appetite, which all the 
 eggs and cream and fat capons of the farm could 
 scarcely satisfy, he could stand and walk without 
 help from any man. 
 
 Doucette talked much of her childless uncle, under 
 whose protection our hero now was. With his wife, 
 not long since dead, he had spent the last twenty 
 years of his life in adopting and educating, one 
 after another, the orphan children of the neighbour- 
 hood, for whom the good pair toiled as for their 
 own sons and daughters. One they had even sent 
 to the university : he was now an honoured priest, 
 lifting up pure hands to God for those who had 
 saved him from worse than death, and making daily 
 mention of their names at the Sacrifice of the Altar. 
 Now that his wife was gone, and he could no more 
 care for the orphans in his own house, Arnaut spent 
 all his earnings in clothing and feeding the needy. 
 He would long ago have retired to some friary, but for 
 the unhappy divisions which made it as hard in these 
 days to save one's soul in the cloister as in the world. 
 So too would Doucette herself, but her father, in the 
 days when it was still possible, would not hear of 
 letting her enter any of the nuns' convents in the 
 neighbourhood ; and the Pope had lately suppressed, 
 as hotbeds of heresy, all the Beguinages save two or 
 three to which only rich and noble ladies could now 
 gain admittance. 
 
 " Believe me, Doucette," replied Rashleigh, when 
 
206 FEIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 the girl told him this, " thou wert wiser to espouse 
 some honest man and bring up honest children in 
 these unhappy times." 
 
 " Oh, father, speak not thus. What can a poor girl 
 do in this world save retire from it and save her soul 
 in peace ? And what youth would deign to cast his 
 eyes on a wretched suspect with her yellow cross ? " 
 She opened her cloak and showed . . . what she had 
 hidden hitherto even from her new friend . . . the great 
 saffron cross by which all " suspects " were branded by 
 the law of the Church. " Why, the very urchins cast 
 mud at my cross in the street ; and my poor brother, 
 finding that no man would hire him, fled to Digne and 
 earned an honest livelihood in honest garments. Yet 
 they found him there again after ten years, and now 
 God only knows into what dungeon they have thrust 
 him, if indeed he have not already cast off the burden 
 of this flesh ! Nay, sometimes, when men shun me, 
 and the girls draw their pitchers aside from the fountain 
 at my coming, meseemeth that God Himself must 
 see my saffron cross and hate me too. In the very 
 church, at my prayers, the devils will come and point 
 to the blessed sign of salvation, and whisper in mine 
 ear that for me and for mine it is but a badge of eternal 
 damnation. For if God were indeed merciful to all 
 men, and willing that all should be saved, could these 
 Christians and good Christians be so cruel as 
 this ? Truly, father, it is with much ado that I cast 
 such daily thoughts of evil from me, saying, ' It is 
 mine own infirmity, but I will remember the years 
 of the right hand of the Most Highest ! ' " 
 
DOUCETTE 207 
 
 " What pretext, then, did men find against thee and 
 thine ? " 
 
 " 'Twas after the burning of the Holy Martyrs of 
 Marseilles ; we too went thither, and brought back two 
 of the holy bones; and when, within a short space 
 after, the inquisitors and their sergeants came round 
 in our country from house to house, from castle to 
 hovel, compelling all men to abjure, then found they 
 those bones in our chest ; and, but that we had sworn 
 against our conscience that these friars were no 
 martyrs . . . nor any other friars that die in these days 
 for holy poverty's sake . . . then had our own bones been 
 even as theirs. And therefore are we justly plagued 
 since then, for that in a sense we have denied our God, 
 like doubting Peter. ... I feared not so much the 
 burning : I had heard how those martyrs spake of 
 comfort and faith at the very stake, like the three 
 children in their burning fiery furnace : and methought 
 their souls had gone up in a fiery chariot to heaven. 
 But I was a poor, soft girl, holy father : and my 
 mother had loved me tenderly, and youths at our 
 dances had whispered to me that I was fair. . . . For 
 I was fair in those days," she added wistfully, throwing 
 back her thick black hair and searching Rashleigh's 
 eyes with a pathetic remnant of pretty vanity behind 
 all her anguish of conscience. He took her hand, and 
 she was glad of what she read in his eyes, even while 
 
 her triumph lent a keener sting to her remorse 
 
 " And I knew," she went on after a moment's pause, 
 '* what those butchers make of the fairest limbs in their 
 torture-chambers ; or, if they had spared me torment 
 
208 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 as to a woman, yet I knew well how the gangrene of 
 the chains eats men's flesh in their dungeons. And, 
 God forgive me ! I loved my soft smooth flesh, and my 
 vanity was more tender than my soul ; therefore hath He 
 in His mercy given me daily penance in my vanity. . . . 
 When the old companions of my dances are kind, they 
 turn their faces away ; when they are cruel, they speak 
 to me as to a folle femme .... and some cloisters are 
 defiled, and others are closed to me ; and as the priest 
 is, so is the people ; and how shall a weak girl save her 
 soul at large in this world ? " 
 
 Rashleigh's kind heart had long ago learnt true ways 
 of comfort for penitents : and in this case there was 
 all the added sympathy of a chivalrous soul for a pure 
 girl in distress. Moreover, he wielded the spiritual 
 power of a higher civilisation. He had lived and 
 worked in a world where men have forgotten to treat each 
 other as wolves for religious differences ... in which 
 the authentic horrors of the medieval Inquisition seem 
 already a far-off and incredible nightmare even to those 
 who have least reason to love modern Romanism. By 
 the good fortune of his birth he could see at a glance 
 over many barriers against which even the greatest 
 minds of the Middle Ages beat their wings in vain ; 
 his indignation lent him the eloquence of the heart; 
 and he dispelled her dark distrust of God's world with 
 the easy conviction of a man who from some mountain 
 top has already seen the Promised Land. The charm 
 of his youth for he seemed a mere boy among these 
 dark-skinned people of the South seemed to add 
 something angelic and miraculous to the breadth of 
 
DOUCETTE 209 
 
 his spiritual experience ; and every word opened a 
 world of new thoughts in the simple girl's mind. 
 
 Spiritual friendships are proverbially dangerous ; 
 and if Rashleigh thought no less of his wife and 
 children for the next few days, yet it would he rash to 
 say that Doucette thought no less of her father at 
 home. Perhaps that was why she came so seldom 
 to see Kashleigh now, and scarcely ever without her 
 uncle. The worthy man would come and sit with his 
 guest every evening when his work was done. He told 
 his beads for an hour or two together while his niece 
 and the friar talked theology, but seldom spoke him- 
 self; for he was one of those heavy-bodied, heavy- 
 minded men who grasp but few ideas, and have no 
 words to express even these. Nine-tenths of his day 
 was spent in trying to drive the straightest plough of 
 the whole country round, and to rear the fattest oxen ; 
 and all his other good works were done in the same 
 stolid, inarticulate way. It flashed upon Bashleigh one 
 evening how like this man was to John Watson, the old 
 farmer of Green Hill, whose dumb and apparently 
 unthinking acquiescence in his wife's active noncon- 
 formity had always so irritated our worthy curate as to 
 make him fume daily at the thought even of^ their good 
 deeds. He remembered now, with mingled amusement 
 and remorse, how he had argued once with the honest 
 man about his wife's indelicacy in preaching at the 
 chapel ; and how vainly he had tried to clinch his 
 argument with that Pauline text which the Church 
 Times brings out with such pinchbeck dignity and such 
 utter want of humour : " We have no such custom, 
 
 F.L. O 
 
210 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 neither have the Churches of God." John Watson 
 had puffed his pipe through it all with the simple 
 indifference of a man who does not even notice that his 
 opponent is angry; only shaking his head quietly now 
 and then, like a Gargantua shaking the enemy's cannon- 
 balls out of his hair. " Good old John Watson ! " said 
 Rashleigh now to himself; and the tears came into his 
 eyes as he thought how sweet it would he to feel the 
 bones of his fingers crunching again in the farmer's 
 horny hand, and then to hurry across that half-mile of 
 country footpath to the dearest little house on earth ! 
 He was very silent for the rest of that evening ; and 
 so was Doucette, for she knew that her uncle was 
 going to lead the stranger away to-morrow night. 
 
 The old man looked up presently from his beads, 
 and broached the subject. He did not fear on his own 
 account ; but it was not safe for Rashleigh to stay there 
 longer, nor for Doucette, whose absence from home 
 might already have aroused suspicions at Valence, 
 " and in us, father, suspicion itself is a crime. There 
 is a hermitage far off in these mountains, whither none 
 of our foes have as yet found their way ; thither will I 
 lead thee after nightfall on the morrow; and there 
 thou mayest pray God in peace for thine own soul, and 
 for us too, that if God vouchsafe not to spare us the 
 affliction of the saints who are gone, yet He may give 
 us grace to suffer with the same constancy as they." 
 
 All next day Doucette kept away from Rashleigh, 
 and the old man brought his food instead. In the 
 evening, he asked after the cause of her absence. 
 " She is gone on before to provide our horses," he 
 
DOUCETTE 211 
 
 replied ; "we shall meet her by the way. Come, let 
 us be going." 
 
 Rashleigh looked round for the last time at the barn 
 where he had been brought back to life, and then 
 followed the old man out into the darkness. After a 
 mile or so, they struck upwards into a rough woodland 
 path. Suddenly a curlew whistled in the wood ; Arnaut 
 Garric answered with the hoot of an owl, and in a few 
 moments they reached a glade where Doucette stood 
 holding two horses by the bridle. The old man patted 
 her cheek, and Rashleigh saw her eyes brimming in 
 the starlight. She turned abruptly to him as her uncle 
 mounted his horse. " Father," she said, with a tremor 
 in her voice, " God be with thee and fulfil all thy 
 heart's desire. Forget not in thy daily prayers Arnaut 
 Garric, and Gaucelm, and his daughter Doucette ; pray 
 for me above all, father, that my faith fail not ; and 
 remember before God's sacred altar that He chose 
 these weak hands to save thee from a cruel death." 
 She knelt at Rashleigh's feet ; he laid his hand on her 
 head and gulped out a broken blessing. Suddenly she 
 rose again ; in a moment she had disappeared into the 
 darkness of the wood, and Arnaut cried under his 
 breath for haste, haste ! the time was short. 
 
 o2 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE EVEELASTING HILLS 
 
 BASHLEIGH and the farmer rode silently, as fast as 
 the horses would carry them, through the darkness of 
 that long winter night ; up and down, in and out of 
 the trees, but mostly upwards, and mostly through 
 dense forest. Arnaut Garric was as silent as usual, 
 and Rashleigh was given up to such thoughts as crowd 
 upon us through a sleepless night. A new truth 
 pressed upon him now which had long fermented in 
 his mind, had first made itself dimly felt in his talk 
 with the old friar in prison, and gradually at the farm 
 had broadened into light. Now for the first time since 
 his earliest serious ideas of religion at the theological 
 college, he owned frankly to himself that there is only 
 half a truth in the proverb, " It takes two to make a 
 quarrel." Equally truly may it be said that it takes 
 two to avoid a quarrel. He, who had been wont to 
 speak so bitterly and at the same time so thought- 
 lessly of the unpardonable guilt of schism : he who 
 had often preached from the pulpit as if he wondered 
 why all nonconformists were not swallowed up alive 
 like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, saw clearly at last 
 how an honest man may have no choice but between 
 
THE EVEELASTING HILLS 213 
 
 schism and connivance at still greater evils. Indeed, 
 his only wonder now was that men could have been so 
 patient, and conformed for so long to such a system 
 as he here saw wherever he went. For it was plain 
 that the real article of faith at issue in these times 
 was not "I believe in God the Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost," nor even, " I believe in the Blessed 
 Virgin and all the Saints," but rather, "I believe in 
 the Lord Pope Almighty." A man might believe in 
 the same God, in the same tens of thousands of ortho- 
 dox saints, yet become a mere brand for the burning 
 by believing naively in half a dozen more saints whom 
 the Pope affirmed to be sinners, or by clinging to the 
 poverty of St. Francis after the Pope had bidden him 
 go beg for money. And, as we are apt to read the 
 Bible according to our experience of life, Kashleigh 
 saw now with quite other eyes the mission of our 
 Lord himself, and of that Kingdom of Heaven which 
 He had founded on earth. He saw how the Son of 
 God Himself had not shrunk from creating the bitterest 
 of schisms within that very law which He came to 
 fulfil . . . nay, that He had preached it as an essential 
 part of His work, " I am come not to bring peace, but 
 a sword." And yet (pondered Kashleigh) He said, 
 " My peace I leave with you " : thus leaving us to find 
 each in his own mind the distinction between that 
 mere worldly peace which He came to break, and 
 that higher peace which He came to give. The 
 false peace (he thought) lies in that mere outward 
 unity which is so often born of empty lip-service and 
 indifference and inbred habit ; the true unity of souls 
 
214 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 in God may at times be not only compatible with, but 
 actually dependent upon, such breaches of outward 
 unity as result when each man acts strictly in accord- 
 ance withthe dictates of his own conscience. Here, 
 as so often, by seeking the cheapest way to save his 
 soul, he might really be going the surest way to lose it. 
 He saw clearly at last how there was more spiritual 
 kinship between Etienne de la Marche, the reluctant 
 persecutor, and Arnaut Garric, the reluctant rebel, 
 than between the Guardian and the Cardinal at 
 Valence, whose rivalries were silenced for a moment 
 by their common desire to persecute the Spirituals, but 
 who had no more real spiritual bond than had Herod 
 and Pilate when they agreed together against Christ. 
 
 * * * # 
 
 The first grey of dawn showed Rashleigh that they 
 had left the olives far below. They were now among 
 broken mountain slopes, not so thickly clothed with 
 forest but that white peaks glistened here and there 
 behind, and patches of snow appeared even a few 
 score feet above their own path ; if path it might be 
 called which Arnaut Game's horse seemed almost to 
 be making for the first time. In and out they wound 
 around one buttress after another, but still bearing to 
 the left : until at last a more sudden turn showed them 
 a new face of the mountain, and the deep purple 
 Mediterranean, bounded already by a broad red streak 
 of dawn. There was now no longer the same need to 
 urge on their tired horses ; and Rashleigh left his to 
 amble after its leader, while he watched for the first 
 time, with religious awe, the coming of the daylight 
 
THE EVERLASTING HILLS 215 
 
 over this southern sea. It came as Dante saw it from 
 his mountain of Purgatory the vermilion melting 
 into orange, and orange into gold until at last the 
 dazzling globe peeped out, and the sea trembled with 
 infinite points of light. Eashleigh's heart overflowed 
 with gratitude at the sight; and his regret for the 
 past was hound up with good resolves for the future. 
 He had found no peace among these men ; perhaps 
 he himself had failed to seek it aright, and had missed 
 the true lesson of this probation time. Here, at least, 
 was perfect peace without ; and the soul could plead 
 no excuse if it failed to find peace within. 
 
 They were now among the snow itself, and turned 
 inwards from the sea, following a huge cleft which grew 
 narrower and darker until it became a mere chasm in 
 the rock, with a thin ribbon of blue sky between the 
 cliffs, and underfoot a shrunken winter torrent which 
 allowed the horses to pick their way from shallow to 
 shallow along its edge. The beasts advanced reluc- 
 tantly in the half-darkness ; and it was more than an 
 hour before the cliffs opened out again. Here a steep 
 path wound upwards from the stream to a tiny patch 
 of meadow which nestled under an enormous wall of 
 rock. A cross of pine-stems, ten feet high, was 
 planted at the mouth of a cavern in this cliff; a 
 tattered grey gown, patched with sackcloth, lay spread 
 to dry in the pale sunlight on the grass. At the 
 sound of the horses' hoofs, an old white-bearded friar 
 came out of the hermitage ; Arnaut dismounted and 
 knelt at his feet, and was followed next moment by 
 Rashleigh. Hither, then, had his soul been brought 
 
216 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 like a dove to her nest ! Here he might live to God 
 alone ! And, as he rose from his knees, he turned 
 instinctively to make sure that no envious rocks or 
 trees shut out the view of that purple sea. 
 
 Arnaut Garric divided his day between telling his 
 beads before the rude altar of the hermitage, and 
 sleeping like a tired dog on the pine-branches. 
 Rashleigh, in spite of his weariness, followed his new 
 superior in all his acts of devotion, and helped him 
 between whiles to turn the stony soil of a tiny corn- 
 patch with a rude wooden spade. Towards nightfall 
 Arnaut arose, shook himself once or twice, took a few 
 mouthfuls for himself and his horses from the basket 
 of bread which he had brought for the two recluses, 
 and kneeled for a parting blessing from both. For 
 the first time in his life, Rashleigh felt ashamed to 
 bless a kneeling layman, and longed rather to throw 
 himself at the other's feet. His voice trembled and 
 broke ; but Arnaut rose as stolidly as John Watson 
 would have done, mounted his own steed, called to the 
 other, which followed like a dog ; and Rashleigh saw 
 them no more. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE WEARY BURDEN OF SELF 
 
 OUR hero had often preached to his flock the virtues 
 of the religious life i.e., the life of monks and 
 nuns. He had waxed eloquent on the fact that if a 
 deeply religious man of the Middle Ages found it 
 hard to live among his fellow-men, he could at least 
 retire to some wilderness and commune alone with 
 God. It never occurred to him, while he lived in the 
 twentieth century, that a deeply religious man was at 
 liberty to do exactly the same even in that soulless 
 and materialistic age. For, after all, anybody nowa- 
 days can raise a passage to Asia, or Africa, or America, 
 where he would find millions of square miles not less 
 solitary than the wildest desert ever dreamed of by a 
 medieval hermit ; where he would need no daily raven, 
 but could pluck his own simple food from the trees ; 
 and where no unworthy fellow-mortal would interpose 
 between him and God. This men might do either 
 singly or in societies, with priests who would provide 
 every sacrament of the Church. Each man might 
 thus ensure the salvation of his own soul ; which, as 
 Rashleigh saw very plainly now, was the first and para- 
 mount object of monasticism. And yet, although we 
 
218 FEIAK'S LANTERN 
 
 have among us many deeply religious men, deeply 
 dissatisfied with their less religious fellow-men 
 although our modern Cooks and Gazes have their 
 hands full of pilgrims to Rome and Lourdes who 
 ever hears of pious men taking to this, the one refuge 
 of piety in the ages of faith ? Is it that " the 
 subtle poison of Protestantism " has at last brought 
 even Catholics to St. Jerome's opinion that solitary 
 salvation was apt to be a mere "pious selfishness " ? 
 Or is it that, the thing being so far easier of attain- 
 ment nowadays since Protestants would be glad 
 enough to speed such travellers on their way, and 
 not even the Pope would dream of sending inquisitors 
 to measure with their foot-rule the faith of hermits in 
 the Dark Continent is it that the dirt-cheapness of 
 such a religious life nowadays has deprived it of its 
 imaginary value in the past? Philosophers may 
 devote themselves to explain why the main ideal of 
 medieval piety should be so savourless now, even to 
 men who in other things would so gladly put back the 
 shadow on the world's dial by five or six centuries. 
 Rashleigh was not a philosopher, and yet, after four 
 months' honest trial, he thought he had found the 
 cause. It seemed to him that what stands most 
 between man and God, when all has been said and 
 done, is the man's own self. And, if he had been 
 learned in monastic records, he would have remem- 
 bered how these religious of the Middle Ages are 
 recorded by their fellows to have suffered just as many 
 perplexities in their solitary cells to have doubted 
 just as much of their salvation when the} 7 came to 
 
THE WEAEY BURDEN OF SELF 219 
 
 die to have undergone as exquisite tortures from the 
 contemplation of the horrors of hell as if they had 
 been mere conscientious Protestants. So say the 
 monks who wrote before Romanism was set (as 
 Mr. Wilfrid Ward puts it) "in a state of siege," face 
 to face with Protestantism ; and so felt Rashleigh in 
 his own person. He had fasted and frozen, laboured 
 with his hands or groaned on his knees, for eighteen 
 hours a day during four calendar months. He had 
 mortified himself on Monday for not feeling the same 
 spiritual exaltation as on Sunday ; he had mortified 
 himself on Tuesday for having felt so soulless and 
 rebellious during the mortifications of Monday. 
 Wednesday morning he had spent in ecstasies of 
 devotion ; Wednesday evening in the anticipated 
 pains of hell ; the rest of the week had been passed 
 in a dull smouldering gloom of mind and weariness 
 of body. Next week the same dismal alternations ; 
 and a little more dismal, perhaps, the week after. 
 And all this was rendered still more bitter by the 
 ever-present consciousness that God had put him into 
 this Paradise at his own wish ; yet here by his own 
 fault he pined in Paradise itself. At first, it had been 
 his one consolation to steal out from between the 
 prayers, or to raise his head for a moment from his 
 labour, and drink in the sight of the mountain above 
 or the sea below. Yet, by this time, he had grown 
 positively to loathe the white of the snow against the 
 sky, and the sapphire blue of the sea. For some 
 weeks he had put aside with unexpected success the 
 thought of his real home on Greenhill. Now the 
 
220 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 longing haunted him, and seemed wrong ; came again, 
 and seemed positively wicked. Yet again and again it 
 came, at prayers or at work, or in visions of the 
 night ; again and again he loathed his own weakness 
 or did he not rather loathe the religion which would 
 make his past pure happiness seem so loathsome now ? 
 or was it ? ... his overwrought mind reeled in the 
 vain attempt to fathom its own depths, and to get behind 
 itself ! Rashleigh was thoroughly sick in soul ; sick 
 of living under conditions under which few souls are 
 privileged to thrive ; sick to death of the constant 
 effort of will which this unnatural and preposterous 
 struggle imposed upon him. He began to loathe even 
 the blameless ignorant old man his companion, to 
 whose peasant's body and narrow peasant's mind this 
 sancta rusticitas had long become a second nature. 
 And yet, on the rare occasions on which the old man 
 could be induced to talk, Rashleigh began to feel 
 some glimmerings of humanity again. 
 
 Father Ugo was, of course, a Joachite ; every 
 spiritual Franciscan was more or less of a Joachite. 
 The ordinary conventuals were comfortable enough as 
 they were ; their ideal city, as expressed by one of the 
 best of them, was one " wherein a hundred Brethren 
 Minor might live in comfort and decency, supplied 
 with every necessary in abundance." But the more 
 earnest natures could not shut their eyes to the 
 spiritual and moral bankruptcy of the Middle Ages, 
 a bankruptcy made all the more startling by the rapid 
 degeneration of those sons of Francis and Dominic, 
 who had seemed likely, for one brief generation, to 
 
THE WEARY BURDEN OF SELF 221 
 
 bring with them a new heaven and a new earth. That 
 strange " Calabrian Abbot Joachim, endowed with 
 prophetic spirit," 1 who had been patronized by three 
 popes, although his speculations in their logical 
 conclusions were almost an ti- Christian, was the author 
 of a truly medieval theory of development. Starting 
 from the same point which lends so vivid an interest 
 to many of St. Bernard's greatest writings the 
 utter corruption of the medieval world, and especially 
 of the clergy Joachim argued that these times must 
 be the Last Days of the Apocalypse ; that Antichrist 
 must be at hand ; that only one more era was yet to 
 come before the end of the world. The Jews had 
 lived in the era of God the Father, of the Old 
 Testament. Hitherto, Christians had lived in the era 
 of God the Son, of the New Testament. Henceforth 
 should be the era of the Holy Ghost, of a new yet 
 primeval doctrine proceeding from the Old and New 
 Testament as the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father 
 and Son. Not that one jot or tittle of the Scriptures 
 should pass away, but that men's eyes should now be 
 opened to read them all in a fresh and more sublimely 
 mystical sense the sense of the Everlasting Gospel 
 spoken of by St. John. This, then, should be the Last 
 Age, the Reign of the Saints, in which there should be 
 no more lay folk, and even no more parish clergy ; the 
 whole world should be inhabited by a race of cell-bound 
 anchorites serving God in lonely contemplation. As 
 Rashleigh learnt this doctrine, little by little, from his 
 
 1 Dante, " Paradise," xii., 140. 
 
222 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 companion, he saw clearly what comfort such an 
 " Everlasting Gospel" offered to the persecuted 
 Spirituals. To those men, on whom the moral 
 squalor of their own times pressed most remorselessly 
 of all, nothing could be more consoling than an 
 assurance that the present was simply the darkest 
 hour before the dawn. Again, to men who suffered 
 every day for righteousness' sake, that was indeed a 
 gospel which promised the approaching reign of the 
 Latter Day Saints. 
 
 It seemed to Rashleigh, as he listened day after day 
 to these strange speculations, that he might be able to 
 give his friend the benefit of his own modern 
 experience. After all, history has plainly shown that, 
 to enjoy undisturbed communion with God, men need 
 not become hermits and retire into the desert. On 
 the contrary, it is just where men grow thickest, and 
 the world is busiest, that the greatest liberty of private 
 worship is permitted in modern times ; since, within 
 reasonable limits, there is nothing that teaches man for- 
 bearance so effectually as a system which compels him 
 to rub off his angles against those of his fellow-men. 
 Something of this kind Rashleigh now suggested to 
 his friend, taking care, however, to throw it out only 
 as a somewhat Utopian idea, which, however impossible 
 for the present, might conceivably be realised in some 
 far-off age. He was amused to find how scandalous, 
 even in this tentative form, his suggestion appeared to 
 the poor old man. 
 
 " Nay, * the reign of Christ's saints must needs be 
 a reign of hermits,' saith the Blessed Joachim ; of 
 
THE WEARY BURDEN OF SELF 223 
 
 solitary hermits such as thou and I. Only thus can 
 man search out the living spirit of the Holy Scriptures, 
 for where many men are gathered together, there do 
 they ever jangle of the letter alone, which killeth the 
 soul, puffing up, leading to disputations through the 
 imperfection of human language and human intellects ; 
 and from disputations to fightings and persecutions of 
 the saints ; since, as the Wise Man saith, ' the number 
 of fools is infinite and the saints are but few.' " 
 
 "Yet by long use and custom, father, men might 
 learn to suffer even such opinions as they might not 
 approve." 
 
 "Doth the wolf learn sufferance of the lamb? 
 Wilt thou preach patience to the raging sea, or 
 charity to these heretics that swarm by thousands in 
 our unhappy days, denying the Blessed Virgin and the 
 saints, doubting of God Himself, and under a cloak 
 of strict virtue practising in secret the most inhuman 
 abominations ? Have such men ever shrunk at need 
 from defending their foul doctrines by force, and 
 could true Catholics suffer patiently their multiplica- 
 tion ? Nay, rather must we smite them as the 
 Israelites smote Amalek, with the edge of the sword. 
 But the mystery of iniquity shall shortly be revealed, 
 and Antichrist shall do his work ; the wicked shall 
 multiply, and make themselves drunken with the 
 blood of the saints, until a good pope shall come, 
 canonically elected, pure of his body, learned in the 
 Scriptures ; and with him an emperor who shall love 
 justice and hate iniquity; then shall these two go 
 forth conquering and to conquer, and break the wicked 
 
224 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 like a potter's vessel. Yet, how long, O Lord, how 
 long?" 
 
 " It may be, father, that God's times are longer 
 than we think, and His working less evident to our 
 imperfect senses ; neither in the storm nor in the 
 flame, but in the still small voice. By much study 
 men grow slowly wiser, and by the growth of learning 
 in our schools " 
 
 "Growth of learning? Thou knowest not our 
 schools : full of vain jangling and pride, yet more 
 and more empty of true learning. The heathen 
 philosophers, as we read, lived in temperance and 
 chastity, and therefore was all wisdom revealed to 
 them save only the Gospel of Christ, which was kept 
 back until the fulness of time ; but in our schools, 
 where most men's minds are overclouded by the 
 mists of their foul vices, and where even the best 
 are distracted by the riotousness of the greater part, 
 how should true learning fail to dwindle from day to 
 day?" 
 
 " But if, in the slow process of time, teachers were 
 multiplied, and with teachers books, so that every 
 priest or clerk might have his own copy of the Holy 
 Scriptures, nay, and at last even the poorest might 
 possess and read the Word of God, wherefore then 
 should men need to withdraw into the wilderness for 
 communion with Him?" 
 
 " All shall indeed read the Word of God when the 
 saints possess the earth ; for the saints are few : and 
 who knoweth how few in those days shall have per- 
 severed through all tribulations and remained faithful 
 
THE WEARY BURDEN OF SELF 225 
 
 to the end ? But, for the common herd, thou wert 
 as well to dream that the earth should bear her fruit 
 unbidden, and the streams run wine ! " 
 
 " All things are possible to God, father." 
 
 " Aye, son, yet are not all things therefore expedient : 
 and specially must we commend His wisdom Who hath 
 refrained from making His mysteries too familiar to 
 the gross and vulgar herd. Yet it may be that, with 
 the coming of Antichrist, this plague shall also be let 
 loose, to the destruction of the world. For bethink 
 thee one brief moment, young man, of that which we 
 see around us already ; and from these things consider 
 that which shall be. With what care do the holy 
 synods and councils command us to keep under lock 
 and key the blessed wafer of the Lord's Body, and the 
 chrism oils, and the consecrated water in the font ! 
 yet how often, in spite of this, doth the negligence of 
 our priests leave these holy elements a prey to devilish 
 sorcerers ; who, abusing the sacraments of God to 
 their own and others' damnation, make thereof love- 
 charms and secret poisons nay, and have even 
 sprinkled the Lord's Body like dung to fertilise their 
 fields. And if God in His wrath should one day 
 permit that all the vulgar lay-folk have free access 
 to these and other of His mysteries . . ." 
 
 " Yea, father ; yet, such heretics as have no faith in 
 these holy sacraments, how should these care to abuse 
 for abominations of sorcery things wherein they see 
 no sacred efficacy ? " 
 
 " Then were the state of the world ten times worse. 
 For bethink thee, son, what miracles of vengeance are 
 
 F.L. p 
 
226 FRIAE'S LANTERN 
 
 wrought, even in these times, by saints in their wrath 
 for the desecration of a single relic." 
 
 " Aye, father," replied Rashleigh, remembering 
 Brother Maurice's interminable stories. 
 
 " And by the Blessed Virgin," pursued the old man, 
 " against all such as despise the majesty of her glory ; 
 and above all by the Lord her Son for the desecration 
 of His blessed Body in the Host ! Hast thou not 
 heard of that peasant woman who, having crumbled 
 the Lord's Body over her cabbages, against the ravages 
 of the palmer worm, was smitten forthwith with an 
 incurable palsy? Or of those Jews at Paris, who, 
 stealing the Blessed Wafer, transfixed it with their 
 knives, whereupon It spurted forth blood; and, the 
 thing becoming known to the faithful, there were slain 
 on that day, and in that one city, sixteen thousand 
 Hebrews ! Nay, and many times since then have 
 bleeding wafers been found at the doors of these 
 infidels, so that the Christian folk have slain man, 
 woman, and child, and despoiled their goods. If God 
 and His saints so show forth their wrath at the dese- 
 cration of one Host, or of one sacred relic, what think 
 ye of a world wherein these most holy things should 
 be daily despised ? Nay, first must come the end of 
 all things, even as the blessed brethren saw in a vision 
 scarce a hundred years agone : how the heavens 
 were opened, and Christ was set in judgment, ready 
 to smite the world to pieces at one stroke, had 
 not the Blessed Mary, in her womanly mercy, pleaded 
 sore and long for mankind, that she might first be 
 permitted to send her two servants, Francis and 
 
THE WEAEY BUEDEN OF SELF 227 
 
 Dominic, to turn men's hearts to God : and thus for 
 that time was the world saved. Seeing, then, that 
 Christ in His indignation is ever ready to smite the 
 world for its sins but for the daily intercession of the 
 Blessed Virgin and the saints, what then must come 
 to pass, think ye, when all the saints, forgotten and 
 despised of the most part of mankind, should rather 
 plead to Him in wrath to hasten His judgment? " 
 
 Rashleigh was startled by such inexorably logical 
 reasoning from such natural medieval premisses, and 
 hastened to divert the old man's thoughts. " But, 
 father, God is more than the saints ; and no truth is 
 hid from His eye. If, therefore, as ye say, when all 
 mankind shall live to His service, each apart in his 
 own desert hermitage if then God's eye shall embrace 
 them all together at the same moment as one and the 
 same Church, keeping the unity of the spirit in the 
 bond of peace, why, then, do we now set bounds to 
 His power ? Were it not as easy for Him to see like- 
 wise all His elect, under whatsoever name they be 
 called, and under whatsoever guise they worship Him, 
 as One Holy Church, bound together by the unity of 
 the Spirit ? Eomans and Greeks, yea, and even . . ." 
 Modern Catholic teaching would have authorised Eash- 
 leigh to add, "and even heretics," but here he pru- 
 dently stopped short ; and even so the old man broke 
 in warmly : 
 
 " Nay, that were schism and sheer heresy, destruc- 
 tive of charity, and therefore hateful in God's sight. 
 Yet He only knoweth how oft the devil hath tempted 
 me to these same thoughts, as I muse upon these 
 
228 FKIAE'S LANTERN 
 
 times of ours and upon God's infinite long suffering. 
 But it is His own Spirit that withheld me from that 
 error, by showing me the indelible wickedness of man, 
 whereby His mercy is of necessity turned to pitiless 
 justice. For if it were possible that men could live 
 at peace with each other in this world, separated out- 
 wardly into divers Churches, and yet preserving the 
 unity of the Christian spirit or if at least those 
 men whom God hath not touched with His grace to 
 save their own souls could leave the true religions 
 to save theirs in peace and quietness if men could 
 live throughout this world as I have seen with my 
 own eyes among those quiet mountains of Calabria 
 Roman, and Greek, and Basilian, yea, even Jew and 
 pagan, following each the rites of his own faith with- 
 out let or hindrance to others then indeed might 
 thy vain dream be true. But thou art young : thou 
 hast not seen the great world as I have seen it : all 
 Italy have I travelled on foot, and many parts of the 
 realm of France ; and I have spoken at one of our 
 convents with Ser Marco Polo, and seen and touched 
 that unicorn's horn which he brought back with him 
 from the great Khan of Tartary and ever I have 
 found, save in that small and peaceful country of my 
 birth, that each Christian is as a wolf to his fellow- 
 Christian. In truth, son, after my three-score }^ears 
 and ten of life, I doubt only this one thing, whether 
 the rich be more merciless to the body of the poor man, 
 or whether the prelates and priests be more cruel to 
 his immortal soul." 
 
 " And yet, father, how many men's souls rise to 
 
THE WEARY BURDEN OF SELF 229 
 
 God above all the wickedness of this visible world ; 
 so that while all outward things on earth seem to cry 
 aloud in our ears, * Bow down and worship the Lord 
 Devil who hath created us ! ' yet the soul crieth all 
 the more, ' Nay, but I bow to the Lord God, who 
 hateth evil, yet suffereth evil, we know not wherefore.' 
 Ten thousand such there be who have never bowed the 
 knee to Baal, but whose souls, rising in faith to God 
 from divers lands, know each other as brethren in 
 Him. Doth He not then see them all for His own ? 
 Are they not His Church here on earth ? Doth 
 not the Spirit, with groanings that cannot be uttered, 
 teach all such to leave jealousy and self-will, and to 
 dwell together in the unity of peace ? Doth He 
 not thus prepare them for the contemplation of His 
 Spiritual Church One and Catholic above all those 
 diversities of faith which, so far from ceasing, do but 
 multiply as the ages roll on ? Nay, even among 
 
 seeming heretics " 
 
 "Peace, son, peace!" Ajid the old man spat 
 vehemently on the floor ; " thou know'st not the 
 heretics as I know them. I too, when I was yet young 
 in religion, besought the Lord instantly and with 
 prayers that He would spare me in this matter. For 
 I saw them sober and pure in their outward lives, 
 fathers and mothers of families, zealous to all appear- 
 ance in their religion, hating all oaths and unseemly 
 jests, and ever greeting each other with the words 
 1 Blessed be Jesus Christ ! ' Yet when I heard how 
 these same men, after they had been put to the question, 
 on the rack or otherwise, confessed to such things as 
 
230 FBIAK'S LANTEEN 
 
 it is a shame even to speak of : when I noted how, 
 even when they dared go to the stake for their errors, 
 they faced the flames rather in a spirit of fierce folly 
 or sullen silence than with such smiles and songs of 
 praise and rapturous joys of heaven as we read of in 
 all the legends of the true martyrs ; ahove all, when 
 I saw that their sects died out under the rack and the 
 stake slowly indeed, yet surely, as our inquisitors go 
 from village to village then at last understood I the 
 end of these men : how God hath put them in slippery 
 places, and in a moment they go down to hell. For, 
 as the holy Fathers teach us, it is ever the property 
 of the Catholic faith to increase under persecution, 
 and of your heresy to die awaj\ Wherefore, having 
 once learned by these certain tokens the abominations 
 of heresy : considering further that no heretic can 
 avoid eternal damnation ; I saw then that such as 
 taught those doctrines must needs be very devils in 
 human shape, seeking to drag with them to hell those 
 souls whom Christ died to save : and thus, for pure 
 pity of Christ's love and bitter death, I learned to be 
 pitiless to Belial." 
 
 " But must all heretics needs be damned, father ? " 
 pleaded Eashleigh, remembering indeed that such a 
 doctrine had been preached by a modern convert in the 
 fervour of his recent conversion, but remembering also 
 the outcry of more tolerant or discreeter Eomanists, 
 who have now receded from what was practically the 
 universal medieval opinion on this question. The old 
 man stared at him now with a face in which horror 
 and astonishment were so grotesquely mingled, that 
 
THE WEAKY BURDEN OF SELF 231 
 
 Rashleigh hastened to put his thought into another 
 form. " And if I told thee, father, of nations here in 
 Europe who for nigh four hundred years past have cut 
 themselves off utterly from the Pope occupying vast 
 territories, multitudinous in numbers and multiplying 
 still like locusts from year to year nations more law- 
 abiding, more prosperous, than any Catholic land hath 
 ever been ..." 
 
 The old man spat again, and answered yet more 
 hastily: "Young man, put away from thee these 
 devilish temptations: subdue thy flesh with fasting; 
 pray more fervently ; above all things call the Blessed 
 Mother of God to thine aid whensoever the Evil One 
 tempteth thee with such blasphemies against the gospel 
 of her Son. Hath not our Lord sworn to reward the 
 faithful tenfold in this life, and yet more in the life to 
 come ? How then should such wolves, such devils in 
 human shape, enjoy that peace and plenty which have 
 never yet been granted to good Catholic folk ? " 
 
 " Father," said Rashleigb in a firm voice, deter- 
 mined now to explain himself clearly, " I myself was 
 not born in this land, but came hither in a manner 
 against my will. I was born, baptised, and bred, 
 amongst such as thou namest heretics, nay, hear me 
 out this one time men who from father to son own no 
 authority of the Pope ; the clergy indeed owing allegi- 
 ance to their bishops " (here he blushed involuntarily at 
 his own words), " but the greater part of the laity admit- 
 ting no controlling power in matters of faith beyond 
 the power of God Himself in each man's conscience. 
 Those men live in a peace and freedom such as thou, 
 
232 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 father, canst not dream of: in those lands there is no 
 bondservant, nay, nor hath been these three hundred 
 years past. War, indeed, is not unknown ; yet thou 
 dreamest not how seldom and with how little cruelty, 
 in comparison of these times ! The husbandman hath 
 there a breathing-space to till his lands in peace, 
 un vexed by the extortions of his lord or the barbarities 
 of a foreign soldiery. In that land, every man who 
 will may have his own book of the Holy Scriptures, 
 without money and without price : yea, and the poorest 
 child hath free access to such learning as would make 
 the greatest clerk of these times turn pale with envy. 
 Of religion and of Holy Church men study and speak 
 at their own will ; albeit the rash speech of some may 
 breed such wordy warfare as thou knowest here also, 
 yet is no man so bold as to lay a finger on his neigh- 
 bour's body or goods for religion's sake nay, not the 
 King himself. So great is the peace and purity of that 
 land in comparison of this, that men have long since 
 learned to doubt of the wickedness of priests and monks 
 as of an evil dream that is past : and a man may gain 
 much gold, if he will, by writing that these things, 
 which we see here with our own eyes, have never 
 been ! Yet is there among them a mighty remnant of 
 Catholics that still show obedience to the Pope lambs, 
 say'st thou, in the midst of wolves ? Nay, with a voice 
 far beyond their numbers or deserts in the great 
 Parliament of the nation, and enjoying a peace so pro- 
 found that when the King, for once only in his life- 
 time, must insult them by a public abjuration of their 
 doctrines, it seemeth to them an evil too intolerable to 
 
THE WEARY BURDEN OF SELF 283 
 
 be borne by mortal man, even as the delicate princess 
 of the old wives' fable could not sleep for a single pea 
 that lay beneath her nine feather-beds ! Moreover, 
 this Catholic remnant is suffered to preach publicly 
 and unharmed such words as, were any half so bitter 
 spoken against the greater part of the folk of any 
 Catholic land, the speaker should dear abide it. 
 Moreover, though the heretics of this land be more 
 careful of the churches than were the Catholics who 
 built them for they are most loth to defile them with 
 spitting, or the presence of dogs or hawks, or such foul 
 merriment as thou and I have seen within the sanc- 
 tuary yet from these same churches, three hundred 
 years and more agone, they cast out upon the dung- 
 heap all relics of saints, and broke down their images, 
 dwelling thenceforth without more care of the Church's 
 saints than of other holy men, paying no worship to 
 the Blessed Virgin, and esteeming it very idolatry to 
 adore even the consecrated wafer of the Lord's Body." 
 
 Hitherto, the friar had seemed unable to collect his 
 thoughts, and looked doubtful how far Rashleigh was 
 in earnest, or how his words were to be understood. 
 But now, grasping him by both arms, he hissed out, 
 face to face : " And thou wert bred among such 
 men ? " 
 
 " Father, I was of them ; nay, I am of them, and 
 ever shall be." 
 
 The old man thrust Rashleigh violently from him, 
 and, seizing the bowl of holy water, cast it in his face. 
 Then, snatching a crucifix, he bade him disappear to 
 the hell whence he had come. To his unspeakable 
 
234 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 dismay, Rashleigh only wiped the holy water from his 
 face and said, in a quiet, human voice, " Forgive me, 
 father, but my words are truth." The friar sank 
 breathless into a corner of the cave, glaring with wild 
 eyes that shone out from the darkness like a cat's, and 
 Rashleigh stepped forth into the fresh air. The sun 
 had not long sunk into the sea ; there was an honest 
 English-looking afterglow with broken clouds; for 
 almost the first time since that fatal scene in Findlay's 
 room he now felt thoroughly at peace with himself. 
 He would afflict the old man no more with his pre- 
 sence, but spend the night pacing their narrow terrace 
 outside, and next morning go down to the nearest 
 town and give himself up and make an end of it. For 
 he had no longer any doubt that this was the end to 
 which the finger of Providence had pointed all through 
 this strange time of trial. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 BITTERNESS OF DEATH 
 
 AFTER all, Rashleigh's resolution was unnecessary, 
 for a hunter had come by chance a few days since upon 
 the cross which marked their hermitage, and had 
 thought to do God service by reporting to the Bishop 
 that he had found what was no doubt a lurking-place 
 of some heretical anchorite. That very evening armed 
 men beset the only issue from the cave, and Rashleigh, 
 on entering the gorge at daybreak, met his captors 
 halfway. 
 
 " Is thy fellow above in the cave ? " they asked. 
 
 " He is a true Catholic, my masters ; it's I who am 
 the heretic." 
 
 " Aye, heretic, no doubt ; but Catholic, that we 
 shall see anon." 
 
 A few minutes afterwards the old man himself ap- 
 peared with his hands bound and a rope round his 
 neck ; nor were the guards in the least impressed by 
 the fact that he refused to be dragged within touching 
 distance of Rashleigh, at whom he spat and swore like 
 a wild cat. They had seen so many tricks of that 
 sort ! If they were to let off all who, finding them- 
 selves caught, claimed to be true Catholics, who then 
 
236 FRIAE'S LANTERN 
 
 should be burned? Besides, Father Ugo was well 
 known for a recusant, a Spiritual friar who, to avoid 
 taking the oath of abjuration of Christ's poverty, had 
 fled from his convent just before the inquisitors' visit. 
 So he and Rashleigh were now bound each to a 
 trooper's stirrup and dragged down to the town, where, 
 despite the insults of some of the rabble, Rashleigh 
 was encouraged by the evident sympathy of the better 
 sort. They were indeed an interesting pair, and the 
 sober burghers of La Rocca were already somewhat 
 weary of these executions for an abstract question, in 
 which the persecuted party showed so great humility 
 and self-denial. Moreover, the episcopal cities of the 
 Middle Ages were not as a rule centres of loyalty to 
 the Church. 
 
 The old man was spared torture in pity for his white 
 hairs and in consideration of his free confession of the 
 principal charges. Rashleigh again confessed freely 
 to such utter disbelief in the most fundamental 
 Romanist doctrines that there was no excuse for 
 torture in his case ; besides, the Inquisitor and the 
 Bishop of La Rocca happened to be naturally humane 
 men. However, being also men of high-strung faith, 
 they must needs try every means in their power to 
 persuade the two to recant and save their souls, and 
 they knew by experience that no means was so effectual 
 to persuade recantation as a long term of solitary 
 confinement on bread and water in such dungeons as 
 the Inquisition had prepared for its victims. Just at 
 first the Bishop himself came almost daily to argue 
 with Rashleigh, and even though our hero had had no 
 
BITTERNESS OF DEATH 287 
 
 previous experience to the same effect, the episcopal 
 apologist's well-meant arguments were by themselves 
 sufficient to undermine the house of cards which he 
 was struggling to build up. Rashleigh saw so clearly 
 now how, in spite of theoretical reservations, the 
 Catholicism of the Middle Ages amounted practically 
 with most men to a blind belief in the Pope. The 
 common people, as Father Ugo had long ago told 
 him, would state it sometimes in so many words 
 " Believe in the Pope, and save your soul ! " Within 
 one short generation thousands had become heretics 
 for believing, as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bona- 
 ventura had believed, about the poverty of Christ ; 
 thousands more, but for the French .King's readiness 
 to humiliate John XXII. for purely political reasons, 
 would have followed the great English divine, Thomas 
 Walleys, to prison for maintaining against the Pope 
 that doctrine of the Beatific Vision which is now an 
 infallible dogma of the Roman Church. In the face of 
 all this, all the childish arguments of the well-meaning, 
 narrow-minded old Bishop did but confirm Rashleigh 
 in his repudiation of the Papacy, and after a while he 
 received no other visits than those of his gaoler. How 
 long he remained thus in this foul hole Rashleigh 
 never knew. He only knew that, though he doubted 
 at times of everything else in his own life doubted 
 even of his own identity at no moment did he feel the 
 least temptation to purchase, even at the price of a far 
 lesser cowardice than abjuration of his faith, the right 
 of going out again to live in such a world as he had 
 now learned to know. " Even though it be not all a 
 
238 FBIAK'S LANTERN 
 
 ghastly nightmare," he said to himself, " even though 
 these turn out to be the last days of Herbert Rashleigh' s 
 earthly life, I shall at least some day meet my wife and 
 children (if wife and children I have) in heaven ! " 
 
 The old man must have been as obdurate as he, for 
 word came one day that they were both to die together 
 on the morrow. Their gaolers dressed them by a 
 mockery which afterwards caused far more scandal in 
 the diocese than the mere burning of two of God's 
 creatures in rough caricatures of the Franciscan 
 habit. In consideration of their different degrees of 
 heresy, the old man was privileged to be burned at a 
 separate stake and to march thither in front of the 
 younger heretic. And here Rashleigh saw the effect 
 of those abominable crimes with which heretics in the 
 Middle Ages, like Christians among the Romans, were 
 currently accused, crimes which may indeed have had 
 some slight foundation in those days when conscientious 
 dissenters were treated like wild beasts, and when other 
 wild beasts in human shape, making a common cause 
 of outlawry, would sometimes come and consort with 
 them. As the old man was led forth Rashleigh heard 
 shouts of pity among the crowd : " Abjure, father, 
 abjure ; why wilt thou die ? Canst thou not hold with 
 the rest of us, or, at the very worst, are these things 
 worth dying for? Believe in the Pope, father; 
 believe in the Pope, and save thy white hairs ! " The 
 very gaolers had given the same advice in rough kind- 
 ness as they led him out, and here and there a woman 
 would even beg the old man's blessing as he passed. 
 Rashleigh, on the other hand, found himself dragged 
 
BITTEENESS OF DEATH 239 
 
 and hounded along like a wild beast, pelted with mud, 
 deafened with yells of execration that horrible bitter- 
 ness of heartfelt hate which blisters like vitriol, even 
 through the armour of the strongest convictions. At 
 last he was bound to the stake more dead than alive. 
 But the preparations were lengthy, and he had some 
 time to gather his thoughts at first in strange detach- 
 ment from himself, then with a growing sense of 
 horrible injustice. The place was a stretch of waste 
 ground ; the white walls and slender towers of a city 
 rose on the near horizon ; behind, a black thunder- 
 cloud was slowly darkening the whole sky. The 
 executioners cheered each other to the work with 
 rough jests. " Yare, John ! Yare, Robert ! Lo, how 
 the foul fiend cometh riding on the cloud to bear away 
 his own ! Quick, lad, quick ! reach hither the smaller 
 brushwood and the brimstone, and let us see whether 
 all the devils of hell shall quench this fire ! " Mean- 
 while the cloud came up fast and faster, spreading 
 pitchy darkness over their heads, and the clamours of 
 the crowd gradually died away into dull murmurs, as 
 the birds cease singing under an eclipse of the sun. 
 
 Rashleigh looked round him : he saw a crowd of 
 upturned faces staring grey out of the darkness : it 
 reminded him strangely of his own congregation at 
 Greenhill looking up at him in the twilight of some 
 autumn evening as he gave out his text from the 
 pulpit. And yet how different ! There, with how 
 much more respect had men looked on him than he 
 deserved ! and here, out of all these thousands, was 
 there one single being that did not execrate him as a 
 
240 FRIAR'S LANTEEN 
 
 soul blackened with the most abominable crimes, of 
 whom earth would be well rid in a few minutes' time ? 
 It was this universal hate that so crushed his soul 
 --this, and the feeling of the utter uselessness of 
 all his sufferings. On all these long wanderings, 
 had he managed to impart to one single creature 
 with, perhaps, one exception a single grain of 
 those precious truths which he knew he knew, yet 
 which he could not make anybody understand ? And 
 now, who would be the better for his death ? Latimer 
 might indeed cry out " Play the man, Master Ridley ! 
 we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, 
 as I trust shall never be put out." Yet here, not a 
 soul realised more clearly what Rashleigh was dying 
 for than this poor old man who, even now, had bade 
 them so bind him that his back might be turned to 
 the filthy heretic ! All these men would go home to 
 their wives and families without the least suspicion of 
 the real facts, thinking only that they had been helping 
 to rid the earth of a monster. Moreover, as habitual 
 cruelty blunts by degrees even the earlier feelings of 
 compassion, so to-day's injustice would render the 
 spectators all the more ready at other times to defend 
 the faith by the destruction of similar monsters ; 
 until at last the revolt should have grown too strong, 
 and the constant barbarities of repression should 
 sicken even the most orthodox theologians, and then 
 the sea of new thoughts should come pouring through 
 the breach, and sweep the old barriers away for ever. 
 He knew now, as he looked round at this surging sea 
 of hateful faces, why the inquisitors were able to note 
 
BITTERNESS OF DEATH 241 
 
 that " our modern heretics " face death not with the 
 cheerful carelessness of the ancient martyrs, but with 
 mere dogged and gloomy resolution. And, as the 
 smallest things sometimes crowd upon us at the 
 gravest moments, he thought now with bitter regret, 
 not so much of the petty quarrels he had once waged 
 with all his soul about incense, and processional 
 crosses, and questions of fish or flesh, and liturgical 
 formulas and ecclesiastical millinery not so much 
 of these, but even more of the contempt which he had 
 been used to express for the good old Archdeacon's 
 Newgate fringe and modest white tie. He suddenly 
 wondered whether Duvet was by this time safe back at 
 Summerleigh, blandly explaining to his flock that the 
 Church never had persecuted, except in the imagina- 
 tion of ignorant or malicious Protestants ! He tried 
 to pray : but still these other petty thoughts crowded 
 into his mind the Nemesis, no doubt, of all the petty 
 details with which he had occupied so many hours of 
 his working life, before this night had come when he 
 would be no longer able to work. His mind was dry : 
 as dry as his parched mouth and throat : it struggled 
 helplessly as in a nightmare. Suddenly, however, his 
 eye caught a gaze of painful intensity fixed on him 
 from the crowd. He looked more closely, and saw a 
 slight figure of a woman holding a little boy by the 
 hand ; the pair were startlingly like his own wife and 
 boy. Moreover, she too seemed to feel something of 
 the same painful attraction, for she had edged up to 
 the very ropes. Instinctively he held out his hands 
 to her : she shrank back and caught at the boy : 
 F.L. 
 
242 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 but he, running forward, picked up a faggot and cast 
 it, with a child's innocent-cruel laugh, straight into 
 the accursed heretic's face. Rashleigh's head fell upon 
 his breast ; and at the same moment the fire was set 
 to his pile. 
 
 He had time to wonder whether the flames would be 
 very painful, and to wish they would come soon. But 
 the wood was green, and first came the smoke : pun- 
 gent, stifling, gripping him by the throat. A violent 
 fit of coughing tore his breast : the whole world reeled 
 round him ; this, then, was the end, swifter and more 
 merciful than he had dared to hope ! 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 OUT OF THE DEEP WATERS 
 
 Two men were supporting him now, or he would 
 have fallen : all around was light again : and there, in 
 front of him, stood the Archdeacon sorely puzzled, 
 hut solid and straightforward in his modern English 
 flesh the dear old Archdeacon himself, with his 
 dear old fringe of heard and his dear old starched 
 tie. Rashleigh fell upon the rector's neck, and fairly 
 hugged him with delight. " What is it, my boy?" 
 asked the old man : but Rashleigh only answered with 
 a sob, and his salt tears mingled with the water that 
 dripped from his wet hair down the other's broad 
 back. The rest of the company stood in astonished 
 groups round him and Duvet, who lay back in a deck- 
 chair with a ghastly face, muttering with white lips a 
 prayer for whisky. They brought him a tumblerfull 
 with a drop or two of water, which he emptied almost 
 at a gulp. But he answered no questions, and all 
 crowded now round Rashleigh, who was sketching his 
 adventures in broken words. The first time the 
 priest's name came into his story he suddenly inter- 
 rupted himself, and looked round . . . " By the bye, 
 where is poor Duvet ? " 
 
 Q2 
 
244 FEIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 Where, indeed ! He had taken the first opportunity 
 of gliding silently from the room : and his landlady, 
 opening the door to him five minutes afterwards, took 
 him for a ghost. To kind enquiries at the lodgings 
 that night she answered that he was unwell in bed, 
 and could see nohody. -Next day he politely disclaimed 
 any responsibility for whatever nonsense Rashleigh 
 might have talked : he himself had simply gulped a 
 mouthful of water the wrong way in the course of that 
 foolish trick, and had nearly choked to death, " And 
 I almost fear," added he in a meek voice, "that 
 Findlay's water was not very clean: for I was violently 
 sick all night, and am still very much shaken this 
 morning. . . . You will not take anything ? Then 
 I am sure you will excuse me : Sunday, as you know, 
 is a very busy day for us poor priests." 
 
 It was noticed thenceforward that he shrank from 
 society, and was apt to start or grow pale, like the 
 risen Lazarus, at chance words or phrases which 
 seemed to strike some secret chord in his memory. 
 Especially remarkable was his loathing for the com- 
 pany of Sister Mary, who fawned on him more than 
 ever, but on whom he would sometimes gaze with the 
 speechless horror which a bird is said to feel at the 
 insidious advances of a snake. In short, nobody was 
 surprised, either when he left Summerleigh for a short 
 rest and change of air, or again when the Rev. Patrick 
 Murphy announced himself the lawfully appointed 
 successor of the Rev. Terence Duvet. I have heard 
 that a gentleman of his name and bodily appearance 
 practises now in London as a stockbroker, and lives at 
 
OUT OF THE DEEP WATERS 245 
 
 Bromley with a rich widow whom he married some 
 years ago : but this Mr. Duvet the stockbroker dis- 
 claims all connection, past or present, with the 
 Catholic priesthood. 
 
 As for Rashleigh, he is still at Greenhill ; for the 
 present breadth of his theology wins him as little 
 episcopal favour as its former height. I met him for 
 the first time some years after the time of this story, 
 at a village match, where his boy bowled me ignomini- 
 ously at my first ball, and he himself broke one of 
 the five clumsy fingers which I incautiously stretched 
 out in the hope of catching him at mid-on. That was 
 the end of my cricket in this wicked world, and the 
 beginning of my friendship with a very hard-working 
 country parson. After having seen the realities of 
 medieval ritual, he would gladly have made a clean 
 sweep of all the ceremonies to which he had once 
 fondly clung as such ; but he considered the feelings 
 of his parishioners, and only showed them little by 
 little how loose he sat from these things which had 
 once seemed to him worth the most desperate struggles. 
 And later on, when this particular quarrel about Incense 
 and Reservation had lost its savour, and those who 
 really hankered after Rome had mostly gone over, and 
 the "slump " in ritual had set in, he gradually settled into 
 the typical Broad Churchman who uses just those few 
 ornaments and ceremonies which are adopted as edifying 
 by a sort of rough general consent among reasonable 
 people. He has six children, all of a very robust pattern ; 
 his village clubs are run on the broadest lines, and 
 though he has fewer Nonconformists now in his parish, 
 
246 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 he is on good terms with them all. He has never for- 
 gotten his feelings during those few moments when he 
 seemed to stand at the very steps of the Judgment 
 Seat ; and the question now uppermost in his mind is 
 never " Who follows the more Catholic ceremonies and 
 the more Catholic form of words, John Watson or 
 I . . . ? " hut always " Which of us two will he better 
 prepared to meet that strict sentence, ' Inasmuch as ye 
 did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to 
 Me. ' ' Of course, there are many still who give hard 
 names to so simple and so bare a religion, just as men 
 found hard names for it even in the days of its Founder. 
 But Rashleigh's fundamental loyalty to his own Church 
 is too well-known now to need daily advertisement ; 
 and he gains rather than loses among the best of his 
 acquaintances by never even attempting to ignore the 
 truths that are held by other churches. 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 STRANGELY as some of the foregoing pages may read 
 to those who know the Middle Ages mainly from novels 
 and books of edification, there is scarcely an incident 
 which I have not taken from the most unimpeachable 
 sources. The examination of Lord Halfwayhouse, for 
 instance, is copied from a specimen interrogatory 
 reproduced in two inquisitors' manuals : the old 
 priest's discourse on false relics and saints, from a 
 treatise on this subject by the learned contemporary of 
 St. Anselm, Guibert Abbot of Nogent; the Summer- 
 leigh visitation, from those of Southwell Minster. 
 Even the convert's letter in my first chapter is a mere 
 abbreviation, with few alterations, from an auto- 
 biographical narrative actually printed in the Tablet. 
 My readers should by all means read the original 
 (October 12th, 1901), which is more interesting and 
 instructive than my brief summary can be. At the 
 same time I have taken the novelist's usual small 
 licences with regard to dates, altering that of Pope 
 John XXII. 's death by a year or two to suit my 
 dramatic purpose. 
 
 I subjoin here two specimens of the actual docu- 
 ments from which I have worked ; not that I ignore the 
 possibility of giving a very false impression on the 
 whole, without misquoting the facts in detail : but on 
 
248 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 this more important point I am ready to face any 
 responsible criticism. My main points, as the reader 
 will have seen, are as follows: (1) that clerical morals 
 in the Middle Ages were such as no civilised modern 
 country could tolerate ; (2) that even in reverence and 
 care for their churches these men were far below the 
 modern standard ; (3) that the so-called Ages of Faith 
 were in fact too often ages of doubt and despair for 
 sensitive souls ; (4) that, less than a century after 
 St. Francis's death, spiritual Franciscans were tortured 
 and burned by their "relaxed" brethren for their 
 strict adherence to that rule to which all were alike 
 pledged ; and (5) that the injustices and cruelties of 
 the medieval Inquisition were almost past modern 
 belief. On any one of these points I will print, at my 
 own expense, such criticisms as I receive from the first 
 competent challenger within six months of this date, to 
 the extent of twenty-four of these pages, or 6,000 words. 
 But indeed I do not seriously anticipate any accep- 
 tance to this challenge, as I have received none to my 
 even plainer challenges in the past. Those who do 
 not yet realise how guilty is the Romanist historian's 
 literary conscience, and how willing he is to let even 
 the plainest charges pass in silence, should read my 
 articles in the Independent Review for June, 1905, the 
 Contemporary for December, 1905, and April and July, 
 1906, and the pamphlet in which I have exposed Abbot 
 Gasquet's extraordinary manipulations of evidence. 1 
 
 1 The Independent article, " Eomanism and Morality," may be 
 obtained separately at 6d, and the pamphlet, "The Monastic 
 Legend," at Is., from Simpkin, Marshall & Co. 
 
EPILOGUE 249 
 
 The few Romanists who know anything of medieval 
 records, know quite well that the reality is worse than 
 even the average candid modern Protestant cares to 
 believe, until he sees full proof of it. They know that 
 clerical immorality, clerical ignorance, the random 
 proceedings of popes and prelates, the iniquities of the 
 Inquisition, were all so bad that the best policy of the 
 apologist is to shirk all public controversy on these 
 points. For this reason it is necessary at times to 
 remind the public of these undeniable facts, which are 
 often so grievously misrepresented. 
 
 With the men who lived in the Middle Ages it is 
 impossible for the honest student not to feel the 
 greatest sympathy ; they tried, like ourselves, to do 
 their best, but the world in which they lived reduced 
 them to despair. The true lesson which their history 
 has for us is that of content with the age in which our 
 own lot has been cast, and in which we shall do most 
 good by looking onwards instead of backwards. We 
 shall never make the best of our present world until 
 we realise how false it is to hanker after the ideals of a 
 dead past. 
 
BRIEF SUMMARY OF A SINGLE VISITA- 
 TION OF SOUTHWELL MINSTER, OCT. 2, 
 1475, FROM MR. A. F. LEACH'S EDITION FOR THE 
 CAMDEN SOCIETY (pp. 20 if.). 
 
 " STEPHEN CLERK, detected for shirking matins and 
 the masses of his chauntry, frequenting taverns, and 
 not coming to chapter : 6 Oct. pleads guilty. Amend- 
 ment enjoined on pain of suspension. William 
 Norton habitually shirks prime and hours ; a common 
 talker in choir ; a common ribald and scurrilous talker 
 among the laity ; reveals the secrets of the vicars' hall 
 and the chapter in Henry Bury's house : 6 Oct. 
 ordered to amend. Ledenam, common frequenter of 
 taverns, often drunk, shirks choir and chantry masses : 
 6 Oct. ordered to amend. John Bull, since Xmas 
 last suspiciously frequents Agnes Saynton, seen 
 leaving her garden at * first peal ' for matins ; shirks 
 his chauntry masses ; diffamed with Margery, wife of 
 the apothecary: ordered to amend. Rests not observed 
 [by the clergy generally] in the psalms. Knolles 
 shirks matins and prime ; sleeps at matins two or 
 three times a week ; suspiciously frequents house of 
 Jane Cook; 9 Oct. ordered not to go to Jane Cook's 
 house except with honest persons. Robert Button 
 
A VISITATION 251 
 
 shirks matins and prime. Chauntry chaplains shirk 
 Preciosa. Custans and Barthorp shirk choir : 9 Oct. 
 Custans ordered to attend on pain of law. Tykkyll 
 shirks choir ; does business on feast days ; neglects 
 his chauntry : 9 Oct. ordered to amend. John 
 Warsopp shirks prime and hours ; ordered to amend. 
 John Gregory shirks choir ; negligent as sacristan ; 
 does not sleep in the church [though bound to do so 
 as guardian] ; neglects the vestry and the plate there. 
 Eichard Stedmere unlawfully plays at ball ; 10 Oct. 
 ordered to amend. William Bekbank accused of 
 administering noxious herbs to Catherine Bexwyk for 
 unlawful purpose ; 10 Oct. denies the charge ; 11 Oct. 
 canonically purges himself by 6 witnesses [i.e., gets 6 
 clerical friends to swear belief in his innocence] .... 
 The bye-laws of the Vicars Choral are not enforced. 
 The secrets of the chapter and the Vicars Choral are 
 told in Isabella Bury's house, by Norton, Mery, or 
 Ledenam. The chauntry priests do not attend to the 
 precentor in chaunting. Stephen does not get his 
 stipend paid. . . . Dyson's stipend in arrear. There 
 is only one gradale [a service-book] on the north, and 
 2 on the south side of the choir. Kooper's stipend in 
 arrear. . . . Bull assaulted Gregory, and Gregory 
 lay in wait to assault him in the church, and neither 
 had been punished : 10 Oct. Gregory ordered to pay 
 20s. fine unless the vicars let him off. Norton and 
 Gregory struck each other in the chapterhouse. 
 Gregory struck Warsopp on the head in the Vicar's 
 Hall, and drew blood ; and Norton in Isabella Bury'g 
 house, and would have killed him if she had not 
 
252 FRIAK'S LANTERN 
 
 prevented the deed. The churchyard is not properly 
 kept, but denied by animals. . . . Knolles is an 
 adulterer with the wife of John Cook. Worseley 
 grants dispensation to Lawrence Brukshaw from 
 prime to refresh himself with food and drink before 
 singing Our Lady's Mass. 20 Oct. Richard Bruch 
 complains of slander by Knolles and Bekbank, chap- 
 lains, that he had caused them to be falsely indicted 
 at Southwell Sessions for felony; asks that they 
 should be excommunicated and pay costs. . . . Knolles 
 found guilty of slander, suspended from office and 
 benefice, and warned not to wear his habit till he has 
 agreed with R. Bruch and paid damages and costs." 
 As Mr. Leach comments upon this and similar 
 Southwell Visitations recorded between 1469 and 
 1542 : " Such then was the state of the church and 
 clergy of Southwell in the century preceding the 
 Reformation. We know from such books as Mr. 
 Fowler's edition of the Ripon Chapter Acts, and Mr. 
 Reynolds's privately printed Wells records, that things 
 were no worse at Southwell than elsewhere. 1 . . . 
 We can only conclude that neglect of duty and sexual 
 immorality were so common that they were never 
 punished, except when some public scandal was 
 created by them." For instance, John Bull, the 
 sinner of 1475, was at these later visitations accused 
 of similar and worse immoralities, and had engaged in 
 
 1 To this list Mr. Leach might have added the Beverley 
 Chapter Acts (edited afterwards by himself for the Surtees 
 Society), and the Eegisters of Bishop Grandisson of Exeter 
 and Archbishop Eudes Eigaud of Eouen. 
 
ON KELICS 258 
 
 a fight in the churchyard in which blood had been 
 shed : yet the worst punishment ever inflicted on him 
 was a three days' suspension ! He was promoted in 
 regular seniority to a higher canonry, and died in 
 office in 1587. 
 
 II 
 
 BRIEF EXTRACTS FROM THE " TREATISE 
 ON RELICS" OF ABBOT GUIBERT DE 
 NOGENT (MIGNE, PAT. LAT., VOL. 156, COLS. 
 614, 615, 625, 622, 624). 
 
 " I CALL God to witness, that I have read and read 
 again in utter loathing to them that were with me in 
 the Life of Samson, a saint of great reputation in 
 France and Brittany, concerning a certain Abbot 
 whom that book names St. Pyro. When, however, I 
 sought into the latter end of this man whom I held for 
 a saint, I found his special mark of sanctity to be this : 
 viz., that he fell into a well while drunken with wine, 
 and thus died. ... If the Prophet saith 'woe unto 
 them that call good evil, and evil good,' what then can 
 be more perverse than to thrust under the holy altar 
 [the relics of] such men as were perchance worthy 
 themselves to be thrust forth from the very precincts 
 of the church? . . . Odo Bishop of Bayeux eagerly 
 desired the body of St. Exuperius, his predecessor, who 
 was honoured with special worship in the town of 
 Corbeil. He paid, therefore, the sum of one hundred 
 pounds to the sacristan of the church which possessed 
 these relics, that he might take them for himself. 
 
254 FRIAR'S LANTERN 
 
 But the sacristan cunningly dug up the hones of a 
 peasant named Exuperius and brought them to the 
 Bishop. The Bishop, not content with his mere 
 assertion, exacted from him an oath that these hones 
 which he brought were those of Saint Exuperius. 
 ' I swear,' replied the man, ' that these are the bones 
 of Exuperius : as to his sanctity I cannot swear, since 
 many earn the title of saints who are far indeed from 
 holiness.' Thus the thief assuaged the Bishop's 
 suspicions and set his mind at rest, . . . See now 
 what disgrace this Bishop's bargain brought upon 
 religion, when the bones of this profane peasant 
 Exuperius were thrust into God's holy altar, which 
 perchance will never more be purged of them. I can 
 recall so many like deeds in all parts that I lack time 
 and strength to tell them here : for fraudulent bargains 
 are made, not so much in whole bodies as in limbs or 
 portions of limbs, common bones being sold as relics of 
 the saints. . . . What shall I say of those saints whom 
 the common folk manufacture daily in their towns and 
 villages, in rivalry with such great and acknowledged 
 saints as Martin and Remigius ? For, seeing that 
 others have famous patrons [in heaven,] they also have 
 desired to get themselves such as they could, and have 
 made saints of their own. . . . Moreover there are 
 things written of some saints which are far worse than 
 old wives' tales, and not fit even for a swineherd's ears. 
 Indeed, many men attribute the highest antiquity to 
 their own saints, and beg authors in these latter days 
 of ours to write their lives ; but, seeing that I may be 
 deceived even in things done under mine own eyes, 
 
ON KELICS 255 
 
 how shall I tell a true tale of things which no man 
 ever saw ? If I quote merely from hearsay (as men 
 have begged me to write, and even preach puhlicly in 
 praise of their unknown saints), then should I deserve 
 as richly to be pilloried for speaking at their bidding, 
 as they for putting such things into my mouth." 
 
 These two extracts are of course only given as a 
 sample of the multitudes of medieval documents upon 
 which I might draw to prove the implications conveyed 
 in this book. 
 
 
 , AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONSR1DGE. 
 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
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 1953 
 
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