CHAPTER VII
NORTHERN RELIGION
The Northern counties were distinguished among all in England for theirloyalty to the old Faith; and this was owing, no doubt, to the charactersof both the country and the inhabitants;--it was difficult for theofficers of justice to penetrate to the high moorland and deep ravines,and yet more difficult to prevail with the persons who lived there.Twenty-two years before the famous Lancashire League had been formed,under the encouragement of Dr. Allen, afterwards the Cardinal, whosemembers pledged themselves to determined recusancy; with the result thathere and there church-doors were closed, and the Book of Common Prayerutterly refused. Owing partly to Bishop Downman's laxity towards therecusants, the principles of the League had retained their holdthroughout the county, ever since '68, when ten obstinate Lancastrianshad been haled before the Council, of whom one, the famous Sir JohnSouthworth himself, suffered imprisonment more than once.
Anthony and Isabel then found their life in the North very different tothat which they had been living at Stanfield. Near the towns, of course,precaution was as necessary as anywhere else in England, but once theyhad passed up on to the higher moorlands they were able to throw off allanxiety, as much as if the penal laws of England were not in force there.
It was pleasant, too, to go, as they did, from great house to greathouse, and find the old pre-Reformation life of England in full vigour;the whole family present at mass so often as it was said, desirous of thesacraments, and thankful for the opportunities of grace that the arrivalof the priest afforded. Isabel would often stay at such houses a week ortwo together, while Anthony made rounds into the valleys and to themoorland villages round-about; and then the two would travel on togetherwith their servants to the next village. Anthony's ecclesiastical outfitwas very simple. Among Isabel's dresses lay a brocade vestment that mighteasily pass notice if the luggage was searched; and Anthony carried inhis own luggage a little altar-stone, a case with the holy oils, a tinychalice and paten, singing-cakes, and a thin vellum-bound Missal andRitual in one volume, containing the order of mass, a few votive masses,and the usual benedictions for holy-water, rue and the like, and theoccasional offices.
In this manner they first visited many of the famous old Lancashirehouses, some of which still stand, Borwick Hall, Hall-i'-the-Wood,Lydiate Hall, Thurnham, Blainscow, where Campion had once been so nearlytaken, and others, all of which were provided with secret hiding-placesfor the escape of the priest, should a sudden alarm be raised. In none ofthem, however, did he find the same elaboration of device as at StanfieldPlace.
First, however, they went to Speke Hall, the home of Mr. Norreys, on thebanks of the Mersey, a beautiful house of magpie architecture, andfurnished with a remarkable underground passage to the shore of theMersey, the scene of Richard Brittain's escape.
Here they received a very warm welcome.
"It is as I wrote to Mr. Buxton," said his host on the evening of theirarrival, "in many places in this country any religion other than theCatholic is unknown. The belief of the Protestant is as strange as thatof the Turk, both utterly detested. I was in Cumberland a few monthsback; there in more than one village the old worship goes on as it hasdone since Christianity first came to this island. But I hope you will goup there, now that you have come so far. You would do a great work forChrist his Church."
He told him, too, a number of stories of the zeal and constancy shown onbehalf of the Religion; of small squires who were completely ruined bythe fines laid upon them; of old halls that were falling to piecesthrough the ruin brought upon their staunch owners; and above all of thepriests that Lancashire had added to the roll of the martyrs--Anderton,Marsden, and Thompson among others--and of the joy shown when theglorious news of their victory over death reached the place where theyhad been born or where they had ministered.
"At Preston," he said, "when the news of Mr. Greenaway's death reachedthem, they tolled the bells for sorrow. But his old mother ran from herhouse to the street when they had broken the news to her: 'Peal them,peal them!' she cried, 'for I have borne a martyr to God.'"
He talked, too, of Campion, of his sermons on "The King who went ajourney," and the "Hail, Mary"; and told him of the escape at BlainscowHall, where the servant-girl, seeing the pursuivants at hand, pushed theJesuit, with quick wit and courage, into the duck-pond, so that he cameout disguised indeed--in green mud--and was mocked at by the veryofficers as a clumsy suitor of maidens.
Anthony's heart warmed within him as he sat and listened to these talesof patience and gallantry.
"I would lay down my life to serve such folk," he said; and Isabel lookedwith deep-kindled eyes from the one to the other.
They did not stay more than a day or two at Speke Hall, for, as Mr.Norreys said, the necessaries of salvation were to be had there already;but they moved on almost at once northwards, always arriving at somecentral point for Saturdays and Sundays, so that the Catholics roundcould come in for shrift and housel. In this manner they passed upthrough Lancashire, and pushed still northwards, hearing that a priestwas sorely needed, through the corner of Westmoreland, up the Lakecountry, through into Cumberland itself. At Kendal, where they stayed twonights, Anthony received a message that determined him, afterconsultation with Isabel, to push on as far as Skiddaw, and to make thatthe extreme limit of his journey. He sent the messenger, a wild-lookingNorth-countryman, back with a verbal answer to that effect, and named adate when they would arrive.
It was already dark, two weeks later, when they arrived at the pointwhere the guide was to meet them, as they had lost their way more thanonce already. Here were a couple of men with torches, waiting for thembehind a rock, who had come down from the village, a mile farther on, tobring them up the difficult stony path that was the only means of accessto it. The track went up a ravine, with a rock-wall rising on their left,on which the light of the torches shone, and tumbled ground, covered withheather, falling rapidly away on their right down to a gulf of darknesswhence they could hear the sound of the torrent far below; the path wasuneven, with great stones here and there, and sharp corners in it, and asthey went it was all they could do to keep their tired horses fromstumbling, for a slip would have been dangerous under the circumstances.The men who led them said little, as it was impossible for a horse and aman to walk abreast, but Anthony was astonished to see again and again,as they turned a corner, another man with a torch and some weapon, apike, or a sword, start up and salute him, or sometimes a group, withbarefooted boys, and then attach themselves to the procession eitherbefore or behind; until in a short while there was an escort of somethirty or forty accompanying the cavalcade. At last, as they turned acorner, the lighted windows of a belfry showed against the dark moorbeyond, and in a moment more, as if there were a watcher set there tolook out for the torches, a peal of five bells clashed out from thetower; then, as they rose yet higher, the path took a sudden turn and adip between two towering rocks, and the whole village lay beneath them,with lights in every window to welcome the priest, the first that theyhad seen for eight months, when the old Marian rector, the elder brotherof the squire, had died.
It was now late, so Anthony and Isabel were conducted immediately to theHall, an old house immediately adjoining the churchyard; and here, too,the windows were blazing with welcome, and the tall squire, Mr. Brian,with his wife and children behind, was standing before the brighthall-door at the top of the steps. The men and boys that had brought themso far, and were standing in the little court with their torchesuplifted, now threw themselves on their knees to receive the priest'sblessing, before they went home; and Anthony blessed them and thankedthem, and went indoors with his sister, strangely moved and uplifted.
* * * *
The two following days were full of hard work and delight for Anthony. Hewas to say mass at half-past six next morning, and came out of the housea little after six o'clock; the sun was just rising to his right over
ashoulder of Skiddaw, which dominated the eastern horizon; and all roundhim, stretched against the sky in all directions, were the high purplemoors in the strange dawn-light. Immediately in front of him, not thirtyyards away, stood the church, with its tower, two aisles, and a chapel ona little promontory of rock which jutted out over the bed of the torrentalong which he had climbed the night before; and to his left lay thestraggling street of the village. All was perfectly still except for thedash of the stream over the rocks; but from one or two houses a thinskein of smoke was rising straight into the air. Anthony stood rapt indelight, and drew long breaths of the cool morning air, laden withfreshness and fragrant with the mellow scent of the heather and theautumnal smells.
He was completely taken by surprise when he entered the church, for, forthe first time since he could remember, he saw an English church in itstrue glory. It had been built for a priory-church of Holm-Cultram, butfor some reason had never been used as that, and had become simply theparish church of the village. Across the centre and the northern aisleran an elaborate screen, painted in rich colours, and the southernchapel, which ran eastwards of the porch, was separated in a similar wayfrom the rest of the church. Over the central screen was the great rood,with its attendant figures, exquisitely carved and painted; in everydirection, as Anthony looked beyond the screens, gleamed rich windows,with figures and armorial bearings; here and there tattered banners hungon the walls; St. Christopher stood on the north wall opposite the door,to guard from violence all who looked upon him day by day; a littlepainting of the Baptist hung on a pillar over against the font, and aVernacle by the pulpit; and all round the walls hung little pictures,that the poor and unlearned might read the story of redemption there. Butthe chief glory of all was the solemn high altar, with its riddellssurmounted by taper-bearing gilded angels, with its brocade cloth, andits painted halpas behind; and above it, before the rich window whichsmouldered against the dawn, hung the awful pyx, covered by the whitesilk cloth, but empty; waiting for the priest to come and bid theShechinah of the Lord to brood there again over this gorgeous thronebeneath, against the brilliant halo of the painted glass behind.
Anthony knelt a moment and thanked God for bringing him here, and thenpassed up into the north aisle, where the image of the Mother of Godpresided, as she had done for three hundred years, over her little altaragainst the wall. Anthony said his preparation and vested at the altar;and was astonished to find at least thirty people to hear mass: none, ofcourse, made their communion, but Anthony, when he had ended, placed theBody of the Lord once more in the hanging pyx and lit the lamp before it.
Then all day he sat in the north chapel, with the dash and loud thunderof the mountain stream entering through the opened panes of the eastwindow, and the stained sunlight, in gorgeous colours, creeping acrossthe red tiles at his feet, glowing and fading as the clouds moved overthe sun, while the people came and were shriven; with the exception of anhour in the middle of the day and half an hour for supper in the evening,he was incessantly occupied until nine o'clock at night. From the uplanddales all round they streamed in, at news of the priest, and those whohad come from far and were fasting he communicated at once from theReserved Sacrament. At last, tired out, but intensely happy, he went backto the Hall.
But the next morning was yet more startling. Mass was at eight o'clock,and by the time Anthony entered the church he found a congregation ofnearly two hundred souls; the village itself did not number aboveseventy, but many came in from the country round, and some had stayed allnight in the church-porch. Then, too, he heard the North-country singingin the old way; all the mass music was sung in three parts, except theunchanging melody of the creed, which, like the tremendous and unchangingwords themselves, at one time had united the whole of England; but whatstirred Anthony more than all were the ancient hymns sung here and thereduring the service, some in Latin, which a few picked voices rendered,and some in English, to the old lilting tunes which were as much thegrowth of the north-country as the heather itself. The "Ave Verum Corpus"was sung after the Elevation, and Anthony felt that his heart would breakfor very joy; as he bent before the Body of his Lord, and the voicesbehind him rose and exulted up the aisles, the women's and children'svoices soaring passionately up in the melody, the mellow men's voicesestablishing, as it seemed, these ecstatic pinnacles of song on mightyand immovable foundations.
Vespers were said at three o'clock, after baptisms and more confessions;and Anthony was astonished at the number of folk who could answer thepriest. After vespers he made a short sermon, and told the peoplesomething of what he had seen in the South, of the martyrdoms at Tyburn,and of the constancy of the confessors.
"'Be thou faithful unto death,'" he said. "So our Saviour bids us, and Hegives us a promise too: 'I will give thee a crown of life.' Beloved, someday the tide of heresy will creep up these valleys too; and it will bearmany things with it, the scaffold and the gallows and the knife maybe.And then our Lord will see which are His; then will be the time thatgrace will triumph--that those who have used the sacraments withdevotion; that have been careful and penitent with their sins, that havehungered for the Bread of Life--the Lord shall stand by them and savethem, as He stood by Mr. Sherwin on the rack, and Father Campion on thescaffold, and Mistress Ward and many more, of whom I have not had time totell you. He who bids us be faithful, Himself will be faithful; and Hewho wore the crown of thorns will bestow upon us the crown of life."
Then they sang a hymn to our Lady:
"Hail be thou, Mary, the mother of Christ,"
and the old swaying tune rocked like a cradle, and the people looked uptowards their Mother's altar as they sang--their Mother who had ruledthem so sweetly and so long--and entreated her in their hearts, who stoodby her Son's Cross, to stand by theirs too should God ever call them todie upon one.
The next day Mr. Brian took Anthony a long walk as soon as dinner wasover, across the moors towards the north side of Skiddaw. Anthony foundthe old man a delightful and garrulous companion, full of tales of thecountryside, historical, religious, naturalistic, and supernatural. Asthey stood on a little eminence and looked back to where the church-towerpricked out of the deep crack in the moors where it stood, he told himthe tale of the coming of the pursuivants.
"They first troubled us in '72," he said; "they had not thought it worthwhile before to disturb themselves for one old man like my brother, whowas like to die soon; but in April of that year they first sent up theirmen. But it was only a pair of pursuivants, for they knew nothing ofthe people; they came up, the poor men, to take my brother down toCockermouth to answer on his religion to some bench of ministers that satthere. Well, they met him, in his cassock and square cap, coming out ofthe church, where he had just replaced the Most Holy Sacrament aftergiving communion to a dying body. 'Heh! are you the minister?' say they.
"'Heh! I am the priest, if that is what you mean,' he answers back. (Hewas a large man, like myself, was my brother.)
"'Well, come, old man,' say they, 'we must help you down to Cockermouth.'
"Well, a few words passed; and the end was that he called out to Tim, wholived just against the church; and told them what was forward.
"Well, the pursuivants got back to Cockermouth with their lives, but notmuch else; and reported to the magistrates that the wild Irish themselveswere little piminy maids compared to the folk they had visited that day.
"So there was a great to-do, and a deal of talk; and in the next monththey sent up thirty pikemen with an officer and a dozen pursuivants, andall to take one old priest and his brother. I had been in Kendal in Aprilwhen they first came--but they put it all down to me.
"Well, we were ready for them this time; the bells had been ringing tocall in the folk since six of the clock in the morning; and bydinner-time, when the soldiers were expected, there was a matter of twohundred men, I should say, some with scythes and sickles, and some withstaves or shepherds' crooks; the children had been sent down sooner tostone the men all the way up the path; and by the
time that they hadreached the churchyard gate there was not a man of them but had a cut ora bruise upon him. Then, when they turned the corner, black with wrath,there were the lads gathered about the church-porch each with his weapon,and each white and silent, waiting for what should fall.
"Now you wonder where we were. We were in the church, my brother and I;for our people had put us there against our will, to keep us safe, theysaid. Eh! but I was wroth when Olroyd and the rest pushed me through thedoor. However, there we were, locked in; I was up in one window, and mybrother was in the belfry as I thought, each trying to see what wasforward. I saw the two crowds of them, silent and wrathful, with nottwenty yards between them, and a few stones still sailing among thesoldiers now and again; the pikes were being set in array, and our ladswere opening out to let the scythes have free play, when on a sudden Iheard the tinkle of a bell round the outside of the tower, and I climbeddown from my place, and up again to one of the west windows; there was afearsome hush outside now, and I could see some of the soldiers in frontwere uneasy; they had their eyes off the lads and round the side of thetower. And then I saw little Dickie Olroyd in his surplice ringing a belland bearing a candle, and behind him came my brother, in a purple cope Ihad never set eyes on before, with his square cap and a great book, andhis eyes shining out of his head, and his lips opening and mouthing outLatin; and then he stopped, laid the book reverently on a tombstone,lifted both hands, and brought them down with the fingers out, and hiseyes larger than ever. I could see the soldiers were ready to break andscatter, for some were Catholics no doubt, and many more feared thepriest; and then on a sudden my brother caught the candle out of Dickie'shand, blew it out with a great puff, while Dickie rattled upon the bell,and then he dashed the smoking candle among the soldiers. The soldiersbroke and fled like hares, out of the churchyard, down the street anddown the path to Cockermouth; the officer tried to stay them, but 'twasno use; the fear of the Church was upon them, and her Grace herself couldnot have prevailed with them. Well, when they let us out, the lads wereall a-trembling too; for my brother's face, they said, was like thedestroying angel; and I was somewhat queer myself, and I was astonishedtoo; for he was kind-hearted, was my brother, and would not hurt a fly'sbody; much less damn his soul; and, after all, the poor soldiers were notto blame; and 'twas a queer cursing, I thought too, to be done like that;but maybe 'twas a new papal method. I went round to the north chapel, andthere he was taking off his cope.
"'Well,' he said to me, 'how did I do it?'
"'Do it?' I said; 'do it? Why, you've damned those poor lads' soulseternally. The hand of the Lord was with you,' I said.
"'Damned them?' said he; 'nonsense! 'Twas only your old herbal that Iread at them; and the cope too, 'twas inside out.'"
* * * *
Then the old man told Anthony other stories of his earlier life, how hehad been educated at the university and been at Court in King Henry'sreign and Queen Mary's, but that he had lost heart at Elizabeth'saccession, and retired to his hills, where he could serve God accordingto his conscience, and study God's works too, for he was a keennaturalist. He told Anthony many stories about the deer, and the herds ofwild white hornless cattle that were now practically extinct on thehills, and of a curious breed of four-horned sheep, skulls of all ofwhich species hung in his hall, and of the odd drinking-horns thatAnthony had admired the day before. There was one especially that hetalked much of, a buffalo horn on three silver feet fashioned like thelegs of an armed man; round the centre was a filleting inscribed, "_Quipugnat contra tres perdet duos_," and there was a cross patee on thehorn, and two other inscriptions, "_Nolite extollere cornu in altu'_" and"_Qui bibat me adhuc siti'_." Mr. Brian told him it had been brought fromItaly by his grandfather.
They put up a quantity of grouse and several hares as they walked acrossthe moor; one of the hares, which had a curious patch of white betweenhis ears like a little night-cap, startled Mr. Brian so much that heexclaimed aloud, crossed himself, and stood, a little pale, watching thehare's head as it bobbed and swerved among the heather.
"I like it not," he said to Anthony, who inquired what was the matter."Satan hath appeared under some such form to many in history. JoachimusCamerarius, who wrote _de natura daemonum_, tells, I think, a story ofa hare followed by a fox that ran across the path of a young man whowas riding on a horse, and who started in pursuit. Up and down hills anddales they went, and soon the fox was no longer there, and the hare grewlarger and blacker as it went; and the young man presently saw that hewas in a country that he knew not; it was all barren and desolate roundhim, and the sky grew dark. Then he spurred his horse more furiously, andhe drew nearer and nearer to the great hare that now skipped along like astag before him; and then, as he put out his hand to cut the hare down,the creature sprang into the air and vanished, and the horse fell dead;and the man was found in his own meadow by his friends, in a swound, withhis horse dead beside him, and trampled marks round and round the field,and the pug-marks of what seemed like a great tiger beside him, where thebeast had sprung into the air."
When Mr. Brian found that Anthony was interested in such stories, he toldhim plenty of them; especially tales that seemed to join in a strangeunity of life, demons, beasts and men. It was partly, no doubt, hisstudies as a naturalist that led him to insist upon points that unitedrather than divided the orders of creation; and he told him stories firstfrom such writers as Michael Verdunus and Petrus Burgottus, who relateamong other marvels how there are ointments by the use of which shepherdshave been known to change themselves into wolves and tear the sheep thatthey should have protected; and he quoted to him St. Augustine's owntestimony, to the belief that in Italy certain women were able to changethemselves into heifers through the power of witchcraft. Finally, he toldhim one or two tales of his own experience.
"In the year '63," he said, "before my marriage, I was living alone inthe Hall; I was a young man, and did my best to fear nought but deadlysin. I was coming back late from Threlkeld, round the south of Skiddawthat you see over there; and was going with a lantern, for it would beten o'clock at night, and the time of year was autumn. I was still a mileor two from the house, and was saying my beads as I came, for I hold thatis a great protection; when I heard a strange whistling noise, with amurmur in it, high up overhead in the night. 'It is the birds goingsouth,' I said to myself, for you know that great flocks fly by nightwhen the cold begins to set in; but the sound grew louder and moredistinct, and at last I could hear the sound as of words gabbled in aforeign tongue; and I knew they were no birds, though maybe they hadwings like them. But I knew that a Christened soul in grace has nought tofear from hell; so I crossed myself and said my beads, and kept my eyeson the ground, and presently I saw my lights burning in the house, andheard the roar of the stream, and the gabbling above me ceased, as thesound of the running water began. But that night I awoke again and again;and the night seemed hot and close each time, as if a storm was near, butthere was no thunder. Each time I heard the roar of the stream below thehouse, and no more. At last, towards the morning, I set my window widethat looks towards the stream, and leaned out; and there beneath me,crowded against the wall of the house, as I could see in the growinglight, was a great flock of sheep, with all their heads together towardsthe house, as close as a score of dogs could pack them, and they were allstill as death, and their backs were dripping wet; for they had come downthe hills and swum the stream, in order to be near a Christened man andaway from what was abroad that night.
"My shepherds told me the same that day, that everywhere the sheep hadcome down to the houses, as if terrified near to death; and at Keswick,whither I went the next market-day, they told me the same tale, and thattwo men had each found a sheep that could not travel; one had a brokenleg, and the other had been cast; but neither had another mark or woundor any disease upon him, but that both were lying dead upon Skiddaw; andthe look in the dead eyes, they said, was fit to make a man forget hismanhood."
Anthony found the old man the most interesting companion possible, and hepersuaded him to accompany him on several of the expeditions that he hadto make to the hamlets and outlying cottages round, in his spiritualministrations; and both he and Isabel were sincerely sorry when twoSundays had passed away, and they had to begin to move south again intheir journeyings.
* * * *
And so the autumn passed and winter began, and Anthony was slowly movingdown again, supplying the place of priests who had fallen sick or haddied, visiting many almost inaccessible hamlets, and everywhereencouraging the waverers and seeking the wanderers, and rejoicing overthe courageous, and bringing opportunities of grace to many who longedfor them. He met many other well-known priests from time to time, andtook counsel with them, but did not have time to become very intimatewith any of them, so great were the demands upon his services. In thismanner he met John Colleton, the canonist, who had returned from hisbanishment in '87, but found him a little dull and melancholy, though hisdevotion was beyond praise. He met, too, the Jesuit Fathers EdwardOldcorne and Richard Holtby, the former of whom had lately come fromHindlip.
He spent Christmas near Cartmel-in-Furness, and after the new year hadopened, crossed the Ken once more near Beetham, and began to returnslowly down the coast. Everywhere he was deeply touched by the devotionof the people, who, in spite of long months without a priest, had yetclung to the observance of their religion so far as was possible, and nowwelcomed him like an angel of God; and he had the great happiness too ofreconciling some who, yielding to loneliness and pressure, had conformedto the Establishment. In these latter cases he was almost startled by thedepth of Catholic convictions that had survived.
"I never believed it, father," said a young squire to him, near Garstang."I knew that it was but a human invention, and not the Gospel that myfathers held, and that Christ our Saviour brought on earth; but I lostheart, for that no priest came near us, and I had not had the sacramentsfor nearly two years; and I thought that it were better to have somereligion than none at all, so at last I went to church. But there is noneed to talk to me, father, now I have made my confession, for I knowwith my whole soul that the Catholic Religion is the true one--and I haveknown it all the while, and I thank God and His Blessed Mother, and you,father, too, for helping me to say so again, and to come back to grace."
At last, at the beginning of March, Anthony and Isabel found themselvesback again at Speke Hall, warmly welcomed by Mr. Norreys.
"You have done a good work for the Church, Mr. Capell," said his host,"and God will reward you and thank you for it Himself, for we cannot."
"And I thank God," said Anthony, "for the encouragement to faith that thesight of the faithful North has given to me; and pray Him that I maycarry something of her spirit back with me to the south."
There were letters waiting for him at Speke Hall, one from Mr. Buxton,urging them to come back, at least for the present, to Stanfield Place,so soon as the winter work in the north was over; and another from theRector of the College at Douai to the same effect. There was also onemore, written from a little parish in Kent, from a Catholic lady who wasaltogether a stranger to him, but who plainly knew all about him,entreating him to call at her house when he was in the south again; herhusband, she said, had met him once at Stanfield and had been stronglyattracted by him to the Catholic Church, and she believed that if Anthonywould but pay them a visit her husband's conversion would be broughtabout. Anthony could not remember the man's name, but Isabel thought thatshe did remember some such person at a small private conference thatAnthony had given in Mr. Buxton's house, for the benefit of Catholics andthose who were being drawn towards the Religion.
The lady, too, gave him instructions as to how he should come from Londonto her house, recommending him to cross the Thames at a certain spot thatshe described near Greenhithe, and to come on southwards along a routethat she marked for him, to the parish of Stanstead, where she lived.This, then, was soon arranged, and after letters had been sent offannouncing Anthony's movements, he left Speke Hall with Isabel, about afortnight later.