Guy Thorne

“ I have had this inn for thirty years, my father before me for fifty; and in this inn, sir, I mean to die. It is nothing to me whether bread and wine are but bread and wine, or whether they be That which all must now believe. I am but a simple man, and let wiser than I decide, keeping always with those who must certainly know better than I. Meanwhile I shall sell my beer and bring up my family as an honest man should do—God's death! What is that?"
He started from his chair as Johnnie did likewise, for even as the man spoke a most horrid and untoward noise filled all the air. ”

“ I am Catholic. I have always been Catholic. But doctrine, and a purely political dominion from Rome, aye, or from Spain either, is not what we of the City, and who control the finances of the kingdom much more than less, desire or wish to see. After all, Mr. Commendone, I trust I make myself clearly understood to you, and that you are of the same temper and mind as your father and myself; after all is loudly set and perchance badly done, we have to look to the upholding of the realm, inside and out, rather than to be fine upon points of doctrine. ”

“ There is a carrack sailing for the port of Rome this very night, and we can all be aboard of it, and save ourselves, if thou wilt do what we have made a plan of."
"And what is that?" Johnnie asked.
"'Tis a dangerous and deadly thing. We may win a way to safety and joy, or it may be that we perish. I'll put it upon the throw of the die, and so must you, Señor."
Johnnie clutched Alonso by the arm. "Man! man!" he said, "there is some doubt in your voice. What is it? what is it? I would do anything but lose my immortal soul to save the Señorita from what is to be done to her to-night." ”

“ The air of the closet was heavy and oppressive, and glancing at the windows, he saw that it was no fancy of strained and excited nerves, but that the sky over the river was darkening, and the buildings upon London Bridge stood out with singular sharpness.
"A storm of thunder," said Don Diego indifferently, and then, with a gleam in his eyes, "and such a storm shall presently break over England that the air shall be cleared of heresy by the lightnings of Holy Church—ah! here cometh His Grace of London!" ”

“ Young as he was, Johnnie had already begun to cultivate that cool scrutiny and estimation of character which was to stand him in such stead during the years that were to come. He watched the face of Edmund Bonner, or Boner, as the Bishop was more generally called at that time, with intense interest. Boner was to the Queen what the Dominican Deza was to her husband. The two priests ruled two monarchs.
In the yellow candle-light, an oasis of radiance in the murk and gloom of the storm, the faces of the people round the table hid nothing. ”

“ Alonso ran back into the room, caught up a pail of water, and poured it upon the gathering flames. There was a hiss, and a column of steam rose up into the alcove.
He turned his head and looked at the motionless form of the Inquisitor. The face was all black and red, and rising into white blisters.
He turned to Commendone. "He's dead, or dying," he said, "and now, thou hast indeed cast the die, and all is over. Thy man hath spoilt it all, and nothing remains for us but death."
"Silence!" Johnnie answered, captain of himself now, and of all of them there. ”

“ It is the horror of the Inquisition that while any one may be haled before it on a complaint which is anonymous, hardly any one ever escapes certain penalties. Señor," his voice trembled, and a deep note of feeling came into it, "if the fate of that wretch is heavy who, being innocent of heresy, will not confess his guilt, and is therefore tortured until he confesses imaginary guilt, and is then burned to death, hardly less is the misery of the victim who recants or repenteth and is freed from the penalty of death." ”

“ At no time, in all probability, has any man or woman escaped a long sleepless night in a darkened room. The candle is out; the silence begins to nibble at the nerves; there is no sound but the uneasy tossing upon the bed. It seems, one would rather say, that there is no sound save only that made by the sufferer. At such hours comes a dread weariness of life, a restlessness which is but the physical embroidery upon despair. The body itself is at the lowest pitch of its vitality. ”

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

“ Cannot ye see that if ye kill His Highness, England will not be big enough to hide thee? Cannot ye see, also, that if thou dost not kill him, but let him go, England will not be big enough to hide thee either? Master, we must settle this business with speed, and get far away before the hue and cry, for I tell thee, that this bloody night's work will bring thee, and Mistress Elizabeth, and myself to the rack and worse torture, to the stake, and worse than that. Haste! speed! we must be gone. There is but one thing to be done."
"And what is that, John Hull?" ”

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

“ The Bishop was outside all this, impatient of it, indeed; but even while the groom of the body twirled his moustache with an almost mechanical gesture of disgust and misliking, he felt the power of the man.
And no historian has ever ventured to deny that. The natural son of the hedge-priest, George Savage—himself a bastard—walked life with a shield of brutal power as his armour. The blood-stained man from whom—a few years after—Queen Elizabeth turned away with a shudder of irrepressible horror, was the man who had dared to browbeat and bully Pope Clement VII himself. ”

“ Don Diego Deza stood behind Philip's chair.
The Queen turned to John.
"Stand at the door, Mr. Commendone," she said, "and with your sword drawn. No one is to come in. We are engaged upon affairs of state."
Her voice was a second to the continuous mutter of the thunder, low, fierce, and charged with menace. Save for the candles, the room was now quite dark.
A furious wind had risen and blew great gouts of hot rain upon the window-panes with a rattle as of distant artillery.
Johnnie drew his sword, held it point downwards, and stood erect, guarding the door. ”

“ Her eyes had fallen upon the broad figure of the serving-man in his leather coat, his short sword hanging from his belt, his hand upon his dagger.
She might well look in alarm, this ancient, evil woman, for the keen brown face of the servant was gashed and lined with a terrible and quiet fury, the lips curled away from the teeth, the fore part of the body was bent forward a little as if to spring.
Johnnie took two steps up to the woman. ”

“ And now you go to run a little course, to scurry hither and thither before the dogs are at your throats. You are all prepared to die. I also am ready to die if it must be so, but it need not be so if you will listen to me."
"What mean you?" Johnnie said.
As he spoke he saw, with a mingling of surprise and disgust, that the big painted face of Madame La Motte was full of animation and excitement. She seemed as if the events of the last hour had but stirred her to endeavour, had given a fillip to her sluggish life. ”

“ Now the opportunity presented itself, though it was not for mere convenience that Commendone had engaged his new servitor.
He had not the slightest doubt in his own mind that the man was sent to him—put in his way—by the Power which ruled and controlled the fortunes of men. Living as he did, and had done for many years, in a quiet, fastidious, but very real dream and communion with things that the hand or body do not touch and see, he had always known within himself that the goings-in and goings-out of those who believe depend not at all upon chance. ”

“ There must have been some truth in her stories, because Commendone, who was a thoroughly well-bred man, could see that her manners were those of his own class. There was certainly a free-and-easiness, a rakish bonhomie, and a caustic wit which was no part of the attributes of the great ladies Johnnie had met—always excepting the wit. This side of the old woman came from the depths into which she had descended; but in other essentials she was a lady, and the young man, with his limited experience of life, marvelled at it, and more than once thanked God that things were no worse. ”

“ Commendone said, "but I felt bound in duty to put your risk before you. Yet if it is as you say, and the power of the merchant princes of the City is so great, why do those about the Queen burn and throw in prison so many good men for their religion?"
"Ah, there you have me," said the captain. "Religion is a very different thing—a plague to religion, say I—though I would not say it unless I were walking my own deck and upon the high seas. But, look you, religion is very different. ”

“ Never will he learn that the world will not rest on its axis while he writeth directions of the way it is to turn."
Sir Henry shook himself like a dog.
"And the Queen mad for such a husband as this!" he said.
"Aye, worships him as it were a saint in a niche. A skilled lutanist with a touch on the strings remarkable for its science, speaking many languages with fluency and grace, Latin in especial, Her Grace yet thinks His Highness a great statesman and of a polished easy wit."
"How blind is love, Johnnie! blinder still when it cometh late. A cap out of fashion and ill-worn. ”

“ Iago sailed for Cadiz a great Spanish galley came up the Tagus, a long and splendid ship, gliding swiftly up the river with its two banks of oars. It was the first galley Johnnie had ever seen, and he shuddered as he thought of the chained slaves below, who propelled that sort of vessel, which was spoken of in England as a floating hell. The galley lay at Lisbon for several hours, and then at evening left the wharf where she had been tied and once more went down the river for the open sea. ”

“ He took nothing in the Common Room, however, but John Hull brought him food in his own chamber.
The man's brown, keen face beamed with happiness. He was like some faithful dog that had lost one master and found another. He could not do enough for Johnnie now—after the visit to Mr. Cressemer's house. He took charge of him as if he had been his man for years. There was a quiet assumption which secretly delighted Commendone. There they were, master and man, a relationship fixed and settled. ”

“ It is not honest torture such as we have in Paris."
Commendone shuddered. "Honest torture!" he said. "There is no torture which is honest, nor could be liked by Christ our Lord. I saw a saint burned to his death a few weeks agone. It taught me a lesson."
The little Spaniard tittered. "It must be! It must be!" he said; "and who are you and I, Señor, to flout the decrees of Holy Church? The burning doth not last for long. I have seen a many burned upon the Quemadero, and twenty minutes is the limit of their suffering. It is not so in the dungeons of the Holy Office." ”

“ But as for thee, John Commendone of Kent, i' faith, the women are quarrelling for thee! Eyes grow bright when thou comest into the dance. A week agone, at the barrier fight in the great hall, Cicily Thwaites, that I had marked out for myself to be her knight, was looking at thee with the eyes of a duck in a tempest of thunder. So that is that, Johnnie. ”

“ The Posada was an old Moorish palace, as beautiful under the sunlight as an Oriental song, and when they rose in the morning and Johnnie had despatched a serving-man to find if Don José Senebria was in residence, he and his companions wakened to the realisation of a loveliness of which they had never dreamed. ”