Читать книгу The Condition of Catholics Under James I - Gerard John - Страница 6

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“On learning the seizure of our house at London,” Father Gerard continues, “and my host's imprisonment, I went down to his country house to settle with his wife and friends what was to be done, and put all our effects in safe keeping. As we wanted the altar furniture for the approaching Easter, we sent very little of it to our friends. Of course I could not stay away from my entertainers at so holy a time, especially as they were in sorrow and trouble. In Holy Week the treacherous servant came from [pg li] London with a letter from his master, wherein the latter set forth all that had befallen him, the questions that had been put to him, and his answers. This letter, though seen, had been let pass for the credit of the bearer, to give him a chance of seeing whether I was in the house at this solemn season. He brought me another letter from my servant, whose capture I spoke of above. When from the traitor's information they knew him to be my servant, hoping to wrest from him the disclosure of his friends and abettors, they kept him in solitary confinement in the loathsome prison of Bridewell. The purport of the letter was how he had denied everything,53 what threats had been held out to him, and what his sufferings were in prison. He had, he said, hardly enough black bread to keep him from starving; his abode was a narrow strongly-built cell, in which there was no bed, so that he had to sleep sitting on the window-sill, and was months without taking off his clothes. There was a little straw in the place, but it was so trodden down and swarming with vermin that he could not lie on it. But what was most intolerable to him was their leaving all that came from him in an open vessel in that narrow den, so that he was continually distressed and almost stifled by the smell. Besides all this, he was daily awaiting an examination by torture.

“While reading the letter to my hostess in presence of the traitor, I chanced to say at this last part, ‘I wish I could bear some of his tortures, so that there might be less for him.’ It was these words of mine that let us know later on who was the traitor, and author of all our woes. For when I was taken and questioned, and declared I was quite unacquainted with the family, those who were examining me forgot their secret, and cried out, ‘What lies you tell!—did you not say so-and-so before such a lady, as you read your servant's letter?’ But I still denied it, giving them [pg lii] good reasons, however, why, even if it had been true, I could and ought to have denied it.54 But to take up the thread of my story.

“The traitor on his return to London informed our enemies of everything. Forthwith they sent two of their best messengers, or pursuivants as they call them, to two gentlemen of the county, who were Justices of the Peace, bidding them search the house carefully with their men. The traitor also returned on Easter Sunday, on pretence of bringing a fresh letter from London, but in reality to play into the hands of our enemies and acquaint them with our plans. On Easter Monday” [April 1, 1594], “on account of the dangers that threatened us, we rose before our usual hour, and were trying to get ready for Mass before sunrise, when suddenly we heard the noise of horses galloping, and of a multitude of men coming to surround the house and cut off all escape. Seeing what was going to happen, we had the doors kept fast. Meanwhile the ornaments were pulled off the altar, the hiding-places thrown open, my books and papers carried into them, and an effort was made to hide me and all my effects together. I wanted to get into a hiding-place near the dining-room, as well to be further from the chapel and the more suspicious part of the house, as because there was store of provisions there, to wit, a bottle of wine, and certain light but strengthening food, such as biscuit made to keep, &c. Moreover, I hoped to hear our enemies talk, wherein there might be something, perchance, which bore upon [pg liii] our interests. These reasons, then, moved me to choose that place, and, in sooth, it was very fit and safe for hiding in. But God so willed it, that the mistress of the house should in nowise agree. She would have me go into a place near the chapel, where the altar furniture could sooner be stowed with me. I yielded, though there was nothing there for me to eat in case the search should last long. I went in, then, after everything was safe that needed putting away.

“Scarcely had I done so, when the searchers broke down the door, and forcing their way in, spread through the house with great noise and racket. Their first step was to lock up the mistress of the house in her own room with her maids; and the Catholic servants they kept locked up in divers places in the same part of the house. They then took to themselves the whole house, which was of a good size, and made a thorough search in every part, not forgetting even to look under the tiles of the roof. The darkest corners they examined with the help of candles. Finding nothing whatever, they began to break down certain places that they suspected. They measured the walls with long rods, so that if they did not tally, they might pierce the part not accounted for. Thus they sounded the walls and all the boards, to find out and break into any hollow places that there might be.

“They spent two days in this work without finding anything. Thinking, therefore, that I had gone on Easter Sunday, the two magistrates went away on the second day, leaving the pursuivants to take the mistress of the house, and all her Catholic servants of both sexes, to London, to be examined and imprisoned. They meant to leave some who were not Catholics to keep the house, the traitor being one of them. The good lady was pleased at this, for she hoped that he would be the means of freeing me, and rescuing me from death: for she knew that I had made up my mind to suffer and die of starvation between two walls, rather than come forth and save my own life at the expense of others. In fact, during those four days that I lay hid, I had nothing to eat but a biscuit or two and a little quince jelly, which my hostess had at hand and gave me as I was going in. She did not look for any more, as she supposed that the search would not last [pg liv] beyond a day. But now that two days were gone, and she was to be carried off on the third with all her trusty servants, she began to be afraid of my dying of sheer hunger. She bethought herself then of the traitor, who she heard was to be left behind. He had made a great fuss and show of eagerness in withstanding the searchers, when they first forced their way in. For all that, she would not have let him know of the hiding-places, had she not been in such straits. Thinking it better, however, to rescue me from certain death, though it was at her own risk, she charged him, when she was taken away, and every one had gone, to go into a certain room, call me by my wonted name, and tell me that the others had been taken to prison, but that he was left to deliver me. I would then answer, she said, from behind the wainscot where I lay concealed.

“The traitor promised to obey faithfully, but was faithful only to the faithless, for he unfolded the whole matter to the ruffians who had been left behind. No sooner had they heard it, than they called back the magistrates who had departed. These returned early in the morning, and renewed the search. They measured and sounded everywhere, much more carefully than before, especially in the chamber above mentioned, in order to find out some hollow place. But finding nothing whatever during the whole of the third day, they purposed on the morrow to strip off all the wainscot of that room. Meanwhile they set guards in all the rooms about, to watch all night lest I should escape. I heard from my hiding-place the pass-word which the captain of the band gave to his soldiers, and I might have got off by using it, were it not that they would have seen me issuing from my retreat: for there were two on guard in the chapel where I got into my hiding-place, and several also in the large wainscotted room which had been pointed out to them.

“But mark the wonderful providence of God. Here was I in my hiding-place. The way I got into it was by taking up the floor, made of wood and bricks, under the fire-place. The place was so constructed that a fire could not be lit in it without damaging the house; though we made a point of keeping wood there, as if it were meant for a fire. Well, the men on the night-watch lit a fire in this very grate, and began chatting together [pg lv] close to it. Soon the bricks, which had not bricks but wood underneath them, got loose, and nearly fell out of their places, as the wood gave way. On noticing this and probing the bottom with a stick, they found that the bottom was made of wood; whereupon they remarked that this was something curious. I thought that they were going there and then to break open the place and enter; but they made up their minds at last to put off further examination till next day. Meanwhile, though nothing was further from my thoughts than any chance of escaping, I besought the Lord earnestly, that if it were for the glory of His Name, I might not be taken in that house, and so endanger my entertainers; nor in any other house, where others would share my disaster. My prayer was heard. I was preserved in that house in a wonderful manner; and when, a few days after, I was taken, it was without prejudice to any one, as shall be presently seen.

“Next morning, therefore, they renewed the search most carefully, everywhere except in the top chamber which served as a chapel, and in which the two watchmen had made a fire over my head, and had noticed the strange make of the grate. God had blotted out of their memory all remembrance of the thing. Nay, none of the searchers entered the place the whole day, though it was the one that was most open to suspicion, and if they had entered, they would have found me without any search; rather, I should say, they would have seen me, for the fire had burnt a great hole in my hiding-place, and had I not got a little out of the way, the hot embers would have fallen on me. The searchers, forgetting or not caring about this room, busied themselves in ransacking the rooms below, in one of which I was said to be. In fact, they found the other hiding-place to which I thought of going, as I mentioned before. It was not far off, so I could hear their shouts of joy when they first found it. But after joy comes grief; and so it was with them. The only thing that they found, was a goodly store of provision laid up. Hence they may have thought that this was the place that the mistress of the house meant; in fact, an answer might have been given from it to the call of a person in the room mentioned by her.

“They stuck to their purpose, however, of stripping off all the wainscot of the other large room. So they set a man to work [pg lvi] near the ceiling, close to the place where I was: for the lower part of the walls was covered with tapestry, not with wainscot. So they stripped off the wainscot all round, till they came again to the very place where I lay, and there they lost heart and gave up the search. My hiding-place was in a thick wall of the chimney, behind a finely laid and carved mantel-piece. They could not well take the carving down without risk of breaking it. Broken, however, it would have been, and that into a thousand pieces, had they any conception that I could be concealed behind it. But knowing that there were two flues, they did not think that there could be room enough there for a man. Nay, before this, on the second day of the search, they had gone into the room above, and tried the fire-place through which I had got into my hole. They then got into the chimney by a ladder to sound with their hammers. One said to another in my hearing, ‘Might there not be a place here for a person to get down into the wall of the chimney below, by lifting up this hearth?’ ‘No,’ answered one of the pursuivants, whose voice I knew, ‘you could not get down that way into the chimney underneath, but there might easily be an entrance at the back of this chimney.’ So saying, he gave the place a kick. I was afraid that he would hear the hollow sound of the hole where I was. But God, Who set bounds to the sea, said also to their dogged obstinacy, ‘Thus far shalt thou go, and no further;’ and He spared His sorely-stricken children, and gave them not up into their persecutors' hands, nor allowed utter ruin to light upon them for their great charity towards me.

“Seeing that their toil availed them naught, they thought that I had escaped somehow, and so they went away at the end of four days, leaving the mistress and her servants free. The yet unbetrayed traitor stayed after the searchers were gone. As soon as the doors of the house were made fast, the mistress came to call me, another four-days-buried Lazarus, from what would have been my tomb had the search continued a little longer. For I was all wasted and weakened, as well with hunger, as with want of sleep, and with having to sit so long in such a narrow place. The mistress of the house, too, had eaten nothing whatever during the whole time, not only to share my distress, and to try on herself how long I could live without food, but chiefly to draw [pg lvii] down the mercy of God on me, herself, and her family, by this fasting and prayer. Indeed, her face was so changed when I came out, that she seemed quite another woman, and I should not have known her but for her voice and her dress. After coming out, I was seen by the traitor, whose treachery was still unknown to us. He did nothing then, not even send after the searchers, as he knew that I meant to be off before they could be recalled.”