Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/210

 202

was mid-winter before the reek went up once more from the Wise Man’s chimney. A few days after the thin blue jet of smoke was first seen from the Castle terrace, now occupied only by sentinels, the returned tenant heard a timid knock at his door. It was Polly, grave and resolute, but plainly in need of resolution.

“May I come in?” she asked.

“That depends on a condition which you can hardly have forgotten, Polly. You must bring me no state secrets, you know. I can hear nothing of any plots.”

“I do not forget that, nor—nor some other things you said when I came before. But I am come now to ask,—not to tell.”

“You can ask. About the answering, we will see.”

“I am so perplexed about something! And I am sure you, who know so many things, can tell me the truth. I want to know whether Sampson Rudd is really a Catholic or a Protestant.”

“Sampson Rudd! Why, I thought he was your husband.”

“To be sure he is; and that is why it is so necessary for me to know: and nobody but a conjurer could find it out to a certainty. To hear him tell when he and I are alone, and nobody within hearing, of the execution of those gentlemen, Mr. Felton and Mr. Stansbury, one would think he was as true a Catholic as they were; but—”

“Did he see them die?”

“He did. Mr. Felton denied nothing. There would have been no use in it; for there were eyes abroad that night that saw him fasten that terrible paper on the gates. He said he had risked his life for the true religion of the kingdom, and for its true sovereign; as he had failed, he had no more to say but that he trusted that true sovereign would not regret his fate so much as he did her disappointment. Mr. Stansbury spoke quite differently. He said he was not the man to go into any plots beyond that of circumventing salmon in the rivers, and foxes on the moors. Where his friend was, there he was; and therefore such danger as his friend was in, he was in too: but it was his friendship that accidentally brought him there, and not any artful treason. He had been aware of a few things; but no gentleman of spirit would expect him to babble of them: and if he was to die for holding his tongue about other men’s secrets, so be it! He had none of his own. He had nothing to repent of; and a man could not die at a better time than when he could say that. Sampson feels all this very much.”

“How did her Grace feel it? I suppose she knew it before she left Tutbury?”

“There was no saying how she felt any one thing when there were so many. She cried lapfuls of tears before I was sent away; and as she rode by in departing, she looked as if her whole life must be as full of tears as her days and nights have been of late. But how to speak of her,—how to think of her now, I don’t know, unless I knew what Sampson really is. My father says if I will own myself bewitched by all these people, he will forgive me; and I can’t be sure whether I have been bewitched or not; only, I know that I had no hand in my little brother’s death.”

“Certainly,—certainly, Polly. Your father will grow reasonable about that. But how can he and Sampson agree?”

That was the question. Polly sometimes thought Sampson would, after all, go into the pulpit (studying a year for it), if the Earl or anyone would ask him, as had been once thought of; and he certainly spoke of the Protestant confessors abroad as if he had been one with them; yet, not only had Father Berthon married him and Polly, but there was another sign,—nothing could induce Sampson to get rid of something which he carried about with him, and which seemed to Polly very dangerous. She feared she was wrong in bringing it; but she did so need advice from one who knew everything! And she produced the medal. Was it, or was it not, of the nature of a charm? If it was dangerous, might she drop it into the Dove, and say she had lost it?”

After close examination, the Wise Man told her she must restore it to her husband, and never tell that any one had seen it. What danger there was in it, her husband must be aware of. As for the rest,—the question of Catholic and Protestant,—how was it with Polly herself? Her position at home seemed to depend on that.

This was the very difficulty. Polly really had no idea what was true, when Father Berthon had told her one thing, and Dr. Pantlin had said the very opposite, and every church preacher had abused Dr. Pantlin. If she could find out what Sampson really believed, she would be of his mind: and this the Wise Man thought was decidedly the best way.

But the neighbours! They would never leave her in peace about her little brother having died when all the household but herself were in the harvest-field. Cicely and Dolly would always look askance at her on account of what they said they had seen: and she was very unhappy.

The Wise Man had skill enough to see what counsel would be welcome. There were many places in England now where Sampson’s handicraft prospered and was valued; and nowhere more than in a part of London where silk-weavers from foreign parts were said to have settled in great numbers. Sampson must know all about those people and their trade. He had better give his mind to his loom, whether he lived in one place or another.

There was one person in the neighbourhood of Tutbury Castle who was not surprised to hear, in early spring, that Sampson and Polly Rudd had stolen away one day, while the household were out sowing. Three years after, it was reported by the pedlars who visited Needwood Forest that the black silk hood and mantle which were a part of Queen Bess’s mourning for the Huguenots, after St. Bartholomew’s day, were from the loom of one Sampson Rudd, who was thenceforth the craftsman in silk wares most favoured by the whole Court.