By What Authority?. Robert Hugh Benson

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      "Why did he do that?" interrupted Mr. Norris, astonished.

      "I ask your pardon, sir?" said Lackington interrogatively.

      "That fellow! did you not see him spit at me?"

      "I did not observe it, sir," said the servant; and presently took his leave.

      "Why did that man spit at you, father?" asked Isabel, when they had come indoors.

      "I cannot think, my dear; I have never seen him in my life."

      "I think Lackington knew," said Anthony, with a shrewd air.

      "Lackington! Why, Lackington did not even see him."

      "That was just it," said Anthony.

      Anthony's talk about Cambridge during these first evenings in London was fascinating to Isabel, if not to their father, too. It concerned of course himself and his immediate friends, and dealt with such subjects as cock-fighting a good deal; but he spoke also of the public disputations and the theological champions who crowed and pecked, not unlike cocks themselves, while the theatre rang with applause and hooting. The sport was one of the most popular at the universities at this time. But above all his tales of the Queen's visit a few years before attracted the girl, for was she not to see the Queen with her own eyes?

      "Oh! father," said the lad, "I would I had been there five years ago when she came. Master Taylor told me of it. They acted the Aulularia, you know, in King's Chapel on the Sunday evening. Master Taylor took a part, I forget what; and he told me how she laughed and clapped. And then there was a great disputation before her, one day, in St. Mary's Church, and the doctors argued, I forget what about, but Master Taylor says that of course the Genevans had the best of it; and the Queen spoke, too, in Latin, though she did not wish to, but my lord of Ely persuaded her to it; so you see she could not have learned it by heart, as some said. And she said she would give some great gift to the University; but Master Taylor says they are still waiting for it; but it must come soon, you see, because it is the Queen's Grace who has promised it; but Master Taylor says he hopes she has forgotten it, but he laughs when I ask him what he means, and says it again."

      "Who is this Master Taylor?" asked his father.

      "Oh! he is a Fellow of King's," said Anthony, "and he told me about the Provost too. The Provost is half a Papist, they say: he is very old now, and he has buried all the vessels and the vestments of the Chapel, they say, somewhere where no one knows; and he hopes the old religion will come back again some day; and then he will dig them up. But that is Papistry, and no one wants that at Cambridge. And others say that he is a Papist altogether, and has a priest in his house sometimes. But I do not think he can be a Papist, because he was there when the Queen was there, bowing and smiling, says Master Taylor; and looking on the Queen so earnestly, as if he worshipped her, says Master Taylor, all the time the Chancellor was talking to her before they went into the chapel for the Te Deum. But they wished they had kept some of the things, like the Provost, says Master Taylor, because they were much put to it when her Grace came down for stuffs to cover the communion-tables and for surplices, for Cecil said she would be displeased if all was bare and poor. Is it true, father," asked Anthony, breaking off, "that the Queen likes popish things, and has a crucifix and tapers on the table in her chapel?"

      "Ah! my son," said Mr. Norris, smiling, "you must ask one who knows. And what else happened?"

      "Well," said Anthony, "the best is to come. They had plays, you know, the Dido, and one called Ezechias, before the Queen. Oh! and she sent for one of the boys, they say, and—and kissed him, they say; but I think that cannot be true."

      "Well, my son, go on!"

      "Oh! and some of them thought they would have one more play before she went; but she had to go a long journey and left Cambridge before they could do it, and they went after her to—to Audley End, I think, where she was to sleep, and a room was made ready, and when all was prepared, though her Grace was tired, she came in to see the play. Master Taylor was not there; he said he would rather not act in that one; but he had the story from one who acted, but no one knew, he said, who wrote the play. Well, when the Queen's Grace was seated, the actors came on, dressed, father, dressed"—and Anthony's eyes began to shine with amusement—"as the Catholic Bishops in the Tower. There was Bonner in his popish vestments—some they had from St. Benet's—with a staff and his tall mitre, and a lamb in his arms; and he stared at it and gnashed his teeth at it as he tramped in; and then came the others, all like bishops, all in mass-vestments or cloth cut to look like them; and then at the end came a dog that belonged to one of them, well-trained, with the Popish Host in his mouth, made large and white, so that all could see what it was. Well, they thought the Queen would laugh as she was a Protestant, but no one laughed; some one said something in the room, and a lady cried out; and then the Queen stood up and scolded the actors, and trounced them well with her tongue, she did, and said she was displeased; and then out she went with all her ladies and gentlemen after her, except one or two servants who put out the lights at once without waiting, and broke Bonner's staff, and took away the Host, and kicked the dog, and told them to be off, for the Queen's Grace was angered with them; and so they had to get back to Cambridge in the dark as well as they might."

      "Oh! the poor boys!" said Mrs. Marrett, "and they did it all to please her Grace, too."

      "Yes," said the Alderman, "but the Queen thought it enough, I dare say, to put the Bishops in prison, without allowing boys to make a mock of them and their faith before her."

      "Yes," said Anthony, "I thought that was it."

      When the Alderman came in a day or two later with the news that Elizabeth was to come up from Nonsuch the next day, and to pass down Cheapside on her way to Greenwich, the excitement of Isabel and Anthony was indescribable.

      Cheapside was joyous to see, as the two, with their father behind them talking to a minister whose acquaintance he had made, sat at a first-floor window soon after mid-day, waiting to see the Queen go by. Many of the people had hung carpets or tapestries, some of taffetas and cloth-of-gold, out of their balconies and windows, and the very signs themselves—fantastic ironwork, with here and there a grotesque beast rampant, or a bright painting, or an escutcheon;—with the gay, good-tempered crowds beneath and the strip of frosty blue sky, crossed by streamers from side to side, shining above the towering eaves and gables of the houses, all combined to make a scene so astonishing that it seemed scarcely real to these country children.

      It was yet some time before she was expected; but there came a sudden stir from the upper end of Cheapside, and then a burst of cheering and laughter and hoots. Anthony leaned out to see what was coming, but could make out nothing beyond the head of a horse, and a man driving it from the seat of a cart, coming slowly down the centre of the road. The laughter and noise grew louder as the crowds swayed this way and that to make room. Presently it was seen that behind the cart a little space was kept, and Anthony made out the grey head of a man at the tail of the cart, and the face of another a little way behind; then at last, as the cart jolted past, the two children saw a man stripped to the waist, his hands tied before him to the cart, his back one red wound; while a hangman walked behind whirling his thonged whip about his head and bringing it down now and again on the old man's back. At each lash the prisoner shrank away, and turned his piteous face, drawn with pain, from side to side, while the crowd yelled and laughed.

      "What's it for, what's it for?" inquired Anthony, eager and interested.

      A boy leaning from the next window answered him.

      "He said Jesus Christ was not in heaven."

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