Buxton's spiritual kingdom! Well, Anthony
thought to himself as the weeks went by and his new thoughts sank deeper,
if it is all a superstitious dream, at least it is a noble one!
What, too, was the answer, he asked himself, that England gave to Father
Campion's challenge, and the defence that the Government was preparing
against the spiritual weapons of the Jesuits? New prisons at Framingham
and Battersea; new penalties enacted by Parliament; and, above all, the
unanswerable argument of the rack, and the gallows finally to close the
discussion. And what of the army that was being set in array against the
priests, and that was even now beginning to scour the country round
Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and London? Anthony had to confess to himself
that they were queer allies for the servants of Christ; for traitors,
liars, and informers were among the most trusted Government agents.
In short, as the spring drew on, Anthony was not wholly happy. Again and
again in his own room he studied a little manuscript translation of
Father Campion's "Ten Reasons," that had been taken from a popish
prisoner, and that a friend had given him; and as he read its exultant
rhetoric, he wondered whether the writer was indeed as insincere and
treacherous as Mr. Scot declared. There seemed in the paper a reckless
outspokenness, calculated rather to irritate than deceive.
"I turn to the Sacraments," he read, "none, none, not two, not one, O
holy Christ, have they left.
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