There was a table at the farther end where they were
sitting, and as Anthony looked round he saw through openings all round in
the inner wall the little passage where the sentries walked, and heard
their footfalls.
The preliminaries of identification and the like had been disposed of at
previous examinations before Mr. Young--a name full of sinister
suggestiveness to the Catholics; and so, after he had been given a seat
at a little distance from the table behind which the Commissioners sat,
he was questioned minutely as to his journey in the North of England.
"What were you there for, Mr. Norris?" inquired the Secretary of the
Council.
"I went to see friends, and to do my business."
"Then that resolves itself into two heads: One, Who are your friends.
Two, What was your business?"
Now it had been established beyond a doubt at previous examinations that
he was a priest; a student of Douai who had apostatised had positively
identified him; so Anthony answered boldly:
"My friends were Catholics; and my business was the reconciling of souls
to their Creator."
"And to the Pope of Rome," put in Wade.
"Who is Christ's Vicar," continued Anthony.
"And a pestilent knave," concluded a fiery-faced man whom Anthony did not
know.
But the Commissioners wanted more than that; it was true that Anthony was
already convicted of high treason in having been ordained beyond the seas
and in exercising his priestly functions in England; but the exacting of
the penalty for religion alone was apt to raise popular resentment; and
it was far preferable in the eyes of the authorities to entangle a priest
in the political net before killing him.
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