“Do you dislike Oxford?” he asked, observing Penrose attentively.
“Bear with me, Father, if I speak too confidently.
I dislike the deception which has obliged me to conceal that I am a Catholic and a priest.”
Father Benwell set this little difficulty right, with the air of a man who could make benevolent allowance for unreasonable scruples.
“I think, Arthur, you forget two important considerations,” he said.
“In the first place, you have a dispensation from your superiors, which absolves you of all responsibility in respect of the concealment that you have practiced.
In the second place, we could only obtain information of the progress which our Church is silently making at the University by employing you in the capacity of—let me say, an independent observer.
However, if it will contribute to your ease of mind, I see no objection to informing you that you will not be instructed to return to Oxford.
Do I relieve you?”
There could be no question of it.
Penrose breathed more freely, in every sense of the word.
“At the same time,” Father Benwell continued, “let us not misunderstand each other.
In the new sphere of action which we design for you, you will not only be at liberty to acknowledge that you are a Catholic, it will be absolutely necessary that you should do so.
But you will continue to wear the ordinary dress of an English gentleman, and to preserve the strictest secrecy on the subject of your admission to the priesthood, until you are further advised by myself.
Now, dear Arthur, read that paper.
It is the necessary preface to all that I have yet to say to you.”
The “paper” contained a few pages of manuscript relating the early history of Vange Abbey, in the days of the monks, and the circumstances under which the property was confiscated to lay uses in the time of Henry the Eighth.
Penrose handed back the little narrative, vehemently expressing his sympathy with the monks, and his detestation of the King.
“Compose yourself, Arthur,” said Father Benwell, smiling pleasantly.
“We don’t mean to allow Henry the Eighth to have it all his own way forever.”
Penrose looked at his superior in blank bewilderment.
His superior withheld any further information for the present.
“Everything in its turn,” the discreet Father resumed; “the turn of explanation has not come yet.
I have something else to show you first.
One of the most interesting relics in England.
Look here.”
He unlocked a flat mahogany box, and displayed to view some writings on vellum, evidently of great age.
“You have had a little sermon already,” he said. “You shall have a little story now.
No doubt you have heard of Newstead Abbey—famous among the readers of poetry as the residence of Byron?
King Henry treated Newstead exactly as he treated Vange Abbey!
Many years since, the lake at Newstead was dragged, and the brass eagle which had served as the lectern in the old church was rescued from the waters in which it had lain for centuries.
A secret receptacle was discovered in the body of the eagle, and the ancient title-deeds of the Abbey were found in it.
The monks had taken that method of concealing the legal proof of their rights and privileges, in the hope—a vain hope, I need hardly say—that a time might come when Justice would restore to them the property of which they had been robbed.
Only last summer, one of our bishops, administering a northern diocese, spoke of these circumstances to a devout Catholic friend, and said he thought it possible that the precaution taken by the monks at Newstead might also have been taken by the monks at Vange.
The friend, I should tell you, was an enthusiast.
Saying nothing to the bishop (whose position and responsibilities he was bound to respect), he took into his confidence persons whom he could trust. One night—in the absence of the present proprietor, or, I should rather say, the present usurper, of the estate—the lake at Vange was privately dragged, with a result that proved the bishop’s conjecture to be right.
Read those valuable documents.
Knowing your strict sense of honor, my son, and your admirable tenderness of conscience, I wish you to be satisfied of the title of the Church to the lands of Vange, by evidence which is beyond dispute.”
With this little preface, he waited while Penrose read the title-deeds.
“Any doubt on your mind?” he asked, when the reading had come to an end.
“Not the shadow of a doubt.”
“Is the Church’s right to the property clear?”
“As clear, Father, as words can make it.”
“Very good.
We will lock up the documents.
Arbitrary confiscation, Arthur, even on the part of a king, cannot override the law.
What the Church once lawfully possessed, the Church has a right to recover.
Any doubt about that in your mind?”
“Only the doubt of how the Church can recover.
Is there anything in this particular case to be hoped from the law?”