when other systems were dumb;
authoritative when they hesitated; steady when they reeled and fell.
About her throne dwelt her children, from every race and age, secure in
her protection, and wise with her knowledge, when other men faltered and
questioned and doubted: and as Anthony looked up and saw her for the
first time, he recognised her as the Mistress and Mother of his soul; and
although the blinding clouds of argument and theory and self-distrust
rushed down on him again and filled his eyes with dust, yet he knew he
had seen her face in very truth, and that the memory of that vision could
never again wholly leave him.

CHAPTER VI

SOME CONTRASTS

In the Lambeth household the autumn passed by uneventfully. The rigour of
the Archbishop's confinement had been mitigated, and he had been allowed
now and again to visit his palace at Croydon; but his inactivity still
continued as the sequestration was not removed; Elizabeth had refused to
listen to the petition of Convocation in '80 for his reinstatement.
Anthony went down to the old palace once or twice with him; and was
brought closer to him in many ways; and his affection and tenderness
towards his master continually increased. Grindal was a pathetic figure
at this time, with few friends, in poor health, out of favour with the
Queen, who had disregarded his existence; and now his afflictions were
rendered more heavy than ever by the blindness that was creeping over
him. The Archbishop, too, in his loneliness and sorrow, was drawn closer
to his young officer than ever before; and gradually got to rely upon him
in many little ways. He would often walk with Anthony in the gardens at
Lambeth, leaning upon his arm, talking to him of his beloved flowers and
herbs which he was now almost too blind to see; telling him queer facts
about the properties of plants; and even attempting to teach him a little
irrelevant botany now and then.

They were walking up and down together, soon after Campion's arrest, one
August morning before prayers in a little walled garden on the river that
Grindal had laid out with great care in earlier years.

"Ah," said the old man, "I am too blind to see my flowers now, Mr.
Norris; but I love them none the less; and I know their places. Now
there," he went on, pointing with his stick, "there I think grows my
mastick or marum; perhaps I smell it, however. What is that flower like,
M