"I know not whether they merit the praise men give to them.

Methinks Brother Emmanuel could teach them many things both in precept and practice. But it is not for me to be the judge in such matters; yet if he were in any kind of peril, I would lay down my life to save him!"

The boy's eyes kindled at the thought. He cherished for his preceptor an ardent and enthusiastic love, and he had his share of that chivalrous devotion and self-sacrifice which has been the brightest ornament of days that have much of darkness and cruelty to disgrace them.

His face wore a very earnest look as he set about his homely task of cleaning and setting in order this secret chamber. He was more than two hours over his task, for he went through it with unwonted energy. The place looked almost tempting before he had done with it, and he looked about him with satisfied eyes at the close of his labours.

There was a convenient spout, meant to carry off the rain water from the complex level of the old roof, which made an excellent subst.i.tute for a dust shoot. It could be got at from this place without difficulty, and Edred shot down his rubbish without any trouble through a funnel-like piece of wood he and his brothers had contrived for the purpose many years before. Then he stood quite still at the aperture whence the soft breeze came blowing in, lost in thought.

"It doth get very hot here in the summer days," he remarked, "and in especial at this end of the room, where it abuts upon the leads.

It is cooler yonder, but then it is also darker. The air and the light come in at this side, but so does the heat likewise. And how thirsty one gets, too! My throat is parched and dry. I mind me how poor Warbel suffered in like manner when he was here. Food could be brought in without trouble. I will ama.s.s even now by slow degrees some of those hard oaten cakes that keep good for weeks, and some salted venison that would last the winter through.

"But water--how could that be brought? Suppose that we too were watched; suppose we dared not go through the secret door? What would become of the prisoner?

"I must talk to Bertram and Julian about that. Bertram has a wonderful gift for getting out of such difficulties; he has a marvellous quick wit. We never thought in old days how the water was to be conveyed; we thought a few bottles of wine would last a lifetime. But to die of thirst would be worse than to face one's foes. I shall not really rest till I have thought how such a danger might be guarded against."

Edred left the place with a thoughtful air. He gained their own long sleeping room without adventure. n.o.body was ever there at this hour of the day, and he sat down on his bed to think and plan.

There his brothers found him later when they came rushing up tumultuously to find him.

"Ha! thou art there. We have been seeking thee everywhere. What hast thou been doing, brother?"

"I have been up to the room," answered the boy. "I have been making it all ready. I was something disturbed by what chanced yester-afternoon. I told thee of Brother Fabian and his evil looks?"

The other two nodded.

"Yes, verily; but they be brothers of one fraternity. Surely one Benedictine would not hurt another?"

"I know not that. I was talking this day with Warbel. He has been about in the world. He has seen priests and monks accused of heresy the one by the other; and none are so fearfully persecuted as those who wear the tonsure, if men do but suspect them of that sin.

"Brother Emmanuel a heretic!" cried Bertram, with flashing eyes. "I would force the word down the false throat of any who dared to say so! Brother Emmanuel is a right holy man. Art thou mad, Edred, to think such a thing?"

The boy shook his head doubtfully.

"I would I were," he replied; "but methinks Brother Emmanuel himself thinks that peril may menace him. I understand not rightly these matters; but I saw that yesterday upon his face which showed me that he felt he stood something in peril, albeit he has no fear.

He is not of the stuff of which cowards are made."

Julian's eyes were wide with affright.

"They say the Lollards and heretics are to be sought out and burned, and that right soon," he said, in low, awe-struck tones.

"Some of our people heard it today from those at Mortimer. The Lord of Mortimer has become very zealous to help the priests and monks to scent out all suspected of heresy and make a great example of them.

"Edred, thou dost not think they will take Brother Emmanuel--and--burn--him?"

The last words were little more than a whisper.

"I will die sooner than see it done!" cried the boy pa.s.sionately.

"But in these days no man may say who is safe. Therefore went I up to the chamber this very day to set it in order;" and then he told his brothers of the difficulty that had beset him there, and how he felt no security for any person in hiding there so long as the difficulty of conveying water to him remained so great.

Bertram grasped the situation in a moment. He well knew that if any person were suspected of lying hidden in the house, a close watch might well be kept upon every member of the household, and that it might be hard indeed to pay more than a very occasional visit to the prisoner. If, for instance, suspicion were to fall upon the boys in this matter, it would be probable they would be placed under some restraint; they might be carried off to the priory and forced to do some penance there. It would never do for the prisoner to be entirely dependent upon them for supplies of the precious commodity; and yet what else was to be done?

"I must think about it," cried Bertram. "I shall never rest till I have thought of some method. Would we had not left it so long! We have had all these years to make our plans, and we have never thought of this thing till trouble seems like to be at the very doors.

"Still it may but be our fantasy. Neither Brother Emmanuel nor any other may need the shelter of this room. We will trust it may be so.

"Yet I will cudgel my brains for a plan. It would be a fearful thing to know him to be shut up here, and yet to be unable to visit him with the necessaries of life. How poor Warbel drank when he issued forth that night. Methinks I see him now. One would have thought he had never tasted water before."

"But we came not to talk of all this," interrupted Julian, who had been evincing a few signs of impatience latterly; "we came to tell of the fair held today and tomorrow at Chadwick. Our father says we may go thither tomorrow if we will. Warbel says they will bait a bull, and perhaps a bear; and that there will be fighting with the quarterstaff and shooting with cross and long bow, and many other like spectacles. He will attend us, and we may be off with the light of day, an we will. That is what we came to tell thee, Edred."

Edred was boy enough to be well pleased at this news. Any variety in the day's round was pleasing to the lads, who found life a little monotonous, albeit pleasant enough. It was a relief, too, to turn from grave thoughts and anxious forebodings to the antic.i.p.ation of simpler pleasures, and the boys all ran to seek Warbel and ask him what these village fairs were like; for they had been much interrupted during the recent wars, and only now that peace had been for some years established did they begin to revive and gain their old characteristics.

At break of day on the morning following, the little party started forth on foot to walk the five miles which separated them from the village of Chadwick. It was a pleasant enough walk through the green forest paths before the heat of the day had come. The three boys and Warbel headed the party, and were followed by some eight or ten men of various degree, some bent on a day's pleasure for themselves, others there with a view of attending upon their master's sons.

Bertram felt that he could have dispensed with any attendance save that of Warbel; but Sir Oliver had given his own orders. With so powerful and jealous a neighbour within easy reach of the village, he felt bound to be careful of his children. They were but striplings after all, and doubtless his unscrupulous neighbour would be delighted to hold one or more as a hostage should excuse arise for opening hostilities of any kind. He knew well the unscrupulous character of the man with whom he had to deal, and he acted with prudence and foresight accordingly.

The little village when reached proved to be all en fete. Rude arches of greenery crossed every pathway to the place, and all the people had turned out in their holiday dresses upon the green to join in the dances and see the sights. There was a miracle play going on in one place, repeated throughout the day to varying groups of spectators. In another corner some rude gipsy juggling was to be seen, at which the rustic yokels gazed with wondering eyes. There were all the usual country games in full swing; and the baiting of a great bull, which was being led to the centre of the green, attracted the attention of the bulk of the spectators, and drew them away from other sports. The actors in the miracle play threw off their dresses to come and witness this delightful pastime, and hardly any of those present seemed to regard for a moment the sufferings of the poor brute, or the savage nature of the whole performance.

Edred, however, belonged to that very small minority, and whilst his two brothers pressed into the ring, he wandered away elsewhere to see what was to be seen. His attention was attracted by a little knot of persons gathered together under the shade of a great oak tree, rather far away from the green that was the centre of attraction. The shade looked inviting, now that the heat was growing greater, and the boy felt some curiosity to know what was the attraction which kept this little group so compact and quiet.

On the green were shouting and yelling and noise of every description; but Edred could hear no sound of any kind proceeding from this little group till he approached quite near, and then he was aware of the sound of a single voice speaking in low tones and very earnestly.

When he got nearer still he saw that the speaker was a little hunchback, and that he had in his hand a small book from which he was reading aloud to the people about him. And this fact surprised the boy not a little, for it was very unusual for any person in the lower ranks of life to be able to read; and yet this man was evidently in poor circ.u.mstances, for his clothes were shabby and his hands were hardened by manual toil.

Drawing nearer in great curiosity, Edred became aware that what the hunchback was reading was nothing more or less than a part of the gospel narrative in the English tongue, to which the people about him were listening in amazement, and with keen curiosity and attention.

Edred was familiar enough with the Latin version of the Scriptures, and had studied them under the guidance of Brother Emmanuel with great care and attention; but he had never yet heard the words read out in their entirety in his native tongue, and he was instantly struck and fascinated by the freshness and suggestiveness of the familiar language when used for this purpose. He was conscious that it gave to the words a new life and meaning; that it seemed, as it were, to drive them home to the heart in a new fashion, and to make them the property of the listener as they could never be when a dead language was used as the medium of expression. He felt a strange thrill run through him as the story of Calvary was thus read in the low, impa.s.sioned tones of the hunchback; and he was not surprised to see that tears were running down many faces, and that several women could hardly restrain their sobs.

Now and again the hunchback paused and added a few explanatory words of his own; now and again he broke forth into a rhapsody not lacking in a certain rude eloquence, in which he besought his hearers to come to their Saviour with their load of sin--their Saviour, who was the one and only Mediator between G.o.d and man.

Were not His own words enough--"Father, forgive them"? What need, then, of the priest; the confessional; the absolution of man? To G.o.d and to Him alone was the remission of sins. Let those who loved their Lord seek to Him, and see what bliss and happiness resulted from this personal bond between the erring soul and the loving Saviour.

Edred shivered slightly as he stood, yet something in the impa.s.sioned gestures of the hunchback, and the strange enthusiastic light which shone in his eyes, attracted him in spite of himself.

That this was rank heresy he well knew. He knew that one of the Lollard tenets had always been that confession was a snare devised of man and not appointed by G.o.d. Edred himself could have quoted many pa.s.sages from Holy Writ which spoke of some need of confession through the medium of man, and of sins remitted by G.o.d-appointed ministers. He had been well instructed in such matters by Brother Emmanuel, who, whatever his enemies might allege against him, was a stanch son of the Church, even though he might be gifted with a wide tolerance and a mind open to conviction; and his pupil was not to be easily convinced against his will. Nor was Edred convinced of the justice and truth of many things that this ignorant man spoke; but what did strike him very greatly was his intense earnestness, his fiery and impa.s.sioned gestures, the absolute confidence he possessed in the righteousness of his own cause, and his utter freedom from any kind of doubt or fear--the eloquence of one of nature's orators that carries away the heart far more than the studied oratory which is the result of practice and artifice.

Whilst the man spoke, Edred felt himself carried away in spite of his inner consciousness that there was a flaw in the argument of the preacher. He was intensely interested by the whole scene. He could not help watching the faces of the group of which he made one, watching the play of emotion upon them as they followed with breathless attention their instructor's words, and drank in his fiery eloquence as though it were life-giving water.

And was it wonderful this should be so? the youth asked of himself.

Were not these poor people fairly starving for want of spiritual food? and what food did they receive from the hands of their parish priest? Edred knew the old man well. He was a kind-hearted s.e.xagenarian, and in those days that was accounted an immense age.

He mumbled through the ma.s.s on Sundays; he baptized the children and buried the dead when need arose; and if sent for by some person in extremity, would go and administer the last rites of the Church.

But beyond that his duties did not go, and no living soul in the place remembered hearing him speak a word of instruction or admonition on his own account. He had a pa.s.sion for gardening, and spent all his spare time with his flowers; and his people went their way as he did his, and their lives never touched on any point.

Such being the case, was it wonderful that the people should come with eagerness to hear of the Saviour from whomsoever would tell them of Him? Edred well remembered Brother Emmanuel's words about the four G.o.d-given channels of grace--the living ministry by which He had meant His Church to be perfected. But how when the streams grew choked? how when the ministry had become a dead letter? Was the Church, were the people, to die of inanition? Might not G.o.d pardon them for listening to any messenger who came with His name upon his lips? Surely He who lived in the heavens would pardon them even if it were sin, seeing that it was the instinctive love of His own wandering sheep which brought them crowding round any shepherd who would teach them of Him, even though he did not come in the G.o.d-directed order.

Some such thoughts in a more chaotic form surged through Edred's head as he stood listening, almost causing him to lose the words of the preacher, though the tenor of his discourse was plain. He almost wished he might enter into a discussion with this enthusiast, and point out to him where he thought him extravagant and wrong; but young as he was, Edred yet knew something of the futility of argument with those whose minds are made up, and caution withheld him from entering into any argument with one who was plainly a Lollard preacher. So, after listening with sympathy and interest for a long while, he quietly stole away again.

The bull baiting was over by this time. The games and other sports were recommencing with greater energy after this brief interruption.

The miracle play was again represented, and Edred stood a few minutes to watch, thinking within his heart that this representation, half comical, half blasphemous (though the people who regarded it seemed in no way aware of this), was a strange way of bringing home the realities of the Scriptures, when it could be done so far more faithfully and eloquently by simply reading the gospel words in the tongue of the common people.

His eye roved from the actors, with their mincing words and artificial gestures, to the group still collected beneath the tree, and he could not but contrast the two methods in his own mind, and wonder for a moment whether the Lollards could be altogether so desperately wicked as their enemies would make out.

He was half afraid of allowing himself to think too much on such themes, and went in search of his brothers. He found Warbel looking out for him in some anxiety. He had missed the boy for some little while from his charge, and as the field was filling fast with followers and servants wearing the Mortimer livery, he was glad to have the three boys all together beneath his care.