most perfect simplicity. Above, the oaken rafters, blackened by time
and smoke, were plainly to be seen, and were festooned with strings of
dried vegetables and herbs. The floor was of well-trodden clay; and a
rough table, a few stools, a chest, some straw beds, and an oaken
armchair, curiously carved by the old curate himself, completed the
furniture. A sort of rack, or shelf, on one side, served as a dresser
to hold the wooden platters and horn drinking-cups; while on pegs
inserted in the wall, hung a sword, a cross-bow, and various
garden-tools. The old man seemed to forget his own fatigue in
ministering to the comfort of his guests. Geoffrey aided him, by
bringing in fagots, and soon a bountiful repast, consisting of bacon,
cheese, cakes, milk, and eggs, was ready to satisfy their hunger.
They were soon settled in their new home. The boys passed their time
partly in study, and partly in aiding the old man to prepare his little
garden for the summer crops. The cow, too, needed their care; when the
snow had melted from the meadows, she must be driven to pasture in the
morning, and brought home in the evening. This fell to Geoffrey's
share, and gave him two long and pleasant walks a day, while Hubert
attended to the humble dairy, and felt almost as proud when he had
furnished the larder with a fine cheese or a trencher of golden butter,
as when he had recited to his master, without failing, his longest Latin
lesson. The reason why the old curate accepted no help from without,
but shared the most menial labors with his noble young pupils, was
because in those troublous times the only chance of safety for the poor
persecuted Lollards was in being as retired as possible, and especially
in keeping their Bibles, if they possessed them, from the sight of those
who might at some future time betray them.
Their life was quiet, and fully employed, but not without its pleasures.
Markham was not only an excellent scholar, but he also loved to impart
his knowledge to others. The cottage was not their only study; in the
quiet lanes and sunny meadows, on the sea-shore, and in the grand old
forest, he taught them all that was then known of botany and natural
history. In the clear, still winter evenings, he called their attention
to the stars overhead, their names, and positions, and motions, and told
them how the sailor found his way upon the deep by their assistance. He
showed them the signs of the Zodiac, among which the sun and planets
pursued their yearly course; he pointed out to them the "bands of
Orion," the Pleiades, and "Arcturus with his sons," mentioned so
beautifully in the book of Job; also the dog-star, that exerted such a
baneful influence when in the ascendant, and Charles's Wain, whose two
pointers always directed to that strange polar star, which, of all that
bright company, seemed never to move from its place.
But one thing he taught them which would seem very strange to the
youngest school-boy or girl in these present more enlightened days. He
told them that this earth, being a flat plain, was the centre of all the
universe, and around it, in their stated time, sun, moon, and stars
revolved.
Nor did he fail to remind them of the Magi, who, by the leading of a
star, found the infant Christ.
But this peaceful life did not last long. When the field of the old
curate was ready for the reaping, he died. Calmly and joyfully, with a
hand clasped by each of the boys, he passed away from earth; and as they
closed his eyes, his last words still rang in their ears: "Stand fast
for the Lord, my sons, even unto death!"
*CHAPTER IX.*
_*Hide and Seek in Forest Tower.*_
Two months later found them in London, the guests once more of the
Lollard trader, Philip Naseby. Before the winter came they found
another home on the Yorkshire coast. There dwelt Humphrey Singleton, a
man who had lost friends, fortune, and home because of his faith. He
had seen his wife and children turned from their burning cottage one
bitterly cold winter night by the soldiers of Arundel, and now he was
alone in the world, dwelling in a place, half hut, half cave, near the
summit of the Yorkshire cliffs.
There the boys found him, sitting at the door of his hermitage in the
autumn twilight, feeding a lamb with grass and leaves. He gladly
received his guests; and there, in that lonely place, they hoped to be
permitted to remain till they had finished their studies. As it had been
before, Hubert staid quietly at home, studying, while Geoffrey oftener
pursued a more active life, gathering sea-birds' eggs among the cliffs,
or catching fish in a little boat far out in the bay.
One evening there came a messenger to them. He bore the Lollard
password, and so was eagerly received. When he had refreshed himself,
they all gathered around the fire to hear what news he might bring.
They had heard already of Arundel's awful end; how, when he was sitting
at a feast with his friends about him he had been struck by the hand of
death. Not a moment had been given to his wretched soul to prepare
itself to meet its Judge. Not a word had his palsied tongue been able
to utter; only the writhing features showed his agony. Now, to their
grief, they learned that his successor, Chichely, was following in his
footsteps. The search after heretics was even more rigorous than
before.
"Have you heard aught of what has befallen Forest Tower and its noble
Lord?" said the stranger.
Geoffrey started to his feet. "Nay, we have not heard. Speak out, man,
and tell me of my father."
"Your father is safe, master Geoffrey," said the man, rising and bowing
respectfully to the boy. "I knew you not at first. Sir John is safe,
and in Wales, by the Lord's mercy; but the archers pressed him sore, and
thirsted like wild beasts for his blood. Blessed be the Lord that
delivered him from the flame, and gave him wings to his feet."
"And the Tower?" said Geoffrey, breathlessly.
"There is no such place; they have not left one stone on another; I saw
it myself."
Geoffrey groaned aloud, then, raising himself to his full height, he
lifted his clenched hand to heaven and cried:
"It is mine! It is mine! Mine by the same right that king Harry holds
his throne! They shall give it back, stone for stone, or this right hand
shall lay them as low as its ashes are. I will----"
Here his hand was grasped from behind, and his master's voice said, half
sternly, half sorrowfully:
"Boy! art thou to fight for an earthly habitation, or a heavenly? Hast
thou renounced all these for Jesus' sake, and art so ready to snatch at
them again?"
The boy sank down ashamed of this demonstration of useless anger, and
listened quietly to the man's story.
We will go back to the time of the boys' departure from home, and trace
the history of Forest Castle and its proprietor.
When De Forest had seen Cobham safe on his road to Wales, he had
returned to his home, now so desolate. Contrary to his expectations, he
had remained unmolested during the whole succeeding winter and spring;
indeed, he had been so free from interruption, that Oldcastle had more
than once ventured from his place of concealment to attend meetings for
worship held in the castle or secluded woods, and to meet such of his
friends as could be allowed to know the secret of his hiding-place.
Through the summer there were rumors of danger; the archbishop's
soldiers had come within a few miles of the place, but, for some reason,
had turned back, and, as the fall advanced, the little signals at the
foot of the oak-tree pronounced all safe.
One chilly November evening, when the first snow was beginning to fall
on the leaf-strewn forest paths, and bare tree-branches, Lord Cobham sat
in the hall at Forest Tower talking with its owner. Since the departure
of the boys, it had been necessary to confide the secrets of the
signals, the various passwords, and the concealed entrances to some one,
and Sir John had chosen for this important post a young peasant, Charles
Bertrand--he who was afterward to tell the tale of his misfortunes to
the young master.
This person interrupted the conversation of the friends by announcing
that a king's officer and a band of men had appeared suddenly at the
gate, and were crossing the draw-bridge.
Whatever might be their errand, Cobham must not be seen; so he went
quickly out by the opposite door, barely having it closed upon him by
the faithful Bertrand, when the visitors admitted themselves by the
grand entrance.
[Illustration: The Trial.--Page 76.]
Sir John rose to greet them with dignified courtesy. The soldier did
not seem to notice the greeting, but striding up to the table, demanded
if he were Sir John of the Forest.
"I am," was the reply, given in such a quiet, fearless tone, that the
soldier's rough manner was somewhat modified.
"Then I arrest you for heresy and treason. Men, guard the prisoner and
bring hither the guide!"
Some of the men surrounded De Forest, while others led, or rather
dragged in a peasant, who seemed ready to sink through the floor with
shame and terror.
"Now," said the commander, when he had advanced to the table, "look up,
fellow, and tell us if this be your master or no."
The man glanced up for a moment, but his head sank again when he
encountered the piercing glance of his betrayed lord, and he muttered
his answer almost inaudibly: "Yes, sirs, I know him."
"And where is Cobham, who you say was sitting here not an hour ago?
Come, the truth, or--you remember my promise," and he shook in the man's
face a rope, knotted into a noose.
The wretch threw himself on his knees in an agony of terror.
"My life! You said you would spare me if I brought you hither!"
"Ay, thy life, and a gold angel to boot; but the truth first--where is
the traitor?"
"Truly, my masters, may I never speak another word if I tell you false.
It is always so; he has slipped away. He comes often to the Tower; but
though I have watched the gates day and night, I have never seen him
enter, or pass out. May the saints preserve me, but I believe it is an
evil spirit, and not a man!"
The captain, finding he could gain nothing more from the fellow, ordered
two men to guard the prisoner, and with the rest of the band, went to
search the house, carrying the unwilling guide with them.
When they had gone, one of the guard took up the flagon, and, finding it
empty, demanded with an oath where the heretic kept his wine. Sir John
courteously directed him to the buttery; but scarcely had the man closed
the door, when the prisoner sprang on his guard, and with one
well-directed blow struck him senseless. He then lost no time, but
stepping to the immense open fireplace, touched a spring at the bottom
of the jamb. A little door, scarcely a foot wide, opened; he passed
through; it closed upon him, and no one could have told where the
apparently solid stones were joined. A moment later the soldier
returned, but only to find the room vacant except for his groaning
comrade.
His first impulse was to recover the stunned man by dashing the contents
of a water-bucket in his face, and inquire what had become of the
Lollard; but as he could only discover that his companion imagined
himself to have been assaulted by the Evil Spirit the guide had spoken
of, who had cast a spell upon him, he turned impatiently to the doors to
summon assistance, but found them fast bolted on the other side.
"It is all witchcraft, I tell you!" exclaimed the half-stunned soldier,
his teeth chattering both from fear and from the cold bath he had
received. "If I had known it was the Devil the archbishop was chasing,
I should have staid at home. I saw the fire flash from his eyes, and by
my faith, he smelt of brimstone or ever I came in the room!"
When the captain of the band returned from his unsuccessful search for
Cobham, and found that his guards had lost their prisoner and been
locked up themselves, his wrath knew no bounds. He ordered the unlucky
soldiers to be chained and guarded, and threatened them with hanging;
and then proceeded to search the castle anew, stamping on every stone in
the pavement, in hopes of discovering the spring of the secret doors
with which he had heard the building was well supplied. He did indeed
find several, and the infuriated soldiers sprang in with howls of
delight; but it was all in vain; the cells, cut in the thickness of the
wall, seemed to have no connection with each other, and were quite
empty, except for some owls and bats, that, aroused from their sleep by
the flash of the torches, hooted, and flapped their great wings in the
men's faces, appearing very like the evil spirits that the invaders of
their territory half believed they were.
At last wearied with their useless efforts, they all returned to the
hall for a carouse, for which the well-filled cellars of the knight
supplied abundant provision. They were all, the captain as well as his
men, not a little superstitious; and they were only too glad to drown
with wine the feelings of dread and uneasiness which the strange events
of the day and the gloomy look of the old hall had occasioned. It was
not long before the strong drink had done its work, and they had all
sunk down in various attitudes of drunken slumber. The captain himself,
who had been sitting in the knight's own chair and drinking from his
silver cup, though rather stronger-headed than the rest, began to feel
drowsy; and so, having thrown some fresh logs on the fire, and taken the
precaution to draw the bolts of the doors and drag a heavy settle across
each, he settled himself for a sound nap.
How long he slept he did not know; but his first sensation on waking was
one of suffocation, and when he tried to raise his hands to discover the
cause, he found they were tied behind him, and his mouth tightly bound
with a cloth. He next discovered that he was stretched full length on
one of the oaken benches and fastened to it, so that the only movement
he could make was to roll a little on one side. Wide awake now, he
immediately made use of this one privilege that was left him, and looked
about the room. His companions were very much in the same condition as
himself, but evidently perfectly unconscious of it. The fire had been
newly built up and was blazing brightly, giving all the light that was
needed, and, sitting in the arm-chair which he himself had so lately
occupied, warming himself by the fire, sat the man he had been seeking,
Cobham the outlaw, while Forest was sitting on a stool by his side
watching some wine that was warming in the silver cup.
The soldier was almost beside himself with rage and mortification to see
the man for whom, dead or alive, such large rewards were offered,
sitting there as complacently as though he had not an enemy in the
world, while _he_ was unable to stir either hand or foot or to cry for
help. For some time he lay there thus, rendered more furious, from time
to time, by the grim smile that played on Sir John's face, whenever he
turned it so as to encounter the enraged glances of the prisoner.
As the soldier became cooler, however, he began to wonder how the room
had been entered. He lay so that he could see all the doors, still
bolted and barricaded as he had left them; but just as he was looking
for some opening in the wall, or a rope hanging from one of the windows,
there came a partial solution of the mystery.
The morning light was just beginning to struggle through the windows
when a low whistle was heard, to which De Forest instantly replied, and
then threw upon the fire a handful of something which he drew from a bag
at his side. A dense black smoke arose in a cloud, obscuring for an
instant, the whole fireplace, and when it cleared away, another had been
added to the group at the fireside. It was Charles Bertrand, whom the
captain had already noted as in attendance on De Forest.
"Is all ready?" said Sir John to the young man.
The latter looked suspiciously around, and then, stooping so that he
might be heard by none but his master, he said:
"The horses are not ready, my Lord, and there is a signal out that the
mountain-road is dangerous. It will not do to try it before evening, at
any rate."
"There is nothing for it but to crouch in our holes for another day,
then," said the Lollard cheerfully, and he turned to communicate the
news to Cobham. They agreed to remain in their hiding-places till the
next midnight; then Bertrand was to bring the horses to the entrance of
one of the long, concealed passages leading from the castle to the open
country, and they were all three to make the best of their way to Wales.
Cautious as they were in general, they raised their voices a little too
much in the discussion, for although they had gagged their prisoner's
mouth, they had forgotten to stop his ears, and although he only heard a
word here and there, he had wit enough to put them together, and make
out pretty clearly what was to be their plan. Fearing, however, lest
they should kill him if they suspected he had overheard them, he did not
let his feelings of satisfaction appear in his face.
The three men seemed now about to depart, and the soldier watched with
all his powers of eyesight to discover, if possible, how they would
leave the hall First, the knight took down from the wall his suit of
mail, and, by the aid of Bertrand, put it on. He then threw over it his
mantle which hung on one of the deer's antlers almost directly over the
captain's head. He also chose, from several that were lying about, a
good sword, and handed it to Cobham, who handled it as though he were
well accustomed to its use, albeit his hand trembled a little from age.
Meanwhile, Bertrand had loaded himself with a large flagon of wine and a
joint of meat.
When everything was ready, Sir John went round among the sleeping men,
and, after examining them all carefully, chose the one who seemed likely
to sleep the longest, and unfastened one of his hands. He then went
back to the fireplace, and they all three stood close to the hearth.
"Is all ready, my Lord?" said Bertrand, leaning carelessly against the
jamb of the fireplace.
Sir John replied by drawing a handful from his pouch and throwing it on
the embers which he had drawn out to the front of the hearth. The
pungent smoke, which immediately arose in clouds, made the soldier wink
his eyes, and when he could see clearly once more, Cobham and De Forest
were still there, but Bertrand was gone. A second time the stifling
smoke arose, and though the captain stretched his eyeballs almost out of
their sockets, he only knew that Sir John and Cobham had vanished as
unaccountably as their companion. The only thing he could do was to
await, with all the patience possible, the time when yonder drunken log
should become animate and release him from his bondage.
Had the captain's vision been able to penetrate the smoke, he would have
seen that Bertrand, in leaning against the chimney-piece, touched a
secret spring, which, as soon as the smoke of the herbs Sir John had
thrown on the fire had obscured the view, opened noiselessly the narrow
door, which was as noiselessly closed when all had made their exit.
Could his eager gaze have converted those opaque stones into glass, he
would have discovered the Lollards in a very narrow passage which wound
along some distance, hollowed out of the solid wall. More than once
they seemed to have arrived at a spot where their journey must
terminate, but again a secret spring was touched, the obedient stones
rolled back, and so they passed on till they came to a little
turret-chamber, lighted by slits in the wall, which were concealed from
all eyes without by the heavy screen of ivy which hung over them.
Here they paused and threw themselves down on some heaps of straw, and
then, covered with their cloaks, slept as peacefully as if they had not
a foe in the world.
*CHAPTER X.*
_*The Birds Flown to the Mountains.*_
The sun had risen high before any of the soldiers awoke, and even then
they were helpless till their still sleeping comrade, who was to be
their deliverer, should be aroused. This was at last accomplished by one
of the men, who dragged himself along the floor so as to give him a
hearty kick, but it was still some time before he came sufficiently to
himself to comprehend the situation of affairs and release both himself
and the others.
The first thing that their captain did, after he had stretched his
stiffened limbs, was to discharge a volley of oaths at them, the
Lollards, and the world generally. He had determined not to relate the
whole of his midnight adventure to his men for two reasons: one was,
that he was afraid of rousing their superstitious fears, and making them
insist upon leaving instantly a place which they would surely believe to
be haunted by malignant spirits; and the other was, that he was a little
ashamed of being thus caught napping by his enemies, and did not wish
the story to be told against him to his superior officer. He was,
however, fully determined to ransack the castle before the time fixed
upon by the Lollards for their departure, at the same time guarding all
the places of exit.
He met with no better success than the day before; but soon a bright
thought struck him, and his face glowed with malignant pleasure. He
ordered his men into the woods to gather brushwood, and this, together
with some straw and grain, he piled up in the apartments of the castle
and set on fire. When it was fairly blazing, he mounted his whole troop,
carefully removing all the horses from the stables, and placed his men
in such positions that they might be able to watch all the roads, and be
ready for instant pursuit should the Lollards attempt to flee.
He himself sat grimly on his war-horse, surveying the work of
destruction; waiting till the noble men, smoked like rats from their
holes, should be seized and brought triumphantly before him. He already
imagined how he would dispose of the reward when he presented the three
heads to the archbishop.
If this gallant soldier had been able to look downward a little way
through the ground under his feet, his vision would not have been quite
so rose-colored. Let us go back to the three men whom we left sleeping
so quietly in the little turret-chamber.
They were not aroused from their slumber till the fire had begun to
rage, for they were so embedded in the stone that the heat and smell
took a long time to penetrate to them; but at last the ivy on the
outside caught, and the flames were roaring "from turret to foundation
stone." The smoke which then poured in through the narrow slits aroused
Bertrand, who soon understood the plot. It was with great difficulty
that he and De Forest could get Lord Cobham through the narrow passages,
for they were all almost suffocated with smoke, and the heat in some
places was nearly unbearable. In more than one spot the walls had
fallen in and choked the way with rubbish, but fortunately the soldiers
were all outside, guarding the blazing ruins, so that they could pass
easily through some of the more open rooms, and so into the vaults.
Here they rested awhile, but not long, for they feared lest some arch
should give way and cut off their retreat. They therefore passed along
the subterranean passage mentioned in the first part of the story, which
opened in the direction of the road they intended to take.
They were in doubt where they should procure horses for their journey,
but their trusty friend and servant, Charles Bertrand, had a plan in his
head which he did not at first communicate to his master; but leaving
them sitting on a block of stone in the passage, he crept through the
little door concealed by brushwood, and closing it carefully behind him,
stole along the bed of the stream, and then up the bank on his hands and
knees. All this was done without noise, and he crouched down in the
bushes not ten feet from the spot where the captain sat on his horse
indulging in his day-dreams.
Presently the soldier dismounted, and began to examine the animal. "Not
a bad brute!" was his muttered comment, as he noticed the fine muscular
development of his chest and the fire of his eye; "not a bad brute, nor
an ugly one, and far too good for an heretic to ride. I have not had a
better mount for years; and as for you," he added, bestowing a kick on
his own abandoned charger, which had been degraded to the office of
carrying some of the plunder from the castle, "you shall henceforth
carry my wife, Ivan, to market, when she wears the new red cloak which I
shall buy her in London; she is a good dame, and a handsome one too,
and----"