no other than the captain of the troop who had so lately burned Forest
Castle and driven its lord into exile. Enraged at losing the reward
which he had considered already his own, and mortified beyond expression
at finding himself outwitted by the despised Lollards, he had found the
traces of Bertrand like a bloodhound, and having followed them so far,
had discovered the retreat of the children of his enemy.
Bertrand recognized him the moment the blood and dust were wiped from
his face, and nothing but the positive command of his master's son
prevented him from killing him on the spot. Still all precautions must
be taken for their safety, and they bound their prisoner securely,
placing him in an out-house near the hut, while they prepared everything
for instant flight. Their precious pages of Scripture were divided
among them and concealed in their garments. Such of the old man's few
effects as they could not carry with them they buried or concealed, and
partook of a hasty meal.
Their plan was to leave sufficient food and firewood near their prisoner
to last him till he should recover or his friends come to seek him. For
this purpose Bertrand went to carry him meat, but returned in a moment
with a face expressive of mingled wonder and alarm.
"He is gone!" he exclaimed. "Gone, and we are undone! Why did I not
strike him down at first? Fool that I was! why did you hinder me,
master Geoffrey? We are indeed lost if he escape, for his band is but a
short league off in the village. He may have had time to warn them even
now;" and Charles Bertrand sprang to the door, cross-bow in hand; but
when there, he stopped. Gleaming in the gray twilight which was
heralding the morning, he saw the spears of quite a numerous band of
soldiers approaching the hill on which the hut stood, from three sides,
slowly but surely compassing their prey.
"It is too late," he added more calmly; and in a whisper to Geoffrey,
who had followed him, "_We_ might by a rare chance break through--but
not _those_;" and he pointed with the butt of his weapon to the old man,
exhausted with the labors and excitement of the night, and Hubert, pale
and unused to hardship.
"Go you, trusty Charles," said the boy, grasping the rough hand of the
man-at-arms in both his; "I knew not that I had periled their life and
yours as well as mine own; go you alone by the rocky path: it lies still
in shadow, and they will not see it I stay to die with them."
"Hold, young master," said the man, affecting a rough manner to conceal
his emotion; "you do not know Charles Bertrand if you think he will
basely flee and leave the old man and the child to perish alone, not
counting the heir of his lord's house. Nay, I will stay and bring down
more than one of the wretches ere they cross the threshold."
"Not so, friend," said the young Lollard. "You have not my permission;
for my father's sake, you must escape to tell him of our fate, and
beside, you being free, may do somewhat for our liberty in planning some
way of escape, while you can do us no good by shooting down one or two
of yonder troop. I command you to follow yonder path to the first
turning, then to the right, till you see a rock like a horse's head,
then ten paces to the left, is a bush growing close to the cliff. Pull
it away, and there is a hole large enough for one to lie concealed. Go,
Bertrand; there is not a moment to lose, do not say a word."
The man looked still reluctant; but there was such an air of decision in
the flashing eye of the young man that he could not disobey, but
bounding up the hillside, disappeared as Geoffrey turned to the hut.
"Up, father!" he said in a firm voice, lending his arm to the old man,
at the same time motioning Hubert to his side. "Father! you have taught
us how to live as Lollards and Christians; now teach us to die like
them, for the time is come!" and he led them out to the rocky platform
in front of the door.
Scarcely had he ended when a dozen men leapt up to the top of the hill,
and as many hands were laid on their unresisting victims, while the
morning air was filled with their shouts of delight at their cowardly
victory. Some tied them securely, some went to search for the missing
soldier, while others threw firebrands about the hut and set it on fire.
Then, driving the boys before them, but disregarding old Humphrey
Singleton as a piece of worthless booty, they descended the hill toward
the village, where they had left their horses. There each of the boys
was fastened to a horse behind a soldier, and by the time the sun had
risen they were on their way toward York.
The captain, while looking with the utmost care to the safety of his
prisoners, kept as far as possible from the boy whose kindness he was so
shamefully repaying. Though his heart was pretty well steeled by many
years of rough service as a soldier of fortune, and he was deeply
impressed with the hatred of the Reformers which pervaded all classes,
yet he had a little conscience left, and it pricked him sharply when he
looked on the sea, and thought that but for that lad's strong arm and
courageous heart he would there be dashing about, a lifeless, mangled
mass. His better angel whispered to him that he might still partially
retrieve his error by using his influence with his band to let them
escape; but then rose the thought of the disgrace which the escape of
Sir John and Lord Cobham had thrown upon him, which could only be atoned
for by the capture of these "whelps of rebellion," as the archbishop
styled them. Besides, his greedy palm itched for the golden angels
which he already saw poured out to him by the delighted ecclesiastic.
So at last he determined to divide matters with his troublesome
conscience. He would not take them to York, where they would certainly
be killed, but would leave them at a convent near by, where they might
not be kept very safely, and thus escape, without the odium resting on
him, or the loss of his reward. He therefore ordered his troop to turn
into a side-road, and galloping on before, led them to a gloomy,
fortified building, surrounded by thick woods, and known to all as the
convent of "Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows."
The porteress looked surprised and a little doubtful at the sight of
such a band of armed men; but the archbishop's livery, worn by some of
his retainers, and the assurance of the captain that he came on holy
business, procured them an audience with the head of the establishment.
Mother Beatrice, the prioress, was a tall, dark, hard-featured woman,
who, being an importation from Spain, had brought with her all the
austerities to which she had been accustomed from her childhood, and
meted them out with unsparing hand to the nuns, novices, and pupils over
whom she exercised her sway, and soon made the convent as famous for the
rigor of its discipline, as she herself was for sanctity and devotion to
the Church.
It seemed as though there was scarcely an hour in the twenty-four in
which the clanging of the bell did not arouse the luckless inmates to
repair to the chapel for prayers, and woe to any one who were so
unfortunate as to break any one of the strict rules of the house, for
the slightest punishment of the abbess was a thing to be dreaded.
Perhaps it was to lie for hours stretched in the form of a cross on the
cold pavement of the cell or chapel; to stand in a painful posture
before some shrine, till the offender fainted from weariness; to go day
after day with the least possible quantity of the coarsest food that
could keep soul and body together; or perhaps, in extreme cases, the
holy lady would herself apply the scourge to the naked back of the
criminal, accompanying each blow by a pious exhortation, or a passage in
the life of a saint, until both voice and hand were too wearied to
perform their part any longer.
"And now daughter," she would say, as her victim was led away, "go in
peace; may this slight correction save thee from the pains of hell! Go
in peace, and forget not in thy prayers to thank Our Lady and the saints
that thou hast been placed here, where thy soul is so well cared for!"
It was quite doubtful whether the offender ever experienced the
gratitude which was expected of her for the benefits received at the
reverend Lady's hand, but it was thought that Mother Beatrice quite
enjoyed these little opportunities for doing good, and either found, or
made them, as often as possible.
It was after one of these occasions, when she was resting from the
benevolent fatigue she had just undergone, that the porteress came
bustling in, with an unusual air of excitement, to inform her of the
arrival of the captain and his men.
The abbess received the soldier with the cold dignity befitting her
situation; but as soon as she had heard the story, her heart palpitated
with joy and triumph, in a manner quite unusual to one covered with the
serge robe of her order. Her ruling passion was for governing, and
forcing those around her to an absolute subjection to her will; and she
had lately begun to weary of the contracted scope given to her powers in
this quiet convent. The sins which she was called upon to punish were,
after all, mere peccadilloes, and her subjects were so subdued by
severity that there was no hope of a serious enough rebellion among them
to excite her faculties in putting it down; but here were intrusted to
her two heretics, made all the more interesting by being of the opposite
sex, and yet not old enough to bring a scandal upon the convent if it
received them within its walls. She promised the captain to do all she
could to draw from them the secret of their father's hiding-place and
that of Lord Cobham, and to keep them safely till the archbishop, who
was then in London, should return, and decide what was to be done with
them.
When the captain and his troop had departed, she ordered her prisoners
to be brought into her presence. The boys had at first been rather
rejoiced at the thought of being placed under female care, but one look
at their stern jailer was sufficient to alarm them. Hubert shrank to
his brother's side, but Geoffrey drew himself up proudly, and returned
her scrutiny by an unabashed and not very polite stare.
The wily prioress noticed this, and determined that they were very
different characters, and as such must be differently treated. "Come
hither, my pretty boy," she said, throwing as much tenderness as
possible into her voice; and, drawing him gently toward her, she
questioned him concerning his journey and his fatigue in such a way that
his answers, at first confined to monosyllables, became more full, and
he was soon talking with her quite freely, unheeding the signs by which
Geoffrey, who was standing moodily by the door, tried to check him. At
that moment the convent-bell pealed out its summons, and the abbess,
arising, said, "Come, my little page, we will go to hear some of that
music you were just telling me you loved so dearly;" and before the
elder lad had time to put in a word, the superior and her charge had
left the room. As the door closed behind her, another opened, and the
porteress, entering, bade him follow her. He obeyed, though secretly
determined not to be led to chapel, as he conceived Hubert must have
been. His fears were groundless, as he soon discovered; it was not the
abbess's plan to try him that way. He followed his guide through
several passages and courts to a low damp-looking cell, and when Sister
Ursula had shown him the pitcher of water and piece of bread for his
refreshment, that were placed in a niche serving for a table, she
withdrew, and bolting the door, left him to his own reflections.
His first impulse was to examine his prison. The only light admitted was
from a small window, or rather slit in the wall, which was well barred;
and it was not till his eyes became somewhat accustomed to the dim
light, that he found he was in a good-sized room, some twenty feet
square, and built entirely of stone. It had evidently been originally
intended for a cellar; but that it had sometime been used as a prison
was also evident, as there was a chain fastened to the wall, and the
door was strong, and well provided with bolts and bars. On a shelf
covered with cloth, at the side, stood a crucifix, and behind it hung a
rude sketch of the Virgin, with the legend, "Ora pro nobis, peccavi!" in
black letter. The boy gave a scornful glance at this, and then threw
himself down on the heap of straw in the corner intended for his bed.
At first he buried his face in his hands in anxious thought, but soon
started up, and began a careful examination of the walls and floor of
his prison. His object was this. In the arrangements for flight at the
hut on the cliff the preceding night, it will be remembered that the
sheets of parchment containing parts of the Bible had been divided among
the people. Geoffrey's share he carried in a bag under the cloth jerkin
that he wore, and he was afraid lest the prioress should undertake to
search him, and so discover those precious pages, which he would then
not only lose forever, but which would prove witnesses sufficient to
send him, without further question, to the stake. He therefore wished
to find some place where he might secrete them, if a search seemed
probable.
In the darkest corner of the room, partly concealed by a recess, he
found a door, which had evidently, by the cobwebs gathered thickly over
it, not been opened for a long time. Induced by the decayed appearance
of the wood, he applied his shoulder to it, and one forcible push sent
it bursting in, and nearly choked him with dust. At first his heart
beat high, for he thought he had found a way of escape; but he was soon
disappointed. It only opened into what seemed to have been an entrance
or vestibule to the old cellar, for there were marks where some steps
had been fastened into the wall; and a doorway, half-way up the side,
had been built up with a different kind of stone. The walls were,
however, much thinner, and the window larger. After making himself sure
that there was no way to it except through the outer cell, he placed his
parchments in a crevice under the window and returned to the other room,
replacing the door so as to make all look as much as possible as it did
before.
He had now time to consider his situation, which was by no means a
promising one. He had noticed the deep ditch and massive wall which
surrounded the building as he approached it, and the character of the
place was better known to him than the prioress had supposed. He knew
there were other ways of ridding the kingdom of heretics beside the open
trial and public execution. He also knew that he and his brother would
be especial objects of interest to the ecclesiastical authority, as it
might be supposed that they could be induced to reveal the place of
their father's retreat, or even draw him from his concealment, if he
heard that his children were held as hostages for his appearance. He
saw that great exertions would be made for their conversion, and he was
very angry with Hubert for being so easily entrapped and led away, and
he imagined him subjected to all kinds of questioning before he had
opportunity to warn him how to answer so as to conceal most perfectly
their secrets. He had worked himself into such a passion with the child
for his "singing folly," as he termed it, that when the bolts were
suddenly drawn back, the door opened, and his brother ran and threw
himself sobbing into his arms, he repulsed him rudely and
contemptuously, and began walking up and down the room, too angry to
speak.
"Geoffrey! Geoffrey!" began the child in a trembling voice, springing
up from the straw where the elder's rough push had sent him, but not
daring to approach the irritated lad, "Geoffrey! I did not kneel, I did
not kiss the image, though they told me they would let us go in the
garden if I would, and the porteress says they will kill us soon. O
brother! don't send me away; we always said we would die together!"
"They may kill me, but not you, Hubert," replied Geoffrey with a sneer.
"They will rather keep you for one of their singing-birds; after that
you may be a fat monk, and, who knows? his Lordship of Canterbury one of
these days, and light up the land with Lollard bonfires perhaps;
but"--he stopped suddenly and sprang to his brother's side, changing his
tone from harshness and sarcasm to tenderness and anxiety--"but they
have done you hurt; they have wounded you, the hounds! Why did you not
tell me? You are bleeding fast!"
The blood was indeed trickling down the child's pale face and mingling
with his tears, while he was vainly endeavoring to stanch it with his
hands.
"It is not much," he sobbed; "she struck me with her keys because I
called out to such a pretty young lady who passed us as we came out of
chapel. I am sure we saw her in London at the preaching in the
brickyard. She was walking with the nuns, and looked very much surprised
to see me; but they hurried her away, and then the porteress struck me."
"There," said Geoffrey, whose rage against his brother had quite
disappeared now that he had so much better an object to vent his spleen
upon, "the old hag has not done you as much damage as she meant to, I
think; it is but a little cut, and will scarcely leave a scar. Sit down
here, and let me cover you with my cloak, and we will eat the supper our
good jaileresses have provided; we have had nothing since daybreak."
They were both exhausted with the fatigues and excitement of the last
twenty-four hours, and their prison-fare was not much coarser than that
to which they had been accustomed; so they ate it thankfully, and then
lay down to rest in each other's arms.
Much more tranquil was their rest than that of their betrayer, who,
tossing on his pillow in his inn at York, was suffering from remorse in
a manner different from any former experience. The conversation he had
overheard on the cliff; the fright of the fall; the brave face that had
looked into his with compassion as he lay in the tree; that same
undaunted young figure standing at the hut door as his captors
surrounded him; the patient, reproachful face which he could not help
continually turning to meet during the long morning ride--all these rose
up before him one after another, and not even the thought of his bag of
gold pieces was able to restore the soldier's natural recklessness.
*CHAPTER XIII.*
_*Kate the Quick-witted.*_
When Geoffrey awoke the next morning, it was to find a single, long beam
of sunlight streaming down into his prison, by which he knew it must be
already late. Both boys felt refreshed, and more prepared for the
unknown trials of the day. The younger having climbed on the shoulders
of the elder, peeped out of their high window, and described the
prospect to his brother.
"Only a little, square, stone court, Geoffrey, with some steps, four of
them leading up to a door in the house and another door opposite, in a
low wall. The wall seems to join the tower close here by the window. I
guess it must be a garden on the other side; I see some branches hanging
over the wall. The window is not more than two feet above the ground,
but it is too narrow for me to get my head through, even if it were not
for the iron bars."
"Come down, now," said Geoffrey, "I cannot hold you any longer, and
besides I want to show and tell you something."
From the position of the little room which Geoffrey had discovered the
preceding day, he concluded that its window must open on the space
beyond the wall; and after explaining to his brother the hiding-place of
the parchments, and charging him to watch the outer door and alarm him
if he heard footsteps approaching, he went to see what prospect of
escape that opening afforded.
Hubert's conjecture proved right. The wall bounded the convent-garden,
which was laid out in the stiff fashion of the time--long winding walks,
bordered with box, beds of various kinds of herbs, an oval grass-plat
with a sun-dial in the centre, some fruit-trees and flowering shrubs
scattered about, peach-trees fastened to the sunny side of the wall, and
a bower.
All this was sufficiently new and pretty to have interested Geoffrey;
but he scarcely noticed it now, for his attention was immediately
attracted by a figure approaching down a long wall that ended directly
in front of the window. It was that of a young girl apparently near his
own age, neither very tall nor remarkably graceful in her movements; but
there was nothing plebeian in the delicate hand and foot, or in the
carriage of the small, well-shaped head. She was well-dressed,
according to the fashion of the time, in fine dark green cloth, with a
cloak of brown camlet, and hood of the same; but the latter was now
thrown back, exposing a goodly quantity of chestnut-brown hair, partly
escaping from the crimson snood which confined it; for the same sharp
wind which had given her cheeks their glowing color, had been
mischief-making with her morning toilet. There was good-natured
firmness in the lines about her mouth, and mirth mingled with
thoughtfulness in her large blue eyes. Her voice, as she tried to coax
a little robin to approach her, had that musical sweetness which is so
very attractive, to some even more fascinating than decided personal
beauty.
"Come hither, little frightened thing," she said, as the bird, alarmed
at her advance, hopped behind a bush, and seemed about to take flight
for a still safer place of refuge. "Dost thou think _I_ would make thee
a prisoner, pretty creature, I who know so well what it is to pant and
sigh for liberty--I, who would give all I possess to be able to fly over
these high walls as thou canst, and be away to dear old Estly Court? I
would but touch thee, and smooth that soft breast of thine; nay, do not
go away, even if I may not come closer, for I must talk to thee awhile.
Oh! but this is such a dreary place; and, birdie, thou art the only
living thing that I can talk to as I please: and talk I must, for I am
wearied to death with this stillness. Nearer now, a little nearer, and
here is some of my breakfast for thee; I venture to say thou wilt find
but scanty fare here even for thy small appetite." The bird hopped
closer to her as she scattered the crumbs of bread, growing bolder at
every mouthful, and its benefactress continued:
"O birdie! I wonder if that Father above, who, they say, sees even a
sparrow that falls, has forgotten the lonely prisoner in Our Lady's
Convent, and never means to take her back to home and Guy, and mamma;
and I wonder if He is ever coming to set all of us free through all dear
England again?"
"The Lord tarrieth, but He is surely coming," said Geoffrey from his
window.
The girl started with a half-suppressed scream, and frightened her
little companion so that he made use of his graceful wings to mount into
a pear-tree at some distance. She looked above, and behind her, and on
every side for the source of the voice; and it was some time before she
spied the opening so near her feet.
"Do not be afraid, lady," said the boy, when she at last caught his eye;
"I am only a poor prisoner like yourself, and cannot harm you."
The girl blushed a little, and tried by a quick motion of her hands to
smooth back her hair and replace her hood. By this time, Geoffrey had
had time to realize that he had spoken to a stranger, and that stranger
a pretty young lady, so that when she stooped down and peeped in at him,
his cheeks were crimson, and his eyes cast down, so that it was now her
turn to re-assure him.
"Nay, now, this is a right pleasant meeting, since we are
fellow-prisoners, and it were a pity we should frighten one another. We
must be friends, for all others here are our enemies. It is not often
that a lady stoops to a gentleman, but even that is better than breaking
one's back by leaning over; so I will sit me down here where we can
talk, hoping that you will one day be as much above me on your horse as
you are now beneath me in dungeon-walls." So saying, she seated herself
as close as possible to the opening, and continued with the utmost
frankness:
"But who are you, and how came you hither, and are you brother to the
young lad I passed yesterday on my way from chapel? Is he much hurt? I
saw sister Ursula strike him, and she hath a heavy hand."
Her simplicity had made the boy quite forget his bashfulness, so he
replied: "Nay, lady; except you bestow on me an extra tongue, how can I
answer so many questions?"