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Title: The Last Abbot of Glastonbury: A Tale of the Dissolution of the Monasteries

Author: A. D. Crake

Release date: September 8, 2016 [eBook #53010]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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[Illustration: “WHAT HAVE WE HERE? S. JOSEPH HELP US!”

_Page 3._]


THE LAST ABBOT OF GLASTONBURY.

A Tale of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

by the

REV. A. D. CRAKE, B.A.,

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society; Vicar of Havenstreet, I.W.;

Author of
Fairleigh Hall, The Chronicles of Æscendune, The Camp on the
Severn, etc., etc.







Oxford and London:
A. R. Mowbray & Co.




HISTORICAL PREFACE.


The Author humbly ventures to offer the ninth of his series of original
tales, illustrating Church History, to the public; encouraged by the
favourable reception the previous volumes have found.

In the tales, “Æmilius,” “Evanus,” and “The Camp on the Severn,” he has
endeavoured to describe the epoch of the Pagan persecutions, under the
Roman Empire; in the “Three Chronicles of Æscendune,” successive epochs
of Early English history; in the “Andredsweald,” the Norman Conquest;
in “Fairleigh Hall,” the Great Rebellion; and in the _present_ volume,
one of the earliest of the series of events ordinarily grouped
under the general phrase “The Reformation,” the destruction of the
Monasteries.

It is many years since the writer was first attracted and yet saddened
by the tragical story of the fate of the last Abbot of Glastonbury, and
amongst the tales by which he was wont to enliven the Sunday evenings
in a large School, this narrative found a foremost place, and excited
very general interest.

A generation ago, few English Churchmen cared to say a good word for
the unhappy monks, who suffered so cruel a persecution at the hands of
Henry the Eighth and his vicar-general, Thomas Cromwell. Many, indeed,
confessed a sentimental regret when they visited the ruins of such
glorious fanes as Tintern, Reading, or Furness, and reflected that but
for the vandalism of the period, such buildings might yet vie with the
cathedrals, with which they were coeval, and if not retained for their
original uses, might yet be devoted to the service of religion and
humanity, in various ways; but the fear of being supposed to betray
a leaning to the doctrines once taught within these ruined walls, has
prevented many a writer from doing justice to the sufferers under
atrocious tyranny.

Yet did an act of parliament now pass the legislature giving the
various episcopal palaces, deaneries, rectories, and vicarages in
England, with all their furniture, to the Crown, and were the present
occupants ruthlessly ejected, and hung, drawn, and quartered in case of
resistance, active or passive, the injustice would not be greater, the
outrage on the rights of property more flagrant, than in the case of
the monasteries.

The late Rev. W. Gresley, in his tale, “The Forest of Arden,” was (so
far as the writer remembers) the first writer of historical fiction,
amongst modern Churchmen, who attempted to render justice to our
forefathers, who, born and bred under the papal supremacy, could not
disguise their convictions, or transfer their allegiance to a lustful
tyrant.

But even he spake with “bated breath” when compared with Dean Hook,
who, later on, thus writes in his lives of the Archbishops of
Canterbury:--

    “To an Englishman, taught to regard his house as his castle,
    these acts of invasion on property appear to be monstrous; our
    blood boils within us when we learn that by blending the Acts
    of Supremacy with the Treason Acts the Protestant enthusiasts
    under Cromwell condemned to death not fewer than 59 persons,
    who, however mistaken they were in their opinions, were as
    honest as Latimer, and more firm than Cranmer.

    “Of the murders of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas Moore, the
    former the greatest patron of learning, the latter ranking with
    the most learned men the age produced, both of them men of
    undoubted piety, the reader must not expect in these pages a
    justification or even an attempt at palliation; we should be as
    ready to accord the crown of martyrdom to the Abbots of Reading
    and _Glastonbury_ and to the Prior of S. John’s, Colchester,
    when rather than betray their trust they died, as we are to
    place it on the heads of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. Although
    the latter had the better cause, yet we must all admit that
    atrocious as were the proceedings under Mary and Bonner, the
    persecutions under Henry and Cromwell fill the mind with
    greater horror.”

But it may be asked, were not the atrocious crimes laid to the
charge of the monks in the celebrated “Black Book,” the “Compendium
compertorum,” a sufficient justification? Did not the very parliament
at the recital cry “Down with them.”

The opinion of such parliaments as those which passed the absurd and
bloody treason acts dictated by Henry, or which condemned so many
innocent victims by Acts of Attainder, or passed those most atrocious
acts, “the Vagrant Acts,” by which a cruel form of slavery was
established in England, only England would not put it in practice,--the
professed opinion of such parliaments will weigh little with modern
Englishmen.

But it appears that the very accusers themselves, or at least
the Government who employed them, could not have believed in the
accusations; for no less than eleven of the Abbots were made Bishops
to save the Government their pensions, and some of them men against
whom the worst charges had been made; others became deans, and others
were put into positions of trust, as parochial priests, under Cranmer
himself.

And who were the witnesses? Their leader, Dr. London, was put to
penance for the most grievous incontinency, and afterwards thrown into
prison _for perjury_, where he died miserably. Another, Layton, who
figures in the tale, becoming dean of York, pawned the cathedral plate.
Upon the testimony of such witnesses one would not hang a dog.

But this is not the place for an investigation of the subject, nor is
it one to be commended to the pure-minded reader, such garbage did
these venal and foul-mouthed spies invent to justify the rapacity of
their employers. Not that we would maintain the absolute purity of the
monasteries, or that there was no foundation whatsoever upon which
such a superstructure was reared: many of the brotherhoods had fallen
far below the high ideal of their profession, or even the spiritual
attainments of their brethren in earlier and better days; but there
is absolute proof that in many instances the reports of the visitors
were pure inventions. No just Lots were they, “vexed with the filthy
conversation of the wicked,” but men of evil imaginations, who were
paid to invent scandal if they could not find it.[1]

I have not, therefore, hesitated to make the sufferings of the last
Abbot of Glastonbury the theme of a story, but while I have adhered to
the main facts of the tragedy, I have availed myself somewhat of the
usual license accorded to all writers of historical fiction, justified
by the example of the great and revered founder of the school, Sir
Walter Scott.

In particular, the words put into the mouth of the Abbot, both in his
last sermon at Glastonbury and in the trial at Wells, were actually
used by his fellow-sufferer, the Prior of the Charterhouse, John
Houghton, under precisely similar circumstances: the reader will find
the whole of the touching story in the second volume of Froude’s
“History of England;” it is well worth perusal.

It may be objected that one so young as the hero of the latter portion
of the story, “Cuthbert the foundling,” could scarcely have been
exposed to the operation of the Treason Acts, or required to take the
oath of supremacy, in his twenty-first year; but there are examples
of sufferers under this _régime_ at a more tender age: a month or two,
more or less, made small difference in the Tudor period, especially
when the interests of the Crown were concerned, or the will of the
despot expressed. The concealment of the Abbey treasure, and the
sympathy of the Abbot with the Pilgrimage of Grace (how could he be
otherwise disposed) are matters of history.

An attempt has been made, within our memory, by a modern historian,
to whitewash the memory of the royal “Blue Beard,” under whom such
fearful atrocities were committed; we are asked to believe that the
Carthusians, dying dismembered and mutilated in so horrible a manner,
or in the filth of the fetid dungeons in which they were thrown, that
the aged Countess of Salisbury flying about the scaffold with her
gray hairs dabbled in blood, that the Protestants who were burnt, and
Catholics who were drawn and quartered, sometimes on the same day and
at the same place, that such victims as Fisher, More, and Surrey, were
all unwilling sacrifices to a high sense of duty on the part of the
king who slew them, who also was a right honourable husband, plagued by
unworthy wives, and hence deserving of the pity of married men.

But to the writer, the following paragraph from a deservedly popular
history, appears more nearly to represent the truth:--

    “The temper of such a legislator as Henry the Eighth, and the
    thorough subservience, the otherwise _incredible_ cowardice and
    baseness of his parliaments, can only be fully exhibited by an
    enumeration of their penal laws, which for number, variety,
    severity, and inconsistency are perhaps unequalled in the
    annals of jurisprudence.

    “Instead of the calmness, the foresight, and the wisdom which
    are looked for in a legislator, we find the wild fantasies and
    ever-changing, though ever selfish caprices of a spoiled child,
    joined to the blind fierce malignant passions of a brutal and
    cruel savage. It would seem as if the disembodied demon of a
    Caligula or a Nero, the evil spirit that once bore their human
    form, had again become incarnate upon earth, let loose for some
    wise (though to dull mortal eyes, dimly discerned) end, to
    repeat in a distant age, and another clime that same strange,
    wild, extravagant medley of buffoonery and horror, which is
    fitted to move at once the laughter and execration of mankind.”
    (_Knight’s Pictorial History_).

This is strong language, but when one rises from a perusal of the deeds
committed during this reign of terror, it seems justified.

The destruction also of the monastic libraries, and the decay of
solid learning (Latimer being witness), must ever be regretted by
the scholar. Fuller tells us that “the English monks were bookish of
themselves, and much inclined to hoard up monuments of learning.” But
all these treasures were ruthlessly destroyed or scattered, including
books and valuable MS., which would now be worth their weight in gold.
John Ball, by no means a _laudator temporis acti_, wrote to Edward
VI.:--

    “A number of them which purchased these superstitious mansions
    (the monasteries) reserved of their library books, some to
    serve their jakes, some to scour their candlesticks, and some
    to rub their boots, some they sold to the grocers and soap
    sellers; and some they sent over sea to the bookbinders--not
    in small number, but at times whole ships full. ... I know a
    merchant man, which shall at this time be nameless, that bought
    the contents of two noble libraries for forty shillings a
    piece. A shame it is to be spoken. This stuff hath he occupied
    instead of grey paper by the space of more than these ten
    years, and yet he hath store enough for as many years to come.”

It is true the monks were accused of leading idle lives; but to the
unlearned, especially those who get their bread by physical labour, the
student poring over his books is always “a drone.”

It may be most true that the monastic system, so serviceable in
the middle ages, the only shelter for peaceful men in the midst of
bloodshed and strife, the only refuge for learning amongst the densely
ignorant, had had its day; that the hospitals, the almshouses, the
workhouses, the schools and colleges, do all the work they once did,
and do it better, that in the ages, then to come, they could have
filled no useful purpose had they survived.

Well! supposing this granted, does it in any way justify the cruelty
of the suppression? The judicious Hallam well observes, that “it is
impossible to feel too much indignation at the spirit in which these
proceedings were conducted.” Had vested and life interests been
respected, had the admission of further novices been prohibited, and
the buildings themselves, when no longer needed, utilized as hospitals
and colleges, and the like; whatever men might think of the change,
they would at least admit the moderation of the government; but what
consideration can justify the intolerable barbarity of the persecutions.

Two questions may be asked, first, what became of the monks, nearly
a hundred thousand, in a population of some three millions, who were
thus, with the most meagre of pensions, cruelly turned out of house and
home.

It must be replied that a large number, in fact all who could by any
contrivance be brought under the scope of either of the numerous laws
involving capital punishment, perished by the hand of the executioner.
For example, begging in the first instance was punished by whipping,
in the second by mutilation, and in the third the beggar was doomed
“to suffer pains and execution of death as a felon, and enemy of
the commonwealth.”[2] This cruel law, which was probably drawn up
by Henry himself, was doubtless aimed especially at the unfortunate
monks, who unfitted for labour by their sedentary lives, and unable
to obtain work, would often be forced to the dreadful alternative of
starvation or hanging. How many starving monks must have fallen into
this dreadful trap, for their pensions even if regularly paid were
miserably insufficient, and preferred to hang than to starve; doubtless
they formed a large proportion of the eighty thousand criminals, who
are said to have perished, by the hands of the executioner, in this
dreadful reign.

Secondly: what became of the monastic property amounting, it has been
said, to a sum equivalent to fifty millions sterling of our present
money, which was to have almost superseded taxation, and accomplished
other wonderful ends? It disappeared under Henry’s incomprehensible
extravagance, and at the hands of his greedy courtiers; and not only
was he forced in his latter days to debase the currency, but moreover
in the last November of his life, his venal parliament conferred upon
him the absolute disposal of all colleges, charities, and hospitals in
the kingdom, with all their manors, lands, and hereditaments, receiving
only in return his gracious promise that they should all be applied for
the public good. Had God not summoned the tyrant to give an account
of his stewardship, within two months of the act, we might not have
had a college, school, almshouse, or hospital left in England, any
more than a monastery; “had he survived a little while longer,” says
the impartial writer I have before quoted, “he would not have left an
hospital for the care of the sick, or a school for the instruction of
youth.”

But I have already taxed the patience of my readers; I have promised
them a tale and instead I am writing an essay.

A. D. C.

_December, 1883._


FOOTNOTES

[1] The reader will find this subject fully and fairly treated in the
sixth chapter of the Rev. J. H. Blunt’s “History of the Reformation”
and the first introductory chapter of the first volume of the new
series of Dean Hook’s “Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury,” from
which I have already quoted.

[2] 22 Henry VIII. Cap. 12, and 27 Henry VIII. Cap. 25.




INDEX.


    CHAP.                                                          PAGE.

                       PART I.--The Last Abbot.

        PROLOGUE                                                       1

     1.--ALL HALLOW EVEN                                               7

     2.--RETROSPECT                                                   16

     3.--THE SECRET CHAMBER                                           27

     4.--THE ARREST                                                   33

     5.--THE ROAD-SIDE INN                                            44

     6.--THE TRIAL                                                    55

     7.--GLASTONBURY TOR                                              65

     8.--ON THE TRACK                                                 74

     9.--IN THE RUINS OF THE ABBEY                                    91

                   PART II.--Cuthbert the Foundling.

     1.--THE OLD MANOR HOUSE                                         101

     2.--AN EVENTFUL RAMBLE                                          111

     3.--AN ACT OF GRATITUDE                                         122

     4.--EXETER GAOL                                                 135

     5.--PUT TO THE QUESTION                                         145

     6.--AN UNEXPECTED DISCLOSURE                                    154

     7.--CASTLE REDFYRNE                                             164

     8.--LED FORTH TO DIE                                            177

     9.--BREATHING TIME                                              187

    10.--THE SHADOWS DARKEN                                          198

    11.--AN ANCIENT INN                                              210

    12.--THE HAND OF GOD                                             221

    13.--THE TRUST FULFILLED                                         232

    14.--SUUM CUIQUE TRIBUITUR                                       243

         EPILOGUE                                                    252

         NOTES                                                       257




_ERRATUM._


_Page 169, line 5, Read_ appetens _for_ appietens.




PART I.

_The Last Abbot._


    They built in marble; built as they
    Who hoped these stones should see the day
    When Christ should come; and that these walls
    Might stand o’er them till judgment calls.




THE LAST ABBOT OF GLASTONBURY,

_A TALE OF THE DAYS OF HENRY VIII_.




Prologue.


It is a cold wintry night in the year 1524, the fifteenth of the high
and mighty Lord, Henry, Eighth of that name, “by the grace of God King
of Great Britain, France, and Ireland,” as the heralds vainly style him.

All day long the clouds have been hanging over the forest of Avalon,
heavy and dull as lead, and now towards eventide they descend in snow,
an east wind arises, which blows the flakes before it, with such
frantic violence, that their direction seems almost parallel to the
earth, penetrating every nook of the forest, filling each hollow.

Darkness descends upon the earth, as the storm increases; it is dark
everywhere, but darkest in the depths of the sombre wood, amidst the
tangled copse, beneath the bare branches of the huge oaks, which wave
wildly as if in torture, and anon fall with a crash which startles the
boldest beasts of the forest.

A road leads through the heart of this mighty wood, leads towards
the famous Abbey-town of Glastonbury, where as folks say Joseph of
Arimathæa arrived long ago, and planting his staff, which grew like
Aaron’s rod, and put forth buds, determined the site of the future
Benedictine Monastery. Do they not yet show the strange foreign thorn
tree which grew from that holy staff?[3]

But we are in the wood, and happy were it for us, if we could but rest
before the huge fire which imagination pictures in that far off great
chamber of the Abbey.

Through the darkness comes a step softly falling on the snow; it draws
nearer, and dim outlines become distinct. It is a woman and she carries
an infant.

A woman and her child out to-night! the Saints preserve them,
especially S. Joseph of Glastonbury; with what a timid glance too she
looks behind her from time to time. Does she fear pursuit?

See how she clasps the child to her breast, how she wraps her robe
around it, regardless of the exposure of her own person: poor mother,
what has brought her out in this wild night? Alas, her strength seems
failing: see she stumbles, almost falls, the wind blows so fiercely
that she can hardly stand against it,--she stumbles again.

We, as invisible spectators, stand beneath the shade, or what would
be in summer the shade of a spreading beech; around its base there is
a mossy bank, gently rising, or rather _would_ be were it not covered
with snow.

She approaches the tree and falls on the slope as one who _can_ do no
more, who gives up the struggle.

Still she shelters the poor babe.

An hour passes away, she lies as if dead, only there is a ceaseless cry
from the child, and from time to time a faint moan from the mother.

Look, there is a light in the wood; it is moving, and now a heavy step,
crushing the frozen snow; it is a countryman, and he carries a horn
lantern.

A dog, a shepherd’s dog, runs by his side.

Will the man pass the tree?--yes _he_ may but the dog will not; see he
is “pointing,” and now he runs to his master, and takes hold of the
skirts of his smock.

“What have we here? S. Joseph help us! a woman! Why mistress what
doest thou here? Get up, or thou wilt be frozen stiff and stark before
morning.”

Only a moan in answer: he stoops down and gently, for a rustic, looks
at her face; he does not know her, but he sees by the dress and by
something indescribable in the face, that she is one of “gentle blood.”

“Canst thou not move?”

Another moan.

He strives to raise her, and the dog looks wistfully on, as if in full
sympathy. Thy canine heart, poor Tray, is softer than that of the men
who drove her forth to-night.

Ah, that is right; she takes courage, strives to rise,--no, she is down
again.

“I cannot,” she says, “my limbs are frozen; take the child, save my
Cuthbert.”

“I would fain save you both,” says the man, but he strives in vain to
do so, it is beyond his power to carry them, and _she_ can move no
further; she but rises to sink again on the bank, her limbs have lost
their power.

“Take my child,” she says once more, “and leave me to die; heaven is
kinder than man, and the good angels are very near.”

The yeoman, for such he is, hesitates, “No one shall say that Giles
Hodge forsook thee in thy strait, yet, there is the keeper’s cottage
within a mile, if I run and take the babe, I may come back and save
thee.”

“Go, go, for heaven’s sake, my boy _must_ live, his precious life
_must_ be saved, then come back for me; he is the heir of”--

Here her voice failed her.

“She speaks the words of wisdom,” says Giles, and he takes the babe,
leaving the shawl wrapped round the mother.

“Nay, the shawl, take the shawl for the babe.”

“I can carry it ’neath my smock, and ’twill come to no harm, thou
wouldst die without it.”

She starts up, imprints one fervent kiss upon the babe ere it leaves
her; alas, it is the last feeble outcome of strength.

Giles runs along the road, as fast as the ground, heavy with snow, and
the wind, will permit him; he reaches the house of Stephen Ringwood,
the deputy keeper; it is now Curfew time, and the honest woodman is
just putting out his fire to go to bed.

“Stephen, Stephen,” shouts Giles, as he knocks at the door.

A loud and heavy barking from the throats of deep-chested dogs.

“Who is there?”

“Thy old crony, Giles Hodge; open to me at once.”

The door opens. “What Saint has sent thee here! and a babe too?”

“Oh, Stephen, come directly, and help me bring the _mother_ in; she is
out in the snow, spent with toil, and if we arrive not soon she will be
_dead_.”

“I have some warm milk on the fire; here, Susan, give some to the babe
and give me the rest,” and putting it into a horn, the two started
back, leaving the infant with the keeper’s wife.

They reach the tree again.

How still she is.

Giles trembles, bless his tender heart. It is no discredit to thy
manhood, Giles.

“Yes, she is dead, she has given her last kiss to the babe.”

They put together some short poles and cord they have brought, which
make a sort of litter.

“Carry her gently, Stephen,” says Giles as he wipes his eyes with the
sleeves of his smock, “carry her gently, she said the good angels were
near her, and I believe they are watching us now, if they are not on
the road to paradise with her soul.”


FOOTNOTES

[3] See Note A., Antiquities of Glastonbury.




CHAPTER I.

_ALL-HALLOW EVEN._


It was the All-Hallow Even of the year 1538, and the first Evensong of
the festival of All Saints had been sung, in the noble Abbey Church
of Glastonbury, with all those solemn accessories, which gave such
dignity, yet such mystery, to the services of the mediæval Church of
England.

The air was yet redolent with the breath of incense, the solemn notes
of the Gregorian psalmody yet seemed to echo through the lofty aisles,
as the long procession of the Benedictine brethren left the choir, and
passed in procession down the church, the Abbot in his gorgeous robes
closing the procession.

A noble looking old man was he, that Richard Whiting,--last and not
least of the hundred mitred Abbots who had filled that seat of honour
and dignity since the first conversion of England. A face full of
sweet benignity--one which inspired reverence while it commanded love.
His life had been distinguished throughout by the virtues which had
ever found congenial home at Glastonbury--piety towards God, and love
towards man.

And now the lay congregation who filled the noble nave and aisles,
beyond the transept, were leaving the church; the lights were slowly
extinguished, and the gloom of the wintry evening was filling the
church, save where the one solitary light burnt all night before the
high altar.

In the porch, after the doors were closed, stood the sacristan and a
young acolyte--one of the choristers, for since a large school was
attached to the monastery, they had the assistance of a youthful choir.
It was a bright happy face, that of the boy, upon which the moon shone
brightly, as he bade “good night” to the sacristan--saying that he
had leave to spend the evening at home, and should not return till
morning--then passed with light footsteps through the Abbey precincts,
and then across a green, to some distant cottages which skirted the
common land. Let us describe him more fully. He was somewhat sunburnt
in complexion, with brown hair, and had those blue eyes, beneath long
dark eye-brows, which give a sort of dreamy expression to the face,
but the features were redeemed from the charge of effeminacy by the
bold open brow, the firm thin lips, and by the nose which was slightly
aquiline.

His dress was studiously simple, yet very unlike that of modern days,
but if my youthful readers have ever met a “blue coat boy” they will
have no difficulty in picturing the attire of the period. To sum up, he
was a lad whose appearance inspired interest, as we hope his fortunes,
to be herein depicted, will do, for they were passing strange.

It was a picturesque house before which he stopped--a cottage overgrown
with ivy, not unlike those cottages, now alas fast vanishing, which
may be met in many an Oxfordshire village--and which strolling artists
delight to paint, lovely to look at, but not so comfortable, it may be,
as the new style of brick and slate tenements, which painters would
disdain to transfer to canvas.

The fire within shone brightly through the windows, and the flickering
light made the heart of Cuthbert, for such was his name, leap with the
anticipation of the joys of the ingle-nook,--the endearments of home.

He lifted the latch without knocking, and entered; an aged man and
woman sat by the fire, a comely old couple, who were eager, in spite of
their infirmities, to greet the darling of their old age.

And was not there a meal spread on the table near the fire? It was not
“tea,” that beverage was yet unknown, but there was plenty to tempt a
boy’s appetite, and the frosty air had sharpened Cuthbert’s.

And when it was over, and the old man sat in his high-backed arm-chair,
the grandmother went out and the lad went into the “chimney corner” to
his favourite seat.

“Chimney corner!” what a nook of delight on the winter’s evening, when
the snow-flakes steal gently down the chimney and hiss as they meet the
blazing logs! Well does the writer remember filling such a seat many
winters ago.

“Grandfather, do you remember that this night is Hallow-e’en, when all
the ghosts are abroad? I want you to tell me something about them--the
old tales which used to make my flesh creep when I was younger.”

“Why, boy, it is thought to be a night when the dead can’t rest quiet
in their graves, though why they should not rest on a holy night like
this I can hardly tell.”

“Did you ever see a ghost? Oh, here is grandmother with nuts, apples,
and ale! Why do we always eat nuts and apples on Hallow-e’en?”

“They always have been eaten to-night, that is all I know; sometimes
they tie up an apple with a string to the beam, and when they have tied
the hands, set the young ones to eat it with the help of their teeth
only--catch who catch can.”

“And about the nuts?”

“Oh, lads and maidens who are in love with each other will take two
nuts, and call them _lad_ and _lass_: if they burn quietly together
they conclude that they will have a happy wedded life, but if _lad_ or
_lass_ bounce out of the fire, that there will be strife and quarrels
between them, in which case, dear boy, I think they had better not go
together to the altar; better live apart than have nought but strife
and quarrels.”[4]

“But I wanted to ask you about something more wonderful than this;
the boys were saying, when we were talking about Hallow-e’en in the
cloisters, that if you went into the church porch at midnight, you
would see the _fetches_[5] of all the folk who are to die this year
come and choose the place for their graves.”

“I have heard the tale, and don’t believe it; it is all nonsense, my
boy.”

“Anyhow I promised that I would go and see to-night.”

“Nay, my child, you must be in bed and asleep at midnight, and I do not
think you would _dare_ to try.”

“That is what they said, the other boys I mean, and they _dared_ me to
go.”

“I don’t think you would catch a ghost, but I think you would catch
your death of cold, it is freezing sharply to-night.”

Cuthbert thought it best to drop the subject, lest he should be
forbidden to make the adventure, upon which he had set his heart, not
without some trepidation, but still with the longing to be the hero of
the occasion, who should test the truth of the legend--for he had bound
himself to his schoolfellows to make the experiment, and there was much
speculation as to the probable results.

After a very pleasant evening the hour of bed-time approached. Our
ancestors thought Curfew (8 p.m.) the proper time for retiring, and
nine was looked upon as a very late hour.

So, soon after Curfew had rung from the tower of the Abbey, the embers
of the fire were “raked out,” and the old couple retired to their
rooms, after seeing Cuthbert safe in his little chamber, which opened
upon the roof.

The rudeness of the furniture in those days has been somewhat
exaggerated by modern writers; indeed we are apt to conclude, because
in this nineteenth century such progress has been made in the arts
of civilization as puts us quite upon a different footing from
our grandfathers, that a similar difference existed between those
grandfathers themselves and _their_ ancestors. But it was not so, there
was scant difference between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries in
this respect.

So in Cuthbert’s room there was a comfortable bed, on a carved wooden
bedstead, a chair, a table, a chest for clothes, and the like, much as
in the present day.[6]

The lad did not undress, but, after he had said his prayers, lay down
on the bed in his clothes, and did what he could to keep himself awake,
till the time came for his adventure.

He counted the hours as the Abbey clock struck, until _eleven_ boomed
forth, when he rose, put on his doublet, opened the door, and went very
softly down stairs.

He listened at his grandfather’s room as he went by--they were fast
asleep, he heard their breathing. He descended to the “living” room,
opened the outer door carefully, and stole forth.

Once on the green, the freshness of the air and the bright moonlight
revived him; he felt his spirits rise in spite of the involuntary chill
which now and then crept over him.

He reached the grave-yard of the parish church, for this had been
selected as the scene of the experiment, since the monks would be
singing the night office in the Abbey.

And as he went through the church-yard to the porch, he could not help
looking timorously from side to side, it seemed so strange to be alone
with the dead, when the living were asleep; he was glad to get inside,
the shadows of the yew trees looked so ghastly on the cold graves, and
the chill moon looked upon the last low resting places with such a
ghostly light.

He tried the door of the church; it was locked, as usual at that hour.

There was a broad bench on each side the porch; he sat and waited.

And I think he fell asleep and dreamt, but this was the story he told.

When the clock tolled the hour of midnight the last sound of the bell
was prolonged, as if the organ in its softest tones had taken up the
note; the music grew louder, until the introit of the Mass for the dead
pealed out distinctly.

“Requiem æternam dona eis Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.”

Then as he started up in amazement, the door swung open, and the
“fetches or doubles” of those who were to die that year, that is, their
ghostly likenesses, came out to seek their graves.

And there were many whom the boy knew, but last of all came out from
the church the form of his benefactor, Richard Whiting, Lord Abbot of
Glastonbury.

And around his neck there hung a ghastly cord, and close by his side
followed Prior and Sub-Prior, and cords were about their necks too.

Then the boy grew faint, and knew no more till he awoke, or recovered
from his faint, whichever it was, and returning home, undressed,
shivering as he did so, and went to bed.

When he afterwards told this tale, there were many who refused to
believe that he had ever left his bed, and always insisted that he had
_dreamt_ the scene in the porch.

But if it was a dream, it was not without inspiration.

Coming events cast their shadows before.


FOOTNOTES

[4] See Note B.

[5] See Note C.

[6] An ancient inventory of the furniture of such a house lies before
the writer as he pens these lines.




CHAPTER II.

_RETROSPECT._


Three centuries and more have rolled away since the dissolution of
the monasteries, which once rose in architectural beauty in each
district of mediæval England, gladdening the eye of the wayfarer with
the assurance of hospitality, and of the poor with that of help and
protection.

Their pious founders built in marble--

                        “Built as they
    Who hoped those stones should see the day
    When Christ should come; and that those walls
    Might stand o’er them till judgment calls.”

Alas! for such hopes; the tyrant Tudor, taking advantage of the
palpable declension of the inmates from their first love, levelled them
with the ground, and left the country shorn of such glorious fanes as
arose over the conquerors at Battle, or the tombs of the mighty dead at
Glastonbury. Yet still they had welcomed the wayfarer and the stranger,
tended the sick, taught the young, found labour for the poor, were
good masters to their tenants, built bridges, made roads, and were the
centres of civilization in their several districts.

Two rebellions ruthlessly extinguished in blood--the pilgrimage of
grace, and the later rising in Devon and Cornwall--testified to the
popular sense of loss when the servile courtier, ever the tyrant at
home, had succeeded to the gentle old monks.

For all that is now done for the poor, and too often in a wooden kind
of way by workhouses, hospitals, and the like, was then done by the
monasteries, and their suppression was a cruel wrong to the poor.

Reformed, they needed to be, or they had never fallen, but that the
treasures given by their founders in trust for God and His poor should
pass into the hands of Henry’s fawning courtiers was too monstrous an
iniquity.

The legendary history of Glastonbury has been told by the author
before,[7] its supposed foundation by S. Joseph of Arimathæa, devoutly
believed in in that credulous age, and the holy thorn-tree which
blossomed from the staff which he there struck into the ground; _there_
King Arthur was buried, and his body found after the lapse of ages;
_there_, like a city set on a hill, the lamp of faith had been kept
burning for forty generations, if alas, tarnished (which we sadly own)
by superstition and credulity.

Amongst other good works, they educated the young of Christ’s flock,
for at Glastonbury there was a school of two or three hundred boys,
who were taught by the learned Benedictines of the Abbey; for the
Benedictines were the scholars of the day.

The discipline was somewhat severe, and the life hard, as modern boys
would think it.

The hour of rising, summer or winter, was four; they breakfasted at
five, after the service of Lauds in the chapel, upon beef and beer on
ordinary days, and on a dish of sprats or herrings instead of meat on
fast days.

Then to their lessons, and we shall grieve our younger readers when we
tell that Solomon was held in much respect, and therefore the rod was
freely used in case of idleness or insubordination; but of the latter
there was very little under monastic discipline.

There was a short space for recreation before the chapter Mass at nine
o’clock, which all attended, after which work was resumed until Sext,
which was followed by a simple but hearty dinner.

There was again another period of work in the afternoon, after Nones,
but as it was necessary that the boys should not be behind the world
in physical prowess, ample leisure was afforded for exercise and rough
sports.

Modern schoolboys complain of compulsory football; their remote
ancestors had little choice in such matters, whether schoolboys or
rustic lads on the village green. By Act of Parliament, tutors in the
one case, or magistrates in the other, were bound to see that the lads
under their jurisdiction, omitting idle sports, did exercise themselves
in archery, the broad-sword exercise, the tilt yard, and such-like
martial pastimes.

Fighting, or mock-fighting--and the imitation was not altogether unlike
the reality--was alike the amusement and the chief accomplishment
of life, especially in England, which had then, not without cause,
the reputation of being the “fiercest nation in Europe.” “English
wild beasts,” an Italian writer calls them, yet who would not prefer
the manly and honest Englishman to the Italian of the day, with his
poisoners and bravoes?

And our readers must imagine how the Glastonbury boys were excited
by such stories as that of the four hundred London apprentices, who
went out as volunteers to the garrison of Calais, and kept all the
neighbouring districts of France in terror, until they were overwhelmed
by _six_ times their number, and died fighting with careless
desperation to the last.

So, even in the calm atmosphere of a monastery school, the world
intruded.

As for their book-lore, they learned Latin practically, for they were
forced to use it during a great part of the day in conversation,
while they read daily in the Fathers and classical authors. Fabyan’s
Chronicles and other old English historians supplied their history, and
they were fairly instructed in the rudiments of mathematics. Altogether
it was a sound education which the monastic school supplied.

We will now proceed with our story, after a digression which may be
easily omitted by those who dislike to understand what they read.

       *       *       *       *       *

The reader has, we doubt not, already identified the hero of the
midnight adventure in the church porch, with the babe of our prologue.

Honest old Giles Hodge had told the whole story to the Abbot, within
whose jurisdiction the babe was found, and with whom he sought an early
interview. Strict search had been made after the surviving parent, if
perchance there was one upon whom that epithet could be bestowed.

But no trace was found; only the delicate apparel of the lady, and
the fine linen in which the child was wrapped, led to the conclusion
that they were members of some “gentle house.” Upon the linen there
were marks: a crest which had been picked out, and two initials yet
remaining, “C. R.”

“The poor little foundling shall be our care,” said the good Abbot,
“but here alack, we have no nursery, and your good wife, who has
so recently lost her own babe, must be his foster mother if she be
willing. I will provide for his maintenance hereafter, whether in the
cloister or the world, unless his friends claim him.”

“And what name shall we give him, your reverence?”

“Let me see, C must be his Christian name; let us call him Cuthbert,
better patron than S. Cuthbert he could not have; the R must yet be a
mystery--he will not need two names yet.”

So the years rolled by; Cuthbert grew up strong and hearty, but no one
ever came to claim him. And he was still known only by _one_ name, a
peculiarity little commented upon where his story was so well known.

He grew up a general favourite, especially, it was supposed, with the
Abbot; and yet the self-restrained austere old man showed little traces
of such weakness, save to very observant eyes.

He loved the young, one and all, and often visited the school. He knew
every face there, and it was a great delight to him to watch them at
their sports, perhaps recalling his own younger days, when Henry the
Seventh was King.

In time little Cuthbert was chosen to be a chorister, and soon
afterwards, by the Abbot’s desire, he was made an “acolyte,”--one who
served at the altar,--and there his reverent and unassuming demeanour
won him yet further regard.

But my readers must not think him the least bit of a milksop; they
know, I trust, that the bravest lad is he who fears God, and fears
nought besides. Cuthbert was not one of those lads who _talked_ much
about religion, if there were such then, nor again one who courted
notice by obtrusive acts of devotion--his religion was of a manlier
type.

And meanwhile, as we shall show, he gained the respect of his
companions by his proficiency in manly sports and exercises; he was one
of the best archers, one of the best at fencing and sword play; in the
tilt yard he was always up to the mark. In the same way some of the
best boys I remember at a certain school were conspicuous at football
and cricket, the modern equivalents.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a fine evening in May, and all the lads of Glastonbury School
were in the archery ground. A silver arrow had to be contended for as a
prize--the prize of the year--and there were many competitors.

All Glastonbury looked on at the sport; many were there who had been
great archers themselves in their youth, and who, like Nestor of old,
were never tired of talking of the great things that had been done when
they were young.

For full two hundred years had gunpowder been in common use, yet all
that time the bow held its own; an arrow would fly much farther than
the bullets of that day, nay of much later days, for it was actually
ordered by Act of Parliament, in the directions to the villages, for
the maintenance of “buttes,” that no person of full age should shoot
with the light-flight arrow at a less distance than two hundred and
twenty yards, that is a whole furlong: under that distance the heavy
war arrow had to be used in all trials of skill.[8]

And now four lads of fourteen stand forth to contend for the prize; the
target is a furlong off, the arrows, light ones, in regard to the age
of the competitors.

We will introduce them to our readers in proper order.

There stands Gregory Bell, son of the squire of a neighbouring village,
tall and slim, but tough in muscle, and very sound in wind and limb;
his round face and laughing black eyes will be remembered many a day.
His long-bow is long indeed,--three fingers thick, and six feet long,
well got up, polished, and without knots; few English boys could bend
it now, it came of practice.

He draws the bow--the light arrow cleaves the air--he has struck the
first circle of blue, not the bull’s-eye itself--a cheer from his
schoolfellows.

“Well done, Gregory, well done, old fellow.”

“The lad will do well enough,” said an old bowman, “yet not like his
father; but where be the bowmen of Crecy now? At the last bout we had
with them, the French turned their backs upon us at long range, and bid
us shoot, whereas had we been the men our sires were, they would have
paid dearly for their fool-hardy challenge.”

Then stood up Adam Banister, a round thick-set youth, with brown hair
and rosy face.

“Good luck to thee, Banister,” was the cry.

How easily he drew his ponderous bow: the arrow whizzed--alas, only the
_second_ circle was attained.

And now the third champion.

It is Nicholas Grabber. Let our readers mark him, he will often figure
in these pages.

A lad of average height, with a head of very bright red hair,
which seems positively to shine; his face is deeply freckled, but
his appearance not altogether unprepossessing, save for a certain
expression of slyness which would indicate a mixture of the fox in
his character; those who believed in the transmigration of souls might
recognize the _retriever_ in Gregory, the _bull_ in Banister, the _fox_
in Grabber, and--well we will leave them to designate the fourth after
reading his history, for it was Cuthbert.

One after the other they discharge their arrows; the first shaft
strikes the bull’s-eye, but amid shouts of admiration, the second, that
of Cuthbert, pierces as near the centre.

“Hurrah!” “Grabber!” “Cuthbert!” and the names were repeated again and
again by the crowd.

“Move the target fifty yards further, and let them shoot yet again.”

They were rivals, these two boys, and not such good friends as they
should have been. Grabber envied Cuthbert his place in the Abbot’s
favour, which _he_ had utterly failed to attain; for had he not run
away, and had not his father sent him back to school, coupled between
two foxhounds, under the charge of the huntsman, a story never
forgotten by his schoolfellows.[9] However, he was a good shot, a
ringleader in boyish mischief, and not without his friends.

Again the arrows flew, but at this distance Grabber failed the
bull’s-eye, just alighting on the rim.

A few moments of breathless anticipation, and Cuthbert’s shaft, soaring
through the air, attains the very centre, amidst shouts of wonder and
admiration.[10]

Grabber turned away disgusted, as Cuthbert advanced to receive the
silver arrow from the chief forester, who superintended the “buttes.”

Then rang out the Abbey bell for Compline, and the field was deserted
to the townsfolk, who kept up the pastimes of archery, cudgel playing,
bowls, and the like, till darkness set in.


FOOTNOTES

[7] See “Edwy the Fair,” and “Alfgar the Dane,” by the same author.

[8] Froude, vol. I, p. 67. He well observes that he could hardly
believe the figures from his experience of modern archery, but such was
the Act 33, Henry VIII., cap. 9.

[9] See Note D.

[10] A far more remarkable instance of English archery is given in
Scott’s “Anne of Geirstein.”




CHAPTER III.

_THE SECRET CHAMBER._


The Compline service was over, and the lads, many of whom slept in the
abbey, while others lodged in the town, were retiring to their beds,
when a lay brother arrested Cuthbert’s progress, and said in a low
voice, “The Abbot requires thy presence.”

Somewhat startled,--for the summons was an unusual one at that hour,
although he often acted in turn with other lads as a page-in-waiting on
the Abbot, an office none would then despise,--Cuthbert followed the
laic.

Threading various passages, they reached the Abbot’s lodgings, and
there the messenger knocked and retired, leaving Cuthbert to obey the
summons, “_Enter_.”

Richard Whiting, the last of that long line of mitred Abbots, sat near
the window of his study, which was a plainly furnished room, simple as
the personal tastes of the Abbot.

He was now but a weak and infirm old man, yet of many good brethren
the best;--“small in stature, in figure venerable, in countenance
dignified, in manner most modest, in eloquence most sweet, in chastity
without stain; not without that austerity of expression which we often
notice in the portraits of these great mediæval ecclesiastics.”

“My son,” he said, “I have somewhat to say to thee ere perchance I be
taken from thee.”

“Taken from me, Father?”

“Yes, the clouds are gathering thick around our devoted house, and the
shelter thou hast long received may fail thee and all others here, ere
long.”

Cuthbert looked amazed.

“Tidings have reached me, my child, that I must be taken to London,
there to answer to certain treasons of which they falsely accuse me;
the bolt may fall at any moment, and I have to discharge two duties,
the first towards thee.”

The Abbot took up a little chest from the sideboard.

“Thou hast long been _my_ son, and hast not needed thy natural parents,
but dost thou not oftentimes wonder who they were?”

“They come to me in dreams.”

“And as yet _only_ in dreams, my child; perchance thou art an orphan,
but in that chest are the few relics of thy poor mother, which we
possess; these are the little clothes which swathed thee when thou
wast found in Avalon forest--there a ring which encircled thy mother’s
finger, and a full description of the circumstances of thy arrival
here.”

“But what use would they be to me didst thou leave me alone in the
world, Father?”

“Thou wilt never be alone, God will be ever with thee, He is the Father
of the fatherless; should aught happen to drive thee hence, thee and
others, take refuge with thy foster-parents until one seek thee,
bearing this ring which thou seest on my finger, to him thou mayest
safely commit thyself, and the secrets I am about to entrust thee for
him.”

Here the tapestry moved in the wind, and a knock was heard at the door,
which stood ajar; a fact the Abbot had not noticed.

To Cuthbert’s surprise there stood Nicholas Grabber.

“Quid vis fili?” was the Abbot’s interrogation.

“The lay brother Francis said that thou wantedst me.”

“It was an error, I sent for Cuthbert, and he is here. Pax tecum, go to
rest.”

“My son,” said the Abbot, when Grabber was gone, “I am about to reveal
to thee a mystery which thou alone mayest share, until the friend I
have mentioned seeks thee, and presents thee with this ring, which
thou now seest on my finger; it will not be till I am gone.”

Cuthbert felt his spirits sink within him at the sad words of his
protector, but he restrained himself, and listened reverently as to the
words of a saint.

“Shut the door carefully, and draw the bolt.”

Cuthbert did so.

“Now touch the rose which thou seest in the carving of the cornice
there, the fourth rose in order from the door, and the third from the
floor.”

The wainscotting of the room was divided into small squares; in each
one a rose--S. Joseph’s rose--formed the centre.

“The third and the fourth, canst thou remember?”

“Third from the floor, fourth from the door.”

“Now press the centre of the bud sharply with thy thumb.”

Cuthbert did so, and a bookcase, which seemed a fixture in the wall,
and which none could have suspected to have been aught _but_ a fixture,
flew open in the manner of a door, and revealed a flight of circular
steps, such steps as we see in old towers to this day.

“Follow me,” said the Abbot, as he took a lamp and descended the steps.

Thirty steps down, and as the Abbot’s room was on the ground-floor,
they must have been below the foundations of the Abbey when they came
upon a solid iron door; the Abbot touched a spring, bidding Cuthbert
observe the manner in which it worked, and entered.

“Fasten the door carefully back by this stay,” said the Abbot, “for
should it sway to, we are dead men; the lock is a spring lock, and
opens only from the outside, nor is there other exit save into the
vaults of the dead. Dost thou see this chest? Here is the key, open it.”

Cuthbert turned the lock, raised the ponderous lid, and let it rest
against the wall behind, then gazed upon the contents.

There were the most precious jewels of the Abbey, gemmed reliquaries,
golden and jewelled pixes, chalices of solid gold, coined money, and
the like, but beyond all this enormous wealth were rolls of parchment,
and bundles of letters.

“My son, I have marked in thee from childhood a nature free from guile,
and incapable of treachery, therefore do I place this confidence in
thee. Those golden and jewelled treasures are not the most important
things in the chest, but the _parchments_, the _letters_. They contain
secrets, which, if made known, might cost many lives--lives of some of
the truest patriots and most faithful sons of Holy Church.[11] I need
not detail their nature to thee, nor why I may not destroy them now.
The secret thou hast learned is not for thee, thou wilt keep it until
the arrival of the hour and the man.”

“His name?”

“I will but tell thee this much, he will be known to thee as the Father
Ambrose.”

“Have I never yet met him?”

“Never, he has lived abroad; and now, my child, I will tell thee why I
have chosen thee for the repository of this secret. He, who will be thy
guardian and guide, when I am no more, who has undertaken the care of
thy future, will also share alone with thee this knowledge. Ordinarily
it has been confined to the Abbot, Prior, and Sub-Prior of this Abbey,
and by them handed down to their successors. They share my danger,
and may not survive me; otherwise they may be taken when inquisition
is made for these papers, and put to torture to make them declare the
hiding-place, and the like danger would hang over all high in office,
but not, I trust, over one so young as thou art. Therefore thou must
live quietly at thy stepfather’s home, until the day come when thy
future guardian shall arrive, and may He, Who is the Father of the
orphan, ever guard thee, my Cuthbert. But let us hasten to leave these
vaults; I am old, and the damp air affects my aged breath.”


FOOTNOTES

[11] See Note E.




CHAPTER IV.

_THE ARREST._


No event of importance followed immediately upon the disclosure of the
secret chamber;--the summer passed swiftly and pleasantly away, the
orchards were already laden with the golden riches of autumn, ere the
bolt, so long foreseen, fell.

We can hardly, ourselves, enter into the difficulties and trials which
beset the Abbot of Glastonbury. We are accustomed to the spectacle of
a Church, divided, at least externally, but to men who had grown up
with the belief, that outward unity was essential to the preservation
of Christianity, the absolute command to abjure the Papal Supremacy,
to break off all relations with Rome, and acknowledge the King as the
“Head of the Church of England,” was a matter of life or death.

So Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher, not to mention hosts of others,
died sooner than comply, while the more timid, shocked at the scandal,
for such it was to them, gave outward obedience, and in their hearts
prayed fervently that “this tyranny might be over past.”

Let it not, however, be inferred that therefore they were right in
contending for the supremacy of Rome, only in the right, inasmuch as it
is far nobler to die, than to deny one’s belief, or to swear falsely to
what one does not believe in one’s heart.

And so while we reject their teaching on this point, we can feel the
deepest sympathy with the sufferings of these noble, yet mistaken souls.

On the first visitation of his monastery, three years previously, the
Abbot had taken the Oath of Supremacy, feeling that it was not a cause
for which a man was bound to die, but he had never been a happy man
since, he was too old to change his convictions. Therefore he absented
himself from the place in Parliament, which was his as a mitred
Abbot, who was ranked as the equal of a Bishop, and strove to hide
his sorrows in obscurity. No fault was then alleged against him, the
earlier visitors reported that his house was, and had long been, “full
honourable.”

But the eye of the “Malleus Monachorum,” the arch enemy of the monks,
Thomas Cromwell, was upon him, and at last this vigilant enemy, equally
cruel and unscrupulous, found the pretext he desired, for sending the
Abbot of Glastonbury, as also the Abbots of Reading and Colchester to
the gibbet and the quartering block. Most of the Abbots had been led to
save themselves by a voluntary surrender of their house and estates;
those who did not thus bend to the storm, had to be destroyed on one
pretence or another.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was the sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, in the year of grace 1539.

The day was a bright day of early autumn, one of those sweet balmy
days, when summer seems to put out all her parting beauties ere she
yields her dominion to winter,--the air was laden with fragrance, and
there was a dreamy haze upon the scenery around, which seemed typical
of heavenly peace.

But there was a sad despondent feeling, which weighed like lead, upon
the hearts of all the elders present at the High Mass on that day, in
the great Abbey Church, whose majestic ruins yet strike the beholder
with awe.

After the Creed, the Abbot ascended the pulpit and gazed round upon
the congregation, as upon those to whom he was about to preach for
the last time; he took for his text the parting words of S. Paul at
Miletus,--“And now behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone
preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more.”

As he uttered the words there was an audible expression of feeling on
the part of the monks in the choir, the boys in the transepts, and the
citizens in the spacious nave: was the text prophetical? One or two
sobs might be heard.

Danger was at hand, and he knew it, and after a brief exordium he told
it out plainly: the Royal Commissioners, with charge to bring him
before the Council, were already on their way.

“Very sorry am I,” said he, “for you, my brethren, and especially my
younger friends, of whom I see so many around. They will destroy this
House of God, as they have so many others, they will spare you in the
flesh, but if you are taken hence, and sent into a cold-hearted and
wicked world, for which you are unfitted, having begun in the spirit,
ye may be consumed in the flesh, and what shall I say, or what shall I
do, if I cannot save those whom God has entrusted to my charge?”

Here a common utterance broke forth from the brethren which could not
be suppressed.

“Let us die together in our integrity, and heaven and earth shall
witness for us how unjustly we be cut off.”

“Would that it might be even so,” continued the preacher, “that so
dying we might pass in a body to our Father’s home above, but they
will not do us so great a kindness. Me and the elder brethren they may
indeed kill, but you who are younger will be sent back into the world
ye have once forsaken, where divers temptations assail you. Alas, who
is sufficient for these things?”

Here he paused, and then continued, “This may be the last time we meet
within these sacred walls: the last time that they re-echo the tone
of thanksgiving, which has arisen for nigh fifteen centuries on this
spot.[12] But it is meet that we prepare for the stroke, and that we
may do so the better, let us ask pardon for all the faults we may have
committed against each other, and let each forgive, that so we may say
the divine prayer, ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that
trespass against us.’”

A solemn pause followed, during which there came a strange
interruption, a sweet soft sound as of angels’ voices singing in
harmony: not from the organ came that strange music, nor from any
visible orchestra, but all felt it as it thrilled into their hearts.
The venerable preacher was so moved that he sank down in tears, and for
a long time could not resume his discourse, while all in the choir sat
as if astonished, yet rejoicing in the token, as they believed it was,
of God’s presence amongst them.

And the burden of the song seemed, “O rest in the Lord, wait patiently
on Him.”

That sermon ended in broken words of faith, love, and hope--words of
deep emotion never forgotten by any present--and then the Celebration
proceeded, with its stores of rich comfort and celestial joy.[13]

       *       *       *       *       *

The following day the Abbot left early in the morning for a small
country house belonging to the Abbey about a mile-and-a-half away. This
he did that the scandal of an open arrest, and a probable conflict,
might be averted, for he felt that his people might not peacefully bear
the spectacle of their venerated Father led away like a criminal.

But he made no concealment of his retreat, so when the Commissioners
arrived, later in the morning, they had no difficulty in learning the
place, and they followed him to the country house.

In an old oak-panelled apartment sat the once powerful Abbot, writing
calmly a few parting directions, chiefly concerning the disposal of
such personal property as might serve as mementoes to those who loved
him, when they should see his face no more.

He was calm and resigned, although once, as he wrote, tears issued from
fountains which had been long dry, and rolled down his aged and worn
cheek,--he was but human.

In the window seat, his eyes fixed upon the road which led from the
Abbey, sat Cuthbert.

Suddenly he rose hastily.

“Father,” he said, “they are coming; a number of mounted men are in
sight, wilt thou not fly? We may yet hide thee, they will be ten
minutes ere they arrive; fly for _our_ sakes, for _my_ sake--thy
adopted child.”

“My son, I cannot; life has little yet to tempt me, and far better
for me that I should bear witness to my faith with my blood, and
receive the martyr’s palm which God hath already granted to many of
my brethren, than live a few more miserable years, and see the wild
boar rooting up the vineyard of the Lord, and the beasts of the field
devouring it.”

After a pause he continued,--

“Dost thou see them plainly? Who is their guide?”

“Shame upon him, it is Nicholas Grabber; rather should they have cut my
feet off than have forced me to do the like.”

“Nay, my child, I left word where I was, and strict directions that no
concealment should be attempted.”

“Yet some other guide were more fitting than one of thine own children,
shame upon him. Oh, my more than father, _do_ fly; they will drag
thee to a shameful death, like thy brethren of Reading and Abingdon.
Is it not written, ‘When they persecute you in one city flee ye into
another?’”

“Too late, my son, they are at the gate.”

“We will hide thee; there must be some place to hide in here, some
secret chamber.”

“They are on the stairs, my son; do not let them see thee weep, be
manly.”

Cuthbert strove to repress his emotion and to maintain outward
composure, when the door opened and three men entered, rude of aspect.

“My name is Layton,” said the foremost, “and these two worthy men be
Masters Pollard and Moyle; we be pursuivants of the King, and in his
name, and by virtue of his warrant, we have charge to arrest thee,
unless thou clear thyself by thy answers to certain questions.”

“What are they?” said the Abbot, calmly.

“Hast thou taken the Oath of Supremacy?”

“I have, to my great sorrow.”

“To his great sorrow, mark that, Master Pollard; and why to thy great
sorrow?”

“Because it was a treason to the Church.”

“Then thou wilt not renew it?”

“Never.”

“That is enough to hang thee, proud Abbot, but thy talk interests me,
and I would fain hear a little more from thee; what dost thou think of
the King’s divorce?”

“I am not fain to answer thee on that matter.”

“But the law enables us to _compel_ an answer from every man, and
construes silence as treason; loyal men need not conceal their
thoughts, and there is no room in England for disloyalty.”[14]

“Construe my silence as treason if thou wilt, I have naught to say on
the matter.”

“There is something more for _me_ to say. Dost thou love life, Master
Abbot? For if so, in spite of thy treasons just uttered, thou mayst
save it; we know full well that the names of the men who supplied money
and arms for the late most unnatural and parricidal rebellion in the
north, which men call the Pilgrimage of Grace, are known to thee, only
reveal the secret, and thou art safe.”

“Get thee behind me, Satan; dost thou think I would save my life at the
expense of others, and take reward to slay the innocent?”

The Abbot’s manner was so firm and decided, the answer so bravely
given, that the villain started. “I will patter with thee no more, thou
hoary sinner,” he said at last; “thou hast the papers concerning this
rebellion concealed somewhere, and we know it; we will pull thy Abbey
down, stone by stone, if we find them not: thy answers are cankered and
traitorous, and to the Tower thou shalt go, the Tower of London. Ah,
who is that boy?”

“Thou mayst take me too,” said Cuthbert, as he stood before them,
emerging from the curtained recess of the window with flashing eyes and
burning cheeks, “for all that the Lord Abbot hath said, _I_ say also.”

“Ah, thou young cockatrice, we see well what a dam hath hatched
thee--another treason to the account of the wily priest here.”

“Cuthbert,” said the Abbot, “thou art running into needless danger--God
calls thee not to suffer.”

“What is good for _thee_, Father, must be good for me also.”

“We may as well take him up to town too,” said Master Pollard.

“Nay, it is not our business,” said Layton; “if we arrested every young
fool this traitor hath taught, we should go up to town with three
hundred boys behind us, and should need their nurses to take care of
them; the ground-ash were fitter for this young master’s back, but we
have no time to waste on his folly, let us be moving, we have to search
the chambers at the Abbey, perchance we may come across these papers.”

Need we say they searched in vain.


FOOTNOTES

[12] The Abbot’s history is wrong, but he is under the belief that
Joseph of Arimathæa founded Glastonbury Abbey, or at least first
preached the Gospel on that spot.

[13] See Note F.

[14] This was actually the case. Henry would not allow his subjects
the privilege of concealing their thoughts. It is scarcely possible
now, to believe the fact that the treason statute touched the life and
enacted the fearful penalties of high treason against all who would
not admit and assent _in words_ to the royal supremacy; it made it
treason not only to _speak_ against the king’s prerogatives, but even
to “_imagine_” anything against them. “Malicious silence,” which was
assumed to imply such evil _imaginations_, was to be interpreted as
treason and punished by death. See Perry’s History of English Church,
p. 112-3.




CHAPTER V.

_THE ROAD-SIDE INN._


The evening of Tuesday, the twelfth of November, in the year of grace
fifteen hundred and thirty-nine, was closing in.

The day had been very fine, such a day as we sometimes enjoy, even in
November; the golden sunbeams had brightened the foliage which yet hung
upon many of the trees of the forest, and turned the russet plumage
into gold. Now and then, in the calm atmosphere, a leaf would flutter
down, and break the oppressive silence of the forest of Avalon.

It is broken more seriously; hark, that is the tread of many feet, and
those voices are the voices of lads out for a day in the woods. See
here they come into this lonely haunt, where no road or path exists,
startling yon raven from his perch; see how sulkily he flies away, as
if to say, “What right have these intruders here?”

A large chestnut-tree has dropped its fruit on the ground, and amidst
the dead leaves the lads are searching, and loading their pockets with
the spoil; there are about twenty of them, evidently a band of the
Glastonbury boys, and amidst them we recognise two old acquaintances,
Cuthbert and Nicholas Grabber.

“It is time to be moving,” says Cuthbert; “we promised the Prior to be
home in time to sing vespers.”

“Sing vespers! how pious we are!” said Nicholas, and the irreverent
fellow clasped his hands together affectedly, and began to chant in a
ridiculous voice the Psalm “Dixit Dominus.”

“Stop that,” said several voices at once, and Nicholas obeyed, finding
the general feeling was against such mockery, as it ought to be with
sensible and manly boys.

“Well, thank God, there will not be many more services in the Abbey;
I am for _freedom_, for shaking off the yoke of bondage under which
the old monks have kept us: those visitors who have been taking an
inventory of the goods and chattels at the place, are only a token that
the end is near; and it can’t come too soon for me.”[15]

“More shame for you to say so, after you have been educated at the
cost of the Abbey, and eaten and drunk its fare for many years,” said
Cuthbert.

“And poor fare I have found it: I daresay the Abbot’s favourites get
better,” replied Nicholas.

“‘Abbot’s favourites,’ what do you mean?” said Cuthbert, colouring.

“Let those who find the cap fit, put it on.”

“He means it for _you_, Cuthbert,” said two or three voices at once.

“I suppose one can’t help being liked,” said Gregory Bell.

“Nay, but one should not curry favour at the expense of others.”

“That isn’t fair,” cried Adam Banister; “no one can say Cuthbert is a
sneak.”

“Sneak! who guided the commissioners to find the Abbot? that was the
part of a sneak,” said Cuthbert; “but I know one way in which I could
avoid favour; by running away from school and being brought back tied
between two foxhounds, on all fours.”

A general burst of laughter, and then Nicholas lost all self-control,
and struck Cuthbert in the face.

“A blow!” “A fair blow!” “A fight!” “A fight!”

Yes, a fight was inevitable under the circumstances; according to the
moral (or immoral) code of the fifteenth century, no one could receive
a blow from an equal without returning it, unless he wished to be
exiled from the society, whether of boys or men. Nothing was clearer to
their eyes than that the duty of all good Christians was to fight each
other.

So the blow was returned, straight between the eyes. But a fight was
too good a thing to be lost in that irregular manner: a ring was
formed, two seconds selected, Gregory Bell for Cuthbert, and a cousin,
like-minded with himself, for Grabber.

Now we are not going to enter into the details of the fight--those who
like a scene of the kind will find one well described in “Tom Brown’s
School Days,”--suffice it to say in this instance, that the contest was
long and desperate, not to say bloody, and that in spite of Grabber’s
greater physical strength and weight, the skill and endurance of
Cuthbert gave him the advantage, as indeed I think he deserved to have
it.

So intent were the twenty lads upon the scene, that they did not notice
how the sun went down amidst rising clouds, how the wind began to
sigh through the forest; darkness was gathering over the spectators
and combatants, who had now fought many rounds, lasting nearly an
hour, when at last, to the great joy of many present, Grabber, at the
conclusion of a round, in which he had exhausted all his strength,
got a knock-down blow, and was unable to “come up to time,” so amidst
deafening cheers, Cuthbert was hailed as the victor.

He advanced to Grabber who was supported on the knee of his second.

“Give me your hand, Nicholas, and let us forgive and forget. I hope you
are not much hurt.”

Grabber sullenly refused.

“That shows a bad heart; a fellow should never bear malice for a fair
thrashing, one can only do his best after all,” said Gregory.

And the majority shared his opinion.

“We must make haste out of the woods, or we shall lose our way and be
here all night.”

Three or four boys remained with Grabber, for he was not without his
sympathizers,--we are sorry to say there are black sheep even in the
best schools,--and these would not leave the spot with the rest, but
said they could find their own way home.

The others struck boldly towards the west, which was easily
distinguished, owing to the reddened and angry clouds, which showed
where the monarch of the day had gone down.

But soon these also disappeared, and the road was not yet attained;
darkness fell upon the scene, and the lads who were with Cuthbert
wandered about lost, utterly lost, until a distant light gladdened
their eager sight, and with a joyous cry they bent their course towards
it.

In a few minutes they emerged from the woods on the high-road from
London, where a well-known inn, “The Cross Keys,” hung out a lamp as a
guide to travellers.

They all knew their way now, and would fain have started home at
once, only Cuthbert was faint after his late exertions, and a cup of
“Malmsey” seemed the right thing.

“You had better let him have a good wash; cold water will revive him,
and remove the blood from his face too,” said the landlord, who saw the
lad had been fighting, and a fight was too common a thing, we are sorry
to say, to excite any further comment or enquiries, on his part.

So they adjourned to the pump, where, with the help of a rough towel,
Cuthbert soon made himself presentable, although he still bore very
evident traces of the conflict.

This necessary task accomplished, the boys entered the inn, ordinarily
a forbidden place to them, and the landlord brought a cup of wine for
Cuthbert.

But while they were there a body of armed men entered the house.

They wore the uniform of the King’s guard: there was no regular army in
those days, every man was a soldier in time of need, but there was a
small body of men kept about the King’s person, who were sent from time
to time on special services, and were called the King’s “beef-eaters.”

And these were some of them.

“Landlord, bring us some mulled sack,” said one who appeared to be
their leader, “and tell us, have you seen that fox the Abbot of
Glastonbury pass this way to-day on his road home?”

“He has not yet returned from London?”

“Nay, but he is on his way,--we have no listening ears have we?” The
boys were separated by a partition. “Are you for Abbot or King?”

“I am a friend to the King.”

“Well said, so should every good Englishman be; and we have charge to
arrest this wily Abbot on his return, as a foe to King Harry, and take
him to Wells to be tried for his life.”

“Has he not been tried and acquitted?”

“He has been solemnly condemned in a Court where Thomas Cromwell sat as
prosecutor, jury and judge: but that is not quite the law, so he has
been dismissed home, and we have been sent by an after thought to take
him to Wells for a _regular trial_.”[16]

“On what charge?”

“Robbing the Abbey Church.”

“Good heavens!”

“Why, I thought thee a friend of the King.”

“So I am, but what can all this mean?”

“That he hid the Abbey plate, so that the King’s visitors could not
find it, when they wanted to make an inventory, and confiscate patens
and chalices for the King’s use.”

“But it was his own.”

“Only in trust, you see.”

“Still he might hide it in trust for the Abbey, that would not be
robbery.”

“Friend, I should advise thee to _consider_ it robbery in these days;
it is better for all men who do not want their necks stretched to think
as the King and his minister, Thomas Cromwell, think; don’t fear but we
shall find men to bring him in guilty.”

The poor inn-keeper was silent; perhaps he remembered that one of his
predecessors had been hanged for saying he would make his son heir to
the “Crown,” meaning the “Crown Inn.”

The boys stole out unobserved.

“What shall we do?”

“Go and meet the Abbot and warn him, he will pass Headly Cross.”

“But then we may but share his fate,” said several.

“I shall go if I go alone,” said Cuthbert.

“And so shall I,” said Gregory Bell.

“Well, two are as good as the lot of us, and better; more likely to
pass unobserved,” said Adam Banister; “the rest of us had better get
home, and tell the monks all we have heard and seen.”

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a wild place, Headly Cross, where two woodland roads crossed
each other. Report said that a cruel murder had been committed there
years agone, and that the place was haunted; every one believed in
haunted places then.

But as there was a choice of routes, and the Abbot might come _either_
way, it was the right thing to await him where the roads converged.

And there Cuthbert and Gregory waited all alone, as the dark hours
rolled away, until they heard the “Angelus” ring from a distant tower,
and knew it was nine o’clock, when decent people, in those days, went
to bed.

The chime had hardly died away, when they heard the tread of horses,
and soon three riders came in view in the dim light of the stars; and
the boys recognised the Abbot, with two attendants, one his faithful
serving man, the other a stranger.

Cuthbert dashed forward. “My Lord Abbot,” he said, “one moment, it is
I, Cuthbert, and here is Gregory Bell.”

“Cuthbert and Gregory Bell; why are you here, boys?”

“We have heard a plot against you: men are waiting at the ‘Cross Keys’
to arrest you, and take you for trial at Wells; they say it will cost
your life.”

“On what charge?”

“Concealing the Abbey plate.”

The Abbot smiled sadly.

“My children,” he said, “this can hardly be true, yet if it _be_ as you
say, I will not fly a jury of my countrymen.”

“Neither could he,” said the stranger on his left hand, “if he _would_;
my duty is to see him safe to Glastonbury, unless relieved beforehand
by royal authority.”

“You see, my Cuthbert and Gregory, that your devotion is all in vain;
neither _would_ I avail myself of it if I _could_. Mount on the pillion
behind me, Cuthbert; my good Ballard here will take Gregory behind him,
and you may return with us to Glastonbury, if such return be permitted.”

“It never will be, never will be,” said Cuthbert, with sinking heart.

And how that young heart beat, as they approached the “Cross Keys,” and
as a line of men, forming across the road, stopped the cavalcade.

“My Lord Abbot, we arrest you in the King’s name.”

“On what charge?”

“Robbery of the Abbey Church.”

“This is a base pretence, to deprive me of the credit of martyrdom for
my convictions: but there was One who suffered more for me.”

And the Abbot yielded himself peacefully to those who sought his life.


FOOTNOTES

[15] Advantage was taken of the Abbot’s compulsory absence to take the
necessary steps for the dissolution of the monastery. (Froude.)

[16] In some private memoranda of Thomas Cromwell, which still exist
in his own hand-writing, occur the words,--“Item. The Abbot of Glaston
to be tried at Glaston, and also to be _executed_ there with his
accomplices.” The trial, however, took place at Wells, the execution (a
foregone conclusion) at Glastonbury, as related in the story.




CHAPTER VI.

_THE TRIAL._


The period of English history of which we are now writing has been
aptly called “The Reign of Terror.” England under Thomas Cromwell, and
France under Robespierre, were alike examples of the utter prostration
which may befall a mighty nation beneath the sway of one ruthless
intellect.

To make the King absolute, and himself to rule through the King, was
the one aim of the man whom Fox, the Martyrologist, grotesquely calls
“The valiant soldier of Christ:”--for this end he smote down the Church
and the nobility: Bishop Fisher and the Carthusians represented the
ecclesiastical world, the Courtenays and the Poles the aristocracy,
Sir Thomas More the new-born culture of the time; and Cromwell chose
his victims from the noblest and the best. The piety of Fisher, once
the King’s tutor, to whom his mother had committed her royal boy on
her death-bed, could not save him; nor his learning, Sir Thomas More;
nor her grey hairs, the Countess of Salisbury. Spies were scattered
through the land; it was dangerous to speak one’s mind in one’s own
house; nay, the new inquisition claimed empire over men’s thoughts; we
have seen that the concealment of one’s sentiments was treason.

Will my more youthful readers wonder then that men could be found to
convict upon such charges as those preferred against the aged Abbot of
Glastonbury? They need wonder at nothing that occurred while Bloody
Harry was King, and Thomas Cromwell Prime Minister.

The juries themselves sat with a rope around their necks; when the
Prior and the chief brethren of the Charter-house waited upon Cromwell
to explain their conscientious objections to the Oath of Supremacy,
loyally and faithfully, he sent them from his house to the tower; when
the juries would not convict the ecclesiastics, he detained them in
court a second day, and threatened them with the punishment reserved
for the prisoners, unless they found a verdict for the crown; finally,
he visited the jurymen in person, and by individual intimidation
forced the reluctant men to find a verdict of guilty, whereupon the
unfortunate monks were hanged, drawn, and quartered, with every
circumstance of barbarity, suspended, cut down alive, disembowelled,
and finally dismembered.[17]

Thursday, the fourteenth of November, 1539, was a gloomy day: black
leaden clouds floated above, the ground was sodden with moisture, the
leaves, fallen leaves, no inapt emblem, rotted in the slime, a heavy
damp air oppressed the breath; the day suited the deed, for on that
day the aged Abbot of Glastonbury was formally arraigned at Wells,
together with his brethren the Prior and Sub-Prior, on the charge of
felony,--“Robbery of the Abbey Church with intent to defraud the King.”

They might well have proceeded against him under the Act of Supremacy,
but variety has charms, and this new idea of felony commended itself to
the mind of Cromwell, as a good device for humbling the clergy.

Lord Russell, one of Henry’s new nobility who supplied the places left
vacant by so many ruthless executions, whose own fortunes were built on
the plunder of the Church, sat as judge, and there were empannelled, we
are told, “as worshipful a jury as was ever charged in Wells.”

The indictment set forth that the prisoners had feloniously hidden the
treasures of the Abbey, to wit, sundry chalices, patens, reliquaries,
parcels of plate, gold and silver in vessels, ornaments, and money,
with the intent of depriving our sovereign lord the King of his
rightful property, conferred upon him by Act of Parliament.

“What say you, Richard Whiting, guilty or not guilty?”

The aged prisoner looked around him with wondering eyes; he scanned the
crowded array of spectators, then the jury, who looked half ashamed of
their work, and finally rested his eyes upon his judge.

“How can I plead guilty where there can be no guilt? These treasures
were committed to my care to keep for God and Holy Church; it is not
meet to cast them to swine; no earthly power may lawfully take to
itself the houses of God for a possession, or break down the carved
work thereof with axes and hammers. Am I tried before an assembly of
Christian men, or before heathen, Turks, infidels, and heretics?”

“It is not meet for a prisoner to revile his judges,” said Russell; “as
an Englishman you are bound by the Acts of Parliament.”

“Talk not to me of Parliament; you have on your side but the Parliament
of this sinful generation, and against you are all the Parliaments
who have sat from the Witan-agemot downwards, who have granted and
confirmed to us of Glastonbury, those possessions which you would
snatch from a house which has been the light of this country for a
thousand years; to resist such oppression and sacrilege is not _guilt_,
and I plead in that sense, ‘Not Guilty.’”

“Thou showest but little wisdom in pressing thine own opinion against
the consent of the realm.”

“I would fain hold my peace; but that I may satisfy my conscience, I
will tell thee that while thou hast on thy side but a minority in a
single kingdom, the whole of the Christian world, save that kingdom, is
dead against you, and even the majority here condemn your proceedings,
although the fear of a barbarous death silences their tongues.”

“Of whom art thou speaking?”

“Of all the good men present.”

“Why hast thou persuaded so many people to disobey the King and
Parliament?”

“Nay, I have sinned in dissembling my opinions, but now I _will_ speak.
I disallow these changes as impious and damnable (general sensation);
I neither look for mercy nor desire it; my cause I commit to God, I am
aweary of this wicked world, and long for peace.”

He sank upon the bench behind him, as did his fellow prisoners, and
none of them took any further obvious interest in the proceedings.

Formal evidence was brought to prove the discovery of treasure hidden
in secret places, but all this fell very flat upon the audience, the
fact was tacitly admitted on both sides, _the_ difference of opinion
only existed as to the guilt thereof.

There was no room for doubt in Lord Russell’s mind; he summed up the
evidence against the prisoners, and reminded the jurymen that their own
loyalty was on trial, a very forcible hint in those days, and one which
few men dared disregard.

They retired; returned with downcast looks, and gave a verdict in
accordance with the evidence: theirs not to argue the point of law, the
fact was sufficient.

“Prisoners at the bar,” said the judge, “you have been convicted on
the clearest evidence of an act of felony--of seeking to deprive the
King of the property willed to him by the high estates of the realm, in
trust for the nation. Into your motives I need not enquire, but no man
can be a law unto himself; born within these realms you are subject to
the authorities thereof, and for your disobedience to them you must now
die. The only duty remaining to me is to pronounce upon you the awful
sentence the law provides against your particular crime--that you be
taken hence to the prison whence you came, and from thence be drawn on
the morrow, upon a hurdle, to the summit of Glastonbury Tor, that all
men far and wide may witness the royal justice, where you are to be
hanged by the neck, but not until you are dead, for while you are still
living, your bodies are to be taken down, your bowels torn out and
burnt before your faces; your heads are then to be cut off, and your
bodies divided, each into four quarters, to be at the King’s disposal,
and may God have mercy upon your souls.”[18]

A dead silence followed, broken at last by the Abbot’s voice.

“We appeal from this judgment of guilty and time-serving men to the
judgment of God, before Whose bar we shall at length meet again.”

       *       *       *       *       *

It was late in the same evening, the curfew had already rung, the rain
was still falling at intervals in the streets of Glastonbury, as if
nature wept at the approaching dissolution of the venerable fane which
had been the ornament of western England so long.

In spite of the weather, many groups formed from time to time outside
the gatehouse of the Abbey, for there the three prisoners had been
brought from Wells, and there, in the chamber over the gateway, in
strict ward, they were passing the last night the royal mercy permitted
them to live.

A youth, repulsed from the door which gives admittance to the upper
chambers, retired with despairing gesture; his face bore marks of
intense emotion, the tears had worn furrows therein, and from time to
time a sob escaped him.

A companion pressed up to his side.

“Will they not let you in?”

“No, Gregory, I have begged in vain these three times.”

“Why not try the sheriff, he is said to be merciful?”

“I can but try, I will go to his house at once.”

As due to his office, the high sheriff of the county was charged with
the details of the morrow’s tragedy; he liked the task but little,
still he viewed it as a simple matter of duty, and could not flinch
from it.

He was resting after the fatigues of the day, and in truth, thinking
very uneasily over the events of the trial.

“What if, after all, he is in the right--that appeal to the judgment
bar above was very solemn--when that great assize takes place, in whose
shoes would it be best to stand, in the place of the judge or the felon
of to-day?”

A domestic entered--“A lad craves a moment’s speech.”

“Who is he?”

“I know him not, but he has been weeping bitterly, as one may see by
his face.”

The sheriff hesitated, but he was in a merciful mood; he suspected the
object of the visitor, and it was a good sign for the success of the
suppliant that he permitted the visit.

“Well, my lad,” said he, as Cuthbert entered, “what is the matter now?”

“I have a boon to crave, your worship; you will not refuse it me?”

“Let me first hear what it is.”

“The Abbot has been my adopted father, my best friend from childhood;
let me see him once more, let me receive his parting blessing, ere
wicked hands slay him.”

“Wicked hands, my lad, you forget yourself, and where you are.”

“Pardon me, I meant no offence; I know it is no fault of your worship.”

“It is but a slight boon, after all,” said the sheriff, “and one which
_may_ be conceded;” and as he spoke he wrote a few lines on a slip of
parchment. “They will give you admission for half-an-hour, if you show
them this at the gateway.”

“May I not stay longer?”

“It would not be kind to those who are to die; they need their time to
make their peace with God.”

“That is already made, your worship.”

“I trust so,” said the sheriff, with a sad faint smile at the boy’s
earnestness.

“Who art thou, my lad?” he said.

“The Abbot’s adopted son.”

“But who were your real parents?”

“I know not.”

“What name do they call you?”

“Cuthbert, I have none other.”

“Poor lad,” said the sheriff, as the boy departed, “it seems almost
like a familiar face, yet I have never met him before; some accidental
likeness, I suppose.”


FOOTNOTES

[17] Lingard v. 19.

[18] This terrible sentence is copied from the form in actual use until
the present century.




CHAPTER VII.

_GLASTONBURY TOR._


A dead silence reigned around the precincts of the once mighty Abbey,
many of the monks had fled, fearing lest they should share the fate
which had befallen their superiors, and having no decided predilection
for martyrdom; but many still shuddered in their cells, or wandered
aimlessly about the doomed cloisters, so soon to be a refuge for bats
and owls.

Only a few lights burned here and there in the darkness of that
November night, but one shone steadily from the window of the strong
room over the gatehouse, where the three fated monks awaited their doom.

Scantily furnished was that chamber; three wooden chairs with high
backs grotesquely carved, a massive table in the centre, a huge hearth
decorated with the Abbey arms, upon which smouldered two or three logs,
for fuel was cheap, and the night was cold and damp. Against the wall
hung a crucifix, and there, with their faces towards the memorial of
the martyrdom which redeemed a world, knelt the three.

We cannot follow their mental struggles, which found relief in
prayer--in intense prayer, in burning words of supplication, which
wafted their spirits on high, and gave them strength to say “not my
will but Thine be done.”

A step on the stairs, but they rose not from their knees; they felt
that one had entered and was kneeling behind them, and at length they
heard sobs escape from their visitor, which he could not repress.

They rose slowly from their devotions, and the Abbot grasped Cuthbert’s
hands and raised him from the floor.

“My child,” he said, “dost thou grieve for me?”

A sob was the only answer.

“Listen, my child, which is best, heaven or earth, Paradise or
Glastonbury?”

Still no answer.

“And they but rob us of a few brief years, which to aged men like us
must be years of suffering; they separate us from the ranks of the
Church Militant, but not from those of the Church Triumphant, that is
beyond their power; they may kill the body, but after that they have no
more that they can do.”

“But the shame, the disgrace!”

“Is it greater than the Son of God bore on Calvary? Nay, my son, let us
not grieve that it has pleased Him, of Whom are all things, to ordain
this painful road, which He Himself has trodden before us; nay, sob
not, nor sorrow as those without hope, but live so that thou mayest
rejoin us in the regions of Paradise.”

Cuthbert gazed upon the calm majestic face of the old man, and it
seemed to him irradiated by a light from above. He repressed his grief,
and listened to the last words of his friend.

“It is written that in the last days perilous times shall come, and we
have fallen upon them; happy then that God removes us to His secret
chambers, where He shall hide us until the iniquity of a world be
overpast, and His redeemed come with triumph to Zion. Before us now
is the _via Dolorosa_ of a brief hour, but from the gibbet we shall
scale the skies. For _thee_, my son, is the life-time of trial and
temptation, wherefore I pray for thee, and _will_ pray for thee when
thou shall see my face no more. Remember, dear child, he that endureth
to the end, the same shall be saved, and let neither men nor devils rob
thee of thy crown.”

“By God’s help I will endure.”

“I believe that thou wilt strive, yea, and prevail. But _one_ more
thought to earthly things, and I resign the world for ever. Thou
rememberest the secret chamber?”

“I do, Father.”

“And the ring which is now on the finger of him who shall claim thy
promise?”

“Well, my Father.”

“Await him, my son, in Glastonbury, not in the Abbey, that will be
destroyed by wicked hands, but in the house of thy foster father, Giles
Hodge, whose name thou must take, and be content to pass as his foster
son till the time comes, and thy services are claimed. He who bears the
ring will provide for thy future.”

“Oh, think not of that.”

“I _have_ thought of it, and now, my child, thou mayest again join us
in prayer.”

“The half-hour has passed,” said a rough voice at the door.

“Thy blessing, Father.”

“It is thine, my child: Benedicat et custodiat te Deus omnipotens,
Pater, Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus, nunc et in sæcula sæculorum.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Upon the summit of the hill men are working all through the storms of
the night, erecting a huge gibbet, from the cross-beam of which three
ropes are now dependent; beneath is a huge block, like a butcher’s
block, and a ghastly cleaver and saw rest upon it; hard by stands
a caldron of pitch, which but awaits the kindling match to boil and
bubble.

Through the dark shadows of the clouds, or in the bright light of the
moon when the winds open a path for her rays, ghostly figures flit
about. It is well that they should work in darkness,--it were better
that such work were not done at all. Thus they execute the will of the
ruthless Tudor, the Nero of English history; well, he and his victims
have long since met before a more awful bar.

The winds blow ceaselessly all through the night, but in the morn the
clouds are breaking; in the east a faint roseate light appears, and
soon brighter streaks of crimson fringe the clouds, which hang over the
dawn; anon the monarch of day arises in his strength, the shadows flee
away, and from the summit of the hill a vast extent of sea and land is
beheld, rejoicing in his beams.

A crowd gathers around the gatehouse, some few royal parasites to jeer,
men at arms to guard the prisoners, and prevent any attempt at rescue,
more sad and tearful faces of women, or sternly indignant visages of
bearded men.

“Here they come.”

The trampling of horse, a train of strong wooden hurdles, each drawn
by a single horse, appears; hard carriages these on which to take the
ride to eternity, but many an innocent victim has fared no better.

The doors are opened, and the Abbot appears first: a blush overspreads
his aged cheeks, as the indignity thus palpably presents itself, but
uttering, “And this, too, I offer to Thee,” he lies down upon the
hurdle, and they bind his hands and feet to the crossbars, carefully,
that they may not touch the ground, for those in charge of the
execution would not willingly offer additional pain--some of them are
sick at heart as they fulfil the will of the tyrant Tudor.

The Prior and Sub-Prior submit to the same painful restraint, and the
_via Dolorosa_ is entered.

All through the streets of the town, where the Abbot has often ridden
in triumphant processions, the highest in dignity of all far and wide,
the hurdles jolt along: the aged frames of the sufferers are fearfully
shaken by the rude joltings, but they remember that _via Dolorosa_
which led to Calvary, and accept the pain for the sake of the Divine
Sufferer, in Whom our sufferings are sanctified.

There are those present who are paid to raise hisses and hootings, and
to revile the passing victims, but they are awed by the attitude of the
spectators in general, and forfeit their wages.

Up the hill with labouring steps the horses tread: at length the
rounded summit appears, and the gibbet looms in sight.

The sufferers see it not, owing to their prostrate condition, until
they are beneath it. “It is easier to bear than the cross, brethren,”
says Abbot Richard.

The victims are unbound from the hurdles, and one after the other
resigns himself to the rude hands of the executioners; for now, under
this reign of terror and bloodshed, ecclesiastics are led forth in
their _habits_ to die without being first stripped of their robes, and
degraded. There is a meaning in this, it is not of mercy.[19]

The Abbot yields himself first, calmly reciting the words of the 31st
Psalm, “In manus tuas, Domine, commendo Spiritum meum.” The _two_ pray
for him until their own turn comes.

“Go forth, O Christian soul, from this world, in the Name of God the
Father Who created thee, of God the Son, Who redeemed thee, of God
the Holy Ghost Who hath sanctified thee; may thy place be this day in
peace, and thine abode in Mount Sion.”

Their faces did not grow pale, neither did their voices tremble--they
declared as they died that they were true subjects of the king in all
things lawful, and obedient children of Holy Church.

So one after the other they suffered--we spare the reader the sickening
details, which Englishmen could _look_ on in those days, and which
innocent men were called upon to suffer, but which we shudder even to
read.

But we will conclude with a letter written by Lord Russell to Cromwell
on the 16th of November, being the day following the tragedy.

    “My Lorde--thies shal be to asserteyne, that on Thursday the
    xiii. daye of this present moneth, the Abbot was arrayned, and
    the next daye putt to execution, with ii. other of his monkes,
    for the robbyng of Glastonburye Churche; on the Torre Hill,
    the seyde Abbottes body beyng devyded in fower partes, and his
    heedd stryken off, whereof oone quarter stondyth at Welles,
    another at Bathe, and at Ylchester and Brigewater the rest, and
    his hedd upon the abbey gate at Glaston.”[20]

       *       *       *       *       *

As the traveller, in modern times, passes swiftly along the Great
Western line between Weston and Bridgewater, he may see, on his left, a
round conical hill, rising abruptly from the flat plain, a plain which
was once a sea, a hill which was once an island. This is Glastonbury
Tor.

Fair and beautiful it looks in the summer sunlight, but it was once
the scene of the foul judicial murder which we have endeavoured to
describe.[21]


FOOTNOTES

[19] “While he was waiting for the hangman, he was questioned again by
Pollard as to the concealment of plate, but he had nothing more to say,
and would accuse neither himself nor others, but thereupon took his
death very patiently.”--_Blunt._

[20] This letter is authentic, spelling and all.

[21] See Note G. Death of Abbot Whiting.




CHAPTER VIII.

_ON THE TRACK._

    “We grieve not o’er our abbey lands, e’en pass they as they may,
    But we grieve because the tyrant found a richer spoil than they;
    He cast aside, as a thing defiled, the remembrance of the just,
    And the bones of saints and martyrs he scattered to the dust.”

                                                               _Neale._


It was in vain that Bishop Latimer besought the tyrant, mad after the
spoils which a venal parliament had given him, to let at least _some_
of the monasteries remain as the houses of learning. Few countries
could boast of such shrines as those which adorned like jewels the
shires of England--but all were ruthlessly sacrificed, from the fane
which rose over the mighty dead at Battle, to the humblest cell which
but sheltered half-a-dozen poor brethren or sisters.

Such was the value of the noble library at Glastonbury that Leland,
an old English antiquarian, tells us, when first he beheld it, “The
sight of its vast treasures of antiquity so struck me with awe, that I
hesitated to enter.”

Yet we learn from Bale, that such noble collections were sold to
grocers for waste paper, and that he knew a man who had bought for that
purpose two large monastic libraries at the dissolution, and added that
he had been using their contents for ten years, and had hardly got
through half his store.

So strongly built were many of the Abbeys, that they had to be blown
up with gunpowder, after they were stripped of all that could be sold;
the lands were given to greedy favourites, Cromwell himself is said to
have secured thirty Abbeys, and the ready money was spent at court in
gambling and dissolute living.

So, in a few years, all the wealth which flowed into the hands of the
crown was dissipated, and instead of the remission of taxation, by
the hope of which many had been bribed to assent to the fall of the
monasteries, the burdens laid upon the people were heavier than before.

       *       *       *       *       *

Four months had passed away since the tragical events recorded in our
last chapter, and the blustering month of March was in mid-career;
the winds swept over the ruined Abbey, now in great part roofless, and
dismantled, the abode of bats and owls; they swept over the bare and
rounded summit of Glastonbury Tor, stained so lately by a foul deed of
blood. Many a violent storm of rain had beaten upon that blood-stained
summit, and the traces of the butchery had long since vanished; but the
peasants yet gazed up to the hill top with awe and wonder.

But the storm which had desolated the proud Abbey had left the humble
cottage of Giles Hodge untouched: there the old man and his wife lived
in peace, like their neighbours, and went through their daily round,
their trivial task--

    Each morning saw some work begun
    Each evening saw its close.

Their foster son was often present to their remembrances, but he had
not been with them in person since the martyrdom. They had wisely
judged it best to remove him from the immediate neighbourhood of such
harrowing recollections, and as old Giles had a brother who lived at
Lyme Regis, a seafaring man, thither he had sent Cuthbert to spend the
winter.

The change of scene had wrought good. The poor boy had gone there
broken-hearted, and suffering from the nervous excitement which he had
passed through; the shock had been very great, but youth is elastic,
and soon recovers from such a strain. The sea and its wonders, the
romantic scenery around, all contributed to the beneficial change.
Sometimes Cuthbert would go out fishing with his uncle, as he had
learned to call the brother of his foster father; the fishing awakened
all his interest: on the deep all the night, watching the moonbeams on
the waves, the gradual breaking of the dawn, the “many dimpled smile of
ocean:” all this was new to the land-bred youth, and exercised a most
happy effect upon his health and spirits.

But it must not be supposed that he forgot the Abbot, or that he was
unmindful of the secret entrusted to him; he had told his foster father
that he expected some communication from the friends of the late Abbot,
and old Hodge had promised that if anyone arrived, and presented the
ring which was to serve as a token, he would send for Cuthbert without
any delay.

And at last the message came, just when Cuthbert returned home with
his “uncle,” after a most successful night at sea, bringing the scaly
spoils of the deep in their boats. A rustic messenger had ridden across
the country from Glastonbury, through Langport, Ilminster, Chard, and
Axminster, a distance of from thirty to forty miles.

Old Giles could not write, he only sent word by his envoy, “Come home,
I have seen the ring, he expects thee to-morrow.”

       *       *       *       *       *

We have not hitherto explained fully the social position of Giles
Hodge. Well, he was a yeoman, having no lands of his own; only he had
a farm of three or four pounds a year,[22] and hereupon he tilled as
much as kept five or six men. He had walk for a hundred sheep, and his
wife milked thirty kine. He was able and bound to provide one man and
horse, with “harness” for both, when the king had need of him; for
this species of feudal tenure yet lingered, and supplied the want of a
standing army. In short, he was an English yeoman, “all of the olden
time.”

The fire was burning brightly on the hearth in old Giles’ cottage,
which looked as pleasant as in days of yore; he and his old dame
occupied their chairs on either side, for the day’s work was over, and
they were resting after its fatigues, whilst they anxiously awaited the
arrival of their foster son, their Cuthbert.

It was only just dark, not yet seven o’clock; the evening meal was
already prepared, and set forth with many a tempting dish upon a comely
white cloth, to tempt the appetite of the darling of their old age.

A knock at the door--the hearts of the old couple beat with
anticipation--yet the knock! Would Cuthbert stop to knock? “Come in,”
they cried.

The latch lifted, and their parish priest entered, Doctor Adam Tonstal.

“Good even to you, my worthy friends; I have come for a chat with you
about a matter of importance.”

“Nothing amiss about Cuthbert, I hope,” said the old dame, anxiously.

“No, there is naught amiss, _yet_ still my errand is about him. Are you
not expecting him home?”

“Yes, thank God, this very night; we thought when you knocked that it
was he.”

“Well, I know you will be glad to see him again, for he is a worthy
lad, and there are few who have not a good word for him, but it will be
just as well not to let anyone know of his arrival, and to get him away
again as soon as possible. My object was to warn you against allowing
him to return, and also to advise you not to tell anyone where he may
be found.”

“But why,” inquired Giles, aghast, as soon as he could get a word in;
“what harm hath the poor lad done?”

“Harm, forsooth!” then lowering his voice, “what harm had Richard
Whiting done?”

“But Cuthbert is too young to be answerable for such weighty matters.”

“I know _that_, but not too young to be an object of interest just now.
You see it is reported that he was deep in the Abbot’s secrets.”

“They would indeed be weighty secrets, which the Abbot would entrust to
a mere boy.”

“Ordinarily your remarks would be just, but the case is peculiar. The
Abbot was suspected to be in possession of lists of names, of papers,
nay of treasure, in connection with the rising in the north, which had
been entrusted to him after the disastrous collapse of the Pilgrimage
of Grace: we are all friends here,” added the priest, fearing lest
he might have committed himself, for had such an expression as
“disastrous,” applied to the royal triumph, been reported to Cromwell,
it might have been his death-warrant.[23]

“We are alone, my wife and I, and we be no tale-bearers.”

“Well then, it is said that there must be a secret chamber, somewhere
in the Abbey, not yet discovered, in spite of all the search made for
it by Sir John Redfyrne, the administrator of the property of the Abbey
for the king; who is also an ally of Cromwell, that arch-heretic, and
oppressor of the Church. You are sure there is no one in the house save
yourselves?”

“Quite sure, don’t fear; but what has this to do with Cuthbert?”

“Only that a lad named Nicholas Grabber offers to make oath that he
heard the Abbot reveal the secret to Cuthbert, when the two were in
his private chamber, and bid him await the arrival of some mysterious
person, with a ring: Grabber’s account is very defective, but he says
the Abbot discovered his presence, and ordered him roughly away.”

“As I live,”--said Giles.

“Of course you know nothing,” said the priest, interrupting, “but I
have learned through friends that a warrant is about to be issued
against the lad: now if he is taken----”

“But they can lay no _crime_ to his charge, to know a secret is no
crime.”

“But they _may_, and probably _will_ consider that secret of sufficient
importance to the State to insist upon its disclosure, and if the poor
boy, as will very likely be the case, refuse to tell, they will see
what the thumb-screw, or failing that, even the rack, may effect.”

“Good heavens! Saint Joseph forbid.”

“Amen; but the best way is to keep Cuthbert out of the way.”

“Too late; for here he is!”

The door opened and our hero entered, all flushed with travel, and with
the delight of meeting his old friends, whom he embraced warmly; after
which he saluted the priest with a lowly reverence.

“How well he is looking, poor lad,” said the dame: for his face was
flushed with pleasure, or she might still have seen some traces of his
recent trial. A more thoughtful expression sat on his features, such a
period as he had gone through had done the work of years in sobering
his boyish spirits, and bringing on, prematurely, the thoughts and
cares of manhood.

“Now, Cuthbert,” said the good priest, “I will take a turn on the
green, while you tell all your news to your kind friends, and satisfy
your hunger, and after that I will return for a little talk with you;”
and he went out, but only to pace up and down the green, keeping the
cottage still in sight.

And we too will leave the good souls within to their endearments for
the same space of time; they will soon know the extent of the danger in
which their foster boy is placed.

But the priest knows it, and he walks up and down, peering sometimes
into the darkness beyond the green, in the direction of the town,
scrutinizing the faces of the passers-by, until curfew rings from the
tower of his own church. Then he re-enters the cottage.

Cuthbert, hunger satisfied, is seated in the chimney-corner; the logs
sparkle in the draughts of wind, which find their entrance through
every cranny; the aged couple are seated as before.

“Father, we have told Cuthbert that you think he ought not to stay
here, but he says he is bound to remain over the morrow; that will not
hurt, will it?”

“Not if he is unseen, and the news of his coming has not got abroad.”

“Did anyone see thee, child, as thou enteredst the town?”

“Alas, I fear _one_ did; Nicholas Grabber was hanging about the gate on
the common.”

“Nicholas Grabber; then, my boy, thou must not tarry an hour; it is he
who hast already betrayed thee.”

“Betrayed me! how?” said Cuthbert, alarmed.

Then the priest told Cuthbert all that our readers have already
learned from his lips, and the lad at once recognized his danger, for
he remembered how Nicholas had lurked about the Abbot’s chamber that
eventful night, when the secret was revealed to him.

“You are right, Father,” he said, “I must go.”

“Too late!” said the priest, “too late!”

For at that moment the tramp of many feet was heard without, followed
by a violent knocking at the door, which the priest fortunately had
barred when he entered.

“Hide him,” said the good man; “I will keep them at bay for a few
minutes.”

And the old people hurried Cuthbert out of the room.

“The back door,” said the boy.

“Nay, that is watched too; I hear them whispering without.”

“Then I am lost.”

“No! no! my boy,” said the old woman, “come up stairs, and get into the
loft.”

They went hastily up the stairs, into the old people’s bedroom.

There was no ceiling, but that which plain boards overhead, separating
them from the attic beneath the roof, afforded; knocking one of these
aside with his staff, the old man bade Cuthbert mount on his shoulders,
and get into the loft. The lad did so easily, for the roof of the room
was low, and then replaced the boards, so that no one could see that
there had been any disturbance thereof.

The loft was often used for the storage of fruit, corn, _flax_, and the
like, and there was a quantity of the latter material stored therein;
on this Cuthbert lay.

Meanwhile the priest below fulfilled his task.

“Who are ye, disturbing an honest family after curfew?”

“Officers of the law, constables; open, in the name of the law.”

“There be many who avail themselves of that name, with very little
title; robbers be about, and I must have surer warrant ere I admit you.”

“_Open_, or we will break down the door.”

“Nay, and thou come to _that_ game, there be those within, good at the
game of quarter staff; meanwhile we will blow the horn and rouse the
watch.”

“Thou old fool, we will break thy bones, as well as the door; we tell
thee _we_ are the constables--the watch.”

“’Tisn’t old Hodge’s voice,” said another; “ask the fellow who he is.”

“Who art thou, fool?”

“That is for wise men like thee to find out.”

“Well, then, here are Roger Hancock, John Sprygs, James Griggs, Denis
Howlet, the four constables, and Laurence Craveall, a body servant of
Sir John Redfyrne.”

“I fear me, friend, thou art taking the names of better men in vain;
more to the token, thou showest thyself a liar: for well do I know that
neither Jack Sprygs nor Jim Griggs ever leave the ale-tap after curfew,
until it is time to tumble, drunk, into their sinful beds.”

“Break open the doors,” cried the two impugned worthies, in a rage.

“I will loose the mastiff upon you.”

But in spite of this direful threat, which it would have been difficult
to fulfil, as no mastiff was in the house, the men commenced breaking
down the door.

At that instant old Hodge appeared, and signifying by a sign all was
right, cried aloud--

“What are you doing at my door?”

“Breaking it down, with a search warrant for our justification.”

“Thou mayst save thyself the trouble; I have nought here to hide;” and
the old man withdrew the bars.

Four ill-looking men, Jacks in office, entered, and behind them two
faces appeared, whose owners preferred to stay without; the one was the
valet of Sir John Redfyrne, the other Nicholas Grabber.

The two constables whom he had so grievously aspersed fixed their eyes
upon the priest.

“So it was thou, was it, who kept us waiting?”

“Your pardon, if I mistook you; doubtless you have good cause for your
untimely errand.”

“We have pulled down monks, and your turn may come next,” said the
surly John Sprygs, “and then you may not have the chance of taking
sober folks’ reputation away; but enough of this, where is that young
rascal, Cuthbert Hodge, if that is his name, we have a warrant for his
apprehension?”

“Why, he has been away ever since November.”

“But came home to-night; here is the witness. Nick Grabber, when didst
thou last see Cuthbert Hodge?”

“This evening, riding with another lad through the common gate, on the
Langport Road.”

“And does thy worshipful father permit thee, now thy school days are
over, to spend thy time in Glastonbury as a spy?” said old Hodge.

“My worshipful father has given me to the care of Sir John Redfyrne,
as a page, old man, so thou hadst better keep a civil tongue in thine
head, and it will be better for thy young bastard’s bones; he shall pay
for it.”

“I think, my son,” said the priest very quietly, “that when thou wast
coupled between two hounds, as a truant, thou must have learnt from
them to bite and snarl.”

“We have no time for all this nonsense,” said the head constable,
“where is this youngster?”

“Since you say he is here, you had better find him.”

“He has not gone out by the back door,” said Grabber.

“Or you would have grabbed him.”

“Even so, with right good will.”

They proceeded to search the house, but all in vain, and they were at
length about to conclude that the boy had left the place before their
entrance, when Grabber remarked to one of the constables, that he might
be above the boards of the bedroom. “When we were schoolfellows,” he
said, “I have often heard him say that very good apples were kept
there.”

“The boy has got the right sow by the ear,” says James Griggs, and
followed by the others, he went upstairs again, whereupon the old lady
began to cry.

“Ah,” said Nicholas, “the scent is hot, the old lady gives tongue.”

A board was withdrawn, chests piled beneath, and John Sprygs cried out,
“Now, young Nick, you go and grab him.”

“After you,” said Nicholas, who remembered the weight of his young
opponent’s fist that night in the woods.

John Sprygs mounted, and was no sooner in the loft than he cried,--

“The place is as dark as pitch, pass me up the torch.”

“Nay! nay!” cried Giles Hodge, “the place is full of flax.”

“We will take care of that; thou dost not want thy precious brat found.”

Up went the torch which the men had brought with them, a flaring pine
torch, to assist in the operations; in very wantonness Nick Grabber
tossed it into the fellow’s hand, crying “Catch.” He missed it, and it
fell into a heap of flax. The man started back to avoid the blaze which
instantly sprang up, and so put the fire between him and the moveable
planks--the only moveable ones--which served as a trap-door.

“Come down, come down,” called out the appalled voices below.

But the wretch could not face that sea of flame, until, maddened by
desperation, he took a header as boys might say, at the opening through
the fire, and falling head foremost on the bedroom floor, split his
skull and died on the spot. The others could do nothing for him, the
loft was one mass of flame, and shouting “Fire! Fire!” they ran to
get water, in a vain attempt to save the cottage. But of this there
was little hope; the roof was of thatch, and the building mainly of
timber, so they saw in a few minutes that there was nothing for it but
to help the aged couple to save their furniture.

But what of Cuthbert? they had forgotten him, for the time, then they
said,--

“The boy couldn’t have been there, nor in the house, or he would be
driven from his hiding-place now. See how unconcerned the old man
looks; he wouldn’t look so if his precious boy were in danger.”


FOOTNOTES

[22] Multiply by twelve for the modern equivalent. See Note H.

[23] A priest of Chichester, named Christopherson, suffered death
for saying that the king would be damned for the destruction of the
monasteries.




CHAPTER IX.

_IN THE RUINS OF THE ABBEY._


No, Cuthbert was not burnt, as the reader has already conjectured, or
our tale would come to an untimely close, untimely as the death of our
hero, and we will now explain the manner of his escape.

Once in the loft, he remembered that in the innocent confidence of his
boyhood, he had prated of its treasures to Grabber, who he doubted not
was with his pursuers, and he felt that there was scant safety in his
hiding place.

But there was yet an avenue of escape: a little opening at the end of
the loft, which the ill-fated constable had overlooked, like a dormer
window, admitted light and air to the loft; if he could force himself
through that, and it was only a very small opening, he would emerge on
the roof, and in the darkness might descend and escape unseen.

He tried and succeeded, and sliding down the long sloping roof, as he
had often done when a small boy, alighted at the back of the house,
while all the officers were within, those who had kept guard without,
having joined the rest, when they judged by the uproar, that the lad
was found.

But one yet watched there,--the priest who rejoiced to see him. He had
left the house when Grabber told the secret, from reluctance to witness
the capture of the harmless boy.

“Thank God, my boy,” he said, “thou hast outwitted them; go and hide in
the Abbey ruins, I shall be there at midnight, I have business there,
in the desecrated church; I will tell thy friends thou art safe; go at
once.”

The boy darted away for the Abbey, but soon he heard loud shouts of
“Fire!” “Fire!” and saw the reflection of the flames in objects around.
Full of anxiety for his foster parents, he could not help turning back,
and would again have run into danger, for the officers, anticipating
such a result, were looking everywhere amongst the crowd, and would
surely have seen him, had not his wise friend, the good parish priest,
also anticipated the same, and met him.

“Nay, nay, my lad, thou canst do no good, and wilt only add to their
troubles; go into the Abbey church and wait there till midnight; thou
art not afraid?”

“No,” said Cuthbert, “only take care of _them_,” and he retraced his
steps to the Abbey.

[Illustration: “THE BOY DARTED AWAY FOR THE ABBEY.”

_Page 92._]

The moon had arisen, and illuminated the scene, when through a gap in
the boundary wall Cuthbert entered the once sacred precincts; his heart
was very heavy as he gazed upon the mutilated cloisters, doors torn
from their hinges, windows dashed out, roofless chambers from which the
lead had been torn,--gazed as well as a moon struggling amidst clouds
would allow him to gaze, gazed and wept.

The same ruins seen now, after the mellowing influences of time have
toned down the painful features, excite interest unmingled, in the case
of most visitors, with regret, and they say, “What a beautiful ruin;”
but it was different then: a visit to Glastonbury, Tintern, or Furness,
must have rent the heart of any one who could feel for the victims
of injustice, or grieve over the wanton mutilation of all that was
beautiful in architecture, or sacred in religion.[24]

When our hero entered the once beautiful Abbey church, when he saw the
ashes of the holy dead scattered abroad, their tombs defaced; above
all, when he saw the altar which had been stripped and rent from its
place, and this by a people who had not yet renounced their faith in
the sacramental presence, by a king who at the same time sent men and
women to the stake because they disbelieved in Transubstantiation,[25]
he fell upon his face and sobbed, while the words escaped his lips,
“How long, O Lord, how long?” All his early teaching had led him to
revere what he saw thus desecrated, and he was shocked to the very core
of his heart.

He saw the moonbeams fall through broken windows and chequer the
mutilated floor with light; he sought in vain a place of rest, until it
occurred to him that the organ loft which was over the entrance to the
monk’s choir, and which was reached by a winding staircase, would be
the best place of refuge, in case he should be sought, which he deemed
_unlikely_; there were but few who would harm him, and they were off
the scent.

I do not attempt to analyse his feelings towards Grabber, neither
would it have been well for the latter to have met Cuthbert just then;
warm-hearted and loving to his friends, nay, Christian in heart as
Cuthbert was, it would have been hard at that time to put in action the
spirit of forgiveness as one ought.

Up the spiral staircase he crept into the loft; there some cushions
were left by chance amongst the remains of the organ; he contrived to
make a couch out of two or three of them and slept.

How long he knew not, but at length he seemed to hear the bells ring
out the midnight hour, and he began to dream that he was assisting at
a solemn office for the dead. He awoke and raised himself up; the same
sounds he had heard in his dream were actually ascending from below.

“Requiem æternam dona eis Domine et lux perpetua luceat eis.”

Then followed the words of the psalm:--

“Te decet hymnus Deus in Syon, et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.”[26]

He gazed around him in amazement. He discovered the familiar odour of
incense, he perceived the glimmer of many tapers. He dared at last, not
knowing whether he beheld ghosts or living men, to look over the edge
of the gallery, and saw a company of monks in the familiar Benedictine
habit, standing around an open grave, while beyond them the desecrated
altar was set up, and furnished with its accustomed ornaments, and the
Celebrant with his assistant ministers, stood before it.

Then he was convinced that he beheld living men and no phantoms, and
that he saw before him those who survived of his former preceptors and
teachers, the monks of Glastonbury.

Whom then were they burying? for whom did they chant the requiem Mass?

And now the epistle was read, and afterwards the solemn sounds of the
sequence arose:--

    “Dies iræ Dies illa
    Solvet sæclum in favilla
    Teste David cum Sibylla.”[27]

He hesitated no longer, he glided down the stairs, and soon his boyish
voice was heard in the sweet verse:--

    “Recordare Jesu pie
    Quod sum causa tuæ viæ
    Ne me perdas illa die.”[27]

As he sang Cuthbert saw he stood by the good parochus.

The gospel followed, telling of Him Who is the Resurrection and the
Life; after which one of the brethren, a man with the aspect of one in
authority, stood forth, and began a short address:--

“We are met to-night, brethren, like the faithful of old, to render
the last rites of the Church to the mutilated remains of our beloved
brethren; gathered, at what risk ye know, from the places wherein the
tyrant had exposed the sacred relics, which were once the home of the
Holy Spirit, wherein Christ lived and dwelt; yea, and which shall rise
again from the dust of death, when body shall unite with the redeemed
regenerate soul, and soar from death’s cold house to life and light.”

He was interrupted by a sob (it was from Cuthbert), but he went on.

“And now we bury them in peace, we place the bones of the last
Abbot,--and one more worthy has never presided over Glastonbury,--with
those of his sainted predecessors: together they sleep after life’s
fitful penance, together they shall arise, when the last trump shall
echo over the vale of Avalon. Nor do we forget his faithful brethren,
once the Prior and Sub-Prior of this holy house; they were with him
in his hour of trial, they rest with him now, their mortal bodies,
all that was mortal, here, but their souls, purified by suffering
have, we doubt not, entered Paradise, where they hear those rapturous
strains, that endless Alleluia which no mortal ear could hear and
live. In peace; but secure as we feel for them, we have yet to implore
God’s mercy for ourselves, and His suffering Church, upon which blows
so cruel have fallen. In these holy mysteries, while we commend our
dear brethren to His mercy, our supplications are turned (as saith
Augustine) to thanksgivings; but for ourselves, oh, what need of prayer
that we may breast the waves, as they did, and when the Eternal Shore
is gained, who will count the billows which roar behind?”

The service proceeded, and when all was over, the stone was replaced
over the grave, which was made to appear as though nought had disturbed
its rest in its bed, the tapers were extinguished, and but one solitary
torch left alight.

He who appeared the leader of the party, now approached Cuthbert.

“My son,” he said, “dost thou know this ring?”

“I do,” and Cuthbert bent the head.

“Thou meetest me fitly here; and here, over his grave who loved thee, I
take thee to be my adopted child; thou hast found another father in the
place of him thou hast lost; fear not thy foes, I know thy danger, ere
the dawn break thou shalt be in safety.”

_End of the First Part._


FOOTNOTES

[24] See Note I. The Abbey Church.

[25] The Six Articles became law the same year, enforcing nearly all
Roman doctrine.

[26] Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine
upon them.

Thou, O God, art praised in Sion, etc.

[27] 398, Hymns A. and M.

    “Day of wrath, O day of mourning.”
    “Think, good Jesu, my salvation, etc.”




PART II.

_Cuthbert the Foundling._


                O fair Devonia!
    Land of the brave and leal, how bright thy skies!
    How fresh do show thy rich and verdant meads!
    How clear the streams! which from thy hills do run:
    How grim the tors! which granite rocks do crown:
    How sweet the glens! whose depths the forest hides:
    How blue the seas! which ruddy rocks do bound:
    Fain would I seek amidst such beauty--rest:
          And bid the world--Adieu.




CHAPTER I.

_THE OLD MANOR HOUSE._


There are few districts in England more picturesque than the southern
slopes of Dartmoor; the deeply wooded glens, the brawling mountain
torrents, the huge tors with their rock-crowned summits and the mists
curling around them, the fertile plains beneath with their deep red
soil, the blue ocean girdling all with its azure belt; all these unite
to form a picture, which _once_ seen, recurs again and again to the
memory, while life lingers.

A few years after the scenes recorded in the first part of this
tragical history, a young traveller left the inn of the “Rose and
Crown,” Bovey Tracey, late one September evening, bound for the
moorland. The sun was sinking towards the western heights which
bounded the plain, the giant bulwarks of the moorland--Hey Tor, with
its fantastic crown of gigantic rocks, Rippon Tor, with its cairn of
stones,--were already tinged with the glorious hues of sunset, and the
purple heather which covered their slopes, looked its best in the tints
of the departing luminary.

Our traveller was a youth who had perhaps seen some twenty summers,
but whose smooth face was yet undignified by the beard of manhood; his
attire was of the picturesque style made familiar to us by the pencil
of Holbein: over a close-fitting doublet and nether garments hung a
mantle, flowing open and sumptuously embroidered; his velvet cap was
bound round with a golden band, and adorned with a bright feather and a
jewelled clasp, a silver-hilted sword hung by his side.

“You must ride quickly, Master Trevannion, or you will hardly climb
the pass before dark, and it is a bad road by the side of the Becky,
especially opposite the fall,” said the landlord, kindly.

“I know every foot of it, my Boniface, and so does my steed; never fear
for us.”

“It will be dark early, and perhaps wet; look at that cap of mist upon
Hey Tor.”

The youth glanced at the little cloud. “I shall be home before it
descends,” he said; “Good night, landlord,” and he rode quickly away.

“Who is yonder stripling?” said a dark-browed stranger, as the landlord
re-entered the inn.

“The son and heir of Sir Walter Trevannion,” replied the landlord
respectfully, for the stranger had announced himself as “travelling on
the King’s business,” and was evidently a “man of worship.”

“And how do you name him?”

“Cuthbert Trevannion, some day to be _Sir_ Cuthbert, when Sir Walter,
now past his fiftieth year, is gathered to his fathers.”

“And this Sir Walter, what was he doing in _his_ father’s life-time?”

“That is hardly known--some say that he was a monk before bluff King
Hal pulled down the rookeries, and that he keeps up the old cloister
life with a few brethren in the old hall, which he seldom leaves; but
that can hardly have been the case, for then how could he have been
married and become possessed of so goodly a son?”

“And the son--does he confine himself much to the hall?”

“Oh, he hunts and hawks like other young men, only he keeps somewhat to
the home preserves, and seldom shows abroad.”

“Are there any other children?”

“No, this is the only child.”

“And the mother?”

“Died before Sir Walter came home.”

“What year was that?”

“I cannot remember--but----”

“Go to, refresh thy memory with a cup of thine own best sack at my
expense, it is before thee on the table.”

“Well, I think it was in forty.”

“And this youngster seems about twenty years old; he would have been a
boy of fourteen then.”

“Your worship has some interest in him?”

“Nay, only a passing recollection.”

       *       *       *       *       *

We will leave the worthies to their talk, and follow the traveller.

He had now ridden about three miles from Bovey, when he entered a long
pass between two ridges of hills; by his side a trout stream, called
the Becky, tumbled along, larch trees grew on the banks, and the
heights above were crowded with dwarf oaks, beeches, and other forest
trees.

Whistling to himself he rode along, hastening to get home ere it was
quite dark, for the roads were both difficult and dangerous, save to
those who knew them well.

Soon the valley contracted, and there was only room for the torrent and
the road, while the craggy wooded heights rose yet more lofty above:
sometimes, over their summits could be seen the rounded heights of the
moorland.

The tumbling of a cascade to the left, was heard as the road parted
from the river, and began to ascend a dark pass, where the faint
decaying light was almost excluded by the foliage.

In devious zig-zags the road ascended to the upper plateau, and our
rider, the summit attained, looked back at the valley. It was a mass of
foliage, which hid the depth; the upper branches glimmered in the rays
of the departing sun which was just disappearing behind a wild-looking
hill, whereon appeared a mass of rocks, so closely resembling the ruins
of a castle, that it needed a keen eye to discover the deception at a
glance.

But the rocks of Hound Tor were too familiar to our youthful friend to
detain him a moment, and riding through a few meadows, he drew up at
the gate of an ancient manor house, beneath the slope of a rock-clad
hill, which was crowned by a mass of granite resembling the human form,
and from the protuberance of what represented the nasal organ, called
“Bowerman’s Nose.”

The reader will search in vain for that manor house now; the park in
which it stood has been disafforested, and subdivided into numerous
farm holdings; the stones which formed that mighty wall which encircled
the pleasaunce or garden, or which composed the stately pile within,
may yet exist amidst the materials of many cottages, where beside
poverty and squalor one beholds a carved architrave, or shattered
column; but we are writing of days long gone by.

Cuthbert Trevannion, to give him the name by which mine host of the
“Rose and Crown” distinguished him, rode up an avenue, and throwing the
bridle of his horse to a groom who stood ready to receive it, asked--

“Is my father at leisure?”

“The supper bell has just sounded.”

Retiring for one moment to wipe off the sweat and dust of the road, our
youth entered the “refectory,” as they called it at that house.

It was indeed to all appearance a monastic house--within a room,
wainscotted with dark oak, nine or ten grave old men sat on each side
of the board, and at the head sat Sir Walter Trevannion; all present
wore the dress of the Benedictine order, which, banished from the
stately abbeys founded for the exercise of its splendid worship,
lingered on by the charity of a few worthy knights or nobles in many a
similar asylum, where, until death the poor brethren still kept up the
exercise of their self-discipline.

To this, Henry had no objection, now that he had their money; for had
not the statute of the six articles just declared that vows of celibacy
were binding until death; a piece of cruel sarcasm, when everything
which could render them _tolerable_, had been taken away, so far as
the power of the crown extended.

During the supper, all were silent, while one of the brethren read a
homily of S. Augustine; but the meal ended, Sir Walter beckoned to his
_son_ to follow him into the study.

But it is time that we drop the mask, and explain ourselves.

Cuthbert Trevannion, now so called, _was_ our Cuthbert; Sir Walter was
that Ambrose, the bearer of the ring, who had received him into his
care, as related at the conclusion of the former part of this tale;
where he had passed six eventful years: years which had witnessed the
dastardly end of the life of the “malleus monachorum,” Cromwell;[28]
the divorce of one queen, the execution of another, and had seen the
tyrant pass into the last stage of his sanguinary reign--burning the
Reformers, and butchering the Romanists who would not acknowledge his
supremacy; the only tyrant upon record, who had the privilege of
persecuting both sides at once.

The inn-keeper’s account of Sir Walter was true so far as it went; we
will supply the necessary details.

He was the second son of Sir Arthur Trevannion, the head of an old
Devonian family, but against the will of his father he had assumed the
Benedictine habit, and become the Prior of the famous Abbey of Furness,
in the far north, under the name of Ambrose, so that his father and he
did not meet for many many years.

Under that name he became implicated in the rising called the
Pilgrimage of Grace, and when his Abbey was dissolved found refuge
abroad, where the news of his elder brother’s death reached him. It
was then thought expedient that he should return home in the guise of
a layman, where owing to the fact that he had taken the monastic vows
under an assumed name, his identity with the Father Ambrose of Furness,
proscribed by the government, was not suspected, and he was received by
his father as a returned prodigal, fresh from abroad.

The old knight only survived his return a few months, and for the sake
of offering a home to the poor houseless Benedictines whom he gathered
round him, Father Ambrose accepted the facts of his position, and
became, without question, Sir Walter Trevannion of Becky Hall, and the
protector of Cuthbert, to whom he had conceived so great an attachment
(which the lad well deserved) that he adopted him as his son, whereas
his first intention had been to place him in a more subordinate
position until he should shew himself worthy of higher promotion.

Thus to the outward world he was the country knight, but when the gates
were shut and he was alone with his brethren, he was Prior Ambrose.

Thus six uneventful years--uneventful, that is, to them--had passed
away, in the quietude of their moorland home, beneath the shade of the
mighty hills, far from the scenes of political strife.

And there Cuthbert’s education had been completed; when we reintroduced
him to our readers he was already in the bloom of early manhood.

“Happy the people, who have no history,” says an old well-worn proverb;
for history is only interesting when it deals with those days of war
and excitement which were miserable to contemporaries, but lend a charm
to tradition: “nothing in the papers to-day,” say we moderns, almost
vexed that no train has run off the lines, no steam-boat exploded, no
murderer exercised his art, to fill the columns.

Similarly those six years of Cuthbert’s past life would have no
interest for the reader, but they had been happy ones to him--

    “The torrent’s smoothness ere it dash below.”

And often in later years did he recall them with regret.

And although he and his adopted father knew it not, another period of
deep excitement and great trial lay before them, upon the eve of which
we draw up our curtain and arrange our _dramatis personæ_.


FOOTNOTES

[28] “Dastardly,” for he who had with such cruel indifference sent
others to the stake, the quartering block, or the axe, lost all his own
courage when a like doom impended over himself--when, without a trial,
he was sentenced, by the process of a “bill of attainder,” which he had
first invented. In the most abject manner he fawned on the tyrant, and
besought mercy in terms which were a disgrace to his manhood. Innocent
of intentional treason against Henry no doubt he was; but was he more
so than many of his own victims, whom on the fifth of July, 1540, he
went to meet before the bar of God?




CHAPTER II.

_AN EVENTFUL RAMBLE._


“Cuthbert, my son,” said Sir Walter, “thou hast brought letters from
the town.”

“Here they are, father,” said Cuthbert, producing a packet which bore
the traces of a long journey, “letters from across the sea.”

The good knight, or father, whichever we may call him, perused
them eagerly, and Cuthbert sat patiently gazing at a black letter
martyrology to wile away the time.

“My news concerns thee, dear son,” said his adopted father. “Cuthbert,
thou hast now attained years of discretion, and thy education has
not been neglected; thou art a fair master of English, French, and
Latin, with some knowledge of German; thy mathematics are tolerable
as things go; meanwhile thou hast not neglected the divinest of
studies--theology.”

“Nor, father, have I forgotten that in this world we must learn to
fence, wrestle, shoot, and if need be, fight.”

“Nor hunting and hawking, alack-a-day; ‘vanitas vanitatum,’ all is
vanity; but, my son, we must seriously consider now what thy future
life shall be. Here I have letters from two quarters, amongst others,
which concern thee; my good brother, the Abbot of Monte Casino, in far
off Italy, would gladly receive thee as a neophyte, and fit thee to
make thy profession in that holiest and most learned of houses, where
as yet the wild boar rooteth not, neither doth the beast of the field
devour.”

The old man looked eagerly on the youth, but no answering response met
his gaze.

“And again,” continued he, “my friend the Baron de Courcy, descendant
of an old and famous Norman house, distinguished even in the days of
the Conquest,[29] offers to receive thee as an esquire and candidate
for the future honour of knighthood, in the service of France, now
happily at peace with England.”

Cuthbert’s face brightened now--this was the lot which he desired.

“Ah, my son, I see the world hath hold of thee; would thou could’st
feel the noble ambition to die for the Church, like thy once revered
preceptor.”

“Father, dear father, believe me no ingrate; for the Church I would
willingly die; but let it be as a warrior, sword in hand, fighting for
her rights, she needs such,--the warrior’s death if need be, but not
the stake or quartering block, unless God call me to it,--and then thy
child may not disobey.”

“I have ever foreboded this decision, yet it ruins my fondest
hopes--but if God has not given the vocation man can do nought--and
therefore I have sought the double opening for thee; thou choosest,
then, the soldier’s life, under my old friend of Courcy, whom I know to
be as valiant and devout a warrior as one could find, yet withal one
who will not spare correction, and who can be stern at need.”

“I do choose it, since you leave it to me, yet I grieve to cross thy
will.”

“Take till to-morrow to consider of it; a ship, under a captain whom
I know, will leave Dartmouth shortly for France, and thou mayest go
under his care. But first there is a duty to discharge; we must both
go to Glastonbury, where the lapse of time will have obliterated thy
remembrance from the towns folk, and destroy those papers; there is no
longer any occasion for their existence.”

“When shall we travel?”

“I have engagements which detain me here for another week, then we
shall set out; and now, my son, commend thyself to God, and seek His
grace to guide thee at this solemn turning-point in thy life. Benedicat
te Deus, et custodiat te semper, noctem quietam concedat Dominus.”

It was not till the midnight hour had passed that Cuthbert could sleep;
he realised that he had come to a point in the road of life, where two
ways branched off to right and left, either of which, fraught with
diverse issues, he might follow, but which?

And the same figure continually haunted him in his dreams, even the two
roads; sometimes the strife of battle and death in the forlorn hope, or
in the deadly breach, seemed the goal of the one, and then the other
appeared to lead to a desert of racks, stakes, and other appliances,
too familiar to the proselytizing zeal of that era.

There were other visions, but visions of peace--of a home of rest
beyond some fearful toil, some deadly peril which had preceded it in
the dream.

Wakeful, but not refreshed, Cuthbert rose with the sun; the words of
Sir Walter, “Take a day to consider,” rang in his mind; it should be a
day of solitude.

He took a slight breakfast, and then ascended the hill above the
house, crowned with the Druidical idol of a long vanished day; through
furze and crag he scrambled to the summit; before him lay a land
of desolation; moor after moor, swelling into hills, subsiding into
valleys, tinged with light or shade as the shadows of the clouds drove
over the wastes before the wind; like the restless ocean, it had a
strange charm in its very boundlessness; its vastness seemed to calm
one, as if an image of the illimitable eternity.

And above rose the mis-shapen token of a faith and worship long
extinct; a few huge blocks of granite composed the figure, so arranged,
whether by nature or art, that they looked human in outline; and
before, on that flat slab of stone, many victims must have bled--human
victims perhaps, in honour of the Baal-God.

That distant ridge of serrated teeth-like mountains, perpetuates the
name Bel Tor; perchance Phœnicians of old, brought over the worship
dear to Jezebel, and in these latter days, the name still speaks of
that dread idolatry.

So man passes away like the shadows of the clouds over the moor, and
yet these bare hills and rocky tors remain the same, as when the smoke
from the idol sacrifice ascended.

Then Cuthbert descended; he reached the valley, climbed the opposite
ridge--that strange pile so like a ruined castle which men call Hound
Tor; onward again up a deep valley, then a scramble amidst rocks and
heather, and the huge granite blocks which form the summit of Hey Tor,
are gained.

Oh, what a variegated view of land and sea--the wild hills over the
Dart, nay, over the Tavy; the huge bulk of Cawsand in the north; the
estuaries of the Dart and Teign; nay, across the sea, a cloud-like
vision of Portland Isle, full sixty miles away.

But our young mountaineer has seen enough, and his thoughts are ever
busy; he descends the hill and enters the forests which then fringed
their bases. Has he an object in view? Yes, there is one he would
fain see near Ashburton, pure and fair Isabel Grey, daughter of a
neighbouring squire, whose beauty had revealed to him the secrets of
his own heart, and steeled him against entering the ranks of a celibate
priesthood.

This is not a love story, and we shall not follow him to listen to
his vows, to hear him implore his charmer to tarry till he can return
crowned (he doubts not) with glory gained in the wars, and offer her
the heart of a would-be bridegroom.

He returns at length by the lower road, strikes the pass he ascended,
last night, at about the same hour, but the long ramble has fatigued
him; he rests for one moment at the summit of the ridge.

It wants an hour to sunset, he will go to the point of Hound Tor
Coombe; it is but a few steps, and is a projecting spur of the range
which separates the two wooded, rock-strewn valleys, Lustleigh and
Becky, just before they unite in one beautiful vale, above Bovey Tracey.

There he lies listening to the streams which babble on each side far
below, and anon--shall we tell it to his shame--falls asleep.

He is awoke by the murmur of voices.

“I tell thee the old fellow is worth a mint of money, and Jack
Cantfull, who is the ostler at the ‘Rose and Crown,’ says he rides all
alone to Moreton, and goes through this pass, but why he takes this
road instead of the other I know not, only Jack is to be his guide.”

“He will pay for knocking on the head!”

“Jack will expect his share when the deed is done.”

“Nay,” said another voice, “no throat cutting or head splitting, if it
can be done without.”

“Thou hast become scrupulous, Tony; hast thou forgotten the colour of
blood?”

“Nay, as I am a true Gubbing,[30] I mind it no more than ale, when
called upon to shed it, but we need not make the country too hot to
hold us.”

“Dead men tell no tales.”

“Well, we must be moving, he was to start at six.” And soon Cuthbert
heard them climb down the slope from a cave (well known to him, but
which happily he had not entered) below the summit on which he had been
reposing.

They had gone to beset the pass higher up.

So soon as the sound of their footsteps had ceased, Cuthbert descended
or rather _slid_ down the hill into the road beneath, behind the men,
and in spite of his fatigue, walked rapidly back towards Bovey.

Soon he came to the junction of two roads--the one, the upper way,
leading through the pass and so to Chagford, and by a circuitous route
to Moreton; the other a branch road which led more directly to the
latter town, which the traveller had abandoned: to take, for his own
reasons, a more circuitous and difficult route under a treacherous
guide.

At the point where the ways met Cuthbert waited, and shortly heard the
sound of horses; he then beheld the riders--the one a tall dark looking
man, evidently of rank and importance, the other a sort of stable
helper from the inn at Bovey.

“Stand,” cried Cuthbert, “I would fain speak with you, sir.”

“Who is this, who cries ‘stand’ upon the King’s highway?”

“A friend, one who would save you, Sir John, if you be Sir John; danger
lurks ahead; three cut-throats, ‘Gubbings,’ they call them about here,
a half-gipsy brood, lie in wait at the pass, and lurk for your life.”

“How sayest thou, my lad? Look, sirrah, what sayest thou to this?”

But the treacherous groom had heard all, and rode on at full gallop,
barely escaping a pistol-shot his indignant employer sent after him.

“He will bring them back in no time: take the lower road.”

“And thou, my poor lad, they will avenge themselves on thee.”

“Nay, I know every turn in the woods; I can run home.”

“Sore uneasy should I be for thee. Ah, see, the rogues appear, they
heard the shot.”

About half-a-mile along the road, moving forms rapidly running towards
them might be obscurely discerned as they turned a crest of the hill.

“Jump behind, thou canst ride ‘pillion.’”

Cuthbert complied, and Sir John spurred his horse and galloped along
the lower road; even then, by cutting across a shoulder of the hill,
the Gubbings, as Cuthbert called them, gained upon them and shot two or
three useless arrows, and then they could do no more, for the road lay
straight forward, and they had no further advantage.

After a little while Sir John said--

“I think we may now take our ease; thou hast saved my life, lad, and I
shall not forget it. What is thy name?”

“Cuthbert Trevannion; and thine, sir?”

The rider started perceptibly as he heard the name, and Cuthbert
noticed it. After a moment he said, with emphasis--

“Sir John Redfyrne, a poor knight of his sacred majesty’s household.”

Cuthbert remembered the name too well, and his earnest desire was to
get away without any further revelations.

“I have lately come from Glastonbury,” said Sir John; “dost thou know
the place?”

Cuthbert could not lie. “I have been there,” he said.

“There was some talk of a lad of thy name when I first knew the town,
who was educated at the Abbey.”

“It may be, sir; but see, that road will take me home, and there is no
danger now; may I dismount?”

“Not just yet; here is a roadside inn, thou must at least grace me with
thy presence over a cup of sack.”

“But my father will be uneasy.”

“I will answer for him.”

Not to increase Sir John’s suspicions, Cuthbert dismounted at the inn,
and allowed himself to be led into a private chamber. Sir John waited
for a moment, and descended the stairs.

“Dost thou know that youth?” he asked of the landlord.

“The son of Sir Walter Trevannion.”

“He lives near here?”

“Yes, at Trevannion Hall.”

He returned to Cuthbert.

“My lad,” he said, “I owe thee many thanks, and grieve that I may not
stay longer to repay them than suffices to discuss this sack; my road
now lies to Moreton, and I shall soon have quitted these parts; perhaps
I may call some future day upon thy father, who, I hear, lives near, to
thank thee in his presence.”

“I may go then, sir?”

“With my best thanks; nay, wear this chain as a memento of the giver
and the Gubbings; fare thee well.”

And Cuthbert hastened home.

But Sir John remained yet a little while, seated in the saddle, as he
made several innocent enquiries of the landlord.

And they were all about Trevannion Hall.


FOOTNOTES

[29] Read “The Andredsweald,” by the same Author. (Parker’s Oxford.)

[30] See Note J. The Gubbings.




CHAPTER III.

_AN ACT OF GRATITUDE._


Sir Thomas Stukely of Chagford, gentleman, was a type of the old
English justice of his day; a hundred pounds a year, equivalent
to a thousand now, represented the condition of the squire of the
parish, and heavy duties had he to perform; to wit, it was his duty
to know everything and everybody; did any parent bring up his child
in idleness, it was his place to interfere and see that the child was
taught an honest trade; did any vagrants go about begging, it was his
duty to see them tied to a cart’s tail and flogged, or even in extreme
cases of persistence to see them hanged out of the way, for the days
were stern days.

It was his to bridle all masterless men, and, if they would not work,
to send them to gaol; and to see that all youths, forsaking idle dicing
and gaming, or the frequenting of taverns, gave themselves to manly
exercises, archery, cudgel playing, and the like; that each might be a
soldier in time of need.

His hour of rising, in summer, was four o’clock, with breakfast at
five, after which his labourers went to work, and he to his business;
in winter, perhaps an hour later was allowed to all. Every unknown
face, met in the country roads, was challenged by the constables,
and if the stranger gave not a good account of his wayfaring, he was
brought before the justice; did the grocer give short weight, or the
cobbler make shoes which let water, it must all come before Sir Thomas,
as he was called in courtesy, for he was only “a squire.”[31]

At twelve he dined in company with his household: good beef, mutton,
ale, and for the upper board wine--Canary, Malmsey, or the like; bread
was plentiful, both white and brown, vegetables, before the advent of
potatoes, scarce;[32] the ladies made the pastry with their own fair
hands.

The doors stood open to all comers at the hours of dinner and supper;
they of gentle degree fared at the squire’s table, of simple at the
lower board with the servants, which formed with the upper one the
letter T.

Free board and free lodging to all honest comers; it might be rough but
it was ready; as the squire and his household fared, so did the guests,
both in bed and board.

Early after his dinner, the squire went hunting, or rode about the
farms and looked after his tenants; saw that the fences were in good
repair, the roads well kept; and returned at sunset to supper.

In his old wainscotted hall, panelled with black oak, its ceiling
decorated with the arms of the Stukelys between the interlacing beams,
a fire of logs in the huge hearth, and two favourite hounds lying
before it, sat Justice Stukely and his wife at supper.

A ring at the bell, and the porter ushered in a stranger.

“My name is Redfyrne, Sir John Redfyrne, travelling upon the King’s
business, and craving your hospitality.”

“It is thine, man,” said the host, “sit down there,” as he pointed to
the vacant seat of honour by his side; “beef and bread are by thee, and
here is good October, or there fair Malmsey, to wash it down.”

Sir John ate heartily; and his host did not ply him with many
questions until he had finished a huge platter of meat, and discussed a
jorum of ale.

“Hast ridden far, Sir John?”

“From Bovey only.”

“Which way, round Moreton or by the Becky?”

“By the Becky, where I narrowly escaped the Gubbings.”

“The Gubbings!” and the squire with difficulty repressed a malediction,
which rose to his lips. “They are like wasps, kill one, a hundred
come to his funeral. Only last month we caught a party of them
red-handed, and hung them up on the spot, for they are not Christians
or Englishmen, and we thought it wasn’t worth while to trouble judge
or jury over them. There we strung them up from the beeches of Holme
Chase, the prettiest beech-nuts honest eyes could rest upon--five men,
two women, and three boys; yet they are not frightened away from these
parts yet.”

“Nor ever will be unless you hunt them from the moor with bloodhounds.”

“It _may_ come to that; they are a plague-spot in the Commonwealth, and
especially upon our fair country of Devon. But what news from court,
Sir John?”

“The King’s Majesty’s health is better, but he hath been sorely tried
by the humour of one Dr. Crome, who preached in a sermon, that no
one could approve of the dissolution of the monasteries, and at the
same time admit the usefulness of prayers for the souls in purgatory;
his majesty thought the speech levelled against himself, and Dr.
Crome being examined before the Council, criminated ex-Bishop Latimer
and many others. Crome and Latimer saved themselves by recantation,
but Anne Askew, a maid of honour about the court; Adlam, a tailor;
Otterden, shame to say, a priest; and Lascelles, a gentleman in
waiting, have all been burnt alive at Smithfield. Shaxton, late Bishop
of Worcester, smelt strongly of the faggot, but he recanted just in
time, and preached the funeral sermon over his late allies as they
smouldered.”

“That reminds me of the old song,” said the Justice, “which they sang
in France when I made my first essay in arms there, the King was young
then.

    “‘Apotre de Luthere,
    Si l’on brule ta chair,
    C’est seulement que tu saches d’avance
    Les tourments d’enfer.’”[33]

“Well, for the witch and for the heretic a faggot is the best cure.
What else is going on?”

“They say that an ingenious mechanist has invented a machine to move
the King upstairs and down in his chair without difficulty; he is so
corpulent that little trace is left of the princely gallant of the
Cloth of Gold.”

“Queen Catharine has a hard time of it?”

“She is a good nurse, but she is careful not to cross the royal temper.”

“There are five good examples set before her in her predecessors.”

And so the talk went on, over the recent peace concluded with France
in the previous summer; over the disputes in court between the party
of Cranmer and the Seymours on the one hand, and that of the Duke of
Norfolk, and Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, on the other. But we will
not weary the reader with any more of the chit-chat of the latter days
of Henry VIII., now drawing near his end, furious as a wild beast at
the slightest contradiction, worshipped by his courtiers on bended
knee, and putting to the death Catholic and Protestant alike, if they
varied from the doctrines stated in the “King’s Boke.”

The supper over and the servants dismissed, the real purpose of Sir
John’s visit came out, and the Justice learned with deep surprise
mingled with disgust, that he sought a warrant for the arrest of Sir
Walter Trevannion and his reputed son Cuthbert, and men to execute the
same.

“Sir Walter Trevannion! why, what has he done?”

“Nought as Sir Walter, but much as Father Ambrose of Furness Abbey.”

“Pooh! pooh! if the old man has been a monk it was lawful to be so
once; and if they still play at monkery, why the King has their money,
let them play.”

“It is, I fear, a more serious business than you imagine, Sir Thomas;
this Father Ambrose was art and part in the northern insurrection,
which they call the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace,’ and moreover, attainted for
that very crime.”

“But how dost thou identify him with Sir Walter, who seems a harmless
country gentleman?”

“I have been on his track for many years; it was I who detected
that traitor, the some-time Abbot of Glastonbury, in correspondence
with him, and I am well assured that buried somewhere beneath the
foundations of the ruined pile of that Abbey lies a secret chamber
containing papers and documents, which would reveal the names and
machinations of many traitors to his royal highness; but there is
only one who knows the secret of its whereabouts, and that one is the
adopted son of Sir Walter.”

“The _adopted_ son, young Cuthbert, is he not the real son?”

“No, Sir Walter was a monk till the dissolution; this young Cuthbert
was a foundling, brought up at Glastonbury, who disappeared when we
were on the point of seizing him, and has never been heard of since,
till, being on the trail of Father Ambrose, I unearthed him as Sir
Walter Trevannion, and at the same time, killing two birds with one
stone, found my master Cuthbert. It is a glorious stroke of luck, and
will make my fortune at court.”

“And the poor Trevannions,--for there is no doubt Sir Walter _is_ Sir
Walter?”

“None at all, his father denounced him for becoming a monk against the
paternal will.”

“Well, the poor Trevannions, what of them? what will be their fate?”

“If, Sir Thomas, you are a friend to King Harry, as holding his
commission you must be, you will accompany me with the dawn of day to
the manor house, with a guard of constables in case of resistance, and
so enable me to seize the couple of traitors, and lodge them safely in
Exeter gaol.”

“It must be done, since you yourself, who are the accredited agent of
the King, answer for it, and since you say your evidence is sure; but I
would sooner you had some other errand than to put me on this job. It
is hard upon a man to seize his own neighbours and equals in this way.
Can you prove the identity? there is the question.”

“A monk, an apostate if you care to call him one, is at my beck and
call, who was at Furness with Prior Ambrose, and knows every hair on
his head.”

“And the lad?”

“An old schoolfellow at the Abbey is with me, who saw him, himself
unseen, at Bovey yesterday, and can swear to him.”

“Then we had better go to bed, for we must rise betimes.”

“Only write out the warrants to-night. You can lodge me?”

“As I would the devil if he came on the King’s service. Nay, be not
offended, I love not this butchering work, chopping up men into
quarters; but still the King is the King, and justice must be done. I
have had my bark and will not fail you when the time comes to bite.”

       *       *       *       *       *

When Cuthbert reached home that night, he lost no time in telling
Father Ambrose, or Sir Walter, by whichever name the reader likes to
call him, the story of his meeting with Sir John Redfyrne.

Sir Walter looked very serious as he heard it; he did not like the look
of the affair.

“It might have been well for _thee_, poor lad, hadst thou let the
Gubbings finish their work.”

“But would it have been right, father?”

“No, that it would not, and as thou hast done thy duty, so I doubt not
thou may’st look for divine protection and the guardianship of saints
and angels; but one thing is certain, we must anticipate danger by
doing at once what we should have deferred for a week--to-morrow we
ride for Glastonbury.”

“To-morrow; and must I leave this place, perhaps for ever, so soon, no
good-bye said?”

“Thou may’st never leave it at all otherwise, save as a captive; yes,
to-morrow, as soon after dawn as arrangements can be made for my
absence.”

The sun had just risen on the following morning when two powerful
horses, saddled and bridled, furnished with saddle-bags, and a third
with a servant already mounted, were in the court-yard. The aged monks
clustered about the door, their Lauds said, to bid their benefactor a
short farewell; his favourite servants awaited his parting commands,
when all at once a man came hurriedly forward to say that Sir Thomas
Stukely, with a strange gentleman and a band of constables, was coming
up the avenue.

“Cuthbert, mount,” cried Sir Walter, and the two cutting short their
good-byes, jumped upon their steeds, surprised out of their calmer
senses, by this sudden and unlooked for announcement. “This way, my
son,” cried the old knight, and led the way across a paddock behind the
house; disappearing in a copse beyond, just as the pursuers reached the
court-yard, and found the old men and servants trying to look as if
nothing had happened.

“My life upon it, they are but just gone,” cried Sir John Redfyrne, as
he gazed around.

The two fugitives rode through the copse by a narrow path, and then
emerged on the road just at the brink of the pass described before;
here the way descended to the level of the Becky by several zig-zags:
and they were forced to ride very cautiously.

Not so cautiously, however, but a trivial accident happened, involving
most tragical consequences.

Sir Walter’s horse trod on a mole hill, just thrown up, and his foot
sank in the loose earth; causing him to stumble and throw his master to
the ground; Cuthbert was down in a moment, and at his foster father’s
side, and, to his joy, he saw his benefactor arise and sit up as if
unhurt, but when he tried to get on his legs, he groaned and said--

“My son, I fear my poor leg is broken, the stirrup held and twisted
it.”

“Nay, nay, my father, let me help you.”

Sir Walter almost swooned with pain as he made a desperate effort to
arise; then said, “Cuthbert, ride on, it is _you_ they seek, remember
all that depends on you, ride on to Glastonbury, and wait for news of
me; if I come not, you know what to do, ride on: ah! here they come,
gallop forward ere you be too late.”

“Do you think I can leave you now, father?” said the poor youth. “Oh,
try once more. Nay, it is useless, here they are.”

“Put the best face you can on the matter; do not let them see we were
flying from them.”

“Help, help, Sir Walter Trevannion has fallen from his horse, and
broken his leg.”

“What,” cried Sir Thomas Stukely as he rode up; “how is this, Sir
Walter, not much hurt I hope; we must help you home,--come, men, bear a
hand.”

“No more of this trifling,” cried Sir John Redfyrne, sternly; “while it
goes on, that lad may escape, and he is worth his weight in gold; do
your duty, constables, and you, Sir Thomas.”

“By zounds, I want no man to teach me my duty, least of all a cockney
knight: look here, Trevannion, tell me the truth and I will act no
knave’s part to spite an old friend whose father was my crony, and so
serve some one else’s grudge; art thou, or art thou not, the man they
seek as Father Ambrose, Prior of Furness? say _no_, and we will help
thee home, and leave thee in peace; now man, why dost thou not speak?”

Sir Walter looked upon his friend, such a sad look, in which gratitude
struggled with pain.

“Stukely,” he said, “do thy duty, thou art ever a true man.”

Stukely groaned aloud, but he offered no further opposition, and the
party, escorted by the constables, took the road for Bovey, _en route_
for Exeter gaol.


FOOTNOTES

[31] The title “Sir” did not in these days _necessarily_ imply
knighthood; it was commonly given to Justices of the Peace, scions of
noble family, and even to Parish Priests, although we have not used it
in that connexion for fear of creating confusion in the mind of the
modern reader.

[32] Until late in this reign no edible roots were grown as food in
England.

[33] These cruel lines are authentic; the martyrdoms related really
occurred on July the sixteenth, 1546, but perhaps the news had not
reached Devon, and was not “stale news” there.




CHAPTER IV.

_EXETER GAOL._


One of the foulest disgraces resting upon mediæval England, but not
upon her alone, was the state of her prisons. In such filth were the
prisoners kept, that a peculiar fever, called the “gaol fever,” broke
out from time to time amongst them, and swept off the poor wretches by
hundreds.

But often this malady, the source of which was neglect and cruelty,
avenged itself upon the gaolers, and not upon them only, but upon
judges, jury, and officers alike; thus at Oxford the assizes known as
the Black Assize, in the reign of Elizabeth, became historical.[34] It
was convened for the trial of some Catholic recusants, when the foul
miasama spread from the wretched prisoners, and judges, jury, sheriff,
and officers alike sickened and died.

Thus at the time of which we are writing, rosemary, rue,[35] and sweet
smelling herbs were scattered about the court house at Exeter, where
“as worshipful a jury as ever was seen,” was convened for the trial of
the Trevannions, “father and son,” for the crime of high treason.

Their condition evoked great sympathy, and the county town, or rather
cathedral city, was crowded upon the day of trial by sympathizers with
the accused. It took place in the ancient citadel called Rougemont,
which for five centuries offered defiance to the English--when held by
the early British or Welsh--until the days of Athelstan; and only a
century and a-half later, in the hands of the English, it bade a brief
defiance to the Norman conqueror.

Tradition, falsely enough, assigned its origin to Julius Cæsar, and
derived its name more truly from the red sandstone which forms the
substratum of the castle hill; but whoever founded it, it shared the
usual fate of our edifices, both secular and ecclesiastical, in being
rebuilt by the Normans, who were rarely contented with aught their old
English predecessors had done.

Here, during the brief period of Anglo-Saxon domination, many of the
royal race of Cerdic held their court, when they visited their western
conquests.

Here also the conquering Norman took up his abode, and to secure the
castle to his interests, following therein his usual crafty policy,
gave it to be held, in feudal tenure, by one of his chief nobles,
Baldwin de Biron, who had married his niece, Albreda.

Here was the county gaol, and here the governor occupied the tenantable
rooms in the ancient castle, two of which were assigned to the
prisoners, in consequence of their position amongst the Devonian
aristocracy--few expected aught for them but a triumphant acquittal;
but all the time Sir John Redfyrne felt sure of his prey.

They were thus allowed the consolation of each other’s society; their
food was supplied from the governor’s own table, but before them lay
the blankness of despair, so far as this world was concerned.

For supposing they escaped the heavier accusation of “misprison of
treason” hanging over both,--the elder for his voluntary share in the
northern insurrection, the younger for his concealment of a secret
involving the King’s peace,--there was another weapon to which their
foe might have immediate recourse.

This weapon was the Act of Supremacy.

Would they take the oath? If not the cruel fate assigned to traitors
lay before them.

Cuthbert’s own theories were not very defined on the point, but he
would strive to follow such guides as Richard Whiting and Walter
Trevannion.

But what was the object of Sir John Redfyrne in thus precipitating
matters? It was simply that he wished to get _Cuthbert_ into his power.
He cared less for the elder prisoner, he might die or live, but were
it once placed clearly before the youth that he might save his life by
betraying the secret he was supposed to possess, there could be, to Sir
John’s mind, no doubt that he would give the clue, and all would be
well.

Then as it would no longer interfere with weightier interests, he would
show his gratitude for such a trifling favour as the preservation
of his own life; and should Cuthbert, as was likely in such a case,
lack _other_ friends, even provide decently for his future in some
subordinate position.

But first of all the danger must become real, or the youth’s obstinacy
would never be subdued,--the jury _must_ condemn.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was the day of trial, and all the approaches to the court were
crowded. We will not appear on the scene in person, we have seen a
very similar trial at Glastonbury; but we will just read a number of
depositions, as they were written down in the county archives, in old
books not generally accessible.

Laurence Tooler, known as Father Paul in religion, deposeth that he
was one of the brethren at Furness Abbey, and being an apt scribe was
employed by the Prior Ambrose as his secretary, copied lists for him
of the leaders in the “Pilgrimage of Grace,” their contributions, in
money, men, and arms. Sent copies of the same by the hands of a sure
messenger to Abbot Whiting, of Glastonbury; also, at later period,
consigned sums of money by ship to the Bristol Channel and thence
to Glastonbury: supposed it to be for safe keeping on behalf of the
dispossessed brethren. Identifieth the elder prisoner as Prior Ambrose.
Admitteth he was once chastised by the Prior for breach of his monastic
vows.

Jacques Le Fuyard, an English subject, son of an English mother and
French father, speaketh both languages fluently: was employed by the
English Government under Cromwell, to track the political refugees in
Flanders and elsewhere; knew Prior Ambrose of Furness, at Antwerp;
that he, the Prior, often corresponded with Reginald Pole, “the King’s
chief enemy across the seas;” that he was more than once with the Papal
Nuncio, and often closeted with the Spanish Ambassador; understood that
he had given up politics; lost sight of him at Brussels, knew him again
in Sir Walter Trevannion; and recognized him, recently, when tarrying
about the neighbourhood of the manor house at Becky Hall, near Bovey.

Gregory Grigges, deposeth that he was groom to old Sir Arthur
Trevannion; is very old now, nearly eighty years; knew the present Sir
Walter as a boy, remembers his running away, and becoming a monk, as he
heard; the old knight would have nought to say to him afterwards; the
elder brother, Sir Roger, died of decline, and the old man longed for
his only surviving son, sent abroad and spent much money in enquiries;
at length Sir Walter returned. Doth not like Sir Walter so well as his
father: hath been put in the stocks by him for having a very little
drop too much. That is he present, the prisoner.

Nicholas Grabber deposeth that he was a schoolboy at Glastonbury Abbey,
where they got plenty to fill their heads, but little to put into their
stomachs; has felt it ever since in a tendency to boils and blains: the
meat was so rotten it dropped from your fork as you held it, and the
fish stank; hated the Abbot because he was, he thought, an enemy to the
King. Watched him narrowly. One day the Abbot sent for the prisoner at
the bar; he (Nicholas) would fain know why, suspecting treason, and
crept after; heard the Abbot talk to prisoner about papers and a secret
chamber, which was to be disclosed to someone who should present a
ring which prisoner would recognize: prisoner always making up to my
Lord Abbot.

Questioned whether he had any motives for dislike to prisoner: said
only that he hated favourites; once he fought with him and was
thrashed; _was_ once sent back as a truant to the Abbey, coupled
between two hounds, but bore no malice for it, oh no!--only actuated by
loyalty to the King; Sir John Redfyrne had shown him his duty. Here the
magistrates told him they wanted to hear no more.

To sum up the story, the jury were of opinion that the identity of Sir
Walter Trevannion with Prior Ambrose of Furness was clearly proved,
that under that name he had been guilty of high treason, but they
recommended him to mercy in consideration of his evident reformation in
later years.

They found that there was not sufficient evidence to convict the
younger prisoner of “misprison of treason.”

Thereupon Sir John Redfyrne desired that the Oath of Supremacy be
tendered to the younger.

The judges declared that the demand could not be refused, although they
thought it vexatious, and evidently expecting that the young man would
at once show his loyalty, were astonished by a blank refusal.

Thereupon Sir John Redfyrne observed they might recognize the true
pupil of Richard Whiting.

The judges besought the youth, who was only a little more than twenty
years of age, to consider the consequences of his refusal.

He still remained obstinate, with the evident approval of the elder
prisoner, his reputed father.

Thereupon sentence of death, after the usual fashion, was pronounced
upon both prisoners: to be drawn upon hurdles to the cathedral yard,
and there to be hanged, but not till they were dead, cut down alive,
and dismembered.

The prisoners thanked God for calling them to die in what they called
“so good a cause,” and thanked the jury for the patience with which
they had heard them, and the desire they had shown to save their lives,
with a simplicity which brought tears to all eyes.

Sir John Redfyrne, on behalf of the Crown, asked and obtained a week’s
respite, such sentences being usually executed on the morrow.

The prisoners were removed; a dangerous tendency was visible amongst
the mob, many of whom cried, “God bless them.”

By desire of Sir John Redfyrne they were separated and placed in
solitary confinement.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: “THE POOR LAD GAVE HIM ONE INDIGNANT LOOK.”

_Page 143._]

So far we have made extracts from the registers of Rougemont.

What was Sir John’s object in all this? why did he persist in securing
the condemnation of Cuthbert? and then insist upon the delay of a week
in its execution?

Because he trusted to the weakness of human nature, and thought that
the fear of death would extract the secret he craved.

And if the fear of death did not extract it, he meant to obtain it by
torture; he was provided with a warrant to that effect from the council.

Torture was not, even then, lawful in England, but could be applied
by special warrant of the Privy Council, in cases where the safety of
the commonwealth was concerned; and this was considered to be one, as
the royal Blue-Beard himself was ravenously eager for such wholesale
detection of his enemies, as would be attained by the discovery of the
records of Furness transmitted to Glastonbury.

On the day following the trial and condemnation, Sir John Redfyrne
visited Cuthbert in his cell.

The poor lad gave him one indignant look, then turned his head aside
and would regard him no further.

“Cuthbert Trevannion, thou regardest me as thy foe, yet I am not; thou
didst save my life from robbers, and I own it, and own that I must
appear ungrateful beyond conception, yet I have one excuse, I love my
young benefactor, but love my King and country better.”

No answer.

“Thou knowest the existence of a secret chamber at Glastonbury.”

Still no reply.

“Reveal that secret, and I pledge myself to provide for thy future
fortunes, to restore thee to liberty and honour, nay to gratify the
most extravagant desires of thy young heart.”

He paused in vain.

“Or, failing this, if thou wilt not be led by kindness and mercy, there
remain the sharp arguments of thumb-screw and rack.”

The answer came at length.

“Do thy worst, and God judge between me and thee.”

Sir John departed.


FOOTNOTES

[34] See Note K. The Black Assize.

[35] Hence the phrase “He shall rue it.”




CHAPTER V.

_PUT TO THE QUESTION._


Low, hidden in the very foundations of the Castle of Rougemont, was an
arched dungeon of considerable dimensions, which only the initiated
knew.

You descended into it by a winding staircase, excavated in the very
thickness of the wall, and entered, after a descent of thirty steps, on
opening a huge door of stone, which shut again with a resonant clang,
and struck horror into the heart.

It had no communication with other cells, neither had it any species of
window; so that those who were within, when the door was shut, were cut
off from all sight and sound of the external world.

Summer or winter, night or day, storm or calm, might reign above, all
was alike down there.

At one end was a platform of wood raised about a foot from the stone
floor; upon this stood an oaken table with writing materials, and
behind it a grand mediæval chair with the insignia of justice, the
sword and scales, carved thereon; and at the opposite end was an arched
recess concealed by a curtain, which hid both the executioners and the
implements of torture until they were needed, when some unhappy wretch
had to be “put to the question.”

But even in their most ruthless days, the dread ministers of English
justice only used torture as a last resource, to wring guilty secrets
from the criminal, when the welfare of the State appeared to sanction
the cruelty--they never descended to the fearful refinements of the
German dwellers on the Rhine in their robber castles, where fiendish
ingenuity was displayed in pushing agony to its utmost limits without
violating the sanctuary of life.[36]

On the third day solitude and silence having failed of their effect,
Cuthbert was brought down into this den.

At the table sat the governor of Rougemont, in his chair of state,
and by his side Sir John Redfyrne; a physician, clothed in a long dark
cloak, a clerk with pen and parchment, ready to take down the answers
of the prisoner, were the only other persons present, at least in
sight, when the two gaolers brought down the unfortunate youth.

“Thy name?” said the governor.

“Cuthbert Trevannion.”

“Hast thou always borne that name?”

“No, only a few years.”

“What other hast thou borne?”

“Cuthbert, only.”

“What then is thy real name?”

“I know not.”

“Who was thy father? What was he called?”

“I was a foundling, and cannot tell.”

“What is thy age?”

“I was found an infant in the wood of Avalon, on the 28th day of
December, in the year 1525.”

Sir John started at this announcement, and looked earnestly at the
speaker.

“At whose charge wast thou brought up?”

“That of the Abbot of Glastonbury.”

Sir John and the governor looked at each other as if this information
corresponded with their expectations.

“Wast thou not sometimes called ‘Hodge?’”

“After the yeoman who found me, and became my foster father.”

“How didst thou pass under the care of Sir Walter Trevannion?--men
of rank do not usually give the honour of their name to obscure
striplings.”

“I was commended to him by my benefactor, the late Abbot.”

“Thou wert, then, particularly dear to that trait----, I would say
Abbot?” said the governor, who throughout showed a desire to spare the
prisoner’s feelings, and was evidently discharging a painful task from
a sense of duty.[37]

“I was dear to him,” said Cuthbert, “but so were all his children.”

“But he trusted not all as he trusted thee?”

“I am not a fair judge of that.”

“He revealed his secrets to thee, I am told.”

“He would hardly make a mere boy the depository of many secrets; I was
hardly fourteen at his martyrdom.”

The officials all looked at each other as the last word was pronounced,
and the governor said mildly--

“‘Execution,’ thou would’st say, but we will not dispute the
subject,--dost thou remember the day when thou didst gain a silver
arrow at an archery contest?”

“I gained more prizes than one.”

“This was in the May of 1539, and Nicholas Grabber was thy competitor?”

“Yes, I remember it.”

“Well, in that same night the Abbot, as we are informed, gave thee the
honour of a private interview?”

“He often did.”

“But on this occasion, had he not a special object?”

“He would not be likely otherwise to send for me--his time was
valuable.”

“Thou evadest the question.”

“I do not comprehend it.”

“What was the _special_ object on this occasion?”

Cuthbert felt that the point was reached at last.

“I am not at liberty to disclose.”

“That is the matter at issue between us, but we hope thou wilt not
drive us to extremities, as we would fain spare thee, compassionating
thy youth. In plain words, did he not disclose to thee the mystery of
a secret chamber, where many documents of importance to the King be
concealed, and much treasure of the Abbey hidden from the royal owner,
to whom the nation hath given the property of the monasteries.”

“That is the very question I must decline to answer. If I know anything
it is not my secret, but one committed to me by the dead, under awful
sanctions.”

“A good citizen knows no higher sanction than the welfare of his
country, and our religion bids us honour and obey the King.”

“In all things lawful, but this is not lawful to me.”

“I grieve over thee, poor youth,” said the governor, “and over the
measures I _must_ take; but the orders of council are explicit, are
they not, Sir John?”

“They are, there is no alternative.”

“Gaoler, draw back the curtains.”

The curtains separated in the middle, and were drawn back to the
wall--the mystery of the arched recess was laid bare.

There stood two brawny men, beside a brazier of glowing coals, wherein
were two pincers heated to a red heat; hard by was the rack, with its
cords and pulleys, ready for working; manacles and chains hung on the
wall; scourges and thumb-screws; there was the huge iron band, with a
hinge in the middle and a padlock in front, which was placed around
the bodies of wretches condemned to the stake; all the implements known
to the English torture chamber, happily so seldom used, were there;
_seldom_, we say, but comparatively _often_ in this reign of terror.

This _coup d’oeil_ was intended to frighten, there was no intention
to bring the full resources of the chamber into very active use; the
thumb-screw alone they thought would be sufficient for a young beginner.

“Thou seest thy fate--be wise in time. Believe me, my poor youth, thou
wilt not be able to endure what is in store for thee if thou continuest
in obstinacy; be wise, therefore, and yield with grace what thou canst
not retain, and our best efforts shall be used for thy free pardon
for all laid to thy charge, only remember we cannot allow a divided
allegiance in this realm--it were death to us; thou must obey the King,
or die the death; thou hast read the ancients:--

    “‘Cuncta prius tentanda, sed immedicabile vulnus
    Ense recidendum est, ne pars sincera trahatur.’”[38]

“My lord,” said the poor lad, “I know I am weak, but I must do my best.
You will do your duty, and I will try to bear, which is mine.”

“Apply the thumb-screw.”

Cuthbert was told to place his thumbs together; resistance would have
been useless and unseemly, therefore he quietly complied, and the
horrid little instrument of torture was made to take them both at
once; the turning of a screw brought a sharp little bar across the
bones which compressed them until it seemed to burn the flesh like
fire, causing exquisite agony; the screw was secured by a lock, and a
chain attached to it might, if there were need, be used to attach the
prisoner to a staple in the wall, where he might be left until the
agony broke his spirit.[39]

Huge drops of sweat stood on the sufferer’s brow.

“Thou feelest a portion of what is due to thee if thou confessest not.”

“In te Domine speravi,” breathed the poor prisoner.

Minute after minute passed by, during which the struggle between bodily
pain and will continued.

At last, Sir John looked at the governor and whispered.

“Another turn!” said the latter, reluctantly.

Another turn was given to the screw, and the prisoner fainted, his
sensitive frame could bear no more.

They poured cold water over him, but it was long before he showed signs
of consciousness, and when he did so, the governor said to Sir John--

“It is useless, we can go no further to-day.”

“But you will succeed _to-morrow_, the dread will be greater now he
knows what pain is, and he _will_ yield, I predict, when brought down
once more; we shall not need a fresh application of the torture.”

“God grant it, for it is a pitiful sight, and I would sooner stand on
the field of battle; one feels a man there, and not a brute.”

“Let the poor lad be taken to his cell and all kindness shewn him,”
added the governor.

So the pleasant party broke up.


FOOTNOTES

[36] Witness their Oubliettes, which the writer has seen, shaped like
a bottle, the only opening the neck, wherein, when torture had done
its worst and no more revelations were to be hoped of the criminal,
he was dropped, to perish of his injuries in unseen agony, in cold,
hunger, and filth. Witness, too, the recent discoveries at Baden
Baden--the statue of the Virgin, which the victim was told to kiss,
whereupon a concealed trap-door, on which he stood, fell, and dropped
him upon wheels set with revolving knives. Such refinements appal the
imagination, and constrain us to ask what manner of men invented such
atrocities?

[37] Unless the reader can comprehend the intense way in which
obedience and loyalty to the King, right or wrong, swayed the people of
England in that day, he cannot comprehend the history of Bloody Harry,
and why he was permitted to work his will. The anarchy of the preceding
century, when the Wars of the Roses had drenched the country in blood,
and helped to foster the sentiment, and to make the throne the central
pillar of the edifice, the supposed bulwark of the nation.

[38]

    All things should first be tried, but an incurable wound
    Must with the sword be cut out, lest the sound part be affected.


[39] In John Knox’s house at Edinburgh the writer examined a similar
implement, as also at Sir Walter Scott’s house at Abbotsford.




CHAPTER VI.

_AN UNEXPECTED DISCLOSURE._


“Art thou Sir John Redfyrne?” enquired a man, who by his dress appeared
to be a parochial or parish priest, as that worthy knight left
Rougemont.

“I am, what dost thou seek of me? I have little to do with cattle of
thy breed.”

“An aged woman,” replied the priest, not noticing the taunt, “is dying
in a suburb of the city, and cannot pass in peace till she hath seen
thee.”

“What does it matter to me whether the old crone dies in peace or not?”

“Verily thou art a hard-hearted man, but wilt thou look upon this
signet?--she had confidence in its power to bring thee to her bed-side.”

It was only his own crest upon a sapphire that he gazed upon, yet his
heart gave a leap, and in spite of his self-command his blood flushed
up, his face was crimson, and he evidently had to strive hard for
mastery over himself.

“Sir priest,” he said, “I am not well, and am subject to spasms of the
heart, which will account for my seeming discomposure; lead me to her,
I recognise the token.”

The priest led on, and Sir John followed. Traversing Fore Street they
approached the West Gate, which opened upon the bridge over the Exe.
But here the priest turned to the left down a steep descent, into the
purlieus of St. Mary of the Steppes.[40]

The district was crowded then, as now, by the habitations of the lower
classes, and was probably even more unsavoury than it is at present,
for there was no drainage save that effected by the showers, which
flushed the gutters.

Such a shower had even now fallen when the priest entered a court
between ricketty houses, once of some pretensions, but now tottering in
ruin; it was crowded with squalid children, stopping up the gutters as
they carried down the filth and refuse, and sailing little boats, or
making mud pies.

Amidst rags and wretchedness, the worthy guide led on; he was amidst
his own flock; they were not a decent set, but they all respected him,
and perhaps without his protection, the gay gentleman would not have
gone on his way so unmolested.

“Where art thou taking me to? I knew not such dens existed,” said the
knight.

“There are many worse; known perhaps only to the physician and the
priest, now that ye have suppressed the sisterhoods; least of all to
the constables, who dare not come hither save in troops; here the
plague lies hidden in the winter, to burst out again each summer; here
want, crime, disease, and vice fester together; here the fruit for the
gallows is nourished; these be the orchards of the Father of Evil,
where he grows of his own will many such apples as tempted Eve.”

“And is _she_ here?” He did not mean Eve.

“Even so.”

“What brought her so low? she has long hidden from me.”

“A guilty secret, perchance.”

Sir John asked no more, and they entered the gateway of a house at the
end of the court, which had once been a fair dwelling, but now the door
hung by one hinge, and the windows were battered out. They entered the
hall; tattered hangings drooped in fragments from the walls, beetles
and spiders had their home amidst the rotten wainscotting, woodlice
swarmed in the bannisters of the ancient staircase, the balustrade was
partly broken away, the stairs were rotten.

“And is _she_ here?” said Sir John again.

“Even so,” was the reply; “tread carefully, the staircase will bear
thee in places only.”

The ceiling, which had been moulded in patterns, had fallen away, and
hideous joists and beams were disclosed as they ascended.

Then they heard a faint moan of pain, and a voice said, “Dying, dying,
left all alone to die; Mother of Mercy, aid a sinful child of Eve.”

“Peace, daughter, I bring him thou seekest.”

The being whom he called “daughter” was an aged crone who had seen some
seventy summers, and was now fast dying of decay; pains in all her
joints, weakness in all her senses, toothless, wrinkled, blear-eyed,
yet with the remains of a beauty long past, in the high outlines of her
features.

Sir John gazed upon her.

“Art thou Madge of Luckland?” he said.

“Thou knowest me by the signet; it has more power to convince thee than
this face; go, good Father Christopher, go,” she said to the priest,
“and when I have said that which must be said to this good knight, ha!
ha! I will finish my shrift to thee.”

“Shall I bid any of the neighbours come to thee when he is gone?”

“He will summon them; I would not be long alone in this haunted house;
there be ghosts I tell thee; there be awful figures with faces that
wither the eyeballs and blanch the hair, which troop about these halls
of the forgotten dead; but it is daylight now, and I fear them not.”

“Madge,” said the priest, “thou wilt soon be as one of those ghosts
thyself: thy poor tabernacle of clay is falling fast into ruins like a
child’s house of cards, which a touch overturns; soon they will carry
thee to the charnel house, and direly will thy poor soul burn in its
purgatory, or haunt, if permitted, these scenes of forgotten crime,
unless thou dost repent and make atonement.”

“Father, I _will_; am I not on the point of doing so? go, leave me with
this good knight: why, he was once my foster son.”

“And has he left thee to _want_, like this? My son, God deal with
thee as thou dost deal justly by her; she has little time yet wherein
thou mayst make amends for the past to one, who, if she speaks truth,
suckled thee at her breast.”

The priest departed, and Sir John sank into a crazy chair by the couch
of the old woman.

A faded coverlet was upon it, whereon was wrought the history of Cain
and Abel; there were four posts supporting a canopy, but one post
drooped, and the whole threatened to come down together.

“Speak, mother, why hast thou sent for me at last? or why didst thou
not send before?”

“I would not have sent for thee now, but if I did not, a damning crime
would stain thy soul and mine; _mine_, because I alone can reveal to
thee its nature; _thine_, because thy sin led the way to it.”

“_My_ sin, woman! gain is righteousness, loss is sin, I know no other
description for either: I believe not as priestlings prate, nor didst
thou once, although, like other unbelievers, we held our tongue for
fear of Mother Church with her discipline of fire and faggot, for if we
had said that we believed not in hell hereafter, she would have created
one for us here.”

“Enough, hadst thou seen what I have seen, thou wouldst know there is
a God and a terrible one, and that the worst flames Churchmen kindle
here for heretics are no more in comparison with those which await the
unforgiven sinner, than painted flames compare with those which wither
up the unbeliever or witch in Smithfield.”

“I came not here to hear a sermon, Madge; what further crime hast thou
to warn me against? I would not commit _useless_ ones.”

“Dost thou remember when thy brother’s widow bare a poor babe, who
never saw its father’s face?”

“I do, as thou knowest, too well; it was a great disappointment to me.”

“And while the mother slept in insensibility, thou didst bid me
stifle the child, and say it was still-born, because thou wast as thy
brother’s heir in possession of the property?”

“Why repeat this idle tale, it is all over and gone? Art thou alone?
art thou sure there is none here?”

“Sure, yes, quite sure; none at least clothed in flesh and blood like
ourselves, but how many unseen beings hover around us I know not.”

Sir John could not help trembling, there was such a ghastly realism in
her words, and the fast decaying light made him long to leave the place.

“Well, thou didst it for love of thy foster son, and thou hast been
fool enough to confess it to this meddling priest?”

“Not yet, I waited to see thee first, and tell thee what I _really_
did.”

“_Really_ did? didst thou not murder the babe?”

“Nay, I substituted a beggar’s dead brat from a gipsy camp, hard by,
for thy brother’s heir, and showed thee its body, and thou didst
blanch, but yet nerve thy coward soul to say ‘well done;’ meanwhile I
hid the young heir, and when thou wert gone to court I restored the
babe to the mother, bidding her flee the castle with it ere thou didst
return.”

“Can this be true? How wilt thou prove it now?”

“Listen; a month later, when the poor dame was well again, came a
letter to bid us prepare for that return; I did not dare to let thee
find the child alive, and bade the mother flee. It was the third day
after Christmas, the Holy Innocents’ day: to whose intercession she
commended her babe.”

“And she fled?”

“All alone she sought the sanctuary of S. Joseph at Glastonbury; there
she purposed to remain, dreading thy power, until she could appeal to
justice, for all in the castle, like me, were thy minions; she fled: a
wild night of wind and snow followed, and she died on the road.”

“With the child?” said Sir John.

“No, I learned all about _its_ fate. The child was rescued by a yeoman
named Hodge, and nurtured by the good Abbot of Glastonbury, and if the
priest, Christopher, tells me truth, thou art about to compass his
death now. Oh repent, Sir John, repent while there is yet time, for the
sake of thy soul and mine; for I have sinfully concealed this secret,
dreading thy anger, thine, my foster son, and I have hidden it from
thee: yet my hands are pure from blood, although my guilty complicity
exposed the mother to death in the snow, and the babe to the chances of
the night; although I have aided thee to grasp an inheritance which is
not thine, and which is dragging thee and me alike into hell: repent
at once, and my poor soul may depart in peace; _save_ the boy, thy
nephew.”

“Art thou sure none can overhear us? Art thou alone in this house?”

“Alone with the dead.”

“And that thou hast confessed the truth to none?”

“Not as yet.”

“And never shall. Die then the death thou didst spare the brat.”

Hard by stood a ewer filled with water, and over it a towel; he dipped
this towel in the water, and suddenly clapped it upon her mouth, then
he thrust a pillow upon her face, towel and all, and threw himself upon
it, keeping it down until the poor suffering body ceased to throb, when
he removed the pillow, and composed the features as well as he could,
smoothed the coverlet, and left the room.

It was growing dark.

A shudder passed over him all at once, as he descended the stairs.

At the foot of the stairs stood revealed to his sight--or to his
guilty imagination--a misty form surmounted by a face which expressed
such unutterable anguish, that even the iron nerves of the murderer
threatened to give way.

He made a violent effort, composed himself, and rushed _through_ the
apparition; he gained the outer air, and felt a dead faint gain upon
him, he sank upon the step, and knew nought till he was aroused by a
voice.

“How is the old girl upstairs?”

“She passed away in a fit whilst I was with her.”


FOOTNOTES

[40] As I write an ancient map of Exeter is before me confirming this
description.




CHAPTER VII.

_CASTLE REDFYRNE._


It is necessary, for the fuller elucidation of our veracious narrative,
that the reader should here be made acquainted with the earlier history
of the Redfyrne family.

About twenty miles, or a little more, to the south-east of Glastonbury,
over the Dorsetshire border, and not far from Sturminster, stood, three
centuries ago, an old and mouldering castle, built in the days of the
Barons’ wars.

It was surrounded by a wide moat, fed from the river Stour, which
rolled its deep and sluggish flood in mazy windings through the ancient
park, which, rich with hoary oak and mossy beech, surrounded the castle.

A part of the massive buildings had been adapted to the ideas of the
sixteenth century, and fashioned so as to form a convenient dwelling
for the family, while the Keep and other portions were left to decay.
It formed a picturesque group, the modern dwelling, with its airy
windows and open aspect, contrasting the venerable towers, which
suggested dungeons, as deep as the walls were high; wherein the
captives of past generations once wept, and “appealed from tyranny to
God.”

Here, in the early days of “Bluff King Hal,” dwelt the good knight Sir
Geoffrey Redfyrne, with his lady and their four children.

The eldest boy, Geoffrey, was the darling of his father’s heart, frank
and generous, full of chivalrous courage, affectionate, and gifted
with the power of winning affection. The younger boy, John, differed
greatly--he was morose and selfish in disposition, vindictive and
passionate; his only good quality the courage which was hereditary in
his family.

As a natural consequence, the father’s preference for Geoffrey was
almost too manifest, for it increased the secret hatred the younger
brother, younger by a year only, bore to his elder, whom he continually
crossed in a variety of ways--maiming his pet animals, leading him
into scrapes and then betraying him, yet cunningly keeping his hand
concealed when he was able.

They had of course many quarrels, but the elder was always as ready to
forgive, as the younger to resent.

Of the sisters we shall not speak, further than to say that they were
often peace-makers between their brothers, and that John was many a
time forgiven at their intercession.

It was on the whole a happy family, and had the parents lived, the
faults of the younger son might, under their judicious training, have
been corrected. But into this unfortunate household came a deadly
visitor--the plague.

It was conveyed into the village by a bale of cloth, consigned to a
tailor, from abroad--the tailor’s family sickened, and all died; then
those who out of Christian charity had attended them to render good
offices in their last distress, sickened also, and infected their own
households; from house to house the dreadful malady spread; the parish
priest died, the physicians (leeches they called them) died; and, at
last, the awful scourge reached the hall--for Sir Geoffrey could not
keep away from his sick tenantry.

Death knocks with equal foot at the palaces of kings and the huts
of the poor, the plague was no respecter of persons; the good and
charitable knight carried the infection home, and ere three days had
passed both he and his faithful wife were gone; she watched by him and
nursed him till he died, and then falling sick at once, followed him to
a better world.

Geoffrey and the two daughters were taken ill next; the boy recovered,
the sisters died; the only member of the family who escaped
altogether was John, owing perhaps to some physical peculiarity in his
constitution, which enabled him to withstand the infection.

Not far from the castle, down the stream, stood Luckland Mill; a
father, mother, six children, and an aged grandam, all lived there;
but death came, and all died. The water splashed and foamed down the
mill-course, the merry wheel ran on, while there were eight corpses
in that house which none dared to bury. But the difficulty was
solved,--the mill having ground out its corn, ran on, and as there was
no one to stop it, caught fire at last from friction of the machinery,
and was burnt to the ground, so the dead were “cremated” not buried.

We said _eight_ bodies, for one child, the eldest daughter, named
Madge, escaped the fate of her family, being on a visit to some distant
relations, when the plague broke out.[41]

At length the pestilence abated, and the sorrow-stricken survivors,
but a third of the former population, might estimate their losses, and
gaze upon the vacant chairs in their dwellings, wishing often, in the
desolation of their hearts, that they had been taken too.

A distant relation became guardian to the two boys at the castle; both
of whom were sent to Glastonbury for their education, where John was
always in trouble, and Geoffrey in favour.

Richard Whiting was then one of the younger brethren, and one of
the tutors of the boys, and it befel more than once that John fell
under his just correction, and tasted the rod, an infliction he never
forgave. It is needless to say that Geoffrey was a general favourite.

They left school in due time, and arrived at manhood. Geoffrey made one
campaign in the French wars, which had a singular result: he was taken
captive, and captivated the daughter of his captor; so that on the
conclusion of peace, she returned with him to England as Lady Redfyrne.

John remained at home to attend to the estate in his brother’s
absence--he did not care for the military life, being too idle; and he
was fast sinking into the bachelor brother, who keeps the accounts,
looks after the hounds, and makes himself useful in a hundred odd ways,
but who feels his own position less comfortable as time moves on and a
young family arises, not his own, superseding him.

But all the time, his darker disposition was only suppressed; it was
his intention to be lord of the manor, if by any means (and he was not
scrupulous as to what means) he might grasp his brother’s inheritance;
a younger brother’s portion he despised or gambled away.

“Sui profusus, alieni appietens,”[42] as Sallust wrote of Catiline.

The occasion came; just before his wife’s confinement, poor Geoffrey,
to the grief of all who knew him, died after a brief illness. He came
home from hunting, wet through, and confiding in the strength of his
constitution, omitted, as he often had before, to change his garments;
he caught a severe cold, pleurisy set in, and, for the want of such
remedies as in the hands of modern science might have saved him, he
died.

We are now coming to that portion of our narrative already revealed by
Madge of Luckland, for that aged crone was indeed the survivor of the
family at the mill.

After his brother’s death, Sir John claimed the estate, as of right,
and imagined himself the lawful lord of the manor, when he was informed
that, as he had already dreaded, there were hopes of a direct heir.

For a brief time he wrestled with the devil; hard as he was he could
not forget the pleading tone of his dying brother,--

“John, dear John, take care of Catharine, and should there be a boy, be
a father to him for my sake; when we meet again in another world, thou
shalt tell me thou hast discharged the trust: God deal with thee, as
thou dealest with her.”

When it became certain that the widow was near her confinement, Sir
John had an interview with Madge of Luckland, over whom he had acquired
an evil influence: the reader is aware how he used it, and what crime
he urged her to commit. But unfortunately for his fell purpose, Madge,
in her capacity of nurse, had conceived a strong affection for the
sweet helpless lady, with her broken English, and pretty ways. In
short, she was true to her better nature, and false to her patron.

After Sir John had gazed for one brief moment at the dead babe,
whose identity he doubted not, he departed from the castle on urgent
business; the deed was done, and he was glad to go, for he trembled
while he repented not.

He was absent a whole month, during which he was busily engaged in
pushing his fortune at court, where he had been previously presented:
it was at this period he made the acquaintance of Thomas Cromwell, then
Secretary to Wolsey.

At length the time arrived for his return for the first time as lord of
the manor, and an avant courier arrived at Castle Redfyrne to announce
his approaching arrival.

It was then that Madge, fearful of the consequences, should she be
unable to conceal the existence of the babe,--who was meanwhile nursed
by a gipsy mother,--advised Catharine Redfyrne to fly to the shrine of
S. Joseph at Glastonbury, assuring her that the good old Abbot would
recollect her husband and protect his child.

It was arranged that she should leave the castle in the darkest hour,
before the dawn of the winter’s day; for the new servants were devoted
to their lord’s interests, and might not allow her to depart. Madge
enquired whether the lady could ride, as she would undertake herself to
procure a steed.

Catharine asserted that she was a good horse-woman, and had no fear
of the journey; also that she knew the country, having been to
Glastonbury with her lord. The weather was frosty, and there was no
sign of any change for the worse; the weather prophets, as upon a later
occasion,[43] gave no intimation of an approaching storm.

Before dawn on Holy Innocents’ Day, Madge awoke the young widow;
together they left the castle while the whole household was asleep.
They crossed the star-lit park to the Luckland Mill, now rebuilt, where
Madge had procured the horse. They found it awaiting them, and the
gipsy was there, by appointment, with the babe. One other person alone
was in the secret, the miller.

They parted with many tears, and never met in this world again. Poor
Madge, her life had been stained by sin; let this act of Christian
charity plead her forgiveness.

On her way back to the castle, Madge was struck by the wondrous but
ominous beauty of the dawn, first a streak of pale blue, which then
seemed upheaved by sheets of crimson fire; the eye was almost dazzled
by the brilliancy of the deepening blaze, as if the eastern heavens
were in conflagration.

“A red sky at night is the shepherds’ delight, but a red sky in the
morning is the shepherds’ warning,” muttered Madge, fearing there would
be bad weather.

It was one of those lovely winter days when the blue sky and fleecy
clouds and the brilliant atmosphere are more delightful than in summer,
but towards evening the wind set in steadily from the east, the heavens
assumed a dull leaden hue, and just before sunset, down came the first
flakes of snow.

Thicker flakes! thicker! thicker! the night darker; the snow deeper,
each hour.

The reader knows the rest, if he has read the prologue to our tale. The
horse must have refused to proceed, nor was he ever found, he must have
perished in the snow; but the miller did not dare to make enquiries for
fear of exciting suspicion. It was lucky that the same snow procured a
brief respite for Madge, for Sir John could not get home for more than
a week, and when he came was met by the intelligence that the mother
had fled, as it was supposed, in a fit of mental derangement, caused by
grief over the loss of her infant; and that she had perished, as they
thought, in the snow.

But how she had perished, and where, was never known to Sir John; Madge
persuaded him that she had strayed into the river, but no body was ever
found when the thaw, after some weeks of intense frost, permitted a
search; the miller kept his secret, and Sir John was content to leave
the matter in mystery, and to reap the benefit.

But he never afterwards liked the presence of Madge, his supposed
confederate, and he sent her from the neighbourhood, so that he lost
sight of her for twenty years.

How they met at last the reader has learned.

Sir John, hardened as he was, could not for a time shake off the
remembrance of his brother’s last words; often in sleep that brother
seemed to stand by him. “I bade thee guard my poor wife and child, how
hast thou kept thy trust?” He remembered the mournful way in which
Geoffrey, when they were little children, had reproached him for the
death of a pet which he had maliciously caused, and the boy and man
were mingled in his dreams.

Should he ever have to bear the reproach in another world!

He shook the thought off--parried it with the shield of unbelief.

How like the poor ostrich, who hides his head in the sand, and thinks,
because it cannot see its pursuers, it is itself unseen!

But still he frequented Church, went regularly each Sunday to Mass,
and each year to Confession; indeed it would have been dangerous to do
otherwise, or to confess his unbelief, as he avowed to Madge on her
death-bed.

By-and-bye Cromwell began to organize that terrible system of
espionage, which filled the scaffolds with victims. Dorset was
unrepresented in the prying brotherhood; he thought of his old friend,
Sir John, in whom he had discovered a kindred spirit when both served
Wolsey, and offered him the post. Sir John eagerly accepted the
confidence, and began at once to exercise his office, to watch his
neighbours, to entrap them in unguarded conversations, and so to
denounce them if he found the opportunity, and all the time he was
unsuspected, or even Cromwell could hardly have saved him from the just
fury of his countrymen.

And in this capacity he had no small share in the tragedy at
Glastonbury; he hated the Abbot as we have seen, and willingly employed
all his craft in bringing his old tutor to the gibbet and quartering
block, and when the victim suffered he was there, on the Tor Hill, and
revelled in the ghastly butchery of the man who had once striven to
check his opening vices.

When the fall of his patron, Cromwell, took place, Sir John was for the
time in imminent danger, but he extricated himself by a master stroke:
he attended in his place, as knight of the shire, and voted for cutting
off his friend’s head without a trial, by process of Bill of Attainder;
thus by this skilful trimming of his sails he escaped the storm; but
the idea was not original, Archbishop Cranmer did the same.[44]

He had for a near neighbour Squire Grabber, and had often admired the
evil qualities of young Nicholas, from whom, in the exercise of his
vocation, he had gained many valuable pieces of information, which he
had duly conveyed to Cromwell.

When the Martyrdom on the Tor Hill was accomplished, and the Abbey
suppressed, Sir John proposed to his neighbour to let young Nick begin
the business of life (as was then customary even amongst the sons of
gentlefolk) as his page, not, be it understood, in any menial sense of
the word.

The squire consented, and the reader knows the consequences, so far as
we have yet had space to unfold them.


FOOTNOTES

[41] These details were gathered from some melancholy pages in an old
parish register, which the writer once perused, when staying in the
neighbourhood. Under this terrible visitation the proportion of deaths
was sometimes far larger than that given in the text.

[42] Craving another’s, wasteful of his own.

[43] The great snow storm of January, 1881, was entirely
“unforecasted,” if the writer remembers aright.

[44] The process of Bill of Attainder was invented by Cromwell himself,
and he was, by a wondrous nemesis the first to fall by it. Cranmer
voted on the second and third readings for the death of his friend--his
presence is noted in the journal of the house, and the Bill was carried
“nemine discrepante.”




CHAPTER VIII.

_LED FORTH TO DIE._


The dusky shades of night fell upon the ancient Castle of Rougemont,
the feudal pile of the proud Norman, and deepened the gloom of its
dungeons; and in particular of that one, wherein poor Cuthbert was
pining in silence and solitude.

For his spirit seemed broken; those three days of absolute silence,
followed by the torture, the anticipation of further suffering in that
dismal chamber underground, and of the shame of a traitor’s death
beyond; all these combined to crush his soul in the dust; poor youth,
bred up by kind and loving hearts; spared hardships and sorrow for so
many bright years, how had the scene changed before him!

And again, he could not help feeling some little doubt concerning the
cause for which he bore all this suffering; his faith in it had been
the transplanted faith of others; he knew that the majority of his
countrymen held with the King, while they were yet staunch Catholics
in every other point; papal supremacy had never been a matter of faith
with the bulk of the English people, and might not the majority be
right after all? in which case he was madly throwing away all the joys
of his opening manhood, for a cause which had not the approbation of
heaven.

Against these thoughts fought the remembrance of the last Abbot of
Glastonbury, and the present strong feeling of allegiance, which he
felt to his protector, Sir Walter Trevannion; but there was a struggle,
which he felt ashamed to acknowledge even to himself.

Sometimes the sounds of the revelry of the youth of the city, engaged
in their sports, found their way in through the grated window, and
mocked the poor heart-sick captive; he strove to find refuge in prayer,
but prayer fled him, his mind wandered. “No, I cannot pray,” he said,
“the very saints forsake me now.”

Who knows what might have been the consequence of those hours of pain
and loneliness, had they been prolonged? but suddenly the door opened.

Cuthbert scarcely looked up, thinking it was but the gaoler bringing
him food, when he heard a voice, a well-known one.

“My son, my dear son.”

It was Father Ambrose, alias Sir Walter, and Cuthbert jumped up, and
threw himself into his arms with a self-abandonment which shewed how
far his feelings had been strained by their separation.

“My father, my more than father,” he cried.

“We are to be together till the end,” said Sir Walter, after a few
moments of silence, during which they had grasped each other’s hands.

“To whom do we owe this mercy; to the governor? he seemed to feel for
us.”

“No, he could not have ventured to oppose Sir John Redfyrne, who was
armed with the authority of the Privy Council.”

Cuthbert flushed up at the sound of the hated name.

“_He_ has no hand in this indulgence.”

“Indeed he has, my dear son, whatever his motives may be; he may repent
of his ingratitude.”

Cuthbert shook his head.

“Let us not think of him; he comes between us and our God, if we would
be forgiven we must needs forgive; God has forgiven us the ten thousand
talents for His dear Son’s sake, shall we not forgive the hundred
pence?”

“My father, I am so glad, so glad you are here, my faith was failing
me.”

“In what?”

“In the justice of our cause; why do we stand almost alone, against
the great majority of our countrymen?”

“Would’st thou have been with the majority or minority at the Flood? at
Sodom? in guilty Jerusalem? Dear boy, majorities are nothing; indeed
too often they but mark the broad way which leadeth to destruction; nor
have they even the _majority_ on their side, miserable as the support
drawn from thence would be; for England stands alone amongst the
Christian commonwealths in her present schism.[45]

“Then, again, my dear boy, remember the words of your beloved
benefactor, when he stood before his judges at Wells; and again in that
hour when he parted from you with words of blessing, in the gatehouse
chamber at Glastonbury; methinks it would pain his blessed spirit,
even in Paradise, to hear that his adopted son, whom he loved so well,
doubted.”

The good father was using the very best means which could be used to
keep his _protegé_ firm in the path, which he believed the only road
to heaven; argument might have failed to convince where faith was
shaken, but the love of one who had died so nobly and patiently for the
impugned tenet, carrying his mute appeal to the judgment seat on high,
lit again the expiring embers of faith--“I will be true to him till
death,” he said; “as _he_ died so will I die; and will stake soul and
body on the creed which trained so noble a martyr, ‘sit anima mea cum
illo.’”

“Methinks,” said the good Prior, “I see him looking down upon thee now;
see through these thick walls, and this murky autumnal sky, to the
heaven beyond where he sits waiting, near the gate, for his adopted
son, whom he committed to my care! Well! when I see him, I shall say
‘Behold father, here am I, and the lad whom thou gavest me.’”

Cuthbert wept upon the shoulder of the good Prior.

“He shall not be deceived in me; I will tread the path he trod.”

“By God’s grace, which alone can strengthen us weak ones; and what is
the worst we have to bear--the gibbet and quartering block? Well, they
cannot protract it more than half-an-hour; half-an-hour! why had it
begun when I entered this cell, it had been over now, and we safe on
the other side.”

“Would it had.”

“Yes, and then heaven had already been revealed to our enraptured
sight, our eyes would have seen the King in His beauty and the land
which is very far off.”

“Where is that land, that glory land?”

“Eye hath not seen, nor ear drunk in its sweet songs of joy; words
cannot picture it, nor can the heart of man conceive its bliss, but it
lies beyond the gibbet and quartering block, my son; let them do their
worst, they know not what they do, and we will pray for them till the
last, yes and for King Harry too; God turn his heart, and shew him his
sin, and all will be well in dear old England again.”

       *       *       *       *       *

But the reader is doubtless eager to learn what had taken place to
frustrate, as it would seem at first sight, the plans of Sir John
Redfyrne.

Perhaps they had not been _frustrated_, but changed.

That same evening he had informed the governor that he had received a
messenger from court to inform him, that the secret chamber was already
discovered, and that there was therefore no further occasion, either
to put Cuthbert to the torture again, or delay the execution. “Let the
criminals have the consolation of each other’s society to-night, and
die to-morrow,” he added.

Much surprised, the governor pleaded hard for time to lay the whole
case again before the Crown, and to implore mercy for the prisoners,
whose execution he said “would shock all Devon.”

But Sir John was armed with full authority from the Crown, and hinting
to the governor, that the King would not be best pleased to hear of
his backwardness in the royal cause, and his love for traitors, so
frightened that worthy functionary on his own account, that no further
opposition was made, and orders were given to erect the scaffold.

Meanwhile every indulgence was given to the prisoners, whose fate many
pitied--even in that stony-hearted gaol, the Castle of Rougemont.
A priest was admitted to their cells, that very priest who had so
nearly stumbled upon the secret of Cuthbert’s birth, and early in the
morning he provided all that was necessary for the celebration of Mass,
whereat Father Ambrose, for the last time as he supposed, with tears
of devotion, officiated; and the three received the Holy Communion
together.

Fortified by this heavenly food, they scarcely noticed the heavy boom
of the cathedral bell, which told the city and the country around that
two souls were about to be forcibly divorced from their bodies, and
sent to appear before the judgment seat on High.

Boom! boom! The deep solemn sound penetrated each court and alley
of the ancient city, and struck awe to the hearts even of the most
hardened; boom! boom! the swelling tones startled the boatmen on the
Exe, awoke the echoes of the hills around the fair city of the west,
nay reached the rich purple moorland, and startled the children who
played amongst the heather or gathered whortle-berries.

And beneath the two grand old towers in front of the great west door of
the historical fane, was erected that disgrace to the civilization of
our forefathers, the scaffold with its gibbet and quartering block, its
hideous butchering apparatus, in the very cathedral yard.

What a multitude had now assembled! men, women, boys, girls; the noble
and the simple, the burgher and the vagrant; there were many stalwart
country men too from Dartmoor, each wearing a sprig of heather in his
hat, that his companions might recognise him.

“_Here they come!_”

The bell booms out faster and faster, the multitude stretch their
necks to gaze and catch the first glimpse of the sufferers. Oh, what a
strange, morbid interest clings to those about to die; the very fact
that that body framed by God as His noblest work, and sanctified by
being limb for limb the same as the Incarnate Son took as His own, the
very fact that that body is to be so ruthlessly desecrated, causes
this awful excitement, this panting, breathless interest, in the poor
victims.

Forward they come, between two lines of halberdiers; how calm and
resigned they look as they approach the scaffold. The litany of
the dying with its perpetual response--_Ora pro eis_ (pray for
them)--addressed in turn to each saint and angel of the calendar,
is now audible. The multitude catch up the strain and join in the
response; now it is _Miserere Domine_, now again _Ora pro eis_; but
it is no longer one feeble voice, but the breath of a multitude which
bears the sweet sad refrain to heaven.

They are close to the fatal spot, and first the youth, then the old
man ascends the steps, clad in white, for such was their choice,
in testimony of their innocence of all crime before men. The fair
attractive face of the younger sufferer, so sad, yet resigned, that it
seems of itself a petition for pity, the reverend face of the senior,
like to that of some holy patriarch or prophet, so soon too to be
dabbled in blood and stuck up on rusty nails over the Guild hall in
the High Street; truly this is piteous, and the gentler portion of the
spectators can hardly forbear weeping as they still cry _Miserere_ or
_Ora pro eis_, while the _cannibals_ who are there smack their lips at
the dainty sight prepared for them.

They are on the scaffold, and the bell still booms as it shall boom
until the victims swing between heaven and earth--a mockery of God and
man. The priest of S. Mary Steppes has given his parting Benediction.
The younger, to whom is given the privilege of dying first, has already
meekly turned to the executioner--a brute with a masked face, clad in
light leather, with two similarly dressed assistants, when----

A tremendous shout--

“Dartmoor to the rescue!”

And the whole body of men with the sprigs of heather in their hats,
clear all the incumbrances, carrying off their feet the few halberdiers
at a rush, and are on the scaffold: they kick the executioners off
their own boards, upset the governor and the sheriff, but do not hurt
them, cut the prisoners’ bonds, pass them from hand to hand, and before
anyone can prevent, they, the two, are lost to sight in the vast and
sympathizing crowd.

Then the multitude spy Sir John Redfyrne sitting upon a horse in the
cathedral yard, ready to start to town when all is over; the story
of his ingratitude is known, and they manifest a playful desire to
duck him in the Exe; and it is only with the greatest difficulty that
setting spurs to his steed, and riding over one unlucky old dame in his
path, he escapes their pressing attentions, and rides away with the
cry ringing in his ears, the unwelcome cry, “Dartmoor to the rescue!”
“Saved, saved!”


FOOTNOTES

[45] The reader will perceive that there is something contradictory in
these pious expressions; first he seems to think it dangerous to be
with the majority, then he claims it as on his side.




CHAPTER IX.

_BREATHING TIME._


When our youthful hero, so suddenly rescued from a bloody death,
regained the full consciousness, of which the shock seemed to have
deprived him for a time, he felt like one in a dream, such a dream
as enables a prisoner to escape from the slime and darkness of a
subterranean dungeon, to the happiness and joy of the domestic hearth,
or of boundless liberty in verdant woods, breezy groves, or sun-lit
hill-tops.

Was he in Paradise? The words he had often sung in choir came into his
mind,--

    “In loco pascuæ ibi me collocavit,
    Et super aquam refectionis educavit me.”[46]

Had the gibbet and quartering block been endured and left behind, was
he in the spirit while the mutilated and desecrated members of his
mortal body rotted on the gates of Exeter?

But as he regained fuller consciousness, he became aware of
circumstances not resembling those which are commonly supposed to be
the portion of the Blessed in Paradise--such as a comfortable down bed,
richly embroidered curtains around him, Flemish tapestry on the walls
of his chamber, and a bright autumnal sun pouring in between the window
curtains.

He strove to rise, although he felt very weak; still curiosity overcame
weakness, and he staggered, like one giddy, to the casement, and
parting the curtains looked out.

It was early morn; a glorious bracing October morning,--such October
mornings as they have in Devon,--and a scene of wondrous beauty lay
before him, but all of this earth.

Immediately below lay a well-tended garden, with winding paths,
terraces, flowers of varied hue, shrubs, and ornamental trees cut in
strange fashions, and beyond lay a ruinous wall, through gaps in which
he could see a deep hollow, which once had been a dyke or moat, in days
when it was not safe to dwell beyond the shelter of such defences. But
with all the bloody tyranny of the latter time it must be said that the
strong hand of the government had given a sense of security, unknown
before, from all violence save legalized wrong,[47] and _that_ no
defence of moat or wall could avert.

Beyond the garden the ground sloped down to the valley of the Exe; far
away, on the left hand, lay the mighty ocean, in its deep repose, blue
as the azure vault above it, the whole coast from the mouth of the
Exe to Berry Head, beyond Torbay, was visible; with the line of ruddy
cliffs, stretching out into headlands, and receding into bays: while,
here and there, a rocky island remained, to show where a promontory had
once extended ere the waters broke the connection with the mainland.

But straight across the lovely valley, rich in its autumnal livery of
purple and gold, arose first the range of Halden, and glistening under
the glorious sun and in the clear blue of heaven beyond, looking almost
ethereal in the hues of distance, the rocks of Hey Tor and the cairn of
Rippon Tor surmounted the nearer heights.

Beneath those mountains lay the happy home of the last six years; Hey
Tor looked over Ashburton, and perhaps Isabel Grey was even now gazing
at those same rocks. Oh, how the freed spirit laughed at distance:
the sluggish body might be chained but the mind had flown across the
valley of the Exe, over the ridge of Halden, and was there in the old
familiar scenes hearing the sweet youthful voice, beholding the beloved
features, wandering with the loved one around the enchanted borders of
the moorland.

The reader who is versed in the topography of Devon will see that the
home in which Cuthbert has found refuge, is situated on that lovely
ridge of the heath, which rises about three miles from the eastern
bank of the estuary of the Exe, of which Woodbury Castle is the most
prominent point.

But he will wonder how he came there.

Listen! a step approaches, the door opens, and a familiar form enters
the room.

“What, Cuthbert at the window! God bless thee, my boy, thou art better
then--, this _is_ a sight for sore eyes.”

“Have I been ill, father?”

“Thy nurse has but now left the chamber to get her breakfast, and I
came in to take her place, in case thou shouldst awake with recovered
consciousness and wonder where thou art.”

“And where am I?”

“Not in Rougemont.”

“I see that, but where?”

“Amongst true friends; this is the mansion of Sir Robert Tremayne, an
old friend of our house, to whom we are much indebted.”

“But have I been dreaming? I thought we were led to the scaffold
together, that I heard the cathedral bell, the death bell toll for us,
and the litany for the dying yet sounds in my ears; then came a scene
of tumult and fury, cries of “rescue,” and we seemed to be passed from
hand to hand, until at last we passed through a gate or low door into
some house on the cathedral yard.”

“It was no dream, my son, our period was indeed near its
accomplishment, and, but for the efforts, heroic, but perhaps mistaken,
we had been two days (did they number there by days) in Paradise; but
it is plain God has work for thee to do on earth; for me I care not
how soon I awake to a fairer scene than this; I had hoped the martyr’s
death had been our purgatory, and that we had gained the shore.”

“But this scene is very fair,” said the youth, “bright sun, beautiful
vale, lovely sea, grand moorland hills; loth should I be to leave it
too soon, for this is God’s world too, is it not, father?”

“Thou art young, dear son.”

“Tell me all, have I been ill long?”

“This is the third day since the rescue.”

“How came it about?”

“Public opinion made it _possible_ for a few score of men to do the
work of hundreds; the mob alone, if hostile, might have hindered, nay
prevented our escape, but many who dared not assist actively, did so
passively, and closing together covered our retreat, until we found
temporary concealment in the house of a friend to the cause, who had a
passage leading from his shop in High Street into the cathedral yard.
But ere we had been there long, thou didst faint, and we had much ado
to restore thee to life.”

“How weak I must be!”

“Nay, my child, consider the torture chamber of which thy poor hands
bear sufficient evidence, and the terrible strain of the approaching
cruel death, of which we bore all the anticipation. Well, at midnight
we smuggled thee through the west gate, in a litter, by the connivance
of a sentinel, and so down stream to Topsham, dragging the boat with
difficulty over the Countess’s Weir; thereby we escaped the pursuers
on the road, and favoured by the night, reached this secluded hall
unobserved.”

“And when shall we go to Glastonbury and complete our task?”

“Not at present, for they will be looking out for us there, I doubt
not; we have a bitter enemy in Sir John Redfyrne; but when a month or
so has passed away, we may venture, well disguised.”

“And shall we never dare to return home again?”

“Nay, not while Henry reigns; it would not be worth the risk; there is
no sufficient object.”

“And our poor brethren there?”

“They will, I trust, be undisturbed; before our trial I made a gift of
the estate to Brother Cyril, late of Glastonbury, under his worldly
name: after conviction our property would have become that of the
state.”

“Then we are very poor, father?”

“Do’st thou love me less?”

“Nay, thou shalt see how true thine adopted son will be, God helping
him.”

“I know it, dear boy, but it is not so bad as it appears at first
sight, for foreseeing an evil day, I had forwarded considerable funds,
for thy use and mine, to my old friend the Baron de Courcy, to whose
care I purpose committing thee should we ever win our way to France, as
now I trust we shall.”

“And we shall be exiles?”

“‘Omne solum forti patria,’ said the heathen poet: how much more true
to the Christian! And now, my son, thou must yet repose a while, and
ere noon-tide I will bring our kind host and hostess to see thee; they
lost their son, an only child, in the Pilgrimage of Grace, where he
fought as a volunteer under Robert Aske. I knew the poor boy; they were
strangely moved when thou didst arrive; the mother cried, ‘He is so
like our Robin.’”

       *       *       *       *       *

A few days of calm repose varied by walks, cautiously taken on the
breezy moor behind the hall, soon restored the hues of health to
Cuthbert’s cheeks, and renewed his earlier vigour. Oh, how sweet the
boundless freedom of that wilderness, how invigorating the scent of the
pine groves, how bright the glimpses of sea down the valleys. Not far
off, scarce two miles, was a large farm house on the road to Budleigh
Salterton, where a family of the name of Raleigh lived; but their
politics were hostile to those of Sir Robin Tremayne and Sir Walter
Trevannion; they, the Raleighs, were men who worshipped the rising sun,
and who a few years later were eager in the suppression of the Catholic
Rebellion in Devon and Cornwall. In that house which our Cuthbert often
saw from a distance, was born a bright star to adorn Elizabeth’s Court
but a few years later.[48]

So nearly a month passed away, an interlude between two periods of
excitement, and at length came All Hallows Eve, with its memory of the
past, and a bright All Saints’ Day, a day when the words of our sweet
modern singer might be realized:--

    “Why blowest thou not thou wintry wind?
      When every leaf is brown and sere,
    And idly hangs, to thee resigned,
      The fading foliage of the year.”

A chapel was attached to the hall wherein Father Ambrose, for so we
shall call him in this connection, celebrated the Holy Mysteries, and
they thought of Richard Whiting, as amongst the great multitude which
no man could number.

Their plans were now matured; they were to assume the disguise of a
farmer and his son, travelling on agricultural business, to stop,
one night only, at an inn on the borders of Somerset, and to reach
Glastonbury the second day, then to find shelter with old Hodge, and
rising at midnight to seek the ruins, and do their appointed work.

After this they planned to take horse for Lyme Regis, where they
doubted not Cuthbert’s reputed uncle, mentioned before in this story,
would get them off to sea; of their reception in France, they were well
assured.

A tried and trusted messenger was despatched to Glastonbury by Sir
Robin, who knew the people and the country well; he brought back word
that old Hodge and his wife were yet living and well, and that they
were more than willing to take their own share of the risk, for it was
death to shelter attainted men; and that, so far as he could learn, Sir
John Redfyrne was living in his own manor house--the reader knows how
he had made it “his own”--and was expected daily to return to court.

“Better wait till we are sure he has returned thither,” said Sir Robert.

“Nay, Redfyrne Hall is many miles from Glaston; there is little danger:
besides we shall be well disguised; and we must remember every week
makes the weather worse for crossing the Channel in an open boat.”

So the day came, a bright calm day within the octave of All Saints’,
very mild and balmy for the season, the day for departure from their
little Zoar, on their perilous errand.

They sat at breakfast for the last time. Do not let the word conjure up
tea and coffee before the mind of the reader, it was a most substantial
meal, composed of joints and pastry, washed down by ale and wine; but
they ate little.

It was over, there was not much talk, the hearts of all were too full,
and what there was ran in a subdued strain; the dear old lady was in
tears, for Cuthbert had become a second Robin, and it was like losing
her son again.

Before they parted, Sir Robert brought a sword from the armoury.

“It was my poor Robin’s; wear it, my son, for his sake, for thou art
worthy of it.”

Their disguises were at hand, and they assumed them and departed, after
a warm farewell and many deep expressions of gratitude.

Cuthbert felt a little sad at first, but the invigorating air, and the
restoration to life and action soon revived his spirits, and the love
of adventure, never wanting in the young, shed its glamour over him, as
they rode over Woodbury Common on their way to Glastonbury.

And thence from that breezy height, looking back, he caught his last
view of Dartmoor.


FOOTNOTES

[46] “He shall feed me in a green pasture, and lead me forth beside the
waters of comfort.”--_Psalm_ xxiii. 2.

[47] Witness, for instance, the case of Lord Dacre, of Hurstmonceux,
executed for an offence which, a few generations earlier, would hardly
have been considered an offence at all. Like Percy of Chevy Chase he
had gone hunting in his neighbour’s grounds; a fray took place and he
slew a gamekeeper. Henry would hear of no excuse, and the noble paid
for the peasant’s blood on the scaffold at Tyburn, June 29th, 1541.

[48] Sir Walter Raleigh, born six years later, in 1552.




CHAPTER X.

_THE SHADOWS DARKEN._


In the library of Castle Redfyrne sat Sir John, the present lord of
that ancient manor, at a writing table placed in the embrasure of a
gothic window, whence he could look over the broad acres he had made
his own.

In the shelves were ranged many printed books and curious manuscripts,
in part the plunder of Glastonbury Abbey; and in truth never was
typography clearer, or more beautiful than in the first century of its
existence; nor on the other hand was caligraphy, as exemplified in
ancient missals and breviaries, ever more a work of art than when about
to be superseded by the printing press.

But Sir John was not thinking of these things, his evil heart was full
of bitterness.

There is an old Spanish proverb,--“The man who has injured thee, will
never forgive thee.” Sir John had injured his brother’s child, deeply,
cruelly, and he could not forgive him.

He rose from the table and paced the room; his brow was knit; oft times
he gnashed his teeth. So we are told that his namesake, king John,
would roll on the floor and bite the straw which served in his royal
palace as carpet, in his maniacal fits of passion. With his name, a
double portion of his spirit had fallen upon the hapless Redfyrne of
our tale.

The whole of that scene at Exeter was before his mind as he strode to
and fro, painted by the vivid pencil of a too faithful memory.

At length he rang a bell which stood on the table, and soon Nicholas
appeared in the door way.

He was now a tall youth; his hair was brighter than ever,--that hair
had betrayed him more than once: when he was young, playing truant, he
had hidden in a field of long grass, the schoolmaster was abroad, and
after him, and by chance, gazing over the field, saw a head, bright as
a poppy, peep up and disappear; it was enough, he was caught; thanks to
the lively hues with which nature had ornamented him.

And the sly expression of his features was not altered; that sharp nose
which had once won him the nick-name “Pointer,” gave him as fox-like an
expression as ever.

The tie between him and Sir John was one of evil, yet Sir John loved
him as much as it was in his cold and selfish nature to love any one;
he liked him for his very vices, in forming which he had taken no
slight share; like those of whom the Apostle writes:--

“Who knowing the judgment of God, that they who do such things are
worthy of death, not only do them, but take pleasure in them that do
them.”

Nicholas was now rather the companion than the page, and on very
familiar terms with Sir John.

“Didst thou lie awake long last night, Nick?”

“I was somewhat restless, sir.”

“Didst thou hear aught unusual?”

“No,” said Nicholas, after pausing to reflect.

“Think again; any loud noise?”

“I cannot remember any.”

Sir John again paced up and down as if communing with himself.

“_Was_ there aught unusual, sir?”

“Yes, I distinctly heard a door shut with a loud clang.”

“May have been the wind.”

“Nay, that would not have startled me; the fact is, the sound was not
that of any door about this place; it shut with a clang as of a dungeon
door falling into a framework of stone.”

“There is no such door, save in the old oubliettes below the towers; I
wish we had Cuthbert in _one_, and his reverend father in another.”

“No there _is_ none; the fact startled me, and a strange thrill, which
I cannot account for, went through me as I heard it.”

Sir John paused, and a visible tremor passed over him, which was
strange in a man of his iron constitution.

“But I have not sent for you to talk about this; hast thou gleaned any
tidings of Cuthbert at Glastonbury?”

“Yes; that a stranger called upon those old dolts, the foster father
and mother of my friend Cuthbert; he came from the west, for his horse
cast a shoe, and the smith remarked that the beast had been shod in
Devon, from the make of his shoes. This happened in the hearing of a
cunning fellow, Luke Sharp, who is in our pay, and he managed to entice
the fellow to an ale house, and tried to make him drunk. Well, the
messenger was, after all, a little too cute for that; but Luke told
me that both from what the fellow did say, and from what he did not
say, he was sure that he came from our old acquaintances; and I fancy
they may both be expected to pay a visit to Glastonbury on particular
business ere long.”

“Thou hatest this Cuthbert?”

“Ever since I have known him.”

“Because he once gave you a thrashing, hey, Nick?”

“No; I am not ashamed of that, for I fought as long as I could stand
or see; but I only wish this, that I could try chances again with him;
with the sword, not the fist. I would sooner have him face to face with
me, on the sward, with nothing but our shirts between sword point and
breast, than see him on the scaffold again: I believe I could master
him, the reverend brethren are poor masters of fence, and scant mercy
should he get were he down.”

Sir John laughed merrily; the cheerful sentiment delighted him.

“Nick,” he said, “mayst thou have thy desire, and may I be there to
see; I should laugh heartily to see thee pink him; but I want thee to
ride with me now; saddle our horses and be ready in ten minutes.”

       *       *       *       *       *

In a dismal dell or hollow glen, which had been worn from the side of
a hill, in the course of ages by a streamlet, filled with brambles,
nettles, and the slime of rotting vegetation, was a squalid hut, and
therein dwelt an old blear-eyed, toothless hag, named Gammer Gatch.

By common repute she was a witch, and would long since have tasted of
a lighted tar-barrel, and a few faggots to help, but for the protection
extended to her by her landlord, Sir John.

Years of persecution had made her a lonely misanthrope, believing
absolutely in her communion with Satan, and her power for evil; poor
wretch, whatever may have been her degree of Satanic inspiration she
was guilty in intention; and when, after her temporary protector was
gone, she was at last brought to trial, she gloried in her supposed
alliance with Satan, and so made it easy for the judge and jury to send
her with clear consciences to the stake.

Those who read the terrible literature which exists on this subject
will be puzzled about many things, but will not doubt that several who
suffered for impossible crimes, lacked but the _power_, not the _will_
to have performed them.

It has often been noticed that men who have renounced their belief in
Christianity, or even in a God, have become willing captives to the
grossest forms of superstition, a truth not lacking examples in our own
days; and thus it came to pass that Sir John, denying the existence of
God, believed, instead, in Gammer Gatch; and thither he was bound now.

Leaving Nicholas on the brink of the glen in charge of the horses,
he descended into the dell, and entered the hut which was avoided by
all Christian people, save a few, who despite of their creed, came to
consult the “wise woman” in divers difficulties.

Lying, littered about, were human bones, a few grinning skulls, unclean
reptiles, uncouth wax figures; the wall was blackened by cabalistic
signs. The hut was built against the rocky side of the glen, and a
ragged curtain concealed an aperture in the natural wall.

“Mother,” said Sir John, “I have business to talk over; there are foes
who hide from me, foes of mine, and of the king, whom I would fain
crush; canst thou help me to discover their whereabouts?”

“The blackamoor may help us, if thou hast courage to face him.”

Sir John winced;--“I would rather not see him if it can be done
without.”

“Couldst thou bear to hear his voice?”

“I could, methinks.”

“Come, then, follow me, and we will do our best; thou shalt ask one
question, and if he be in the mood he will answer.”

She took up a torch of pine, and lit it at the fire. “Follow,” she
said, and drew aside the curtain; a dark passage seemed to lead into
the very bowels of the earth.

It was one of those celebrated limestone caves of which so remarkable
an example exists in the Cheddar valley; the water which oozed through
the rifts had a strange petrifying power, and objects upon which it
fell were in due time either incrusted with stone or actually petrified.

From the roof descended long spars of stone in shape like icicles;
fantastic resemblances of various objects met the gaze; here were
shrouds and winding sheets, there delicate tracery like lace; here
hung graceful curtains, and there were grotesque caricatures of animal
life, but all in cold stone. The height of the passage varied; once Sir
John had to follow his haggard guide on hands and knees, but onward
they crawled or walked, deeper and deeper beneath the bowels of the
earth, until they reached a dark cave, which seemed to be hung round
with funereal trappings of black stone; in the centre was a sombre
pool, into which heavy drops of water from above kept falling with a
monotonous splash.[49]

The hag renewed some half obliterated marks with chalk, which
represented a circle inscribed in a pentagon, and motioned Sir John to
stand beside her within its protection,--“Not a foot or hand outside,”
she said earnestly; then she repeated some mystic words in an unknown
tongue; a mephytic vapour arose, the pool boiled like a geyser, the
cave appeared to tremble, and a deep voice said--

“Why hast thou brought me up?”

“Ask thy question at once,” whispered the witch.

“Where may I meet my foes?” said Sir John.

“In the Abbot’s lodging, within the ruined Abbey, at the third midnight
from hence.”

All was still, the pool became quiet, the atmosphere cleared, and the
hag seizing the hand of Sir John began to retrace her steps. To him the
whole seemed like a dream.

But is it not possible that HE, Who sent an evil spirit into the mouths
of the false prophets of Ahab, to lure him to his doom at Ramoth
Gilead, and permitted the witch of Endor, not by any power of her own,
to raise up the spirit of Samuel, that he might foretell to the unhappy
Saul his coming fate; that HE allowed the instrumentality of this
wretched victim of a terrible delusion, to accomplish his end--that end
which the progress of our tale will reveal as the direct consequence of
this episode.

With difficulty Sir John dragged his failing limbs back to the hut,
and for a time he and the hag sat by the fire, all in a tremor. She
seemed as shaken as he: perhaps she, too, had been taken aback by the
phenomenon, when simply preparing some jugglery.

At length Sir John rose, like one from stupor.

“Mother, here is money for thee; keep the secret.”

“Or it would cost me my life; but, Sir John, beware of the Abbey at
midnight, I fear _he_ means thee harm.”

“Thou carest for me, then?”

“What would become of me wert thou gone?”

He shook his head and returned to Nicholas.

“Good heavens, how pale thou art, sir!”

“So wouldst thou be hadst thou been with us.”

“She ought to be burnt.”

“She is useful just now, and ministers to our designs.”

Not one word did Sir John speak all the ride homeward; perhaps he
hesitated in his purpose, but at length his mind was made up.

They supped together, Nicholas waiting on his lord, but yet enjoying
the privilege of supping at the same table.

After supper, as they discussed some hot sack, the patron said--

“Nicholas, I wish thee to go out on the western road which leads from
Glastonbury to Exeter, and thou mayst pass the night at the ‘_Robin
Hood_;’ I have a strange impression our mutual friends will stop there
to-morrow night. If thou meetest them stick to them like a leech, and
follow them, thyself unseen, if possible, to Glastonbury; then join me
in the Abbey, and we will await them there; it is their purpose, I am
sure, to enter that secret chamber and destroy the papers, and I would
fain seize them in the act, and so learn the great secret.”

“There is much gold hidden there,” said Nicholas.

“There is, and it may be advisable for us to anticipate the work of the
executioner on the spot, in which case”--

“I will answer for Cuthbert,” said Nicholas, even eagerly. “No one
living knows the amount of gold and jewels; and we may deal with the
papers as shall seem advisable; make our market of them, either with
the parties compromised or with the government.”

They said no more, for up to this moment no idea of acting otherwise
than the law would sanction had crossed the mind of Sir John: to
minister to the vindictive feelings of the king, and to gratify the
royal cupidity, thereby securing his own advancement, had been the
original motives which had actuated him, but now--

He looked at Nicholas, but neither spoke again on the subject that
night.

Sir John retired to rest a little before midnight; his page slept in
the adjoining room. He was soon asleep, but with sleep came a strange
dream,--his dead brother again stood by the bed side, and held an
hour-glass, in which the sand was fast running out, but a few particles
left. “What does it mean?” The dead one shook his head mournfully, and
Sir John awoke--

Awoke to hear an awful sound; he felt it coming before it came,
something seemed moving through space; then came a sudden clang as when
the iron door of an oubliette shuts for ever upon the captive of a
living tomb.

“Nicholas! Nicholas!”

“What is the matter, sir?”

“Didst thou not hear?”

“Nay, I was awake, and all was still; thou wert dreaming, Sir John.”


FOOTNOTES

[49] The reader who has penetrated the Cheddar caves will recognize the
description.




CHAPTER XI.

_AN ANCIENT INN._


A month had passed away since the scaffold had lost its victims at
Exeter, and although the agents of government had made every enquiry,
searched every suspicious nook, and each house supposed to belong to
malcontents, no trace of those who had been snatched from the hungry
jaws of tyranny when about to crush them, had rewarded the zealous and
obsequious spies.

Neither did the common people care to disguise their satisfaction,
although it must be owned there were those whom we have already called
“cannibals,” who grieved that so goodly a show had been spoilt at
the very crisis. The frequent executions, and sanguinary spectacles
which this paternal government had provided, like the shows of
the amphitheatre at an earlier age, had created a craving for the
excitement of witnessing bloodshed amongst certain morbid spirits, to
the destruction of all better feelings and human sympathies.

A month, and our scene is changed.

Upon the hilly ground which separates the counties of Devon and
Somerset, not many miles from Honiton, stood a lonely inn called
the “Robin Hood;” the traveller will search in vain for it now, but
there it stood in the days of which we write, on the main road, near
the summit of a long ascent. Many plantations of fir and pine were
thereabouts, and yielded that sweet scent, so favourable as we are told
to the health of the consumptive, and in front of the rambling house
the eye roamed down a rich valley, until, over the old tower of Colyton
Church, appeared a glimpse of the blue sea, set in a frame of delicious
purple and green, the green of woodland and the purple of heather.

In these days invalids would go to live in such a place, and tourists
would linger there for days, drinking in its sweet pine-scented
atmosphere, or gazing upon the dreamy scenery: but in _those_ times men
had but a faint appreciation of the beauties of nature, and the inn
knew only such guests as tarried but a day, save when snowed in, or
otherwise weather-bound.

It was a lovely evening during the week after All Saints’ Day--for
there are sometimes lovely days in November, when the last gleams of
autumn seem to shine upon the scene, when the golden foliage looks
richer than the duller tints of summer, and the leaves hail the rough
blasts which are close at hand, dressed in their richest garb of gold
and purple, ere they are blown away to die, like good vain people, who
would fain dress in their best for the closing scene of all.

The sun had gone down over the western ridge, in a flood of fiery
light, and the full moon poured her silvery beams over the scene, when
two riders came slowly up the long ascent, and drew bridle before the
porch.

“Canst give us a room to ourselves, landlord, to-night--both to sup and
sleep?”

“Thee must sit with thy neighbours and sup with them, but mayst have a
bed room all to your two selves.”

“Won’t money do it?”

“There isn’t time for Crooks the mason to build for you, if you laid
the money down for bricks and mortar: you should give us a month’s
notice.”

“Needs must then,” said the elder; “take the horses, my son. Is the
ostler at hand?”

“He will be here in a minute or two, if you are above looking to your
own beasts.”

“We should be poor farmers if we were,” said the elder. “Come, John, my
son, the stable is over this side, I see. What hour is your supper?”

“Curfew,” said the Boniface, “and you will find good company: a priest,
a lawyer, a leech, a youth who looks like a page, and my worthy self,
who have filled that chair for twenty years, to carve for you.”

“Could not be better, the very idea appetizes me; come, John, in with
the horses.”

Soon father and son joined the motley company in the great common room
of the inn, with its huge settles, its capacious hearth, and blazing
fire; the priest sat in a corner of the room conning his book of hours:
the leech (or doctor, as folk now call him,) talked to a rheumatic
countryman who shook with his ailments: the lawyer discussed some
recent statutes with a client who travelled with him to the approaching
assize at Exeter: and the page--

Well, he was a good-looking stalwart fellow, who bore his burden of
twenty years or so jauntily,--good-looking, but not prepossessing; he
had that particularly sharp and bright appearance a hair of reddish
hue often gives, and which was once esteemed an ornament, and sign of
high blood,[50] although silly people like to poke jokes at the wearer
now-a-days. Moreover, there was a sly expression about his face which
provoked mistrust; whether deservedly or not, the reader must judge by
his deeds.

This page, then, when the farmer and son entered the room, started,
then looked again, and an expression of surprise, not unmingled with
satisfaction, crossed his flexible features.

Gradually the talk lost its technical character, and became general;
once or twice it approached politics, but the great danger which then
attended political or religious discussions, wherein one incautious
word, as it had often done in fact, might cost a man his life, made
men very shy of expressing their opinions. The bluff hearty way in
which Englishmen of the Plantagenet period (in which time we include
the houses of York and Lancaster) expressed their honest opinions, was
gradually losing itself in a reserved and distrustful manner, which did
not improve the national character, once so frank and open.

And moreover, the political system, inaugurated by Cromwell, had filled
the country, as we have seen, with spies; so that men were chary of
expressing their opinions before strangers. Still they discussed, with
bated breath, the king’s failing health: the question whether the
Conservative party, under the Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Gardiner, with
its Catholic sympathies, or the Reforming party, with the Archbishop
at its head, would win the royal sympathy and hold the reins of power.
It was not then a question which held a majority in parliament, but
which party pleased the king.

The lawyer here made a diversion.

“Has any one heard aught of the fugitives who escaped rope and
quartering knife at Exeter?”

The red-haired page on hearing this gazed intently, with a very
malicious smile, upon the face of the farmer’s son.

“Why, no,” said the leech, who was travelling from Exeter to Wells;
“and yet they have made diligent search; but who can explore the wilds
of Dartmoor, where they are doubtless hidden?”

“Has no one been hung for that affair?” inquired the merchant. “Hemp is
going down in the market!”

“No one _as yet_,” said the page, with a slight laugh, which sat
unamiably on one so young.

“Well, then,” said the lawyer, “some one will have to be.”

Again the page looked at the young farmer, who returned a broad stare
with the greatest apparent unconcern, and observed, in a broad Devonian
dialect, that “Dartmoor was a cranky place to hide in.”

The page looked puzzled.

Here “mine host” announced supper, and it soon smoked on the board: a
sucking-pig stewed in its own gravy, a saddle of mutton, a chine of
pork, a loin of beef, all well cooked and savoury; bread in plenty, but
no vegetables; salt, but no pepper or mustard; wooden platters, rude
abundance, but no luxury.

“Give me the roast beef of old England,” said our farmer, and stuck to
the joint.

The supper over, for we will not pursue the desultory conversation
which enlivened it, the guests betook themselves to their several
bed-chambers, which lay immediately beneath the high slanting roof, the
long garret being divided into chambers by partitions of board, each
with its dormer window.

Two truckle beds, in one of those chambers, which was central in its
position, accommodated the father and son, who were no sooner alone
than they became once more our old friends Sir Walter Trevannion and
Cuthbert, as the reader has doubtless long since surmised, on their
way to Glastonbury to fulfil the dying wishes of the last Abbot, ere
leaving England for ever, and travelling under assumed characters, for
reasons needless to mention.

“Cuthbert,” said his adopted parent, “we must follow different roads
to-morrow for the sake of greater security; you must travel through
Ilminster and Langport, I must take the southern road through Crewkerne
and Ilchester; those who look out for two travellers, corresponding to
the descriptions already advertized of our persons, will be less likely
to recognize either.”

Cuthbert looked very sad at this.

“_Must_ we _really_ separate, father?” he said; “there is danger, and
I would fain be nigh thee. I am young and vigorous, and might bear the
brunt. Listen, I recognized an old Glastonbury boy, a former Abbey
scholar, who was my especial enemy at school, and far worse than that,
he guided the men who took the sainted Abbot,--’twas that red-haired
page, his name is Nicholas Grabber, I think he knew and suspected me,
although I tried hard to stare him out of countenance.”

“All the more reason, my dear son, that we should separate, one at
least may arrive safely, and each has now the secret. Our lives are as
nothing in comparison with this duty; one day’s riding will suffice, if
we start about day-break, and at midnight we will meet in the Abbot’s
chamber; the moon will be full, and there will be none to disturb us
in the roofless desecrated pile; we can destroy those papers, and then
seek Lyme Regis, and your uncle’s bark--you feel sure we may trust him?”

“Quite sure; at least he loves me for his brother’s sake, my foster
father, Giles Hodge.”

“And we need not tell him any more than is necessary; it will be safer
for him. And now let me ask once more about the secret chamber, to make
quite sure I can master the door.”

“The rose, fourth in order from the door and the third from the ground.”

The good father took out his tablets, and made a note thereof.

“Now, dear Cuthbert, our Compline office, and then to rest. We must be
waking early.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The sun rose brightly upon the old inn; it was a fresh, invigorating
morning, with a keen frosty air, just such as would invite one to ride,
walk, or run.

Cuthbert came out, his valise strapped on by a belt, and was ready
to mount; his reputed father had already gone, for he had the longer
journey, and Cuthbert was about to depart in turn.

He slipped a rose-noble into the hand of the ostler, whose face
brightened as he received this unexpected donation, which was hardly a
consistent or prudent one on Cuthbert’s part, at least in his assumed
character.

“Thee beest a gentleman, and dang’d if I don’t tell thee all: I knows
thee, I was in Exeter t’other day, when two folks were to have been
strapped and cut up.”

“You will not betray me, then?”

“Not I; ’twor a mortal shame to think of cutting such a likely lad,
like a pig to be stowed away in flitches; but I have a word more to
say, thee hast an enemy here, or at least he _was_ here.”

“Indeed, who was he?”

“Red-haired chap--foxey like. Was you two talking much after you went
to bed? if so, I hope you did not tell each other any secrets.”

“Why? pray tell me.”

“Because in next chamber slept red-haired chap--‘foxey’ I calls
him,--and as I was going by to my bed at the end of the passage, I seed
him through his door, which he had left ajar, with his ear as fast, as
if he were glued to the partition, where I knowed there was a little
hole.”

Cuthbert looked serious as he said, “And were we talking just then?”

“Yes, I heard summut about Ilminster and Langport, and some other
places; you were talking too loudly, and I don’t doubt ‘foxey’ heard it
all, too; beest thee going that way?”

“Yes, I must.”

“Can’t ye take another? He’s gone that ere way before thee, I saw him
start; he had a sword by his side, and may lurk in ambush for thee.”

“No, no,” thought Cuthbert, “it means _worse_ than that; he knows
about our meeting at midnight, and his plan will be to surprise both of
us, and the secret: Sir John may be at Glastonbury, and he would go to
him at once.”

“Good bye, and many thanks,” he said, aloud, “he has more need to fear
_me_ than I _him_. I _must_ catch him, he must never reach Glastonbury
before me, it would be utter hopeless ruin. Good bye, keep our secret
to yourself, and God bless you.”

And setting spurs to his horse, he rode off at a brisk trot.


FOOTNOTES

[50] At another time, persons so favoured were unfortunately looked
upon as special favourites of Satan, and suffered accordingly in the
judicial holocausts for supposed witchcraft and sorcery.




CHAPTER XII.

_THE HAND OF GOD._


Cuthbert rode at a brisk trot through the woods, sometimes breaking
into a gallop; but he was too good a horseman to “take it all out
of his steed” at starting, for he felt that the chase might last
the entire day. The woods were beautiful in their calm decay, that
November morning, but he had no heart to observe them, his whole soul
was wrapped up in one consideration--should he overtake Nicholas and
prevent his betraying the secret he had so meanly gained?

At any cost the spy must be hindered from reaching Glastonbury
that night; if force were necessary, and to fight became the only
alternative, the fight must be fought; they were both armed. The ostler
had mentioned that Nicholas had a sword by his side, as became a smart
young page; but then Cuthbert wore one also, concealed beneath his
cloak, as more befitting his present disguise. It will be remembered as
the parting gift of Sir Robert Tremayne.

Not only did the life of his patron, Sir Walter, to say nothing of
his own, depend upon the non-arrival of Nicholas at Glastonbury, but
perchance the lives of many adherents of the old faith, whose names
were inscribed upon those documents, which Cuthbert knew were yet
hidden in the chest which lay within the undiscovered muniment chamber
of the Abbey.

Nor can we pretend to deny that the persistent animosity, the deadly
hatred, but above all the underhand way in which Nicholas had now twice
penetrated into the secrets intrusted to his care, exasperated our hero
to the utmost.

Filled with these thoughts, Cuthbert reached Ilminster, a small country
town, where he arrived about ten in the morning; he could not obtain
a change of steeds at the inn, so was forced to wait for his horse to
bait.

He enquired whether any traveller had been before him on the road, and
learned that a youth, dressed as a page, had preceded him by one entire
hour.

So as yet he had not gained upon him.

The grey-headed ostler observed his uneasiness.

“Dost thou wish to catch that page?”

“I have most important business with him.”

“Humph! I hope it is friendly, but that is not my affair; if thou
canst make it worth my while, I will compound a draught for thy horse,
which will make him go as if he had wings, instead of legs, for a few
hours----”

“And then?”

“Why, then, he will be very tired; but his work will be done, and if
the beast rests for a day or two afterwards he will not suffer.”

“A noble for thee, if thou canst get the draught.”

The ostler went away a brief space, and returned with a mixture which
he poured into a bucket with a little water; the steed drank it
greedily.

“Now let him rest another half-hour, and he will be ready.”

“Half-an-hour, now--”

“Thou hast but just arrived; get thine own breakfast, and thou needest
not tarry again till thou catchest Master Redpate. He could not get a
change of horses here either, although he tried hard; there was a hunt
in the neighbourhood, and every steed was in the field; thou wilt hear
of him before thou reachest Glastonbury.”

Cuthbert was forced to make a merit of necessity and wait as patiently
as he could.

“If thou canst not take it easy, take it as easy as thou canst,” said
this old philosopher of an ostler.

At the end of the half-hour he brought the horse to the door. Cuthbert
mounted eagerly, gave the man his promised douceur, and was off.

“Let him go gently for a mile, then thou wilt need neither whip nor
spur,” cried the old man.

Cuthbert obeyed; but soon found the horse eager to canter, then to
gallop; joyfully he gave it its head, holding it up carefully in stony
places: for did not life, and more than life, depend upon the poor
beast?

Mile after mile flew by; and now Langport was in sight; it was the hour
of noon.

Cuthbert inquired at the inn again; there was but one, frequented by
wayfarers.

“Yes, a young page who seemed anxious to reach Glastonbury, had left
but half-an-hour; he had taken a fresh steed, and left his own, much
exhausted, behind.”

Cuthbert delayed not a moment; his horse did not seem a wit inclined to
tarry either.

But now he entered a district of bad roads, and progress was slow, for
a fall would ruin everything; the comfort was that Nicholas must be
equally delayed.

Hour after hour of sickening disappointment; every turn of the road,
our hero looked for his young foe, but in vain; and now the sun, which
sets soon after four in November, was sinking down to the horizon; the
ground was becoming hard again with the frost: it had thawed in the
noon-tide.

At length, the distant Tor arose upon the horizon, a solitary hill
arising like a beacon from the wide plain of Avalon, but still no
Nicholas.

Now he entered the precincts of the forest, which had once extended for
miles around Glastonbury, that same forest introduced to our readers in
the prologue to our tale, wherein the youthful Cuthbert was found in
the snow by Giles Hodge.

Suddenly his eyes were attracted by an object still some distance in
front of him, lying against the trunk of a huge beech tree.

It looked like a human figure.

Nearer, nearer; yes, it is a youth lying on the road, he is in the
dress of a page, he has red hair; it is _Nicholas_.

Cuthbert leapt from his steed, and as he did so saw the solution of the
thing: the red-haired page’s horse had stumbled upon some sharp flints,
and thrown his rider with great violence; and there he lay, as if dead,
in the road, a low moaning alone testifying that life yet lingered.

“God has interposed in defence of the right,” thought Cuthbert, with
awe, not unmingled with pity in spite of his recent hostile intentions;
for the sight of the suffering of his foe subdued his animosity.

The wounded youth muttered feebly, “Water! Water!”

There was a spring close by; Cuthbert brought clear sparkling water
in a flask which he carried; the poor wretch drank eagerly, and then
suddenly recognized Cuthbert.

“What, Cuthbert! can it be thou! dost thou forgive me then? since I am
dying, and can harm thee no more.”

“I am trying to do so.”

“Cuthbert! canst thou forgive one who sought thy life with such
animosity, spied upon thee, obtained thy secrets, and was even now on
his road to betray thee? if thou canst, God may forgive me too, for He
will not be less merciful than man.”

“Yes, I do forgive,” said Cuthbert, touched by this appeal, “as I hope
to be forgiven.”

“Thou art better far than I: I should have passed by thee, too glad
to get to Glastonbury first, and do the devil’s work. Cuthbert, I am
dying, I cannot move my legs or body, only my head, and can hardly
breathe.”

He spoke with short gasps.

“I was riding so fast--I came upon my hands--but pitched over
again on my back--my spine came upon that sharp stone there--put
there to punish me for my sins;--oh! for a priest--am I to die
unhouselled,--unanointed,--unabsolved?”

“God can forgive without sacraments when they cannot be had, I have
heard the Abbot say so in old times.”

“Ah! _the Abbot_, had I but followed his holy precepts; but I betrayed
him to his enemies and followed Sir John, and he has led me into all
kinds of sin--debauchery, riot, uncleanness, as if he loved to corrupt
me.”

A change passed over the face of the dying youth.

“A strange numbness creeps over me,--only my head seems alive--my
breathing is--so difficult--I choke--raise my head.”

A painful struggle succeeded. Cuthbert had been taught the rudiments
of surgery and he knew the truth; the spine was broken just below the
neck, and he saw that suffocation would be the end, from inability to
inflate the lungs, or to inhale the air.

“Pray! ask the saints to intercede for thee! call upon the Blessed
Mother! nay upon the Incarnate Son Himself!” said Cuthbert after the
teaching of his day.

“Sancte Nicolæ ora pro me--Cuthbert hasten to Glastonbury--Sir
John--the secret chamber--midnight--beware--omnes sancti--orate pro me
peccatore.”

And so he died.

“I thank God his blood is not upon my head, that He Who has said
‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ has Himself decided the question
between us: poor Nicholas! yes, I can forgive thee freely, and the best
proof of forgiveness is to pray for thy soul.”

He first laid the body decently on the turf, beneath the spreading
beech, closed the eyes, composed the features, then spread the
ill-fated youth’s cloak over his corpse, and knelt down to pray.

When he arose, the setting sun was casting his rays on all that was
mortal of Nicholas Grabber. Cuthbert re-mounted his steed, cast a
lingering look behind, then rode on slowly, for he could give his horse
rest now, towards Glastonbury.

He entered that old monastic town by moonlight, ere the curfew rang;
he felt strangely moved by all that had happened, yet he could but be
sensible of great relief that such a danger was averted, much as he now
pitied his late foe.

He passed the butts where he had once contended with Nicholas for the
silver arrow, and entered the town; every street and almost every house
awakened a flood of boyish recollections; but he turned not aside,
until he reached the outskirts on the opposite side of the place, where
his old foster father and mother yet, as he knew, _lived_, in a new
cottage on the site of the former one, destroyed by fire.

Yes, there stood the new house; built after the pattern of the old one,
and Cuthbert tied up his horse and knocked at the door with beating
heart.

“Come in,” says a dear familiar voice; he enters, is recognized. Yes,
they are both there; the old man stands amazed, but the poor old lady
throws her arms around him crying out “My boy, my boy.”

During all these long years they had but once or twice heard of him,
until the messenger, of whom we have spoken, reached them from Sir
Robert Tremayne; they could not read, and if they could, it would have
been dangerous for Cuthbert to have written to them; they knew nought
of his recent dangers, of the trial at Exeter; let my readers then
imagine how much Cuthbert had to tell.

And when hunger was appeased, he began his long story, and they
listened with deep interest to the narrative of his recent captivity
and marvellous escape; but when he told them of the fate of Nicholas,
and how he lay dead in the woods, they seemed awe-struck.

They had not seen Sir John Redfyrne, and knew not if he was in the
neighbourhood.

“The ways of God are beyond our thoughts,” said the old man, “but He is
manifestly on thy side, my boy, so fear not, all will be well.”

Then some words he had often sung in choir, came into Cuthbert’s mind;
I shall give them as he once sang them--

    “Nisi quia Dominus erat in nobis, dicat nunc Israel: nisi quia
        Dominus erat in nobis;
    Cum exsurgerent homines in nos: forte vivos deglutissent nos.”[51]

But it was drawing near midnight, and Cuthbert told them he had to meet
Father Ambrose at that hour in the ruins of the Abbey.

“God preserve us,” said the old people together, “O mihi beate
Martine;[52] men do say they are haunted.”

“Though as many ghosts were there as stones in the ruined pile, thither
must I go.”

“Thou wilt see us once more, dear boy?”

“If possible; I will knock at the door when our work is done--that is
if permitted to tarry; but of one thing be assured, that while I live
my heart will ever beat true to its first love--the love of my foster
parents.”

They embraced in silence amidst tears.

“The saints preserve him,” said the aged couple.

They did not retire to bed that night, it would have been a mere
mockery of rest; they sat up and watched.


FOOTNOTES

[51] If the Lord Himself had not been on our side, now may Israel say:
if the Lord Himself had not been on our side, when men rose up against
us; &c. (_Psalm_ cxxiv.)

[52] In those days this was a common invocation. S. Martin was a
favourite saint in England: it shews the tendency of language to become
the vehicle of lower ideas, that this invocation of S. Martin was
corrupted into “O my eye and Betty Martin” in Protestant days.




CHAPTER XIII.

_THE TRUST FULFILLED._


Once more at the midnight hour Cuthbert sought the Abbey precincts; the
night was bright--it was almost as light as day, the moon was at the
full.

But all the town was buried in sleep; not a watch dog barked--not a
watchman stirred--alone, unobserved, Cuthbert walked along the streets.

The chief entrance into the Abbey was from S. Mary Magdalene Street,
which lay on the west of the ruined pile; it led to the Chapel of S.
Joseph, and through that chapel, eastward, one passed into the nave of
the great church.

When Cuthbert approached, he saw the entrance yawning wide, like a
cavern, for the gates had been sold for the value of the wood;[53] and
he entered into the desecrated chapel, which so many generations had
revered as the very sanctuary of Avalon, the holy place, as men said,
trodden of old, by the saintly feet of him of Arimathæa.

On the right was the porter’s cell, but where, alas, was the porter?
he had been driven to beggary, and in accordance with the vagrant laws
drawn up by Henry himself, had been stripped naked from the waist
upward, tied to the end of a cart, and beaten with whips through the
town, “till his body was bloody by reason of such whipping.”[54]

He had not dared to beg again so he simply starved, and made his moan
to the God of Heaven, died and received a pauper’s funeral, let us hope
to be carried like a beggar of old, “by angels into Abraham’s bosom.”

His fate was perhaps milder than the fate of many of his brethren,
who unable to find work, and unwilling to starve, had repeated their
offence, had been brutally mutilated on the second occasion, and, on
the third, hung, as felons and enemies of the commonwealth.

Cuthbert drank sadly of the holy well and plucked a sprig of the thorn,
ere he entered the nave of the church. What a sight then met his view!

The defaced tomb stones, broken altars, empty niches, all stood out in
brilliant relief as the chill moon looked down upon them, that November
night; “Ichabod--the glory is departed” might well have been inscribed
on that ruined fane.

It was as large as most of our cathedrals, for the extreme length of
the building, from S. Joseph’s Chapel at the west, to the Ladye Chapel
at the east, was no less than five hundred and eighty feet, and there
were two deep transepts, on the east of each of which, were also two
chapels.

The thronging multitudes, the incense laden air, the swelling chants,
the imposing processions, the pealing anthem, all came to the
remembrance of this solitary youth, as he knelt before the ruined
altar, where as an acolyte he had so often knelt, and wept.

Rising, for it was near midnight, to fulfil his tryst, he traversed the
south transept where the famous clock had once stood which told not
only day and hour, but the changes of sun and moon,[55] and made for
a door in the south aisle of the nave. Here he paused as his eye fell
upon the epitaph to the memory of Richard Beere, the predecessor of
the last Abbot of Glastonbury, who elected in the year 1493, had died
in peace, in the thirty-first year of his rule, the year before the
birth of Cuthbert; happy was he in the time of his life, happy too in
his death, for he was taken from the evil to come; although there was
no visible cloud in the horizon, to make him say with Louis Quinze,
“_Après moi le déluge_.” Glastonbury Abbey had then attained the summit
of its prosperity, being one of the richest and most renowned of all
the abbeys of England.

Cuthbert passed through the doorway in the south aisle, and entered the
cloisters, which stood at the south side of the great church, forming a
square of two hundred and twenty feet, surrounded by an arcade in which
the poor monks had once been accustomed to take the air in winter,
and to seek the shade in summer, while they held colloquy in their
recreation hour.

Leaving the chapter house on the east, he turned the angle of the
cloister, and passed along the front of the refectory on his road to
the Abbot’s lodgings, which lay to the south-west of the pile.

But here he paused, and recalled the past as he gazed around the
cloisters: on the east lay the _chapter house_, which he had once
regarded with such reverent awe, where had been the Lord Abbot’s
throne, so worthily filled by its last occupant; behind him the
_refectory_ occupied the whole south side of the square, where
Cuthbert remembered seven long tables whereat the monks had taken
their sober repasts,[56] while one of their number read from the pulpit
the Holy Scriptures or some godly tome of the fathers: to the west lay
the _fratery_ or apartments of the novices, and to the north was the
great south front of the church.

Over the cloisters was a gallery, from which had opened the _library_,
wherein had been many valuable MSS., including one of Livy, which
perhaps contained the lost decades: it had been sold to wrap up
groceries; the _scriptorium_, where the ill-fated brethren had made
copies of the Holy Scriptures and the Office books of the Church; the
_common room_, wherein around the great hearth the brethren assembled
in hours of leisure; the _wardrobe_, and the _treasury_.

All lay alike in sad ruin: all that _would_ sell had been sold: the
mere shell of the building remained.

Over these rooms, on what we may call the _second_ floor, lay the
_dormitories_, where each monk had had his little cell containing a
bed, a table, a crucifix and a drawer for papers and books. Hard by was
the schoolroom, and the apartments of the choristers and other boys,
who had lived in the house.

While in the cloister, calling back the past to mind, he heard a
step,--was it that of Father Ambrose? Cuthbert called in a subdued
voice, but no answer was returned; he hurried up to the end of the
cloister, his hand on his sword, but saw no one.

Well might the ruined desecrated pile suggest awe in this midnight hour.

    “O’er all there hung the shadow of a fear,
      A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
    And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
        The place is haunted.”

Then he remembered that the unhappy Nicholas in his dying gasps had
cried--

“Sir John; the secret chamber; midnight; beware!” and had died before
he could offer the reparation of explanation.

And now he had reached the Abbot’s former dwelling, a detached
building, connected by a covered way with the cloisters. It stood west
of the refectory and great hall; it had suffered less from violence
than the rest of the building, being probably designed for use as a
private dwelling.

Ascending the short flight of steps which led to the porch, he entered
the chamber on the right, which had been the Abbot’s especial retreat;
it was in that room, with its old oak wainscotting and carved ceiling,
that he had received the momentous communication which had changed the
whole course of his then future life, and accepted the trust about to
be fulfilled.

And, as he waited, old familiar shapes seemed to gather around him,
and for one instant, he thought he saw the Abbot seated in his chair,
gazing benignantly upon him.

He strove to pray, as the best way of driving away imaginary visions,
when he heard the clock of the town church begin to strike the midnight
hour.

But before it had struck six times, a firm step was heard on the
stairs; it mounted higher and higher, Cuthbert knew the tread and his
heart beat lighter; another moment and Father Ambrose stood before him
in the doorway.

“Father!”

“Thou wert here first, then, Cuthbert my son, and hast met with no
accident by the way.”

“How long hast thou been in the ruins, father?”

“But just arrived from the inn where I have left my horse,--why?”

“Because I heard a footfall.”

“Nay, it was fancy; we will soon do our errand and depart. Has thy
journey been, like mine, uneventful?”

[Illustration: “HE PRESSED THE CENTRE OF THE BUD SHARPLY WITH HIS
THUMB.”

_Page 239._]

“Not uneventful, father; Nicholas Grabber, the red-haired page at the
inn, is no more. He had played the spy over night, learnt all our
arrangements, and even the fatal secret of the chamber: had he lived we
had been lost.”

“Didst thou slay him, then?”

“Nay, it was the hand of God; and I am free from blood-guiltiness:” and
Cuthbert told the whole story, which we need not say Sir Walter heard
with intense interest.

“Poor lad! we will pray for his soul as he desired; Sir John has a
heavy reckoning before him;--I wonder where _he_ is now! But, my son,
to our task; the night wears on.”

Cuthbert well remembered the directions which the Abbot had given
him; he had written them and conned them again and again during the
intervening years. Amongst the cunning carving which yet ornamented
the wainscotting of the ruined chamber, he felt for the rose which
was fourth in order from the outer door, and third from the floor;
he pressed the centre of the bud sharply with his thumb, and the old
broken bookcase, which had been left as a fixture, not worth removing,
but broken in mere wantonness, suddenly flew open in the manner of a
door.

How near the enemy must have been to the secret, yet the door, which
was the back of the bookcase, was ponderous, and the bolt only yielded
to the spring, which was released by the pressure upon the carved rose
many feet away.

Thirty steps they descended, after fastening the upper door behind
them, and below the very foundations, came upon the iron one. Cuthbert
touched the spring and it slowly opened.

“We must fasten it carefully back,” said the youth as they stood
without, “by this bolt at the bottom, which falls into the pavement
close to the adjacent wall; for did it swing to when we were within, we
should never get out till the day of doom; it shuts with a spring, and
can only be opened from without.”

As he spoke he set the heavy door carefully back, as yet unsecured,
against the wall; they watched it with curiosity; at first it appeared
to stand still, then began slowly to move, increased speed in going,
and shut with a loud resonant clang.

“So it was doubtless contrived in order to catch any unauthorized
intruder upon the secrets of the Abbey, who had not observed the bolt
and its purpose,” said Father Ambrose. “Secure it carefully, my son.”

Cuthbert did so, and they entered the vault; and now the youth drew
the key, which he had kept all these long years, from the pocket in
his vest; he inserted it in the lock, the rusty wards turned with
difficulty, but with a little force yielded, and they raised the
ponderous lid until it fell back and rested against the wall.

There, as when the Abbot shewed them years before to Cuthbert, lay the
missing treasures of the Abbey: the gemmed reliquaries, the golden and
jewelled pyxes, the chalices of solid gold, the heaps of coined money,
which a parliament, liberal in disposing of the property of others had
given to the king, only he could not get them. All this enormous wealth
had thus been saved from the tyrant’s clutch; but it will be remembered
that his disappointed avarice had aroused that animosity against the
late Abbot, which was only satiated by the life-blood of the victim.

And beside it all, lay the yet more precious documents, rolls of
parchments, bundles of letters, deeds of gift, and the violated
charters of the Abbey.

“We must burn all the letters,” said Father Ambrose; “such were the
Abbot’s last instructions.”

One by one they burnt them all by the flames of their lanthorn, until
nought was left which could possibly serve as matter of accusation
against any person.

“We may now depart, our duty done; we may borrow sufficient of this
coined gold for our present needs, incurred in its preservation; the
rest must be left until a sovereign, in communion with the Holy See,
sits again upon the throne, when it will help to restore the Abbey,
and refurnish it with sacred vessels; how long, O God, until this
tyranny be overpast?”

They closed the lid, locked it, and left the vault, shutting the iron
door; glad were they to exchange its chilling grave-like atmosphere for
the fresh air above.

They tarried not, but left the Abbey immediately; and at Cuthbert’s
request sought the shelter of his foster father’s cottage, where they
found the old couple awaiting them, and received the warmest welcome;
the curtains were drawn, to hide the light from the neighbours, should
any prying eyes be abroad in the darkness; fresh wood was heaped upon
the fire, a jug of mulled sack was prepared, and so they drove the cold
out of their bodies, and banished the remembrance of the icy vault.

And afterwards they sought their warm beds and slept soundly, under
the thatched roof of the humble cot, grateful for the comfort which
providence afforded them, and happy beyond description to feel that
the difficult and dangerous task committed to them, was successfully
accomplished.


FOOTNOTES

[53] See Note L. Demolition of Abbeys.

[54] See Preface.

[55] It was purchased for Wells Cathedral where it may still be seen.

[56] People talk of bloated monks, and imagine them revelling in
luxuries. The expression is as just, neither more nor less, as that of
“a bloated aristocrat,” used of a gentleman by a Socialist.




CHAPTER XIV.

_SUUM CUIQUE TRIBUITUR._


Let us leave the snug cot and return to the desolate ruins of the Abbey.

Scarcely have the sounds of the footsteps of our two friends died
away, when another step comes along the cloisters from the opposite
direction, and after the pause of a moment it ascends the stair leading
to the Abbot’s chamber.

Hush! the new-comer is talking to himself, soliloquizing aloud.

“Methought I heard steps and voices, and saw from the opposite cloister
the gleam of a light in this very chamber. Nicholas has played me
false--the young hound; I shall have a rod in pickle for his back. He
should have been here to-night, to share my watch; he sent word he was
on their track, and that they were _en route_ for Glastonbury Abbey; no
doubt to visit the secret chamber, and he knew that I meant to await
him here alone, where I have had but a cold time of it, and, I fear, a
useless watch, for how can one person guard so large a place?

“Still the secret might be worth keeping to ourselves, for I am assured
there is much gold, and if we could but surprise and slay them after
they have betrayed their secret, we might enrich ourselves and no man
the wiser, and then make our market of the parchments afterwards.
’Tis but an old man and a mere boy; Nicholas might grapple with the
young one, and willingly would, for he hates him, while I disposed of
the monk-knight, which would but cost me a thrust or two; and then if
my page were sore pressed, I might lend him a moment’s assistance,
although it would be rare sport to see him finish my precious nephew
himself, and I think he _could_, for he must be the stronger, since
he has had no confinement or torture to weaken his nerves or sap his
health, and should be the better swordsman of the two. Ah! what is
this?”

He was trembling with excitement, not unmingled with a sensation like
fear, as he turned a dark lantern, and caused the hidden light to
reveal the entrance, which Cuthbert had unwittingly left ajar, for the
spring, rusty with damp, had failed to act.

Down the thirty steps; down to the iron door at the bottom, first
closing the upper door.

“I shall have the secret all to myself, not even Nicholas shall know
more than I choose to reveal; a man is his own best confidant, thanks
to the saint, or may be the devil, who has helped me. Ha! ha!”

Suddenly he started, and a chill of terror caused the cold sweat to
stand on his brow; was that a peal of distant laughter mocking his
words? Satanic laughter?

“I am becoming fanciful. Ah! here is the spring; no more mystery, the
door opens, I will press it back against the wall; yes it is safe, it
stands quite still.”

He enters the vault, and passes from mortal sight for ever.

Let us stand outside and watch that door.

It is certainly moving, almost imperceptibly; oh, how terrible that
slight motion. It increases in speed, _vires acquirit eundo_; oh! will
no one warn the guilty wretch within of his danger.

Clang! In that sound is the awful doom of one who is lost soul and
body,--the warning portent is explained, its fore-boding fulfilled.

Again that low but awful peal of laughter breaks the echoes. Ah!
who shall paint the agony of the few hopeless days of darkness,
which remain to him in his icy tomb--the pangs of hunger and thirst,
delirium, and madness?

We draw a veil over them, and bid Sir John Redfyrne a last farewell.

       *       *       *       *       *

Upon the following morning the sun rose brightly upon the earth; so
soundly slept Sir Walter and his adopted son, that old Hodge had to
knock once or twice ere he could arouse them.

“Look, Cuthbert,” cried Sir Walter; “the rising sun dispersing the
darkness of the night, a harbinger of better days to us; dress quickly,
commend thyself to God, and let us be stirring: for although we have
heard nought of Sir John, it may be as well to put the sea between us
and him, now our work is accomplished.”

They occupied adjacent couches in the same room, and both had slept,
without once awaking, from the time they lay their heads on their
pillows; a sense of delicious rest, of labour achieved, had been theirs.

And now after their thanksgivings to God, they came down to breakfast
with hot spiced wine, before a warm fire; and although the reverence
always accorded to rank in those days, made the old yeoman hesitate to
set “cheek by jowl” with a knight and Prior rolled into one, yet Sir
Walter soon put him at his ease, and the four made the last breakfast
which they were ever to share together.

Cuthbert’s heart was too full for speech; he had cause to entertain
the warmest feelings of affection for his kind foster-parents, and now
he was leaving them perhaps for ever, for he could not hope to re-visit
England, unless a total change took place in the government and its
policy; and meanwhile the sands of life were running out for the aged
couple.

But the last farewells had to be said; the honest yeoman brought the
two horses round to the back door; the few necessaries they had were
packed in their saddle-bags, and bidding a longing lingering last
farewell, they turned their backs upon Glastonbury, and took the road
for Lyme Regis.

They rode leisurely, for they knew no need for special haste, and
enjoyed the invigorating and bracing air; oft-times from some eminence
they turned back, and looked over the plain of Avalon upon the lofty
Tor, with mingled feelings; it was the land-mark of home, but it was
the place where foul injustice had been wreaked upon one they had both
loved.

Late in the evening they beheld the sea in the far distance, and soon
after nightfall entered Lyme Regis, where Cuthbert sought his uncle,
while he left Sir Walter at the inn.

Such a journey as they had accomplished would have been difficult in
France without passports, or in any continental land until a much
later day; but in England well-dressed and respectable travellers might
travel unquestioned, in the absence of any cause to the contrary, and
take up their quarters without exciting suspicion, even in the last
days of bloody Harry.

Cuthbert sought his “uncle,” with whom it will be remembered he had
spent the ten months after the martyrdom of the Abbot, and found him
just returned from a fishing expedition. At first the old fisherman
could not recognize the lad who had once won his affections in the
young man who stood before him, but when he did so, the warmth of the
reception was all that could be desired; he almost dragged Cuthbert to
his “aunt,” and no persuasion would induce them to let the youth return
to spend the night at the inn with Sir Walter.

What a story had Cuthbert to tell them! “Uncle,” “aunt,” and two or
three “cousins,” stalwart young fishermen: they stood aghast with open
mouths and erected ears at his narration of the scenes at Exeter, which
were quite fresh to them, for news travelled very slowly in those days,
and even otherwise they might not have recognized Cuthbert under the
altered name.

And when he asked their help to convey him and his adopted father
across sea, he was met by an enthusiastic reply, “Wind and tide both
serve, why not to-morrow morning, my boy; loath are we to part with
thee so soon, but thy safety is the first consideration.”

So the following morning Sir Walter and Cuthbert, both clad in fishers’
garb, joined the fisherman and his stalwart sons on the beach. The
largest boat, or rather sloop, was got under weigh, the wind blew
directly off shore, and soon they saw the white cliffs of Dorset, and
the red ones of Devon, which meet near Lyme Regis, receding on the
right and left.

As they drew out to sea, and the whole coast line became visible, Hey
Tor and the moorland hills loomed in the far distance on the left, and
until they sank beneath the sea Cuthbert never took his eyes from them.

Now all was sea and sky for many hours, until the coasts of Normandy,
about the mouth of the Seine, came into sight. And they ran the boat
up the river to the nearest point to the great Abbey of Bec, founded
by the famous Herlwin in 1034, and which had furnished two successive
Archbishops to Canterbury in the persons of Lanfranc and Anselm.

The present Abbot had been a personal friend of Father Ambrose, and so
soon as they had bidden a kind and grateful farewell to their English
friends, the honest fishermen, who absolutely refused the offer of gold
for their services, they directed their steps to the famous Abbey.

After a journey of some hours, they arrived safely at Bec.

“Behold an Abbey, which God has yet preserved from the spoilers,” said
Father Ambrose, as he looked upon the glorious pile--grand as that they
had lost--and then added with a sigh, “Alas, poor Glastonbury.”

There they met unbounded hospitality, and Father Ambrose only waited to
bestow his adopted son in the care of the Baron de Courcy, whose castle
was hard by, ere he resumed that life he had never willingly abandoned.

The Baron de Courcy was a descendant of an old and famous Norman house,
distinguished in the days of the Conquest, when Aymer de Courcy,
refusing to share in the sports of England, retired to his Norman
estate, although he had fought at Hastings, and enjoyed the favour of
the Conqueror.

His good qualities, well known to those who have read of them in the
“Andredsweald,” a chronicle of the house of Michelham in Sussex,[57]
had not suffered in transmission through so many generations: and our
Cuthbert found a warm reception in the Norman household.

And so they both gained a home, each after his own heart, and the
recent trials seemed only to enhance the sweet sense of security they
now enjoyed.

    “When the shore is gained, at last,
    Who will count the billows past?”

But they had not been three months in their new homes, when tidings
arrived from England of the death of their oppressor. Henry VIII. had
passed to his last account on the early morn of the twenty-eighth of
January, fifteen-hundred and forty-seven; passed from his earthly
flatterers and parasites, who had treated him as if he were a demi-god,
to the awful judgment bar whither he had sent before him by the hands
of the executioner some seventy thousand of those subjects who had been
committed by the King of kings to his care.

_There_, where prince and peasant, lord and slave, king and monk, are
all equal, where there is no respect of persons, we leave him and close
our tragical story.


FOOTNOTES

[57] The “Andredsweald,” a tale of the Norman Conquest, by the same
author.




Epilogue.


Here, when I first told this story to a generation of schoolboys, long
since dispersed over the face of this busy world, I concluded my tale,
and returned to my study, but I was followed thither by some young and
eager story-devourers, who, like Oliver Twist, “asked for more.”

“Please, sir, we want to know what became of the treasure?”

“Oh,” said I, “I forgot to mention that in Queen Mary’s reign, Cuthbert
paid a visit to England in the train of the French Ambassador, Monsieur
de Noailles, and found an opportunity of revealing the secret to the
Queen. He was sent with some others to Glastonbury, and there they
found the mouldering skeleton of Sir John Redfyrne, keeping watch over
the chest.”

“But how did they know who he was?”

“The name was engraved on his sword, ‘John Redfyrne, Knight.’”

“Did Cuthbert know that it was his uncle?”

“Not at the time, nor for years afterwards.”

“I fancy,” said a youngster, “Cuthbert would still have preferred the
name ‘_Trevannion_’ to ‘_Redfyrne_,’ even if he had known.”

“But what did they do with the treasure? Was the Abbey ever rebuilt?”

“No, for one of the conditions which the nobles, who held the Abbey
lands, exacted when Mary restored the Papal Supremacy, was, that they
should be left undisturbed in all their ill-gotten possessions: you
may be sure that the gold was applied to such uses as the last Abbot
himself would have approved.”

“But were old Giles and his wife alive then? did they ever see Cuthbert
again?” enquired a chubby little fellow.

“He yet lived, but the dear old dame had gone to her rest. Cuthbert’s
visit was the last gleam of joy in the good old yeoman’s well-spent
life: his foster son closed his eyes, and laid him to rest by the side
of his beloved wife.”

“And did Cuthbert ever get the lands of Redfyrne?”

“No, for he never claimed them, and they passed to the next of kin.”

“But did Cuthbert have plenty of money?” cried a little fellow,
anxiously.

“Yes, the King of France, Henry the Second, bestowed a valuable estate
upon him, close by the Abbey of Bec, with the rank of Baron, in reward
for his extraordinary valour, displayed when he led the forlorn hope
at the taking of Metz, in 1552; which city remained a French fortress
until the late Franco-German war.”

“And did he marry that Isabel Grey of Ashburton?”

“No, she married a fat and well-liking Devonshire squire.”

“Poor Cuthbert; what a shame!”

“Oh, you need not pity him; few people marry their first love; he found
ample consolation in Eveline de Courcy, daughter of the baron, had many
bright-eyed sons and daughters, and lived happy, as the story-books
say, ‘ever afterwards.’”

“But how was it ever known who were his true parents: for it must have
been found out, or we should never have had this tale,” said an older
boy.

“You remember the good old priest of S. Mary of the Steppes in Exeter?”

“Yes,” cried several, “he was sent to fetch _that_ Sir John Redfyrne to
old Madge.”

“Well, after the death of the poor old woman, he found a sealed
packet in her chamber, directed to himself, with the words, ‘To be
opened in case of my sudden death,’ which revealed the truth, but he
dared not act upon it at once, in favour of an attainted person, and
against a court favourite: he waited his time. Meanwhile, in the early
years of Edward the Sixth, the Devonshire rebellion broke out, and
suspected of being implicated therein, he fled across the seas, and
eventually, after many years, became a monk in the Abbey of Bec. There
he discovered the identity of Cuthbert, then resident at the castle of
Courcy, hard by, with the youth who so narrowly escaped the scaffold
at Exeter. Then he revealed the secret to Father Ambrose, and he to
Cuthbert.”

“Then why did not Cuthbert claim his own?” said many at once.

“Because he had already attained all he desired in France, and the
England of Elizabeth, much as it is lauded by many, had no attractions
for him: besides there would have been the old question of the
Supremacy to have fought out again; I am not in a position to say that
his opinions had undergone any change on that point, and otherwise he
could not have lived in peace in his native land.”

“But he was wrong in contending for the supremacy of the Pope, was he
not?” said an incipient theologian.

“Undoubtedly; but as a modern historian, not usually credited with
Catholic sympathies, says of the Carthusian martyrs who died for the
same belief, ‘We will not regret their cause; there is no cause for
which any man can more nobly suffer, than to witness that it is better
for him to die than to speak words which, he does not mean?’”[58]

“What a wicked monster Henry the Eighth must have been!”

“Yet he had, perhaps, the majority of the nation with him; and
doubtless his heart was hardened by continued prosperity and the
flattery which he breathed as his vital air. I shall never forget
the solemn thoughts which came upon me when I once stood over the
plain stone which marks his grave at Windsor: the remembrance of his
many victims, the devout Catharine, the stately Wolsey, the learned
More, the pious Fisher, the faithful monks of the Charterhouse, the
Protestant martyrs, the gallant Surrey, and a host of others. Then came
the thought, he has long since met his victims at the judgment-seat,
and he and they have been judged by One ‘too wise to err, too good to
be unkind;’ let us leave him to that judgment, which also awaits us
all. But hark, there is the Chapel bell.”

_Exeunt omnes._


FOOTNOTES

[58] Froude, Vol. III., Cap. ix.




NOTES.


_Note A, P. 2._--ANTIQUITIES OF GLASTONBURY.

The town of Glastonbury is a place, whose historical traditions stretch
back to a very remote antiquity. It was known to the early Britons
as “Inis Avalon,” or the Isle of Apples, for that fruit was said to
grow spontaneously on the rich soil. Thus Camden writes, or rather
translates an ancient ode:--

    “O Isle of Apples; truly fortunate,
    Where unforced fruit, and willing comforts meet;
    For there the fields require no rustic hand,
    But Nature only cultivates the land:
    The fertile plains with corn and herds are proud,
    And golden apples smile in every wood.”

The cluster of hills was (as the name “Inis Avalon,” or “Insula
Avalonia,” implies) once an island, surrounded by water from the inlet,
we now call the Bristol Channel.

It was not conquered by the English or West Saxons, until the year 658,
when Kenwalk [Cenwealh] of Wessex, defeated the Britons after a hard
fight, and drove them across the Parret, but it was Christian long
before it was English, for it is certain that it was a centre of Welsh
Christianity from the earliest times.

Ancient legends relate that S. Philip the Apostle, anxious both to
spread the knowledge of the Gospel, and to provide for the safety of
his friend Joseph of Arimathæa, exposed to danger from the hatred of
the Jews, combined these ends by sending him to Britain with eleven
brethren, and some add that S. Mary Magdalene accompanied him.

They were greatly tossed by the waves, and buffeted out of their
course, so that they landed on the Isle of Avalon, where Arviragus, the
king, received them kindly; and gave them permission to build a Church,
which they did, dedicating it to the Blessed Virgin, a dedication
afterwards forgotten, for it was finally dedicated to S. Joseph
himself, and under the name “Vetusta Ecclesia,” most carefully encased
with stone and preserved by subsequent architects, until the great fire
in 1184.

It is also recorded that the landing of the Saint and his companions
took place at the northern side of Wirral Hill, at a place called in
old maps, “The Sea Wall;” the exact spot was anciently identified by
a hawthorn tree, which sprang from the staff S. Joseph struck into
the ground when he landed. Many trees propagated by grafts from this
wonderful tree still exist; they flower at Christmas in honour of the
Nativity.

The legend adds, that S. Joseph brought with him a most priceless
treasure, “The Holy Grail,” the very chalice in which the Saviour
administered the Sacrament of His Blood.

    The Cup, the Cup itself, from which our Lord
    Drank at the last sad Supper with His own;
    This, from the Blessed Land of Aromat--
    After the day of darkness, when the dead
    Went wandering over Moriah--the good Saint,
    Arimathæan Joseph, journeying brought
    To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn
    Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord.

                    TENNYSON.--_The Holy Grail._

The original Chapel, built, according to tradition, by S. Joseph and
his companions, stood at the west end of the great Abbey Church. It was
60 feet long by 20 broad, and, whatever we may think of the tradition,
was doubtless one of the oldest churches in Britain; under its altar S.
Joseph was said to lie buried.

Furthermore we are informed that the Ambassador, sent by Pope
Eleutherius in answer to the petition of King Lucius, landed here, and
revived the faith, when it was becoming decayed; but the whole legend
of King Lucius is rejected by modern historians.

Here also it is said that S. Patrick, after the conversion of Ireland,
retired in his seventy-second year, and ruled as Abbot for thirty-nine
years, dying in the year 472, in the one hundred and eleventh year of
his age. He was buried in S. Joseph’s Chapel.

Here also S. David, the patron Saint of Wales, is said to have ended
his days; he wished to reconsecrate the Vetusta Ecclesia, or Chapel of
S. Joseph; but our Lord appeared to him in a vision, and informed him
that HE had consecrated it Himself.

Here King Arthur, the hero of a hundred fights, and a thousand myths,
was said to be buried with his Queen Guinevra. His heroic deeds, in the
defence of his country, against our pagan forefathers, have been sung
by many Bards of old, but by none more sweetly than by our greatest
living poet. Thus he describes the parting scene with the brave knight,
Sir Bedivere, after the hero’s last great battle with his treacherous
nephew, Mordred, at Camlen in Cornwall:--

    “But now farewell, I am going a long way,
    With these thou seest, if indeed I go,
    (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt,)
    To the island valley of Avilion,
    Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
    Nor ever wind blows loudly, but it lies
    Deep meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns,
    And bowery meadows, crowned with summer sea,
    Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.”

But the hope was vain; he went to Avalon to die.

This story was sung by the Welsh Bards to King Henry II. on his journey
to Ireland in 1177, and interested him so deeply, that he recommended
a search for the remains, and that they should be (if found) exhumed
and re-interred in the Church, as a more fitting resting place. This
wish was carried out after that king’s death by his nephew, Henry
de Soliaco, then Abbot, in 1191, and in the spot indicated by the
Bards, the remains were found both of Arthur and his queen. Geraldus
Cambrensis, who was present, relates the scene, and says that a stone
was found with a leaden cross bearing the inscription,--“_Hic pace
sepultus rex Arthurus, in insula Avalonia_,”--and beneath it the
remains of the hero king, which were of giant proportions, and of
his queen, mingled in the same coffin. In the large skull were three
wounds, and in the cavity occupied by the queen’s remains a tress of
fair yellow hair, which being touched fell to pieces. The remains were
duly honoured by a black marble mausoleum in the Church.

When more than eighty years had passed away, the greatest of the
Plantagenets, Edward the first, and his Queen Eleanor kept the
festival of Easter at Glastonbury, and the tomb was opened for their
inspection; when the king commanded the hallowed relics to be exposed
before the high altar, for the veneration of the people, ere they were
recommitted to their resting place; _there_ to rest, until the tyrant--

    “Cast away like a thing defiled
    The remembrance of the just.”

We have dwelt upon these old legends, not without pleasure, as recorded
chiefly by William of Malmesbury, on the authority of a “Charter of S.
Patrick,” and an ancient British historian whose writings were then
extant, but whose name he does not hand down to posterity.

But the Charter is pronounced by Archbishop Usher to be the forgery
of a Saxon monk, and historians in general, consider the truth of the
legends, hitherto recorded, as doubtful as those of the kings of Rome,
or of the Trojan war.

Still, there can be little doubt in a candid mind, that these ancient
myths enshrine many facts, that in the early British times, nay in
the very infancy of Christianity, Glastonbury was a centre of light
under its earlier name, “the Isle of Avalon,” and that the site of
S. Joseph’s Chapel, or the “Vetusta Ecclesia,” is that of one of the
oldest, or perhaps _the_ oldest Christian Church in Britain.

We have already seen that the English Conquest had advanced as far
as Glastonbury by the year 658. Sixty years afterwards, Ina, King of
Wessex, after building the first Church in Wells, by the advice of
Adhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, (in which diocese the new conquests were
incorporated until the foundation of the See of Wells by Edward the
Elder in 909,) rebuilt the monastery on the Isle of Avalon, which by
that time, owing to the subsidence of the sea, had either ceased, or
was fast ceasing to be an island; save, so far as it was encircled
by the waters of the river Brue and its tributary streams, with the
marshes they formed. So long as the English had remained heathen they
had destroyed all the Churches and monasteries they found; now that
they, the West Saxons, had become Christian they respected the Churches
and monks, and thus they became great benefactors of Avalonia, or as
the English called it, “Glæstingabyrig,” or “Glastonbury.”

Ina died at Rome, whither he had gone, after resigning his crown, in
all the “odour of sanctity.”

The monastery was burnt by the Danes in the following century, and
restored by the great Saint Dunstan, as described in the author’s
earlier tale, “Edwy the Fair, or the First Chronicle of Æscendune.”
Here King Edgar died, and was buried; here, as recorded in a later tale
of the writer, “Alfgar the Dane, or the Second Chronicle of Æscendune,”
the murdered Edmund Ironside was solemnly interred.

The first Norman Bishop, was one Turstinus, or Tustain, and a testy
Abbot was he; he had a dislike to the ancient Gregorian music, and
bade his English monks sing Parisian tones; but they clung to their
old melodies; they had obeyed their foreign tyrant in other things,
but would not give up their Gregorians; so the Abbot called in Norman
soldiers to coerce the unwilling songsters, and there was a terrible
riot in the Church, for the Normans did not respect the sanctity of the
place, and slew many monks therein, so that after the conflict ended
many arrows were found sticking in the Crucifix over the high altar.

The plain Saxon edifice of Ina looked mean to men accustomed to the
Norman abbeys, and therefore Tustain rebuilt the greater portion.

The well known fighting Bishop, Henry of Blois, brother of King
Stephen, was appointed Abbot of Glastonbury in 1126, and Bishop of
Winchester in 1134, retaining the earlier appointment also till his
death in 1171. He rebuilt the monastery from the very foundations,
(says an old chronicler) as well as a large palace for himself.

But in the year 1184, on the 25th of May, a terrible fire destroyed the
whole monastery, save the bell tower, and a chapel and chamber, built
by Abbot Robert (A.D. 1172). Henry the Second, then king, immediately
issued a charter, beginning with the words, “Whatsoever a man soweth
that shall he reap,” and announced, that in order to lay up treasure in
heaven, he and his heirs would restore and raise it to greater glory
than before.

He built the Church of S. Mary, commonly called S. Joseph’s Chapel,
on the site of the Vetusta Ecclesia, with “squared stones of the most
perfect workmanship, profusely ornamented,” and it was consecrated by
Reginald the Bishop, on S. Barnabas’ Day, 1186.

The great king only lived three more years, and after his death the
further restoration went on but slowly, so that it was not until one
hundred and nineteen years had passed away, that the great Abbey Church
of S. Peter and S. Paul, which figures in our story, was completed and
dedicated, in the year 1303, in the days of Abbot Fromont, and the
reign of Edward the First.

The Abbey is said to have suffered grievously in the earthquake which
shook the country in the third year of Edward the first, 1274.

The eight Abbots who succeeded in order, carried on the work of
beautifying and enlarging until Richard Beere, 1493-1524, the last
Abbot but one, finished by erecting the king’s lodgings for secular
clergy.

Then when all was “as perfect as perfect could be,” so far as the
outward structure, came the terrible fall our story records.


_Note B, P. 11._--LAD AND LASS.

    “The old good wife’s well hoarded nuts
    Are round and round divided,
    And many lads’ and lasses’ fates
    Are there that night decided;
    Some kindle quickly, side by side,
    And burn together trimly,
    Some start away with saucy pride
    And jump out o’er the chimney.”

Burning the nuts is a famous charm. They name the lad and lass to each
particular nut, as they lay them on the fire, and accordingly as they
burn quietly together, or start from beside one another, the course and
issue of the courtship will be.--_Brand’s Popular Antiquities._


_Note C, P. 11._--FETCHES.

These are the exact figures and resemblances of persons then living;
often seen not only by their friends at a distance, but many times
by themselves; of which there are several instances in Aubrey’s
Miscellanies. These apparitions are called “Fetches,” and in Cumberland
“Swarths;” they most commonly appear to distant friends and relations
at the very instant preceding the death of a person whose figure
they put on; but sometimes there is a greater interval between the
appearance and death.--_Grose_ _apud_ _Brand_.


_Note D, P. 25._--COUPLED BETWEEN TWO FOXHOUNDS.

“Sir Peter Carew, being a boy at about the date of the tale, and giving
trouble at the High School at Exeter, was led home to his father’s
house at Ottery, coupled between two foxhounds.”--_Hooker’s Life of Sir
Peter Carew._


_Note E, P. 31._--THE PARCHMENTS.

The Abbot’s connection with “The Pilgrimage of Grace” has never been
proved, but it is scarcely unjust to assume, as is done in the text,
his general sympathy with the movement. Froude says it was discovered
that he and the Abbot of Reading had supplied the northern insurgents
with money.

    “Treason doth never prosper, for this reason
    That if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

Thus, had the northern movement succeeded, it might generally be
acknowledged to be as justifiable as the similar popular risings of
1642 and 1688; it failed, and the story has been written by the victors.


_Note F, P. 38._--THE LAST CELEBRATION.

The account of this last celebration is taken from the touching and
affecting narrative of Maurice Channey, a survivor of the Carthusian
monks, who suffered in 1535, _mutatis mutandis_. Locality and names
being changed, the story in the text is a narrative of facts. It will
be found in the ninth chapter of Froude’s Henry VIII.


_Note G, P. 73._--DEATH OF ABBOTT WHITING.

For the purposes of the story the writer has taken some little
liberties with the traditional account of the martyrdom, which here he
supplies, beginning with the trial at Wells:--

“When he arrived at Wells, the old man was informed that there was an
assembly of the gentry and nobility, and that he was summoned to it,
on which he proceeded to take his seat among them, the habits of a
long and honourable life clinging to him even after his imprisonment.
Upon this the crier of the court called him to the bar to answer a
charge of high treason. “What does it all mean?” he asked of his
attendant, his memory and probably his sight and hearing having failed.
His servant replied that they were only trying to alarm him into
submission, and probably this was the opinion of most who attended
the court, as well as the jurors. “As worshipful a jury,” writes Lord
Russell to Cromwell, “as was charged here these many years.” And there
was never seen in these parts so great an appearance as were at this
present time, and never better willing to serve the king. He was soon
condemned, though he appears not to have understood what had happened,
and the next day, Nov. 15th, 1539, he was taken to Glastonbury in his
horse-litter.

“It was only when a priest came to receive his confession as he lay,
that he comprehended the state of things; then he begged that he might
be allowed to take leave of his monks before going to execution, and
also to have a few hours to prepare for his death.

“But no delay was permitted, and the old man was thrust out of the
litter on to a hurdle, upon which he was rudely dragged through the
town to the top of the hill which overlooks the monastery, where
he took his death very patiently, in the manner described in the
text.”--_Rev. J. H. Blunt’s Reformation of the Church of England_, p.
349-350. (From original authorities.)


_Note H, P. 78._--ENGLISH FARMERS.

“My father was a yeoman and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm
of three or four pounds by the year at the uttermost, and hereupon he
tilled as much as kept half-a-dozen men. He had walk for a hundred
sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find
the king a harness with himself and his horse. I remember that I
buckled on his harness when he went to Blackheath field. He kept me to
school or else I had not been able to have preached before the king’s
majesty now. He married my sisters with five pounds or twenty nobles
each, having brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept
hospitality for his poor neighbours and some alms he gave to the poor,
and all this he did of the said farm.”--_Latimer’s Sermons_, p. 101.


_Note I, P. 93._--THE ABBEY CHURCH.

Add this sentence accidentally omitted from the text:--

“There, in that desecrated spot, reposed the ashes of the mighty dead;
there, if tradition may be believed, rested the hero king Arthur,
the defender of the land against the English invasion, the hero of a
hundred fights, the subject of a thousand myths; _there_ rested the
holy bones of him who had afforded his Saviour the shelter of a tomb,
but whose own resting place was thus defiled; there lay S. Patrick, the
Apostle of Ireland; there, S. David, the patron Saint of Wales; there,
S. Dunstan, whose bones were said to have been brought hither, after
the sack of Canterbury by the Danes in 1012.[59] So highly had this
spot been reverenced, that Kings, Queens, Archbishops and Bishops, had
given large donations to the Abbey, that they might secure a resting
place amongst the hallowed dead. Here lay the mournful historian,
Gildas; here the venerated remains of the Venerable Bede; here lay King
Edmund, the victim of the assassination at Pucklechurch; here King
Edgar, the magnificent; hither, amidst a nation’s tears, they bore the
heroic Ironside to his rest--and now! ’twas enough to make an angel
weep--and a mortal wonder whether the nation had ceased to reverence
its ancient greatness; or indeed to believe in Him Who is the God to
Whom all live, whether men call them dead or not; and Who has taught
us to reverence the sleeping dust, wherein His Spirit once moved and
energized.”


_Note J, P. 117._--THE GUBBINGS.

The Gubbings were a kind of gipsy race who infested Dartmoor, and who
were united in a confederation under one whom the people called the
“King of the Gubbings.” Old Fuller (p. 398) writes:--

“They are a peculiar of their own making, exempt from Bishop,
Archdeacon, and all authority, either ecclesiastical or civil. They
live in cotes (rather holes than houses) like swine, having all in
common, multiplied, without marriage, into many hundreds. During our
civil wars no soldiers were quartered _upon_ them, for fear of being
quartered _amongst_ them. Their wealth consisteth in other men’s goods;
they live by stealing the sheep on the moors, and vain it is for any to
search their houses, being a work beneath the pains of any sheriff, and
above the power of any constable. Such is their fleetness, they will
outrun many horses; vivaciousness, they outlive most men, living in
ignorance of luxury, the extinguisher of life. They hold together like
bees; offend _one_, and _all_ will avenge his quarrel.”


_Note K, P. 135._--THE BLACK ASSIZE.

“Among the memorable events of these times, in which innocent Catholics
were everywhere made to suffer, is that which took place in the city
and university of Oxford. One Rowland Jenks (a bookseller), was
arraigned as a Catholic (for the publication of some unlicensed books
against the changes in religion), found guilty, and being but one of
the common people, was condemned to lose both his ears. But the judge
had hardly delivered the sentence, when a deadly disease suddenly
attacked the whole court; no other part of the city, and no persons,
not in the court, were touched. The disease laid hold, in a moment,
of all the judges, the high sheriff, and the twelve men of the jury.
The jurymen died immediately, the judges, the lawyers, and the high
sheriff died, some of them within a few hours, others of them within a
few days, but all of them died. Not less than five hundred persons who
caught the same disease at the same time and place, died soon after,
in different places outside the city.”--_Rushton’s Continuation of
Sanders_, Book iv., Cap ix.


_Note L, P. 232._--DEMOLITION OF ABBEYS.

The reader may wonder that men should have been found, so ready to
plunder the house of God; so greedy, as the country people everywhere
showed themselves, to share in the plunder of the Church.

The following extract from “Ellis’ Original Letters,” is much to the
point, and will at least enlighten us as to their motives, which were
of the earth, earthy:--

“I demanded of my father thirty years after the suppression, (that
would be in the time of Elizabeth) which had bought part of the timber
of the Church, and all the timber in the steeple, with the bell frame,
with others his partners therein (in the which steeple hung eight or
nine bells, whereof the least but one could not be bought at this day
for twenty pounds, which bells I did see hang there myself, more than a
year after the suppression), whether he thought well of the religious
persons, and of the religion then used, and he told me ‘yea,’ for he
said, ‘I did see no cause to the contrary.’ ‘Well,’ said I then, ‘how
came it to pass, you were so ready to destroy and spoil the thing that
you thought well of?’ ‘What _should_ I do,’ said he, ‘might I not, as
well as others, have some profit of the spoil of the abbey? for I did
see all moved away, and therefore I did as others did.’ Thus you may
see, as well as they who thought well of the religion then used, as
they which thought otherwise, could agree well enough, and too well, to
spoil them. Such an evil is covetousness and mammon, and such is the
providence of God to punish sinners in making themselves instruments
to punish themselves and all their posterity, from generation to
generation. For no doubt there have been millions that have repented
the thing since, but all too late.”


FOOTNOTES

[59] The Canterbury folk denied this and said they had still got them;
nay, in the days of King Henry VII. the Archbishop of Canterbury
threatened to excommunicate those who venerated the “pretended relics”
at Glastonbury.




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