The Secret Chamber at Chad

"I trow we shall not disappoint thee!" cried the boy excitedly; adding after a moment's pause, "Methinks in the matter of artifice both Bertram and I can beat thee, albeit thou art the best of us in other matters. What a boon that that fat, slothful, ignorant monk no longer shares this room! That might have been a rare trouble. But since he loves well the soft bed of the guest chamber in lieu of these hard pallets, he is not like to trouble us again. They put their trust in the spies around the house. Let their spies do their worst, I trow we shall outwit them yet."

And the boys took hands again and renewed their impromptu triumph dance. Their hearts were brimming over with satisfaction and hope. They had had a tough problem to think out during the past days, but now it seemed in a fair way of solution.

When the prior had left Chad after the banquet prepared for him, he professed himself perfectly satisfied that the missing Brother Emmanuel was not concealed upon the premises yet for all that, since the Lord of Mortimer had declared himself still dissatisfied, and because the escape of the monk was difficult to credit, nothing having been seen or heard of him abroad, he judged it wise still to keep his watch upon the place, that all might be satisfied that no precaution had been left untaken.

Sir Oliver had briefly, and with a slight accent of scorn, agreed with all the prior said, and had professed himself perfectly agreeable to the arrangement. He had nothing to hide either in his own comings and goings or in those of any member of his household. So long as his movements were not interfered with or his liberties infringed, the whole forest might be alive with spies for all that he cared. He had not known of the first watch set upon his house, and he was indifferent to the second. He should be soon leaving home to seek the king, and all he demanded was that the sanctity of his house should be duly regarded in his absence. Of course the prior fully agreed to that. Indeed, after the rigorous and exhaustive search that had been already made, there was no reason why any further entrance should be made into Chad.

But although Sir Oliver had heard this mandate with indifference and contempt, it had filled the hearts of the boys with dismay. In a week's time the vessel would sail that was to carry Brother Emmanuel away to foreign soil, and out of the clutches of his present enemies; and if this guard around the house were to be maintained all that while, what chance had they of smuggling their fugitive away and down to the coast, as they had set their hearts on doing?

But inasmuch as necessity has ever been the mother of invention, and the lads were not only bold and fearless but ready of resource, they had laid their heads together with some good effect, and now the first and one of the most important steps of the little drama had been carried to a successful conclusion.

The next day was a busy and bustling one at Chad. Upon the morrow its lord and master rode forth to Windsor with his eldest son and the best of his followers. There was a great burnishing of arms and grooming and feeding of steeds. Every man was looking up his best riding dress and putting it into spic-and-span order, and the whole place rang with the sound of cheery voices and the clash of steel.

In and out and backwards and forwards throughout the day passed the three boys, watching everything, asking eager questions of all, and expressing keen interest in the whole expedition.

Edred was of course a great figure. His face was all swathed up. One side was completely concealed by the wrappings, and as he found the light trying to even the other eye, his plumed hat was drawn low down over his brow, so that no one would have guessed who he was but for the fact that his mishap was well known by this time to all the household.

Even after supper the restless boys could not keep still. Edred and Julian had won their father's consent to riding some few miles with him on the morrow towards Windsor, and they ran off as soon as the meal was concluded to visit their steeds and see that their saddles were in order. After they had done this, they sallied out by one of the smaller gates to take an evening stroll in the wood, calling out to the custodian of the portal that they should return by the great gate.

They wandered away some distance into the wood; but when they returned it was only Bertram and Julian who entered the gate and went up to their sleeping room. However, as nobody at the larger entrance had seen the three sally forth, no remark was occasioned by the return of only two; and it was supposed that Edred would have retired early, since he was in somewhat battered plight, and had to recover strength for the early start upon the morrow.

When they reached their room that night, Bertram and Julian carefully locked the door behind them-a precaution they did not often take; and when they took from the great chest their own best riding suits, they also took out Edred's and looked it well over.

"It will fit him to a nicety," said Bertram. "He and Edred are almost of a height, and both slim and slightly built. His pale face, so much as may be seen beneath the white linen, will look mightily like Edred's in the gray light of the early morn. This hat has a mighty wide brim-well that Edred affects such headgear. Pulled over his eyes, as he wore it yesterday, there be scarce a feature to be seen. We have but to say he is something late, take him his breakfast to eat up here, and get him on to horseback whilst all the bustle is going on, and not even our father will know him. He may ride past the spies with head erect and fearless mien, for there is not one of them but saw Edred this day, and will know at a glance who rides betwixt us twain with the white linen about his head!"

Sir Oliver had decided rather late in the day to take his lady with him. She was in great favour always with the queen, and of late they had heard that the health of that gracious lady was something failing. It would be a graceful attention on the part of the mistress of Chad to visit her and learn of her welfare, and it was known that the queen had considerable influence with the king, and he might well give more favourable notice to Sir Oliver's plea were his wife to urge it upon him in response to what the lady might tell to her of their recent troubles with their haughty neighbour.

So that there was even more stir and excitement than usually attended an early morning's start. The sun was not yet up, and the gray dimness of the coming summer's day enshrouded the great courtyard as Bertram and Julian descended to it with a slim figure between them clad in a riding dress similar to their own, the slouched hat drawn over the face, which face was well wrapped and muffled in white linen, as Edred's had been the previous day.

The lady of the house came out with a look of preoccupation upon her face. She noted that the boys were already in the saddle, and smiled.

"Always in such haste," she said, as her own palfrey was led up. "But, Edred my son, why didst thou not come to me to have thy hurts looked to this morn? I was expecting thee."

"Sweet mother, I bound them for him today!" cried Julian eagerly. "Methought I must learn to be his leech since thou wast going with our father, and we knew that thou wouldst have much to do and to think of. Methinks I have not done amiss. It scarce looks as neat as though thy skilful fingers had had the care of it; but he says it feels not amiss, and that is a great thing."

"Ay, verily; and I am glad thou hast skill enough for his needs.

"Be cautious, Edred my son, that the cold gets not to the hurts. Draw up the collar of thy mantle well over that left cheek of thine, and do not talk whilst the air bites so keenly. When the sun is up all will be well; but be cautious in the first chill of the dawn."

The brothers went towards their companion, and rearranged the collar of his riding cloak so as still more to conceal his face. The hands of the younger lad were trembling somewhat; there was a quivering of the muscles of the face which betokened some repressed emotion. The muffled rider did not speak or make much movement. He obeyed the injunction of the lady of Chad to the letter.

Sir Oliver now appeared, and lifted his wife upon her palfrey. He gave a look to see that his sons were mounted, and his servants standing ready to follow his example when he sprang to the saddle.

Then his charger was led up, and he mounted and gave the word, and the little cavalcade moved out through the gate and into the still, dim forest track, watched intently by more than one pair of keen, sharp, suspicious eyes.

"I trust when I come back," remarked the knight to his lady, "that yon spies will have grown weary of their bootless watch, and will have taken themselves off. It is but the malice and suspicion of the Lord of Mortimer which causes the prior to act so. Alone he would never trouble himself. He knows that Brother Emmanuel is not at Chad, and has not been these many days. Wherever he be, he has escaped the malice of his foes this time. Heaven send that he may long escape! He was a godly and a saintly man, and no more heretic than thou or I. If the Church will persist in warring thus against her own truest sons, then indeed will she provoke some great judgment upon her own head. A house divided against itself can never stand, and she above all others should know that."

The spies had been some time passed before Sir Oliver spoke these words, and when he did so they were only loud enough to reach the ears of his wife and of his sons, who rode immediately behind him. Two of these turned their heads for a moment to look at him who rode between them, but his face was far too well concealed for its expression to be seen.

A few miles further on and a pause was made. Julian suggested that he and Edred should be turning back; whilst the mother, who thought that Edred was scarce fit for the saddle yet, seconded the idea with approbation.

They were passing through a very dark part of the forest, where the trees grew dense, and where on one side the sandstone rose up in a wall, quite keeping out the level rays of the rising sun. It was almost as dim as night in this overgrown spot.

Julian sprang to his feet, and went and dutifully kissed the hand both of father and mother, and the bandaged lad with the concealed face followed his example, touching both hands reverently and gratefully, and murmuring some words of farewell that were only indistinctly heard in the champing of bits and stamping of impatient horse hoofs. Then whilst the mother still laid many charges upon Julian to be careful of his brother, and bent a few anxious regards upon the injured lad himself, Sir Oliver gave the signal for riding on again, as they had a long day's journey before them; and the little cavalcade vanished quickly into the forest, leaving the two companions and their respective steeds standing alone in that dim place.

When the last of the horses had quite vanished, and the sound of their steps was no longer to be heard, Julian flung his cap suddenly into the air, and uttered a long and peculiar cry.

Almost immediately that cry was answered from some place near at hand, and in a few minutes more a figure strangely like the one standing at Julian's side emerged from the sheltering underwood, leading by the rein a small forest pony, such as were much used in that part of the country. With bandaged face, hat drawn over the brows, and collar turned up to the ears, the newcomer was the very counterpart of the motionless figure in the path, save that the latter wore the better dress. Julian burst into a great laugh as the two stood facing each other; but for Edred the meeting was fraught with too much of thankful relief for him to be able to join in his brother's hilarity, and after standing very still for a moment, he suddenly bent his knee, and felt a hand laid upon his head in mute blessing.

Then Brother Emmanuel removed the wrappings from his head, and looked from one brother to the other with a world of gratitude in his dark eyes. But it was a time for action, not words, and that mute, eloquent gaze was all that passed at present.

"We have a servant's dress ready in the hut hard by," said Edred quickly; "and then we must to horse again and get to the coast as fast as may be. Yon sturdy little pony good Warbel has provided will serve us as well as any stouter nag, and look more in keeping with the humble part thou must play this day, Brother Emmanuel. Come, let us change our dress quickly. I love not to linger in this forest, even though we be five good miles from Chad."

Julian took care of the three horses, whilst Edred and the disguised monk made their way through the thick growth of underwood.

When they reappeared it seemed to the boy as though the monk was as greatly disguised now as he had been with the wrappings of linen about his face. Certainly none but a spy on the watch and on the right scent would recognize in this serving man the young ecclesiastic of a few weeks back.

There was a stubble of beard upon his lips and chin which was in itself a marvellous disguise. He wore a loose riding dress, with a slouch hat and a high collar to the cloak which shaded and changed the outline of his features. There was nothing of the monk in his look, save perhaps in the steady glance of his eyes, where a bright intelligence and keen devotion beamed.

Julian flung his cap into the air again as he cried joyously:

"Why, not even the lord prior himself would know thee now. Sure, thou mightest almost have ridden past the spies themselves thus habited. We may push on in open daylight now, and none will heed thy presence."

Edred had now put on the riding dress which Brother Emmanuel had hitherto worn, so that on their return the same pair might be seen to re-enter the house. The disguised monk mounted the forest pony and followed his young masters, who pushed on quietly to the coast, feeling a greater and greater security with every mile they put between themselves and their home.

It was the day for the sailing of the sloop that would carry the monk away to a safe retreat. They were not afraid of losing the boat, for it was not to sail till nightfall; but their impatience acted like a spur, and drove them steadily forward; and save for the needful halts to refresh themselves and their beasts, they did not tarry or draw rein.

It was growing towards the westering of the sun when they beheld the great sea lying before them far below, and Edred's eyes glowed with joy as he saw the white-winged shallops flitting hither and thither on the wide expanse of blue water, and pictured how soon Brother Emmanuel would be sailing away out of the reach of peril. Truly God had been very good in hearing and answering prayer. Edred had, by some instinct for which he could not account, addressed his prayers of late less to the blessed Virgin and more to the Son of God Himself-struck, perhaps, by the words he had heard from the lips of the heretic peddler about the "one Mediator, the man Christ Jesus." He now turned in his saddle and waited till Brother Emmanuel came up. It was too solitary a place for them to care to keep up the appearance of master and servant.

Riding thus side by side, Brother Emmanuel talked with the boys out of the fulness of his heart. His week of captivity had been spent in deep and earnest thought, and some of these thoughts were imparted to the boys in that last serious talk. He bid them hold in all reverence and godly fear that Church which was the body of Christ, and those ordinances which had been given at the beginning for the perfecting of the saints, and which were God's ways of dealing with man. But he warned them in solemn tones of the fearful disease which had attacked the body, and which threatened a fearful remedy before that body could be cleansed; he warned them also of the perils which beset the path of those who should live to see the coming struggle. There would be men who would vow that whatever the Church said and did must be right because the Church was the body of Christ, not knowing that even that body can become corrupt (though never the Head) if the will of man be put in the stead of the will of God; and these would cling to the corruptions as closely as to the ordinances of God, and become bitter persecutors of those who would arise and seek to cleanse and renew the body by God-given remedies. But again there would be men who would arise and deny that there was a body, would condemn the very name of the Church, and avow that what the Lord wanted was not a body, but a number of individuals each seeking light and salvation in his own fashion. That would be a fearful evil-an evil which would rend the body into a thousand schisms, and bring down at last the heavy wrath of God, who has from the beginning taught men that the body must be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing before it can be fit to be the bride of the Lamb.

The young monk earnestly strove to show the perils of both these ways to the boys who rode beside him, and his words were earnestly listened to, and, by one at least, laid seriously to heart, to be remembered in after days almost as the words of prophecy, and destined to have a lasting effect upon his own future career.

From that day Edred renounced all thought of the monastic life, feeling that such a life would but trammel his conscience and stultify his judgment. He resolved to live his life in the world, whilst seeking to be not of the world. How that resolve was kept there is no space in these pages to tell.

Slowly and quietly the three friends jogged down into the little fishing and trading hamlet that lay at the base of the cliffs. In the small bay lay one or two sloops and frigates, and it was not hard to find the owner of the one which was to sail that night and carry Brother Emmanuel away. Julian found the man, and made all arrangements; whilst Edred saw that Brother Emmanuel made a sufficient meal, and sat talking with him to the very last, drinking in new thoughts and aspirations with every word, and striving, in the joy of knowing his beloved preceptor to be safe, to still the ache at heart which this parting involved.

The sun was just setting as the boat bearing Brother Emmanuel to the sloop pushed off from shore. The skipper resolved to set sail forthwith, and the boys stood watching whilst she shook out her canvas to the favouring breeze, and glided like a white-winged sea bird out from the shelter of the bay and into the wide ocean.

There were smarting tears in Edred's eyes despite his joy and relief. But Julian had room only for the latter feeling, and waved his cap with an air of exultant triumph as the sails expanded more and more and the little vessel went skimming its way over the shining sea.

"He is safe, and we have saved him!" he cried with flashing eyes. "Let men say what they will, but he was no heretic. I fear not but that we have done right in the sight of God, even though we may not whisper in the confessional this deed, nor receive priestly absolution therefor."

"God will give us His pardon if we have done amiss," said Edred thoughtfully. "But I have no fear that He regards this deed as a sin. It was done in His name, and as such will He receive it."

"Yes, verily; though perchance it were better to leave such words unsaid. And now we must to horse and make all speed back to Chad. As it is we shall not reach it till after nightfall, and they will something wonder at our delay."

"They will but think we went far and rested long for thy sake. We have travelled leisurely today to keep the horses fresh. We can travel back in the cool right merrily. It is but twenty miles. We can take the most of it at a hand gallop."

The boys and the horses were alike refreshed and ready for a gallop through the cool evening air, rushing on as fast as the nature of the road would let them, they reached Chad in three hours, and rode beneath the gateway just as the old seneschal was wondering how much longer he must wait before he closed the gate for the night.

The spies saw them ride in, as they had (to their thinking) seen them ride out; and all unconscious that the prey had escaped their vigilance, continued their weary and fruitless watch with the pertinacity which in so many like cases had given them success at the last.

One bright evening some three weeks later the bugle at the gate was loudly blown, and Edred and Julian came flying out to welcome their eldest brother, who had ridden hither with some dozen servants to bring news to his brothers at home.

"We have had marvellous good hap. The king received us right graciously, and heard our story with kingly friendliness and goodwill. He is none of your bigoted, priest-ridden monarchs; and although he hates true heresy, and would destroy it root and branch, he cries shame that all enlightened men who would cleanse the Church from some of her corrupt practices should be branded by that evil term. The great and worthy Dean Colet was called in, and he knows well the pamphlet Brother Emmanuel wrote, and says it is a work which should be read and taken to heart by all. That such a man should be dubbed a heretic is vile and wicked; and right glad were all to hear that he had escaped the malice of his enemies, and fled where they could not reach him. I did not dare even then to tell all the tale, but I said how we had laid our heads together and had helped him to escape. The king and the queen themselves praised me for our courage, and called me a good lad and a brave one not even to trouble our father with the knowledge of a secret that might have made ill work for him.

"My Lord of Mortimer had not been idle. He had been before us in seeking the king; but as good chance befell, he had a quarrel with young Henry, the king's fiery son; and the prince was mightily offended, and made his sire offended likewise. Wherefore Mortimer was something in disgrace even before we got there, and when our story was told he was called up before the king and prince. And all our old forest rights have been restored to us-nay, have been widened and increased, and that at the expense of Mortimer. Ye should have seen his face when that mandate was brought forth and duly signed and sealed with the royal seal and delivered to our father! And the prior has been warned to take his spies from Chad, and the prince has promised to come and visit us, and to enjoy a week's hunting in the forest."

Bertram's breath gave out before he had well finished outpouring his story, and the pause was filled by a great huzza, led off by Julian, and taken up by all the company, who were hearing scraps of like information from the men-at-arms who had conducted home the heir.

"Our parents are constrained to remain awhile longer at court; but I hungered to bring the news to Chad, and to hear the end of the story."

Bertram here dismounted, and taking his brothers by the arm, led them up to their own room, which was always their favourite haunt.

"I see that thy face is well-nigh recovered, Edred; but it stood us in marvellous good stead. Tell me, how fared you when you parted from us? All went well?"

"Excellent well in all truth. Not a soul accosted us by the way. We saw him take boat to the sloop, and saw the sloop sail out of the bay. In truth, it seems like a dream now that it is all passed. But it was a fearful time whilst it lasted."

"Yet it has led to good. We are higher in favour with the king than ever, and I trow it will be long ere our haughty neighbour dares to raise his crest against us."

Bertram paused smiling, and laid his hand upon the masked door which had kept its secret so long.

"And if it be that our gracious prince doth in very truth visit us here, methinks that to him and to him alone will we tell the whole of the strange story, and disclose to him the trick of the secret chamber at Chad!"