The Secret Chamber at Chad

"Belike I should, my son, albeit perhaps in a something less vehement fashion. My authority would have served to keep down riot, and the charge against the peddler could have been forthwith examined, and if found false the man could then have been sent on his way in safety. But it is dangerous work just now to appear to side with those against whom the foul charge of heresy is brought. Knowest thou-know any of ye-what gave rise to the sudden suspicion?"

Edred, who knew much more of the real nature of the peddler's occupation that day, kept his lips close sealed. He would not for worlds have told what he had seen and heard. His brothers were plainly ignorant of the peddler's exhortation, reading, and preaching. It was not for him to add to the anxieties of his parents.

Julian was the first to answer the question.

"It was but the idle spite of the people of Mortimer," he answered. "They had baited the bull and the bear, and they had the mind to bait or burn a heretic whilst their blood was up, as a fit end to their day's pleasuring. I saw them prowling round the tree where the fellow was talking to the women and showing his wares; and suddenly they raised the shout. I called out to Bertram that Mortimer's people were bent on a mischief, and he sprang to the peddler's side before any had touched him, and we disappointed the hell hounds of their prey. He had nothing in his pack but such wares as all peddlers have; and the people vowed he had done naught all the day but sell to all who came. It would have been sin and shame for us of Chad to have stood by to see him hounded perhaps to death. We could not choose but balk those evil men of their will. None of our blood could have stood by to see such ill done!"

"I cannot blame ye, my sons," said the knight. "Ye have the blood of your forefathers in your veins, and it goes against all of us at Chad to see injustice and unrighteousness committed. I do but wish the cry raised against yon man had been anything else than that of heresy. The priests and magistrates are very busy now searching out all those suspected of that vile sin, and those who shelter them are accounted as guilty as those who are proved tainted. Our foe of Mortimer is very zealous in the good cause, and will not scruple to employ against us every weapon in his power. It would be an excellent thing in his eyes to show how mine own children had stood up to defend a Lollard heretic. I would we knew something more anent this man and his views.

"Warbel, didst thou know him? Is he anyone known in and about Chad?"

"I never saw his face before, sir," answered Warbel. "I know not so much as his name. I had thought of making some inquiries of the village folks. All I noted was that he seemed always to have plenty of persons around and about him, and his wares were nothing very attractive. Still, it is often the tales peddlers tell and the way they have with them that keeps a crowd always about them. Some of the folks of the place must know who and what he is."

"Yes, verily; and it would be well for thee to ride over tomorrow and make all needful inquiry. It would set my mind at rest to know that there was no cause of complaint against him. We cannot be blind to the fact that heretical doctrines are widely spread by those purporting to be hawkers and peddlers. Yet there must be many honest men who would scorn to be so occupied, and who know not even the name of these pestilent heresies."

And with that charge the knight tried to dismiss the subject from his mind; whilst Edred went to bed feeling terribly uneasy, and dreamed all night of the secret chamber, and how the time came when they were all forced to take refuge in it from the hatred of the Lord of Mortimer and his bloodthirsty followers.

But not even to his brothers did he tell all that he had heard and all that he knew. The words of the gospel in the familiar language of his country haunted him persistently. He felt a strange wish to hear more, although he believed the wish to be sin, and strove against it might and main. Some of the passages clung tenaciously to his memory, and he fell asleep repeating them. When he woke the words were yet in his mind, and they seemed to get between him and the words of his task that day when the boys went to their tutor for daily instruction.

Brother Emmanuel had never found Edred so inattentive and absent before. He divined that the boy must have something on his mind, and let him alone. He was not surprised that he lingered when the others had gone, and then in a low voice asked his preceptor if he would meet him in the chantry, as he felt he could not be happy till he had made confession of a certain matter, done penance, and received absolution.

A request of that sort never met a denial from the monk. He sent Edred to the chantry to pray for an hour, and met him there at the end of that time to listen to all he had to say.

Edred's story was soon told-nothing held back, not even the innermost thoughts of his heart-and the expression of the face beneath the enshrouding cowl was something strange to see.

It was long before the monk spoke, and meantime Edred lay prostrate at his feet, thankful to transfer the burden weighing him down to the keeping of another, but little guessing what the burden was to him to whom he made this confession.

Well did Brother Emmanuel know and recognize the peril of entertaining such thoughts, longings, and aspirations as were now assailing the heart of this unconscious boy. That there was sin in all these feelings he did not doubt; that heavy penance must be done for them he would not for a moment have wished to deny. But yet when he came to place reason in the place of the formulas of the Church in which he had been reared, he knew not how to condemn that longing after the Word of God which was generally the first step towards the dreaded sin of heresy.

No one more sincerely abhorred the name and the sin of heresy. When men denied the presence of the living God in the sacraments of the Church, or attacked its time-honoured practices in which the heart of the young monk was bound up, then the whole soul of the enthusiast rose up in revolt, and he felt that such blasphemers well deserved the fiery doom they brought upon themselves. But when their sin was possessing a copy of the living Word; when all that could be alleged against them was that they met together to read that Word which was denied to them by their lawful pastors and teachers, and which they had no opportunity of hearing otherwise-then indeed did it seem a hard thing that they should be so mercilessly condemned and persecuted.

Yet he could not deny that this reading and expounding of the Scriptures by the ignorant and unlearned led almost invariably to those other sins of blasphemy and irreverence which curdled the very blood in his veins. Again and again had his heart burned within him to go forth amongst the people himself; to take upon himself and put in practice the office of evangelist, which he knew to be a God-appointed ministry, and yet which was so seldom worthily fulfilled, and himself to proclaim aloud the gospel, that all might have news of the Son of God, yet might be taught to reverence the holy sacraments more rather than less for the sake of Him who established them upon earth, and to respect the priesthood, even though it might in its members show itself unworthy, because it was a thing given by Christ for the edification of the body, and because He Himself, the High Priest passed into the heavens, must needs have His subordinate priests working with Him and by Him on earth.

Again and again had longings such as these filled his soul, and he had implored leave to go forth preaching and teaching. But he had never won permission to do this. The request had been treated with contempt, and he himself had been suspected of ambition and other unworthy motives. He had submitted to the will of his superiors, as his vow of obedience obliged him to do; but none the less did his heart burn within him as he saw more and more plainly how men were thirsting for living waters, and realized with ever-increasing intensity of pain and certainty that if the Church herself would not give her children to drink out of pure fountains, they would not be hindered from drinking of poisoned springs, and thus draw down upon themselves all manner of evils and diseases.

He had never doubted for a moment the pureness of the source from which he himself drank. He was not blind to the imperfections many and great of individuals in high places, and the corruptions which had crept within the pale of the Church, but these appeared to him incidental and capable of amendment. He never guessed at any deeper poison at work far below, tainting the very waters at their source. He was in all essential points an orthodox son of Rome; but he had imbibed much of the spirit of the Oxford Reformers, of whom Colet was at this time the foremost, and his more enlightened outlook seemed to the blind and bigoted of his own order to savour something dangerously of heresy.

He did not know himself seriously suspected. His conscience was too clear, his devotion to the Church too pure, to permit of his easily fearing unworthy suspicions. He knew himself no favourite with the stately but self-indulgent Prior of Chadwater; knew that Brother Fabian, whom he had once sternly rebuked for an act of open sin, was his bitter enemy. But he had not greatly heeded this, strong in his own innocence, and he had been far happier at Chad in the more truly pure atmosphere of that secular house than in the so-called sanctity of the cloister.

And now he found his own thoughts, aspirations, and yearnings repeated in the mind of his favourite pupil, and he was confronted by a problem more difficult to solve than any that had met him before. In his own case he felt he had a compass to steer by-the restraint and guidance of his vows and his habit to help him. But how would it be with this ardent and imaginative boy? His mind was struggling to free itself from artificial trammels. To what goal might not that wish lead?

Earnestly he looked upon the bowed form at his feet, and in his eyes there was a great compassion. But his lips pronounced, with sternness and decision, the words of the heavy penance imposed, and at the end of the prescribed formulas he raised the boy and looked searchingly into his face.

"My son," he said, very gently yet very impressively, "remember that the first sin that entered into the world was the sin of disobedience. Remember that Satan's most powerful weapon is the one which he employed towards our first mother when he bid her eat of the tree of knowledge, because that knowledge is good-a God-given thing-when he persuaded her that God was wrong in keeping anything hidden from her that in itself was good. The same sin by which death entered the world has abounded there ever since. God and the Son of God and the Church have always taught that there be certain things hidden, only to be revealed to man by God or through the ordinances of the Church, not to be sought after through curiosity by unlettered men themselves. Yet for as much as Satan is never at rest, and can transform himself on occasion into an angel of light, he is ever present with men urging them on to pry into these hidden mysteries and to make light of the ordinances of God. He puts into their mouth words similar to those by which he tempted the woman to her fall, and men listen greedily as our first mother did, and are led into destruction when they think they are walking forth into the light of day.

"My son, beware of this sin; beware of this temptation. Remember the many solemn warnings against disobedience contained in the Word of God; remember how obedience is insisted on throughout that holy volume. Thou mayest not always see the reason-thou mayest not always recognize the authority; but remember that there is a blessing upon those who obey, and be not in haste to break the bond under which thou wast born, remembering who has placed thee where thou art, and who has bidden us give all dutiful obedience to the powers that be."

Edred made a deep reverence, crossed himself silently in token of submission, and prostrated himself upon the step of the altar, to lie there fasting till set of sun as one part of his penance. With a murmured prayer and blessing the monk left him, hoping that he had spoken a word of seasonable warning to one whose heart was enkindled with ardent devotion, whilst his active mind and vivid imagination were in danger of leading him into perilous paths.

No questions were asked of Edred respecting this penance, which took him away from his ordinary occupations during the chief part of the two following days. He and Brother Emmanuel alone knew the reason for it, and it was against the traditions of the house that any open notice should be taken by others.

The episode of the peddler and the outbreak with the followers of Mortimer had begun to fade somewhat from the minds of those at Chad. No complaint had reached that house from Mortimer's Keep, as had been expected, and it was hoped that the thing would never be heard of again.

Yet it was with something of a sinking heart that Sir Oliver heard the third day that the Prior of Chadwater desired speech of him; and as he mounted his horse and summoned his servants about him, he wondered, not without considerable uneasiness, what this summons might mean.

He had always been on good terms with the handsome prior of the Benedictine monastery. The choicest of the game, the fattest of the bucks slain in the forest, the chiefest specimens of his wife's culinary triumphs, always found their way to the prior's table, and an excellent understanding had always been maintained between the two houses. But the knight had observed of late that the prior had become more slack in those visits of friendly courtesy which once had been common enough between them; and when he had presented himself at the monastery, he had not been quite certain that his welcome was as cordial as heretofore. It was not until latterly that this had caused him any uneasiness-it had taken him some while to feel sure that it was anything but his own fantasy; but he had just begun to feel that something was amiss, and now this summons seemed to him to have an evil import.

However, there was nothing for it but to go; and a clear conscience keeps a man bold even in face of greater peril than was likely to assail him now. He thought it probable that some rumour of the stir on the fair day had reached the ecclesiastic, and that he wanted an account of it in detail. Sir Oliver was quite prepared to give him that, and entered the presence of the prior with a bold front and an air of cordial courtesy such as he was wont to wear in the presence of this dignitary.

There was nothing alarming in the prior's manner. He received his guest graciously, bid him be seated in the best chair reserved for the use of guests, and asked him of the welfare of his household with benevolence and friendly interest. But after all that had been said, his face took another look, and he brought up the subject of the travelling peddler or preacher, and asked the knight what his sons meant by standing champions to a notable and pernicious Lollard heretic.

The knight started at the words, and disclaimed any such knowledge both on behalf of himself and his sons. He told the tale as Bertram and Julian had told it him; and there was such sincerity in his manner, and his character both for orthodoxy and for scrupulous truthfulness in word and deed was so widely known and respected, that the prior's brow unbent somewhat, and he looked less stern and severe.

"I believe your story, Sir Knight," he said. "I believe that your sons sinned in ignorance. But none the less is it true that they have stood champions for a pestilent heretic; and that is an offence not likely to escape the vengeful notice of the Lord of Mortimer, who is always on the lookout for a cause of complaint against person or persons at Chad."

"That is very true," replied Sir Oliver, thoughtfully and gravely. "I was greatly vexed when I heard of the affair, and chided my boys for their hot-headed rashness. Howbeit there be many there to testify that the man was at that time but hawking his wares, and my sons could not know that he was a secret heretic and Lollard."

"Nay, but when that cry was raised they should not have stood at his side as his champions without more knowledge of the truth. The man is now known to have been preaching well nigh the whole day long, reading portions of those accursed translations of Wycliffe's which are damnation to all who possess them or listen to them, and expounding thereupon in the fashion that sends persons raving mad with the poison of heresy. The man is in hiding somewhere in the woods about; but he will soon be caught and handed over to the secular power to be doomed to death. And I like not the story of your sons' part in all this; it hath an ugly look."

Sir Oliver hid his anxiety beneath a cloak of dignified submission. He well knew the best way of putting things straight with the prior.

"I greatly grieve over the hotheadedness of the lads, but I will gladly make such amends as lies in my power. They sinned in ignorance, as you, reverend father, believe, and for such sins the indulgence of the Church may be won by the payment of such sum as shall be thought right. If you will tell me what I ought to give to purchase this indulgence, I will do my utmost to meet the just claim; and Holy Church shall be richer and not poorer for the trespass unwittingly made by the sons of Chad."

The prior looked pleased at this ready suggestion, and named a sum which, though sufficiently heavy, was within Sir Oliver's means, and which he promised should be immediately paid. He knew that the prior, though a man fond of money, and somewhat greedy in gaining possession of all he could, was not treacherous or unjust; and that if he had accepted this sum as the price of the pardon of the boys' escapade, he would stand their friend, and not allow them to be persecuted by Mortimer for the same offence, should the matter ever be brought up against them again.

Indeed, now that the arrangement had been so amicably entered into, Sir Oliver was rather glad that the subject had been broached. The prior was the most powerful man in the county, and to have him for a friend was everything. It was his game to hold the balance very nicely betwixt the owners of Mortimer and Chad, keeping his neutral position, and not permitting either party to overstep the limits beyond a certain extent. After what had just passed, he felt assured that the prior would not permit his boys to be harried or accused of countenancing heresy by their enemy, and he was well pleased at the interview and its result.

He rose now as if to go, but the prior motioned him to resume his seat.

"There is yet another matter upon which I would speak to you," he said. "You have beneath your roof one of our younger brethren, Brother Emmanuel. How have you found him comport himself since he has been free from the restraints of the cloister?"

The knight looked surprised at the question.

"He is in all ways a very godly and saintly youth," he replied. "He instructs my sons after an excellent fashion, keeps the hours of the Church with a scrupulous precision I have never seen equalled, and instructs all who come to him for advice or assistance in a manner that makes him beloved of all. Whenever I have talked with him or gone to him for spiritual counsel, I have been greatly struck by his spiritual insight, his purity of thought, his earnestness of mind, and his knowledge of the Holy Scriptures."

The prior shifted a little in his seat, and coughed behind his hand somewhat dubiously.

"He was ever prone to observe the hours well. He lived blamelessly here in all outward observances; but as for his knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, it may be that it goes something too far. It is whispered abroad that some of his words savour strongly of those very Lollard heresies which are about to be put down with fire and sword. Hast thou heard and seen naught of that?"

A thrill of indignation ran through Sir Oliver's frame. It was only by an effort that he restrained a hasty exclamation. He well knew that the wave of enlightened feeling rising within the Church herself had found no echo in the remoter parts of the kingdom, where bigotry and darkness and intolerance still reigned supreme. He was perfectly aware that the most enlightened sons of the Church who had dared to bid the people study the Word of God, and especially to study it as a whole, would have been denounced as heretics had they lifted up their voices in many parts of the kingdom. This very enlightened understanding, which was so marked a feature in Brother Emmanuel, had been one of the strongest bonds between him and his patron, and it seemed little short of monstrous to the knight to hear such an accusation brought against one who had lived a godly and blameless life, had observed far more rigorously all the laws of the Church than the prior or the fraternity thought of doing, and was a far truer and better son than they ever attempted to be.

But he restrained his indignation, and only answered very calmly:

"I have seen naught of it; indeed, I have seen so much to the contrary, that methinks it is but an idle tale, not worth your reverence's attention. In every matter, word or deed, Brother Emmanuel is faithful to his vows and to his calling. He is an able instructor of youth; and were your reverence to examine him as strictly as possible, I do not believe that any cause of offence, however trivial, could be found against him."

"I am well pleased to hear such good testimony," returned the prior, who was regarding his visitor with a scrutiny not altogether agreeable to the knight. "At the same time, it is not always well for a monk to remain too long away from the cloister, and a change of instructor is ofttimes better for the young. I have been thinking that it might be well to recall Brother Emmanuel, and send in his place Brother Fabian, in whom I repose the greatest confidence. How would such a change meet your good pleasure? If Brother Emmanuel is in need of penance, it can better be imposed here than elsewhere-and by all I hear it seems to me that he stands something in need of the discipline of the monastery; and Brother Fabian would make an excellent substitute as an instructor for the lads."

Whilst the prior was speaking, thought had been rapid with Sir Oliver, and something in the prior's look-a subtlety and almost cruelty about the lines of the mouth-warned him that there was in this proposition that which boded evil to someone.