The Secret Chamber at Chad. Everett-Green Evelyn
have been favoured with another insolent letter from my Lord of Mortimer," he said. "He had better take heed that he try not my patience too far, and that I go not to the king and lay a complaint before him. I will do so if I be much more troubled."
"What says he now, father?" asked Bertram eagerly, forgetting in his eagerness the generally observed maxim that the sons spoke not at table till they were directly addressed. But the knight did not himself heed this breach of decorum.
"It is the same old story; but every year he grows more grasping and more insolent. Today he complains, forsooth, that the last buck we killed was killed on his ground, and by rights belonged to him. He threatens that his foresters and huntsmen will wage war with us in future if we 'trespass' upon his rights, and wrest our spoil from us! Beshrew me if I submit to much more! Patience and forbearance are useless with such a man. I would I had not conceded all I have done in the interests of peace."
Bertram's face was crimson with anger, Edred's eyes had widened in astonishment, whilst Julian burst out in indignant remonstrance and argument.
"His ground! his rights! How can he dare say that? Why, the buck was killed at Juno's Pool; and all the world knows that that is within the confines of Chad, and that all forest rights there belong to the Lord of Chad! I would I could force his false words down his false throat! I would I could-" but the boy suddenly ceased, because he caught his mother's warning eye upon him, and saw that his father had opened his lips to speak.
"Ay, and he knows it himself as well as we do; but he is growing bolder and bolder through that monstrous claim he is ever threatening to push-the claim of his son-in-law to be rightful Lord of Chad! Phew! he will find it hard to prove that claim, or to oust the present lord. But Mortimer has money and to spare, and Chad has long been to him what Naboth's vineyard was to King Ahab-
"Brother Emmanuel, that simile is thine, and a right good one, too.
"He will seize on any pretext to pick a quarrel; and if he dares, he will push that quarrel at the point of the sword. I do not fear him; I have the right on my side. But we may not blind ourselves to this: that he is a right bitter and treacherous foe, and that should we give any, even the smallest cause of suspicion or offence, he would seize upon that to ruin us."
Sir Oliver looked keenly round the table at all assembled there, and many knew better than his sons what was in his mind at the time and what had caused him to speak thus.
For a long while now the leaven of Lollardism had been working silently in the country, and there were very many even amongst orthodox sons of the Church who were more or less "bitten" by some of the new notions. It need hardly be said that wherever light is, it will penetrate in a mysterious and often inexplicable fashion; and although there was much extravagance and perversion in the teachings of the advanced Lollards, there was undoubtedly amongst them a far clearer and purer light than existed in the hearts of those of the common people who had been brought up beneath the sway of the priests, themselves so often ignorant and ill-living men.
And so the light gradually spread; and many who would have repudiated the name of Lollard with scorn and loathing were beginning to hold some of their tenets, and to wish for a simpler and purer form of faith, and for liberty to study the Scriptures for themselves; and no one knew better the leavening spirit of the age than did Sir Oliver Chadgrove, himself a man of liberal views and devout habit of mind, and his wife, who shared his every thought and opinion.
They had both heard the stirring and enlightened preaching of Dean Colet, and were great admirers of his; but they took the view that that divine himself held-namely, that the Church would gradually reform herself from within; that she was awakening to the need of some reformation and advance; and that her sons were safe within her fold, and must patiently await her own work there.
This was exactly the feeling of the knight and his lady. They rejoiced in the words they had heard, and in the wider knowledge of the Scriptures which had been thus unfolded; but that any such doctrine, when preached and taught by the Lollard heretics, could be right or true they would have utterly denied and repudiated. The Lollards had won for themselves a bad name, and were thought of with scorn and contempt. Nevertheless, in country places the leaven of their teaching permeated far and wide, and Sir Oliver had more than once occasion to fear that amongst his own retainers some were slightly tainted by heresy.
Of course if it could be proved against him that his followers were Lollards, his enemy might take terrible advantage and deal him a heavy blow. It was the one charge which if proved would strike him to the earth; even the king's favour would scarce serve him then. The king would not stand up in opposition to the Church; and if the Church condemned his house as being a harbouring place for heretics, then indeed he would be undone.
It was this thing which was in his mind as he glanced with keen eyes round his table on this bright midsummer day; and his wife, and the monk, and the bulk of those sitting there read the true meaning of his words and of his look, and recognized the truth of the grave word of warning.
Chapter III: Brother Emmanuel
The hush of a Sabbath was upon the land. The sounds of life and industry were no longer heard around Chad. Within and without the house a calm stillness prevailed, and the hot summer sunshine lay broad upon the quiet fields and the garden upon which so much loving care had of late years been spent.
The white and red roses, no longer the symbols of party strife, were blooming in their midsummer glory. The air was sweet with their fragrance, and bees hummed drowsily from flower to flower. In the deep shadow cast by a huge cedar tree, that reared its stately head as high as the battlements of the turret, a small group had gathered this hot afternoon. The young monk was there in the black cassock, hood, and girdle that formed the usual dress of the Benedictine in this country, and around him were grouped his three pupils, to whom he was reading out of the great Latin Bible that was one of the treasures of Sir Oliver's library.
All the boys were Latin scholars, and had made much progress in their knowledge of that language since the advent of the young monk into the household. They had likewise greatly increased in their knowledge of the Scriptures; for Brother Emmanuel was a sound believer in the doctrine preached by the Dean of St. Paul's, and of the maxims laid down by him-that the Scriptures were not to be pulled to fragments, and each fragment explained without reference to the context, but to be studied and examined as a whole, and so explained, one portion illuminating and illustrating another. After such a fashion had Brother Emmanuel long been studying the Word of God, and after such a method did he explain it to his pupils.
All three boys were possessed of clear heads and quick intelligence, and their minds had expanded beneath the influence of the young monk's teaching. They all loved a quiet hour spent with him in reading and expounding the Bible narrative, and today a larger portion than usual had been read; for the heat made exertion unwelcome even to the active lads, and it was pleasanter here beneath the cedar tree than anywhere else besides.
"Now, I would fain know," began Julian, after a pause in the reading, "why it is that it is thought such a vile thing for men to possess copies of God's Word in their own tongue that they may read it to themselves. It seems to me that men would be better and not worse for knowing the will of God in all things; and here it is set down clearly for every man to understand. Yet, if I understand not amiss, it is made a cause of death for any to possess the Scriptures in his own tongue."
"Yea, that is what the heretic Lollards do-read and expound the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue and after their own fashion," said Bertram. "Have a care, Julian, how thou seemest to approve their methods; for there is a great determination in high places to put down at once and for all the vile doctrines which are corrupting all the land."
"I approve no heresy," cried Julian eagerly. "I do but ask why it be heresy to read the Word of God, and to have in possession a portion of it in the language of one's country."
"Marry, dost thou not know that one reason is the many errors the translators have fallen into, which deceive the unwary and lead the flock astray?" cried Edred eagerly. "Brother Emmanuel has told me some amongst these, and there are doubtless many others of which he may not have heard. A man may not drink with impunity of poisoned waters; neither is it safe to take as the Word of God a book which may have many perversions of