The Last Abbot of Glastonbury: A Tale of the Dissolution 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.

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:—

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

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.

PART II.

Cuthbert the Foundling.

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—

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.

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.