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

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—

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.

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.

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?”

“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.

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.