For the Faith: A Story of the Young Pioneers of Reformation in Oxford

The young lad was quivering all over in excitement and fear. Arthur, coming up at the same minute, spoke almost fiercely.

"What possessed the man to return to Oxford, once he was safe away? It seems he came back after dark last night, and was seen and followed and reported on. They found him at midnight, and will use sharp methods with him. I have no love for Garret and his firebrand doctrines; but he will be the means of betraying the whole brotherhood, an he be not steadfast; and who knows how such an one will meet the trials which will beset him? If he should betray thee, Dalaber, or our good master and friend John Clarke, I should find it hard indeed to forgive him."

"He will betray none-" began Dalaber; but Cole broke in with a scornful snort.

"I would not answer for him. He is a strange mixture of strength and weakness, devotion, constancy, and nervous fear. He-"

"He will not betray any, for he is no longer a prisoner. He has escaped from the commissary's house. He is miles away from Oxford by this time. Heaven send he quickly escape beyond the seas!"

Dalaber then related what had passed during the afternoon; and Eden, with great joy, volunteered to take the news to some of the brethren, who were suffering great anxiety on his behalf. As for Dalaber himself, he desired above all things to see and speak with Clarke; and Arthur being of the same mind, they proceeded arm in arm along the street in the direction of St. Frideswyde, where evensong would soon be in course of proceeding.

"It seems to me, friend Anthony," spoke Arthur gravely, "that if Master Garret has escaped, you are the person most in peril now. If that young man betrays that he fled to you in your lodging in Gloucester College, they will not be long in calling upon you to answer to them for it."

"I trust I shall be ready to do so," answered Dalaber, with grave steadfastness.

Arthur looked at him with a mixture of admiration and uneasiness. He hesitated awhile, and then said:

"What think you of an instant flight? I would help you with the best will in the world. There is my house at Poghley open to you. There is an excellent hiding place there."

Again Dalaber hesitated just for a moment; but this time the hesitation lasted scarce more.

"Master Garret desired that I should fly with him, but I refused. It came to me that I have been set here, and here will I remain. It may be that the Lord has a testimony for us to deliver. I am ready to leave myself in His hands."

Arthur looked thoughtfully at him.

"I will do what I can for you, Dalaber; you may be certain of that. But it may not be much."

"There is one thing you can do," cried the other quickly, with a lightening of the eyes. "You can tell Freda all the tale, and ask her prayers for me. Now that I am like to be a suspected person, I will no more go to her. But tell her that, come what may, my heart will ever be hers, and that I will seek to remember her words to me. I will strive to be faithful unto death."

"I will tell her," answered Arthur, not unmoved. "But we will not think or speak of death. Whatever may be done elsewhere, we men at Oxford have always set our faces against any bitter persecution for conscience' sake. Students are sent here to read, and study, and think; and if here and there be some whose speculations have led them somewhat astray, I doubt not that, when the consensus of opinion is taken, the greater number will be for using mild and gentle methods with them. Only be not too stiff necked, good Anthony. Do not fall into the delusion of thinking that none can be true Christians save your brethren. Bear an open mind as well as a bold front, and I doubt not we shall weather this storm without great hurt or loss."

"We?" questioned Dalaber, with a slight smile. "You are not one of us, Arthur, though you show yourself the kindest of friends, and that in the days of adversity rather than of prosperity, for which the Lord will reward you."

"I spoke the 'we' in the sense of another brotherhood, Anthony," said the other, with a slightly heightened colour; "for thou art the plighted husband of Frideswyde Langton, whilst I hope soon to win the troth plight of the beauteous Magdalen. Then shall we be brothers, thou and I, and I will play a brother's part by thee now if thou art in danger."

The two comrades clasped hands. Dalaber had long known that his friend was paying court to Magdalen, though he did not know how far that suit had progressed. But evidently Arthur did not think the time far distant when he might look upon her as his own, and his friend rejoiced with him.

Evensong at St. Frideswyde had already begun before the two friends reached the chapel, so they did not go in, but stood at the choir door, from whence they could see the dean and canons in their robes, and hear the singing, in which Dalaber had so often joined; but there was little of song in his heart just now-only a sense of coming woe and peril. They had scarce been there a few minutes before they beheld Dr. Cottisford coming hastily towards the place, bareheaded, and with a face pale and disturbed, so that Dalaber caught Arthur by the arm and whispered:

"Sure, he hath discovered the escape of Master Garret!"

The young men drew back behind a buttress to let him pass, and he was too disturbed in mind to mark them. They looked after him as he went up the church, and saw him go to the dean and enter into a whispered colloquy with him. Then both came forth again, looking greatly disturbed; and at that moment up came Dr. London, the Warden of New College, all out of breath with his hurry, so that Arthur whispered from his nook of concealment to Dalaber:

"He hath the air of a hungry lion ravening after his prey."

The three then stood together talking in excited fashion.

"You are to blame, sir, much to blame! How came you to leave him for so many hours unguarded, and only one bolt to the door? These men are as artful as the devil their master. It may be that he gives them powers-"

"Tush!" answered Dr. Cottisford angrily; "he got out by his own craft. I had thought that fasting and loneliness would be a profitable discipline for him. But I bid my servants keep an eye to the outer doors, which they omitted to do."

"You have done wrong, very wrong. I know not what the cardinal will say," spoke the dean of the college, thrusting out his lips and looking very wise. "It was his command that this pestilent fellow should be taken; and when he hears that he was laid by the heels, and then escaped, being so carelessly guarded, I know not what he will say. You will have to answer for it, Dr. Cottisford. The cardinal's anger is not good to brook."

Tears of mortification and anger stood in the eyes of the commissary. He felt that fate had been very unkind to him.

"He cannot have got far. He shall be taken. We will haste to send servants and spies everywhere abroad. He got out in full daylight. He must have been seen. We shall get upon his tracks, and then we will hunt him down as bloodhounds hunt their quarry. He shall not escape us long, and then shall he answer for his sins. He will not find that he bath profited aught by the trouble he hath given us."

The voices died away in the distance, and the two young men came slowly forth, looking gravely into each other's eyes.

"Will they indeed take him?" spoke Dalaber beneath his breath.

"They will try, and they will be close on his heels; yet men have escaped such odds before this. But here comes Master Clarke. Heaven be praised that they have not spoken of him in this matter. Perchance the hunt after Garret will divert their minds from the question they have raised about the lectures and readings in his room."

Clarke greeted his friends with a smile, but saw that they were troubled; and when they reached his room and told the tale, his own face was serious.

They talked awhile together, and then he prayed with them earnestly, for Arthur would not be excluded from joining in this exercise. He prayed that if trial and trouble overtook them, they might have needful strength and faith to meet it; might have grace to follow the Lord's injunction to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves; and might never be tempted to think themselves forgotten or forsaken of the Lord, even though the clouds might hang dark in the sky, and the tempest rage long and furiously about them.

After Dalaber had left Clarke's presence, refreshed and strengthened, and had parted from Arthur, who was going back to his own rooms at Magdalen, promising to keep a sharp outlook on all that passed, and do anything he could for his comrades, he went direct to Corpus Christi, where his friends Diet and Udel were generally to be found at this hour; and not only were they in their chamber, but Eden and Fitzjames and several others of the brethren were gathered together in great anxiety, having heard first of the arrest and then of the escape of Garret, and not knowing what to believe in the matter without further testimony.

Dalaber's story was listened to, with breathless interest. The escape of Garret was assured thereby, but there was no knowing when he might be captured. In any case Dalaber's position seemed full of peril. But he expressed no fear.

"Let them take me if they will," he said; "I will betray none other. Let them do to me what they will; the Lord will give me strength. Have no fear, my friends; I will not betray you. And I trow that there be few, save Master Garret and myself, who could give all the names of the brotherhood, even were they willing."

They crowded round him and pressed his hands. Some shed tears, for they all loved the warm-hearted and impetuous Dalaber, and knew that at any moment now he might be arrested.

"At least you shall not go back to Gloucester College tonight," spoke Fitzjames eagerly. "They shall not take you there, like a rat in a trap. Come to your old lodging for the night. It may be we shall have thought out a plan by the morning. We will not let you go without a struggle, Anthony. Come with me as of old, and we will watch what betides in the city."

Dalaber consented, with a smile, to the entreaties of his friends. He knew that it would make little difference whether he were taken in one place or the other; but he loved Fitzjames, and was ready to go with him.

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," he said to himself, whilst his friends escorted him in a body to his old lodging, and left him there with every expression of affection and good will.

"I shall not be without comfort in the days to come," said Anthony, "be they never so dark and drear."

Chapter XI: Evil Tidings

"Anthony Dalaber taken!" spoke Freda, and her face grew white to the lips. "Oh, speak, good sir; what will they do to him?"

The monk who stood before the sisters, his cowl drawn over his face, his hands folded in his sleeves, took up the word again, which Freda's impulsive ejaculation had interrupted.

"He is not as yet taken prisoner, but he has been commanded to appear before the prior, and I fear me that is but the first step. He begged of me to come and tell you, and give you that packet," and his eyes rested upon a small parcel which Freda held tightly between her two hands; "so here am I to do his bidding, without staying to know what will befall him at the prior's hands. He went to answer the summons as I came forth hither."

The monk had found the sisters in their garden, having followed Dalaber's directions, and entered by the little door which he himself had so ofttimes used. At this hour the sisters were wont, in fine weather, to take an hour's exercise up and down the pleasant sheltered walk beneath the wall. Here the monk had found them, and had presented to Freda a small packet which contained Dalaber's New Testament, of which he knew full well he would speedily be deprived, and a few jewels and valuables which he possessed and desired to make over to her.

"Tell us all that has befallen him!" cried Freda breathlessly.

So far all she had taken in was that Dalaber had been summoned before the prior, but she felt that more lay behind. The monk was visibly troubled, and she knew him to be Anthony's friend. He stood before them with downcast mien and told his tale.

"It was yesterday in the afternoon that Anthony Dalaber came to me and borrowed a book. I lent it to him, bidding him be careful of it; and he locked himself into his room, whilst I went my way to sundry tasks I had to perform, and then on to vespers and compline. When I returned, Dalaber's chamber door was shut and locked. I went to mine own room, and presently the young man, a servant of the college, came in to perform some small duty, and he looked at me very cunningly, and asked whether I knew that Master Thomas Garret had been inquiring for me and for Master Dalaber. Having been made aware that he had already fled from Oxford, I gave no credence to the young man's words, and this seemed to anger him, for he told me plainly that Master Garret had come to the college, and had knocked many times at my door in my absence, and then coming away, had asked where Dalaber lived; and being directed to his door by this same youth, he had knocked till he obtained entrance, and had been shut up with him a great while.