They rode hard all that day—wearily all that night. Over hill and dale, fording rivers, pushing through dense forests, threading mountain passes, wading across trackless swamps. Town after town was left behind; river after river was followed or crossed; till at last, as the sun was setting, they cantered along the banks of the broad Severn, with the towers of Berkeley Castle rising in the distance.
It was here that Salisbury drew bridle.
“’Tis no good!” he said. “I can no more. My Lord, mine heart misgiveth me that you be wending but to death. Had it been the pleasure of the Lord that we should escape our enemies, well: but if we be to meet death, let me meet it at home. Go you on to your home, an’ it like you; but for me, I rest this night at Berkeley, and with the morrow I turn back to Bisham.”
Le Despenser looked sadly in his face. It seemed as though his last friend were leaving him.
“Be it as you list, my Lord of Salisbury,” he said. “Only God go with both of us!”
Who shall say that He did not, though the road lay through the dark river? For on the other side was Paradise.
So the Lollard friends parted: and so went Salisbury to his death. For he never reached Bisham; he only crept back to Cirencester, and there he was recognised and taken, and beheaded by the mob.
A weary way lay still before Le Despenser and Bertram. They journeyed over land; and many a Welsh mountain had to be scaled, and many a brook forded, before—when men and horses were so exhausted that another day of such toil felt like a physical impossibility—spread before them lay the silver sea, and the sun shone on the grim square towers of Cardiff.
“Home!” whispered the noble fugitive, slackening his pace an instant, as the beloved panorama broke upon his sight. “Now forward, Lyngern—home!”
Down they galloped wearily to the gates, walked through the town—stopped every moment by demands for news—till at last the Castle was reached, and in the base court they alighted from their exhausted steeds. And then up-stairs, to Constance’s bower, occupied by herself, the Dowager, little Richard, and Maude. Bertram hurriedly preceded his master into the room. The ladies, who were quietly seated at work, and were evidently ignorant of any cause for excitement, looked up in surprise at his entrance.