"Welcome, my friend, welcome!" he said. "It is good to see you stand a free man once more. You have suffered, Anthony; I can see it all too clearly in your face. But I trust that the dark days are over now, and that better times are in store. In the sweet security of home we will seek to forget those trials and troubles which have gone before."
Dalaber looked round him at the awakening beauty of the springtide world, and a lump seemed to rise in his throat. His face contracted as though with a spasm of pain, and he spoke in sharpened accents of suffering.
"The world of nature looks--thus--to me. And Master Clarke lies rotting in a foul prison, in peril of his life both from sickness and from the cruel malice of the bishop. How can I forget? How can I be happy? Methinks sometimes I would he more truly happy were I lying beside him there."
Arthur drew Dalaber a little away from the rest.
"Have you had news of him?"
"Such news as might be had. Some of the brethren, if they can still be so called, when they are as sheep scattered without a shepherd--some of them came to bid me adieu and speak comforting words. I asked them one and all of him, our beloved teacher; but none had seen him--only they had one and all made inquiry after him, and one had heard this, and the other that. But all affirmed that he, together with Sumner and Radley, was lying in a foul prison, sick unto death with the fever that besets those who lie too long in these noisome holes, or, as some said, with the sweating sickness, which has shown itself once more in Oxford.
"But since he refused to take part in the scene at Carfax, and as his companions were firm as himself, they are kept yet in the same foul place. And if help come not they will certainly die; for how can men recover of sickness without some care, or tendance, or better nourishment than will be given them there? Ah, it makes my blood boil to think of it!"
It was almost impossible for Dalaber to rejoice in his own freedom and in the beauty of all about him, so woeful were his thoughts about this man whom he so greatly loved. He went to his room that night, but sleep came not to him. He paced to and fro in a strange tumult of mind; and with the first light of dawn he clad himself in his riding suit, and when the household began to stir he sought a servant, and bade him tell the master that he desired instant speech of him.
Arthur came in brief space, and looked with surprise into Dalaber's pale, set face. His wan looks told of his sleepless vigil, but he gave no chance for questions to be asked. He spoke himself, and that rapidly.
"Arthur, I must forthwith to London. Canst thou lend me a good horse? Else I must needs go afoot."