The Secret Chamber at Chad

by Evelyn Everett-Green

At break of day on the morning following, the little party started forth on foot to walk the five miles which separated them from the village of Chadwick. It was a pleasant enough walk through the green forest paths before the heat of the day had come. The three boys and Warbel headed the party, and were followed by some eight or ten men of various degree, some bent on a day's pleasure for themselves, others there with a view of attending upon their master's sons.

Bertram felt that he could have dispensed with any attendance save that of Warbel; but Sir Oliver had given his own orders. With so powerful and jealous a neighbour within easy reach of the village, he felt bound to be careful of his children. They were but striplings after all, and doubtless his unscrupulous neighbour would be delighted to hold one or more as a hostage should excuse arise for opening hostilities of any kind. He knew well the unscrupulous character of the man with whom he had to deal, and he acted with prudence and foresight accordingly.

The little village when reached proved to be all en fete. Rude arches of greenery crossed every pathway to the place, and all the people had turned out in their holiday dresses upon the green to join in the dances and see the sights. There was a miracle play going on in one place, repeated throughout the day to varying groups of spectators. In another corner some rude gipsy juggling was to be seen, at which the rustic yokels gazed with wondering eyes. There were all the usual country games in full swing; and the baiting of a great bull, which was being led to the centre of the green, attracted the attention of the bulk of the spectators, and drew them away from other sports. The actors in the miracle play threw off their dresses to come and witness this delightful pastime, and hardly any of those present seemed to regard for a moment the sufferings of the poor brute, or the savage nature of the whole performance.

Edred, however, belonged to that very small minority, and whilst his two brothers pressed into the ring, he wandered away elsewhere to see what was to be seen. His attention was attracted by a little knot of persons gathered together under the shade of a great oak tree, rather far away from the green that was the centre of attraction. The shade looked inviting, now that the heat was growing greater, and the boy felt some curiosity to know what was the attraction which kept this little group so compact and quiet. On the green were shouting and yelling and noise of every description; but Edred could hear no sound of any kind proceeding from this little group till he approached quite near, and then he was aware of the sound of a single voice speaking in low tones and very earnestly.

When he got nearer still he saw that the speaker was a little hunchback, and that he had in his hand a small book from which he was reading aloud to the people about him. And this fact surprised the boy not a little, for it was very unusual for any person in the lower ranks of life to be able to read; and yet this man was evidently in poor circumstances, for his clothes were shabby and his hands were hardened by manual toil.

Drawing nearer in great curiosity, Edred became aware that what the hunchback was reading was nothing more or less than a part of the gospel narrative in the English tongue, to which the people about him were listening in amazement, and with keen curiosity and attention.

Edred was familiar enough with the Latin version of the Scriptures, and had studied them under the guidance of Brother Emmanuel with great care and attention; but he had never yet heard the words read out in their entirety in his native tongue, and he was instantly struck and fascinated by the freshness and suggestiveness of the familiar language when used for this purpose. He was conscious that it gave to the words a new life and meaning; that it seemed, as it were, to drive them home to the heart in a new fashion, and to make them the property of the listener as they could never be when a dead language was used as the medium of expression. He felt a strange thrill run through him as the story of Calvary was thus read in the low, impassioned tones of the hunchback; and he was not surprised to see that tears were running down many faces, and that several women could hardly restrain their sobs.

Now and again the hunchback paused and added a few explanatory words of his own; now and again he broke forth into a rhapsody not lacking in a certain rude eloquence, in which he besought his hearers to come to their Saviour with their load of sin--their Saviour, who was the one and only Mediator between God and man. Were not His own words enough--"Father, forgive them"? What need, then, of the priest; the confessional; the absolution of man? To God and to Him alone was the remission of sins. Let those who loved their Lord seek to Him, and see what bliss and happiness resulted from this personal bond between the erring soul and the loving Saviour.

Edred shivered slightly as he stood, yet something in the impassioned gestures of the hunchback, and the strange enthusiastic light which shone in his eyes, attracted him in spite of himself. That this was rank heresy he well knew. He knew that one of the Lollard tenets had always been that confession was a snare devised of man and not appointed by God. Edred himself could have quoted many passages from Holy Writ which spoke of some need of confession through the medium of man, and of sins remitted by God-appointed ministers. He had been well instructed in such matters by Brother Emmanuel, who, whatever his enemies might allege against him, was a stanch son of the Church, even though he might be gifted with a wide tolerance and a mind open to conviction; and his pupil was not to be easily convinced against his will. Nor was Edred convinced of the justice and truth of many things that this ignorant man spoke; but what did strike him very greatly was his intense earnestness, his fiery and impassioned gestures, the absolute confidence he possessed in the righteousness of his own cause, and his utter freedom from any kind of doubt or fear--the eloquence of one of nature's orators that carries away the heart far more than the studied oratory which is the result of practice and artifice.

Whilst the man spoke, Edred felt himself carried away in spite of his inner consciousness that there was a flaw in the argument of the preacher. He was intensely interested by the whole scene. He could not help watching the faces of the group of which he made one, watching the play of emotion upon them as they followed with breathless attention their instructor's words, and drank in his fiery eloquence as though it were life-giving water.