The prior's eyes flashed ominously.
"Have a care, Sir Oliver, have a care. Brother Emmanuel is yet within the walls of Chad. I have reason to know he has not left them the whole of this past week. He has been disobedient to his vow of submission. He has not come at my bidding."
"I know naught of it," replied the knight calmly.
The Lord of Mortimer leaned forward once more with an evil smile in his eyes.
"Let not mistaken generosity get the better of prudence, my brother," he said, with derisiveness in his tone. "You know well that the penalty of hiding and harbouring a heretic is little short of that of heresy itself. Have a care you do not lose all just for the caprice of the moment, which in time to come you will have leisure bitterly to repent."
The prior, too, was eying him sternly.
"Lord Mortimer gives good counsel, Sir Oliver," he said. "Thou knowest I am no enemy of thine. What has this day passed must have shown thee that. Thou knowest that there be some here who might have been called before me today to answer for their deeds who have been spared for their youth and gentle birth. Thou hast had proof that I am no enemy of thine. But the walls of Chad must not harbour a heretic. Brother Emmanuel is there; he hath been there, and hath not sallied forth this many days, showing that a guilty conscience keeps him within. He cannot go forth without my knowledge; and if thou wilt not give him up to me, I must obtain authority and have the house searched and the man dragged forth. And I tell thee freely, if it be found that thou hast lent thine aid in harbouring a heretic and disobedient monk, thy lands will be forfeit, if not thy life, and the Lord of Mortimer will be likewise Lord of Chad."
At that moment, had any person had eyes to heed it, it might have been observed that Edred and Julian slipped like veritable shadows through the packed crowd. The next moment they had reached the gateway, had passed under it without exciting any observation, and as soon as they reached the cover of the forest, they set off to run towards Chad as fast as their legs could carry them--far faster than their horses could have borne them through the narrow paths of the tangled wood.
[Chapter VIII]: Hidden Away.
Fleetly, silently, untiringly ran the two brothers, without exchanging a single word of their purpose even to each other. The distance from the priory to the house was a matter of some two miles, but to the trained and hardy limbs of the country-bred lads a two miles' run was a trifle, and they were only slightly flushed and winded when they paused, by mutual consent, a short distance from Chad, at a point where the tall turrets and battlements became visible over the treetops.