Nor were matters improved when the present John, Baron De Forest, embraced the Lollard faith. Many who had until then been his best friends, became his fiercest enemies. His very servants, with but few exceptions, became spies upon him, and reported his heretical doings to the authorities of the church. But, nothing daunted, he continued to labor for the cause of the Reformation, fully anticipating a martyr's death, but unshrinking in the performance of every duty however perilous.
He had lost his wife shortly after the birth of his youngest son, and his two boys had grown up in close companionship with him, sharing his thoughts, his plans, his spiritual hopes and joys. Geoffrey, the elder, was now fourteen, tall and robust, with a body capable of bearing fatigue and exposure with impunity, and a soul fired with the very spirit of Lollardism.
Hubert, his brother, younger by nearly four years, was cast in a different mould. He had the delicate features and expression of his mother, the gentle Lady Margaret; and while Geoffrey's hair hung in thick, black curls over a low, square forehead, Hubert's high, fair brow, and gentle blue eyes, gave a pensive and retiring expression to his face. It was his dearest delight to pore over an old manuscript Bible which his father, with much difficulty, had procured, and to store his mind with chapter after chapter of its contents. He would sometimes obtain one of Wickliffe's tracts, which he loved to copy out for himself on parchment. Different as the boys were in dispositions, they loved each other with all their hearts; for, with no other playmates, and no mother's love to look to, they were naturally drawn nearer together than most children. Geoffrey, with all an elder brother's sense of responsibility and guardianship, reverenced in Hubert that love of learning which he did not possess; and Hubert looked up to Geoffrey, exulting in his superior strength and fearlessness. They were never long separated, each was unhappy without the other; so sometimes Geoffrey would leave his out-of-door sports to sit by his brother's side, and try to make out the crabbed letters in the big book; and sometimes Hubert would brave the storms and forests to keep Geoffrey company.
It was popularly said that Forest Tower might be divided into three parts, one above ground, one below ground, and one consisting of concealed chambers and passages. The rock upon which the castle was built contained many natural caverns, and these had been enlarged, and connected by artificial vaults, all extending many feet below the hall pavement, where the cheerful sunbeams had never penetrated, and where, at the time of the Norman conquest, many a Saxon had pined away his life. Besides this, there were fearful stories told by old women in the cottage chimney-corners, of rich Jews seized by the old barons of the forest in the reigns of John and Richard. It was said that those who passed near those vaults at night have heard shrieks for mercy, and cries of agony, and they might also see the ghosts of these unfortunate men wandering among the rocks, and seeking their stolen gold.
The barons took no pains to undeceive the people, for it was greatly to their interest to keep off curious and untimely visitors. During the perilous times of the Border warfare and civil wars, they had had occasion to build many secret retreats--some in the thickness of the massy walls, others in the adjacent rocks and concealed passages leading from the interior of the building far out into the open country in different directions. It was no wonder then that the ignorant peasantry thought they must be aided by supernatural powers, and attributed their miraculous appearances and disappearances to satanic agency.
During the preaching of Wickliffe, John De Forest had become convinced of the errors of the church, but had never taken any very active part in the Reformation, until Lord Cobham had sent a preacher, John Beverly, into the neighborhood, whose stirring appeals had aroused him to a sense of its importance. From that time he had become the most zealous supporter of Lollardism in the West. Refugees from every part of the country bent their steps toward Forest Tower, sure of a retreat in its many hiding places; communication by means of signals, known only to the initiated, was kept up with the principal reformers and preachers, and meetings for worship were frequently held in some of its largest vaults.
The reason why it had been exempted from the visitation of the law was partly on account of the ghostly legends connected with it, and partly on account of its well-known resources for defense or concealment. At the time of which we are writing, the archbishop had sent a band of men to scour the country for heretics, and spies abounded everywhere. Nevertheless, from far and near, the people had gathered, by twos and threes, for this great meeting held in the tower vaults.
CHAPTER III.
Forest Tower and its Inmates.
After the departure of the preacher, Lord Cobham was led up the stairs by his host to where a door in the wall revealed a small room, with a stone floor, and bed of straw.