Geoffrey the Lollard

by Frances Eastwood

"Ay, thy life, and a gold angel to boot; but the truth first--where is the traitor?"

"Truly, my masters, may I never speak another word if I tell you false. It is always so; he has slipped away. He comes often to the Tower; but though I have watched the gates day and night, I have never seen him enter, or pass out. May the saints preserve me, but I believe it is an evil spirit, and not a man!"

The captain, finding he could gain nothing more from the fellow, ordered two men to guard the prisoner, and with the rest of the band, went to search the house, carrying the unwilling guide with them.

When they had gone, one of the guard took up the flagon, and, finding it empty, demanded with an oath where the heretic kept his wine. Sir John courteously directed him to the buttery; but scarcely had the man closed the door, when the prisoner sprang on his guard, and with one well-directed blow struck him senseless. He then lost no time, but stepping to the immense open fireplace, touched a spring at the bottom of the jamb. A little door, scarcely a foot wide, opened; he passed through; it closed upon him, and no one could have told where the apparently solid stones were joined. A moment later the soldier returned, but only to find the room vacant except for his groaning comrade.

His first impulse was to recover the stunned man by dashing the contents of a water-bucket in his face, and inquire what had become of the Lollard; but as he could only discover that his companion imagined himself to have been assaulted by the Evil Spirit the guide had spoken of, who had cast a spell upon him, he turned impatiently to the doors to summon assistance, but found them fast bolted on the other side.

"It is all witchcraft, I tell you!" exclaimed the half-stunned soldier, his teeth chattering both from fear and from the cold bath he had received. "If I had known it was the Devil the archbishop was chasing, I should have staid at home. I saw the fire flash from his eyes, and by my faith, he smelt of brimstone or ever I came in the room!"

When the captain of the band returned from his unsuccessful search for Cobham, and found that his guards had lost their prisoner and been locked up themselves, his wrath knew no bounds. He ordered the unlucky soldiers to be chained and guarded, and threatened them with hanging; and then proceeded to search the castle anew, stamping on every stone in the pavement, in hopes of discovering the spring of the secret doors with which he had heard the building was well supplied. He did indeed find several, and the infuriated soldiers sprang in with howls of delight; but it was all in vain; the cells, cut in the thickness of the wall, seemed to have no connection with each other, and were quite empty, except for some owls and bats, that, aroused from their sleep by the flash of the torches, hooted, and flapped their great wings in the men's faces, appearing very like the evil spirits that the invaders of their territory half believed they were.

At last wearied with their useless efforts, they all returned to the hall for a carouse, for which the well-filled cellars of the knight supplied abundant provision. They were all, the captain as well as his men, not a little superstitious; and they were only too glad to drown with wine the feelings of dread and uneasiness which the strange events of the day and the gloomy look of the old hall had occasioned. It was not long before the strong drink had done its work, and they had all sunk down in various attitudes of drunken slumber. The captain himself, who had been sitting in the knight's own chair and drinking from his silver cup, though rather stronger-headed than the rest, began to feel drowsy; and so, having thrown some fresh logs on the fire, and taken the precaution to draw the bolts of the doors and drag a heavy settle across each, he settled himself for a sound nap.

How long he slept he did not know; but his first sensation on waking was one of suffocation, and when he tried to raise his hands to discover the cause, he found they were tied behind him, and his mouth tightly bound with a cloth. He next discovered that he was stretched full length on one of the oaken benches and fastened to it, so that the only movement he could make was to roll a little on one side. Wide awake now, he immediately made use of this one privilege that was left him, and looked about the room. His companions were very much in the same condition as himself, but evidently perfectly unconscious of it. The fire had been newly built up and was blazing brightly, giving all the light that was needed, and, sitting in the arm-chair which he himself had so lately occupied, warming himself by the fire, sat the man he had been seeking, Cobham the outlaw, while Forest was sitting on a stool by his side watching some wine that was warming in the silver cup.

The soldier was almost beside himself with rage and mortification to see the man for whom, dead or alive, such large rewards were offered, sitting there as complacently as though he had not an enemy in the world, while he was unable to stir either hand or foot or to cry for help. For some time he lay there thus, rendered more furious, from time to time, by the grim smile that played on Sir John's face, whenever he turned it so as to encounter the enraged glances of the prisoner.