"Nay, nay, not their murder," cried the bishop; "no one ever ventured to speak of their death. Even now, we know not that they are really dead; but I believe it. If you had said, I would not be consenting to their deprivation of their rights, you had been justified."
"'Tis the same thing," answered the woodman; "deposed princes live not long, where they have many friends in the realm they lose. However, committed to the Tower, and then to the custody of Buckingham, you found means to make of your jailor your friend, choosing dexterously a moment of disappointment to turn him to your purposes. I speak now only from hearsay; but, I am told, you two together framed a scheme for choosing a new king from the race you first served, and uniting him to the heiress of your second lord. It was a glorious and well-devised plan, worthy of a great statesman--ay, and of a christian prelate; for thereby you might hope to end for ever a strife which has desolated England for half a century--but rash Buckingham lost all at the first attempt. The scheme still lives however, I am told, though one of the great schemers is no more. The other walks here beside me, returned in secret to his native land, after a brief exile, and the question is, for what? Money, perhaps, or arms, or friends, I may be told. Yet he would linger still for some intelligence, even when his life is staked! Has he heard of machinations going on in Britanny, for the overthrow of all his plans, by the betrayal of him on whom their success depends? Has he heard of secret negotiations between the usurper and a feeble duke or his mercenary minister? Does he wish to obtain the certainty of such things? and is he willing to stake his life upon the chance of discovering the truth?"
He paused as if for an answer; and the bishop, who had been buried in deep thought--considering less the questions put and the tale told, for all that was speedily digested, than the character of his companion--replied at once--
"You are an extraordinary man, sir, and must speak from something more sure than a mere guess."
"Assuredly," replied the woodman, "I speak from calculation. He who, in the calm retirement of a lowly station, removed afar from his fellow men, has still a fair view of the deeds they do, can often, by seeing things hidden from the eyes of those who are near the scene of action, judge of the motives and the result, which the one part of those engaged do not know, and the other do not perceive. I once stood upon a high hill, while a battle raged at my feet, and could I have directed, with the prospect of the whole before me, I could have made either army win the field; for I saw what neither saw, and understood what neither understood. Thus is it with a man who stands afar from the troublous strife of human life, with his eye above the passions, the prejudices, and the vanities which more or less interrupt each man's vision on the wide plain of the world where the combat is going on. But yet you have not answered my question. Have I divined rightly or not?"
The bishop paused for another instant, and then replied--
"Why should I not speak? My life is in your hand. I can trust no greater thing than I have trusted. You are right. I have heard of these machinations; and I have laid my plans for frustrating them, or at least discovering them. My faithful servant, companion, and friend, who has accompanied me in all my wanderings, has gone on with Sir Charles Weinants even now; for that is the man who has been entrusted with many a secret negotiation between England and Britanny. He, my servant, will return in disguise to seek me at the abbey; and, if I should go before he arrives, I carry no definite information with me."
"You must go before he arrives," replied the woodman, "or 'tis likely you will not go at all; but you shall not go bootless.--Now let us be silent and cautious, for we are coming near more dangerous ground."
The hint was not lost upon the bishop, who, though bold and resolute, as I have shown, did not think it necessary to sport with life as a thing of no value. While this conversation had been taking place, they had traversed that more open space of forest ground, which has been mentioned, and were approaching a thicker copse, where sturdy underwood filled all the spaces between the larger trees. It seemed to the bishop, in the dimness of the night, that there would be no possibility of penetrating the vast mass of tangled thicket which rose sweeping up the side of the hill before his eyes; but still the woodman bent his step straight towards it, till at length he paused at a spot where there seemed no possible entrance.
"We are now coming near one of the wider roads of the wood," he said, in a whisper; "and the little path by which I will lead you runs within a hundred yards of it, for more than a mile. We must therefore keep silent, and even let our footfalls be light."