The half-written page of vellum on the table seemed to Hugh a living part of all this stirring new romance of blood and spark-striking steel. Almost it made a soldier out of him to touch it. The characters engrossed thereon by his own hand danced before his eyes—waved in his daydream like the motto on some proud knight's banner being borne forward to battle.
Suddenly the boy sat upright. Beyond question there was an unwonted noise, as of tumult, coming through the casement from the village without. He could distinguish the clanking of iron harness and weapons, the trampling of hoofs; and now—once! twice! a trumpet blast, rising on the air above the dull, vague rumble which bespeaks the assembling of a throng. He sprang to his feet, with the thought to climb the embrasure and look forth—and then as swiftly sat down again and bent over his work; the Chief Scrivener of the Abbey had entered the chamber.
Brother Thomas came slowly to the table—a good, easy man, whose fat white fingers knew knife and spoon now in these latter days much oftener than brush or pen—and glanced idly over Hugh's shoulder at the pages. Then he lifted the unfinished one, held it in the light to peer more closely, and sniffed aloud. Next he put his hand under Hugh's chin, and raised the boy's blushing face up till their glances met.
"What palsied spiders'-tracks are these?" he asked, holding out the vellum. "Art ill, boy?"
The gentle irony in his master's tone touched Hugh's conscience. He shook his head, and hung it, and kept a sheepish silence.
Thomas tossed the sheet upon the table, and spoke with something more of sharpness. "It is the mummers that have led thy wits off morris-dancing," he said. "These May-day fooleries stretch themselves out now, each year more, until no time at all is left for honest work. This it is I noted in thee yesterday, and marvelled at—when thou hadst ruled the lines bordering the painted initial letter with effect to cut off holy St. Adhelm's ear. Thy head is filled with idle sports and frolics outside. Happen his Lordship shall put them down now, once for all!"
Hugh's red face turned redder still, and when he would have spoken, his tongue was tied in confusion. Brother Thomas had unwittingly drawn very near to the truth of an awkward thing, the burden of which lay heavily on the boy's mind. In the next room, hidden but indifferently, were the fanciful garments which he himself had painted for the village morris-dancers a month before. They had been returned in privacy to him, and he had weakly pledged himself to trick them out anew against their coming use at Whitsuntide. This guilty secret it was that had preyed upon his peace, and robbed his hand of its cunning, ever since the masking dresses had been brought to him on yester-morning.
In any other year, he might have spoken freely to his master of this matter. But as evil chance would have it, on this very May festival, now two days gone—when in their pleasant wont the youths and maidens of Tewkesbury rose before cockcrow, and hied them to the greenwood with music and the blowing of horns, to gather haythorn branches and dell-flowers, to bathe their faces in the May-dew for beauty's sake, to shoot at target with Robin Hood, and dance their fill about Maid Marian—who but Brother Thomas should pass on his return from matins at Deerhurst cell, nodding drowsily with each movement of his patient mule? Hugh recalled with a shudder how some wanton ne'er-do-well had from the bushes hurled a huge, soft swollen toadstool, which broke upon the good monk's astonished countenance, and scattered miserably inside his hood. It was small wonder that from this Brother Thomas conceived sour opinions of May-day sports, and now hinted darkly that the Abbot should make an end to them. But as it stood thus, Hugh dared not speak concerning the morris-dresses, and so had hidden them, and now was sorely troubled about it all.
It may be that here, upon the moment, he would have broken silence with his secret, well knowing how truly gentle a heart had Thomas. But at this the door was flung open, and there entered Brother Peter, his gaunt gray poll shaking with excitement, his claw-like hands held up as one amazed, his eyes aflame with eagerness.
"Know ye what is come upon us?" he called out breathlessly. "The foreign woman—save her Grace, she that was—or is—Queen Margaret, I mean—is at our gates, and with her the Lord Duke Somerset, and her son the Prince Edward, and the great Earl's daughter, our Lady Anne, and with them a mort of lords, and knights, and men-at-arms—running now over every highway and lane inside Tewkesbury and out, taking to themselves roughly whatever eye likes or belly craves—swearing by the Rood they will have the Abbey down about our ears if we deny them or food or drink!"