While Peter's vehement tongue hurled forth these tidings, the man Thomas went pale with sudden concern for the great treasures and peace of the house; the boy Hugh rose to his feet, all the miseries of May-day and morris-garments clean forgotten, and only the inspiriting ring of steel on steel in his ears.
"Oh! may I run and behold the brave sight?" he prayed aloud, but Thomas held forth a restraining hand for the moment, and Hugh, much chafing, heard what further Peter had to tell.
The Abbot, and with him the heads of the Chapter, had gone to the gates, and by parley had warded off incursion. The Abbey servants, threescore in number, were bearing forth meat and bread and ale to spread on the ham by the mill for the famished Lancastrians, who had in these thirty hours marched from Bristol by Gloucester, through forest and foul by-ways, with scarcely bite or sup, and now ravened like winter wolves. There were stories that King Edward, in pursuit, had covered ground even more swiftly, and now was this side of Cheltenham, in hot chase. With this dread foe at their tail, the Lancastrian lords dared not attempt to ford the Severn, and so Queen, Prince, Duke, and all were halted up above the village on the high Gaston fields, and there would on the morrow give battle to King Edward.
"Oh! woe the day!" groaned Thomas, whose heart was in peaceful things. "How shall we escape sack and pillage—our painted missals and fair written tomes, our jewelled images, our plate of parcel-gilt, and silver-gilt and white, the beryl candlesticks, the mitres, monstrances, rings, gloves—wist ye not how after Wakefield's victory the Queen's men broke open churches, and defiled altars, from York along to London town?"
"Hast but a poor stomach for war times, good Thomas!" said the lean and eager old Brother Sacristan, in a tone spiced with sneering. "Who talketh of Wakefield? Who hath promised victory to these ribald Devon louts? On the morrow, we shall see them cast off their coats to run the better. Our stout King Edward hath never lost fight or turned tail yet. Shall he begin now?"
The old monk had not forgotten the deep Yorkist devotion in which his hotter secular youth had been trained, and his eyes sparkled now at thought of how true a fighter King Edward really was. No such fire of remembrance burned within Thomas, who none the less accepted the proffered consolation.
"Of a certainty," he admitted, "the King hath won all his battles heretofore. Doubtless he hath the close favor of the saints. I mind me now of his piety—how that he would not be crowned on the day appointed, for that it was Childermas, and the Holy Innocents might not be thus affronted. Thus do wise and pious kings and men"—Thomas lifted his voice here, and glanced meaningly at Hugh—"win Heaven's smiles, and honor fitly the anniversaries of the year—not by dancing and mumming in the greenwood."
"I ween that in this game now forward, hard knocks will serve King Edward more than all his holiness, good Thomas," said Peter, who, coming to the Abbey late in life, brought some carnal wisdom along in his skull. "And this more—mark thou my words—when all is still again the Abbey will be the richer, not the poorer, for it all."
"How wilt thou make that good?" asked Thomas. "At best, this beef and ale must be at our cost—and the worst may more easily come to pass."
"Hast forgotten the funerals?" said Peter, dryly, with a significant nod towards the door beyond. Then, noting no gleam of comprehension on the faces of the others, he strode to this door, and threw it open. Within, in the half light, they could see through the narrow archway the dim outlines of rich banners standing piled against the walls, and candles heaped on chests of vestments, and velvet palls.