"Sacrilege! Sacrilege!" he sneered. "Well may the King laugh us to scorn as witless loons! For what is 'sacrilege' but a weapon forged by Holy Church to use against the laity, to our great profit and their uplifting? Yet here are we, turning its point upon our own throats! Because a little paltry blood was spattered in the porch—lo! for a full month now the Church must lie in penitential darkness, no matins, no masses, no vespers—until it be purified and newly consecrated. Was ever such madness? Here with mine own eyes have I seen the son of a king, he that was born Prince of Wales, shovelled into a grave in the choir without so much as a rush-light. The flags are all up for burials—the Earl of Devon, the Lord Wenlock, the Lord John Beaufort, and scores of knights and brave gentlemen brought to us by God's own hand—and yet we may not harvest so much as a penny for it all! Oh! senseless chapter, to decree such folly!"
Hugh had in swift silence dressed himself the while the old monk babbled, and stood now in all readiness. "I will to the scriptorium, good Peter," he said eagerly, "to bring ink and pens and paper, and then take orders from Brother Thomas for my going."
"Thomas thou may'st not see, nor any other," said the Sacristan; "each is in his cell, upon his knees, because of this same sacrilege, and there must stick for days!"
"But thou art here!"
"Oh, aye!" the old monk growled. "Belike I took the habit overlate in life to learn the trick of good, thick, solid praying. They set me now and again at small, light supplications, but when great things are besought, my help seems never needful. Moreover, I have the burials to order. A sweet task, truly! To be laying the bones of princes and lords in consecrated ground as thick together as rogues in the stocks at fair-time, and not the purchase of so much as a gum-wreath to show for it!"
The two walked through the long deserted corridor overhanging the cloisters, and entered the tenantless writing room. Naught had been touched since that fateful Friday night, when Hugh had written the letter for the strange knight. He recalled this now, as he took his inkhorn from the dusty table.
"Oh—tell me, Peter," he said, "saw you aught of the Devon gentleman—him to whom that letter was writ—he was in the Abbey when——"
"Aye, more than once. He was holding you in his arms when Thomas and I found you. A goodly youngster—a thought too hasty, it may be, but sound at heart. He hath promised a year's masses for the dead Earl of Devon, when things come right again. They were in some sort kinsmen. And I have sown in his mind pious thoughts of, moreover, rearing an altar-tomb in the Lady Chapel, with effigy and sculptured sides. Oh, aye—he had food from me yestere'en here in this very room, and so hotly pressed payment on me that——"
Even as the Sacristan spoke the veil of silence hanging like a pall over the Abbey was rent by a shrill, piercing shriek from the cloister-green below! Clambering to the table, and peering forth, Hugh saw the figures of men running along the vaulted walks, and of others, mailed, and with weapons, chasing them. From the church beyond proceeded a great tumult, with angry shouts, and the clashing of steel.
The King's word was broken. The fugitives were being dragged from sanctuary!