"Hush!" said Dick, full of importance from his newly-acquired diplomatic functions; "I'm message to the king yonder."
"Ill betides him that has need o' thee," said the boatman, surlily;—"come, jump in. They'd need of a hawk, marry, to catch a buzzard."
Just as Dick was preparing to step in, a low, slight-made figure passed by whom the boatman immediately challenged.
"Warwick!" said he, and would have passed on.
"Nay, nay," said Dick; "I'm Warwick, ma lad; there's no twa on us; they gied me that name i' the castle yon, just now. I'se butter'd if thou shall ha't too." Dick was a powerful fellow, and he collared the other in a twinkling. "Thou'rt a rogue, I tell thee, an' about no good; an' I've orders from the governor yonder to tak' thee. Bear a hand, boatie, and in wi' him. There—there."
Spite of his struggles and imprecations, the stranger was impounded in the boat, and Dick soon forced him to be quiet. They pushed off, and in a short time gained the other shore. Here Dick, with that almost instinctive sagacity which sometimes accompanies a disturbed state of the intellects, would not allow his prisoner either to go back to the island or remain in the boatman's custody, but secured him to his own person, setting off at a brisk pace towards the abbey. In vain the stranger told him that he had business of great moment at the castle; that he was a page of the court, and on the eve of a secret mission from the priest, who was now waiting for him with the despatches. Dick resolved, with his usual cunning it seems, to conceal his possession of these documents, and, at the same time, to prevent the real messenger from revealing the deception by his appearance at the castle.
It was past midnight; yet the abbot and several of the brethren were still assembled in close council. The importance of the events that were unfolding, and in which their own line of conduct was to be firmly marked out and adhered to, necessarily involving much deliberation and discussion, had kept them beyond their usual hour of retirement.
A bell rung at the outer gate, and shortly afterwards one of the brotherhood in waiting announced that two men were without, craving audience, and that one of them, when asked his name, answered "Warwick."
"Ah!" said the bewildered abbot, with a sudden gleam of wonder and gladness on his countenance—"does he come hither? then is our deliverance nearer than we hoped for, even from the special favour and interference of Heaven. Admit them instantly."
But in a little while the messenger came back in great dudgeon to say that the knave who had demanded admittance with such a peremptory message was none other than Dick Empson, the errand boy to the abbey. "What can possess him," continued the monk, "I greatly marvel; for he still persists in demanding audience, saying that he is 'Warwick.' He refers to some message from the castle with which he is charged, but he refuses to deliver it save into the hands of the reverend abbot himself. Furthermore, he has brought a prisoner, he sayeth, and will have him taken into safe custody."