news. The abbot and his brethren were in close council, expecting every moment the arrival of warders from the beacon.
They were hurried into the chapter-house, together with their prisoner, who had now taken to the sulks, refusing any reply to the numerous inquiries made by the servants who followed, eager for the final disclosure.
The room was lighted by a single lamp. Little of the interior was visible, save the grim and ascetic faces of the monks who sat nearest to the centre of illumination. Their features, in deep masses of alternate light and shadow, looked as if carved out, hard and immovable, from the oak wainscot. Occasionally, a dull roll of the eye relieved the oppressive stillness, and the gazer would look out from the mystic world he inhabited, through these loop-holes of sense, into the world of sympathies and affections, with which he had long ceased to hold communion.
Paslew was standing when they entered. His bushy grey eyebrows threw a strange and almost unnatural shade over the deep recesses beneath, across which, at times, like the foam swept over the dark billows of the spirit, a light and glowing track was visible, marking the powerful conflict within.
"Nicholas Dewhurst and Daniel Haydock."
He shaded his eyes from the light, as he thus addressed the foremost of the party who had just entered.
"From what quarter was the signal first visible?"
"My lord," said Dan, "we are but unworthy of your highness' grace, did we not answer truly."
"Quick!—Thou art slower to thine answers than thy words. Why tarriest thou?"
"If your highness will pardon"—
"What?" said Paslew, in a voice that made the culprits quake. "I pardon nothing. What means this silence?"
"Please your reverence," said Will, now advancing from the rear, his rhetorical flourishes somewhat curtailed, and his confidence thereby wonderfully abated, "the first signal was our own, lighted by an incendiary, to wit, and here we bring him to your highness' reverence for judgment. We ordered the rope and the broad beam to be ready by daybreak."
It were idle to paint the astonishment and dismay which this short narrative produced. Paslew immediately saw the dangers by which he was involved. He was, by this desperate and unfortunate act, at once committed to the measures from which he had hitherto kept aloof, and he must now stand foremost in the cause, or tamely submit to the infuriate vengeance which this overt act of rebellion would inevitably hasten. He had hoped that, sheltered in this quiet nook, he should escape without being made a party in the contest, and rest secure until hotter heads and lighter brains had fought the battles that would leave him in possession of the spoil. If the king's party were triumphant, he fancied that, by seeming to take little or no part in the hostilities then abroad, his house might be spared in the general wreck that would ensue; but all these schemes of deep-laid policy and ambition were in a moment dissipated. No time was to be lost. The whole country would instantly be in array, and the beacon-light of Pendle proclaim Paslew as the source and instigator of this second rebellion. It would be in vain to stay the rising. Some enemy of his house, or some desperate adventurer, wishful to further his own schemes at another's expense, was doubtless the author of this mischief. The whole was but the discovery of a moment. Almost before the dark thought was visible on the brow he cried out—
"Bring forward the traitor!"
But Ralph, on the first hearing of this accusation, strode forward, even to the table, where sat the awful conclave astonished at his temerity. He stood calmly erect, surveying his judges with a countenance scarcely moved from its usually hard and stolid expression.
"If it be true," cried he, "as these idlers do aver, I am here to answer. If it be false, they must look to it."
The abbot frowned at this presumptuous speech.
"Who art thou?"
"Marry, an ass ridden by fools."
"Knave, see thou be discreet and respectful in thine answers. There be whipping-posts for knaves, and stocks for the correction of fools."
"Why, if it be for the matter of my name, I trow, 'tis of an honest Christian-like and well-conditioned flavour; comes out of the mouth sharp as a beer-spigot. Men call me Ralph."
"And from whence?" said the abbot, impatiently.
"These knaves of thy breeding can tell best. 'Tis a road I never before travelled; and, by your grace's favour, I do not mean to jog on it again."
"He is servant to the stranger yeoman whom your worship entertained a few hours back, on some private errand," said one of the auditors.
A sharp guess at the truth raised a slight quiver on the abbot's lip. The conversation of the stranger, the anxiety he displayed, with that of his brother of Kirkstall, seemed to point out the source and cause of his disaster.
"Now, varlet, answer truly, or thou diest," said Paslew, with a significant shake of the finger. "At whose instigation hast thou committed this foul treason against our house, and the good prospering of this realm?"
"The deed was not mine."
"Believe him not, my lord—we are upon our testimony," said the accusers.
Ralph, turning aside, met them face to face. He commenced a short but shrewd examination, as follows:—
"You were a-watching, I suppose?" said he, carelessly.
"Ay, were we," sharply replied three or four ready tongues.
"Then, how could I fire the beacon without your leave?" A short pause evinced their dislike to this question; but Will, more ready than discreet, soon summoned assurance to meet the inquiry, thus—
"My lord, we had just taken them into the hut, thinking to show them a courtesy; but that knave's throat holds more liquor than his mother's kneading-trough, or"—
"If in the hut, how could I set the beacon in a low?"
"But thou hadst a companion," hastily shouted Nicholas, finding their first position untenable.
"And how comes it to pass that ye be taking or guiding thither any person, and more particularly wayfarers, whom we know not? How comes it, I say, that ye suffer this without my permission?" said the abbot, sternly.
"Will was their guide; and we cared not to refuse your reverence's messenger."
"My messenger!" returned Paslew, with a glance that almost bent them to the ground.
"Please your highness," said Will, falling on his knees, "the stranger was a-visiting of the beacons, so said he, to know if they were carefully watched. He came to me, as with an authority from your reverence, and I mounted them up to the guard-house, unwillingly enough. 'Tis a sore pull for a pair of shanks like mine."
The abbot now saw plainly into the machinations by which he had been betrayed, and reprimanding his men for their negligence, and so careless an observance of his commands, ordered them off severally to the stocks. Their lamentations were loud but unavailing, especially when they found that Ralph was simply dismissed, for a space, to solitary confinement.
Yet was Paslew still at a loss to determine whence this subtle device originated, unless from his brother of
