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Updated: June 10, 2025
Thus the adventures of Warbel, and his strange midnight visit to their bedchamber, had never been told to Sir Oliver or his wife. All they knew was that the man had taken refuge from the anger of the Lord of Mortimer in one of their woodmen's huts.
At one end of the long board sat the knight and his lady side by side; to their right were the three boys, the young monk, and Warbel the armourer, who now held a post of some importance in the house.
Later on, when all hue and cry after the missing man was over, and when Lord Mortimer's young kinsman was so far recovered that it would be impossible to summon Warbel for any injury inflicted on him, Bertram conducted him to the hut of one of his father's woodmen, who promised to keep him safe till the return of the knight.
Perhaps it was the memory of those spiteful and malicious glances bent upon his preceptor by Brother Fabian that suggested to Edred upon the day following to pay a visit to the secret chamber that had once before so well sheltered a helpless fugitive. The secret of that chamber still remained with the three boys and their faithful esquire, Warbel.
"It doth get very hot here in the summer days," he remarked, "and in especial at this end of the room, where it abuts upon the leads. It is cooler yonder, but then it is also darker. The air and the light come in at this side, but so does the heat likewise. And how thirsty one gets, too! My throat is parched and dry. I mind me how poor Warbel suffered in like manner when he was here.
It would be an excellent thing in his eyes to show how mine own children had stood up to defend a Lollard heretic. I would we knew something more anent this man and his views. "Warbel, didst thou know him? Is he anyone known in and about Chad?" "I never saw his face before, sir," answered Warbel. "I know not so much as his name. I had thought of making some inquiries of the village folks.
He was half afraid of allowing himself to think too much on such themes, and went in search of his brothers. He found Warbel looking out for him in some anxiety. He had missed the boy for some little while from his charge, and as the field was filling fast with followers and servants wearing the Mortimer livery, he was glad to have the three boys all together beneath his care.
The existence of the secret chamber was not known even to their father. Not a soul in the house or in the world knew of it save the three brothers and Warbel. Warbel was absolutely to be trusted.
Shouts and yells were filling the air, the voices being those of Mortimer's following. "A Lollard, a Lollard! A heretic! Down with him! Away with him! To the fire with him! A Lollard, a Lollard!" A deep flush overspread Edred's face. He made a spring forward; but Warbel laid a detaining hand upon his arm. "It is no case for us to interfere in," he said, with clouded brow.
But Warbel was made very anxious by the words he heard openly spoken on all sides, and he would have given much to have hindered this act of Bertram's, generous and manly though he knew it to have been. "It is ill work drawing down the charge of heresy," he remarked, as he got the boys at last in full march homeward.
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