The boy opened his mouth to answer, looked blankly up into his questioner's face--then, as the swelling chant ceased suddenly in the choir beyond, rolled supinely on the stones at Sir Hereward's feet, in a deadly swoon. Through what remained of this awful Saturday, and through the startled hush of the Sunday following it, the boy kept his bed in a faint, drowsing languor, broken by fits of shuddering under the terror of evil dreams. Oft and again, the writing monks came in compassion to his bedside, but his shaken wits made of these visitors only black figures in the background of an endless scared vision of stark corpses, bearing blood-stained heraldic shields along the pages of his book. The second night came, and, lagging desperately through the long watches, stole off by a trick at last while the lad slept--so that he woke crowned as he lay with sunlight. The neglected book was in his thoughts first of all--and then came consciousness that he was better--and then, as he opened his eyes and blinked against the full light, he saw that Peter was in the room, bearing a steaming dish of broth. "Art fit for great news?" the Sacristan asked, roughly enough, but looking down upon the boy with a kindly light shining from under his gray, shaggy brows. "The Prince Richard--my Lord Duke of Gloster--hath sent hither for our best scrivener to attend him at the Tolzey, and Brother Thomas, conferring with the Abbot, hath nominated thee. Not that thou art our best, nor near it, but thy masters are in cowls and gowns, and since Saturday's sacrilege no monk may stir forth to serve the Princes or the King. Art fit for it?" Hugh sat up in bed, and put hand to brow, and smiled wistfully. "Aye, save for a foolish little wandering here," he made answer, "naught ails me now!" And for proof he seized the dish and buried his jowl in it. Peter strode up and down before the narrow casement, grumbling as his gown flapped about his heels. "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!"