“Thou mayst take me too,” said Cuthbert, as he stood before them, emerging from the curtained recess of the window with flashing eyes and burning cheeks, “for all that the Lord Abbot hath said, _I_ say also.” “Ah, thou young cockatrice, we see well what a dam hath hatched thee--another treason to the account of the wily priest here.” “Cuthbert,” said the Abbot, “thou art running into needless danger--God calls thee not to suffer.” “What is good for _thee_, Father, must be good for me also.” “We may as well take him up to town too,” said Master Pollard. “Nay, it is not our business,” said Layton; “if we arrested every young fool this traitor hath taught, we should go up to town with three hundred boys behind us, and should need their nurses to take care of them; the ground-ash were fitter for this young master’s back, but we have no time to waste on his folly, let us be moving, we have to search the chambers at the Abbey, perchance we may come across these papers.” Need we say they searched in vain. FOOTNOTES [12] The Abbot’s history is wrong, but he is under the belief that Joseph of Arimathæa founded Glastonbury Abbey, or at least first preached the Gospel on that spot. [13] See Note F. [14] This was actually the case. Henry would not allow his subjects the privilege of concealing their thoughts. It is scarcely possible now, to believe the fact that the treason statute touched the life and enacted the fearful penalties of high treason against all who would not admit and assent _in words_ to the royal supremacy; it made it treason not only to _speak_ against the king’s prerogatives, but even to “_imagine_” anything against them. “Malicious silence,” which was assumed to imply such evil _imaginations_, was to be interpreted as treason and punished by death. See Perry’s History of English Church, p. 112-3. CHAPTER V. _THE ROAD-SIDE INN._ The evening of Tuesday, the twelfth of November, in the year of grace fifteen hundred and thirty-nine, was closing in. The day had been very fine, such a day as we sometimes enjoy, even in November; the golden sunbeams had brightened the foliage which yet hung upon many of the trees of the forest, and turned the russet plumage into gold. Now and then, in the calm atmosphere, a leaf would flutter down, and break the oppressive silence of the forest of Avalon. It is broken more seriously; hark, that is the tread of many feet, and those voices are the voices of lads out for a day in the woods. See here they come into this lonely haunt, where no road or path exists, startling yon raven from his perch; see how sulkily he flies away, as if to say, “What right have these intruders here?” A large chestnut-tree has dropped its fruit on the ground, and amidst the dead leaves the lads are searching, and loading their pockets with the spoil; there are about twenty of them, evidently a band of the Glastonbury boys, and amidst them we recognise two old acquaintances, Cuthbert and Nicholas Grabber.