“Since you say he is here, you had better find him.” “He has not gone out by the back door,” said Grabber. “Or you would have grabbed him.” “Even so, with right good will.” They proceeded to search the house, but all in vain, and they were at length about to conclude that the boy had left the place before their entrance, when Grabber remarked to one of the constables, that he might be above the boards of the bedroom. “When we were schoolfellows,” he said, “I have often heard him say that very good apples were kept there.” “The boy has got the right sow by the ear,” says James Griggs, and followed by the others, he went upstairs again, whereupon the old lady began to cry. “Ah,” said Nicholas, “the scent is hot, the old lady gives tongue.” A board was withdrawn, chests piled beneath, and John Sprygs cried out, “Now, young Nick, you go and grab him.” “After you,” said Nicholas, who remembered the weight of his young opponent’s fist that night in the woods. John Sprygs mounted, and was no sooner in the loft than he cried,-- “The place is as dark as pitch, pass me up the torch.” “Nay! nay!” cried Giles Hodge, “the place is full of flax.” “We will take care of that; thou dost not want thy precious brat found.” Up went the torch which the men had brought with them, a flaring pine torch, to assist in the operations; in very wantonness Nick Grabber tossed it into the fellow’s hand, crying “Catch.” He missed it, and it fell into a heap of flax. The man started back to avoid the blaze which instantly sprang up, and so put the fire between him and the moveable planks--the only moveable ones--which served as a trap-door. “Come down, come down,” called out the appalled voices below. But the wretch could not face that sea of flame, until, maddened by desperation, he took a header as boys might say, at the opening through the fire, and falling head foremost on the bedroom floor, split his skull and died on the spot. The others could do nothing for him, the loft was one mass of flame, and shouting “Fire! Fire!” they ran to get water, in a vain attempt to save the cottage. But of this there was little hope; the roof was of thatch, and the building mainly of timber, so they saw in a few minutes that there was nothing for it but to help the aged couple to save their furniture. But what of Cuthbert? they had forgotten him, for the time, then they said,-- “The boy couldn’t have been there, nor in the house, or he would be driven from his hiding-place now. See how unconcerned the old man looks; he wouldn’t look so if his precious boy were in danger.” FOOTNOTES [22] Multiply by twelve for the modern equivalent. See Note H. [23] A priest of Chichester, named Christopherson, suffered death for saying that the king would be damned for the destruction of the monasteries. CHAPTER IX. _IN THE RUINS OF THE ABBEY._