“I shall not have forgotten,” spoke Dalaber, holding out his hand; “whenever the Brotherhood calls upon me it will find me ready.”

There was silence for a while, and then Dalaber looked up and asked: 

“What of Clarke, and Sumner, and others there?  Will they not help also in the good work?”

“Yes; but in a different fashion,” answered Garret.  “It is not given to all to serve alike.  Those men who dwell within college walls, overlooked by dean and warden, waited on by servants in college livery, bound by certain oaths, and hemmed about by many restrictions, cannot act as those can do who, like yourself, are members of the university, but dwellers in small halls, and under no such restraints.  Clarke has done great service, and will do more, by his teachings and preachings, which prepare the hearts of men to receive the good seed, and awaken yearnings after a deeper, purer, spiritual life than that which we see around us in those who should be the bright and shining lights of the day.  That is their work, and right well do they perform their tasks.  But to such as you belongs the other and arduous labour of receiving and distributing the forbidden books.  When the time comes, wilt thou, Anthony Dalaber, be ready?”

“I will,” spoke the youth in earnest tones; and it was plain that he spoke in all sincerity.

The position of students living in colleges and living in halls, as they were called, was, as Garret had said, altogether different.  Graduates and undergraduates of the colleges which had sprung up were fenced about with rules and restrictions which have been modified rather than changed with the flight of time.  But the hall of olden Oxford was merely a sort of lodging house, generally kept by a graduate or master, but not subject to any of the rules which were binding upon those students who entered upon one of the foundations.  Indeed, the growth of colleges had been due in great part to the desire on the part of far-seeing men and friends of order as well as learning to curb the absolute and undesirable freedom of the mass of students brought together at Oxford and Cambridge, and in the middle ages living almost without discipline or control, often indulging in open riots or acts of wholesale insubordination.

Anthony Dalaber was not at present a member of any college, nor even of one of the religious houses where students could lodge, and where they lived beneath a sort of lesser control.  He and Hugh Fitzjames, both of them youths of limited means, shared a lodging in a house called St. Alban Hall, and were free to come and go as they pleased, none asking them wherefore or whither.  He saw at once that what would not be possible to a canon of Cardinal College would be feasible enough to him and his friend, if Fitzjames should sympathize with him in the matter.  And, so far, he believed his friend was with him, though without, perhaps, the same eager enthusiasm.