“I see all that exactly,” cried Bertram, “and I will strive to keep it in mind.  I mislike the very name of Lollard, and I well know that they be a mischievous and pernicious brood, whom it were well to see exterminated root and branch.  Yet no man can fail to see that they love the Scriptures, and I felt they were in the right there.  Now I well see that they may love the Word as much as they will, but that they must still seek to be taught and fed by those who are over them in the Church, and not seek to eat and drink (in the spiritual sense of the word) at their own will and pleasure.  That is truly what the Church has ever taught, but I never heard it so clearly explained before.

“Come, Julian; the sun is losing much of its power now.  Let us stroll along the margin of the stream, and see where best we may fish upon the morrow.

“Edred, wilt thou come?  No; I thought not.  Thou art half a monk already.  We will leave thee with Brother Emmanuel to talk more on these hard matters.  I have heard enough to satisfy me, I shall never want to turn Lollard now.  The name was always enough, but now I see more and more clearly how wrong-headed and wilful they be.”

Julian, too, had got an answer that completely satisfied him, and he readily rose to go with his brother.  Those two found an hour or two of thought and study as much at a time as they cared for.  They called their dogs and sallied forth over the fields towards the shady, well-fringed river banks, and Brother Emmanuel was left alone with his second pupil, Edred, whose eyes were still fixed upon the black lettering of the great Bible open at the last passage under discussion.

The monk bent an earnest glance upon the boy’s face.  He saw that an argument which had completely satisfied the other two had not satisfied this other keener mind.  But he asked no questions, leaving the boy to speak or not as he chose.  These were days in which too much questioning was a dangerous thing.  Many men felt as though they were treading the crust of a volcano, and that a single unwary step might plunge them headlong into the burning gulf.

When even such a man as Bishop Peacock had been threatened with the stake, and sent into perpetual imprisonment, even after having “recanted” his errors, no wonder that all men holding broad or enlightened opinions trembled for themselves.  And yet, as thought will not be bound, and the young are ever the most ardent in the pursuit of truth, and the most impatient under the yoke of fetters unwillingly worn, so neither this young monk nor his still more youthful companion could be content to drift on without looking into the stirring questions of the day for themselves.

Edred’s mind at this moment was working rapidly and following up a train of thought as fascinating as it was new.  He suddenly turned back to the very beginning of the book, and began reading to himself some words he found there.  Presently he looked up quickly into his instructor’s face.