“Thou dost understand me, my son?  I may trust thee?  Remember that thine own father’s welfare may be imperilled by the veriest trifle should men suspect him of striving to outwit the prior.”

Edred’s eyes expressed a great comprehension and sympathy.  He took his mother’s hand and kissed it, slightly bending the knee.

“Thou mayest trust me, sweet mother,” he answered.  “Methinks I know well all thou wouldst say.  I will be cautious, and I will teach caution to Julian.  No harm shall come to any beneath this roof from word or deed of ours.”

And then the lady went to her delayed household duties, whilst Edred went in search of his brother, to take him to the room where their studies were usually prosecuted, that the household wheels might revolve after the accustomed manner.

But Julian was nowhere to be seen.  Edred sought him and called him lustily, till at length the old seneschal at the gate heard him, and informed him that his brother had gone a short distance on foot with the travellers, but that he would doubtless be back ere long.

Julian was light and fleet of foot as a deer, and often ran for many miles beside his father’s charger, the nature of the wooded country round Chad giving him many advantages.  Edred wandered forth a little way to meet him on his return, and was presently aware of a cowled figure standing close against a great beech tree, and so motionless and rigid was the attitude that the boy had to look somewhat closely to be certain that it was not a part of the tree trunk itself.

He paused and examined the figure with an intense curiosity not unmixed with suspicion.  His own light footfall did not appear to have been heard, and the motionless figure, partly concealed behind the tree, remained in the same rigid attitude, as though intently watching some approaching object.

For a moment a superstitious thrill ran through the boy’s frame.  He had heard stories of ghostly visitants to these woods, some of which wore the garb of the monks of the neighbouring priory; but he had never seen any such apparition, and would not have thought of it now had it not been for the peculiar and unnatural quietude of this figure.  As it was, he paused, gazing intently at it, wondering if indeed it were a being of flesh and blood.

He was just summoning up courage to go forward and salute it, when it moved forward in a gliding and cautious fashion.  Edred felt ashamed of his momentary thrill of fear, for he recognized at once the awkward gait and rolling step of Brother Fabian, and knew that his preceptor’s bitterest foe was lingering in the precincts of his home.

Resolved not to be seen himself, the boy sprang up a neighbouring tree as lightly as a squirrel, and from that vantage ground he saw that his brother Julian was approaching, and that the monk had stepped out to greet the lad.  He heard the sound of the nasal tones, so different from the refined accents of Brother Emmanuel.