charge a quantity of his
pernicious books, which doubtless you have assisted him to
distribute amongst other students, so spreading the poison of
heresy in our godly and obedient university, and seeking to turn it
into a hotbed of error and sin."

Dalaber made no response, but his heart beat thick and fast. It
seemed as though all were indeed known.

"Speak!" thundered Dr. London, now breaking in with no small fury;
"what have you to say to such a charge?"

"I have known Master Garret, it is true," answered Dalaber, picking
his words carefully. "He is an ordained priest in the church. He is
a godly man--"

"Peace!" roared the angry warden; "we are not here to bandy words
with you, Anthony Dalaber. We know what Thomas Garret is, and so do
you. Have a care how you provoke us. He was known to be with you
the night that he escaped first from Oxford. He is known to have
been in your chamber yesterday, ere he slipped away for the second
time. Do you dare to deny it?"

Dalaber looked with quiet firmness into the angry faces that
confronted him.

"Master Garret visited me yesterday," he answered quietly, "and
went forth from my chamber after a short while, when we had offered
prayer and supplication there together."

"And whither went he?"

"I know not, unless to Woodstock, where he spoke of having a friend
among the keepers," answered Dalaber, repeating the fiction he had
spoken to the prior.

"Tush!" cried the commissary angrily; "right well do you know that
you went with him, and kept company with him through the night.
Your shoes and your hosen show as much. You have been companying
with him for many a mile upon the way. You have not been in bed all
night. We were in your room before daybreak, and you were not
there."

"I abode last night with Master Fitzjames, my former comrade, in
our old lodging at St. Alban Hall," answered Dalaber readily, "and
that can be proven of many witnesses. Neither did I go forth with
Master Garret when he left. I came to St. Frideswyde for evensong,
and there I saw you, Mr. Commissary, and you, Dr. London, enter to
speak with the dean. And I did well guess that you had come to tell
him of the escape of Master Garret, of which he had spoken with me
a short while before."

It was perhaps not a very politic speech on Dalaber's part. The
three men turned angry and threatening glances upon him.

"You knew that that pestilent man was being sought for, and had
escaped out of our ha