It may be that here, upon the moment, he would have broken silence with his secret, well knowing how truly gentle a heart had Thomas. But at this the door was flung open, and there entered Brother Peter, his gaunt gray poll shaking with excitement, his claw-like hands held up as one amazed, his eyes aflame with eagerness.
"Know ye what is come upon us?" he called out breathlessly. "The foreign woman--save her Grace, she that was--or is--Queen Margaret, I mean--is at our gates, and with her the Lord Duke Somerset, and her son the Prince Edward, and the great Earl's daughter, our Lady Anne, and with them a mort of lords, and knights, and men-at-arms--running now over every highway and lane inside Tewkesbury and out, taking to themselves roughly whatever eye likes or belly craves--swearing by the Rood they will have the Abbey down about our ears if we deny them or food or drink!"
While Peter's vehement tongue hurled forth these tidings, the man Thomas went pale with sudden concern for the great treasures and peace of the house; the boy Hugh rose to his feet, all the miseries of May-day and morris-garments clean forgotten, and only the inspiriting ring of steel on steel in his ears.
"Oh! may I run and behold the brave sight?" he prayed aloud, but Thomas held forth a restraining hand for the moment, and Hugh, much chafing, heard what further Peter had to tell.
The Abbot, and with him the heads of the Chapter, had gone to the gates, and by parley had warded off incursion. The Abbey servants, threescore in number, were bearing forth meat and bread and ale to spread on the ham by the mill for the famished Lancastrians, who had in these thirty hours marched from Bristol by Gloucester, through forest and foul by-ways, with scarcely bite or sup, and now ravened like winter wolves. There were stories that King Edward, in pursuit, had covered ground even more swiftly, and now was this side of Cheltenham, in hot chase. With this dread foe at their tail, the Lancastrian lords dared not attempt to ford the Severn, and so Queen, Prince, Duke, and all were halted up above the village on the high Gaston fields, and there would on the morrow give battle to King Edward.
"Oh! woe the day!" groaned Thomas, whose heart was in peaceful things. "How shall we escape sack and pillage--our painted missals and fair written tomes, our jewelled images, our plate of parcel-gilt, and silver-gilt and white, the beryl candlesticks, the mitres, monstrances, rings, gloves--wist ye not how after Wakefield's victory the Queen's men broke open churches, and defiled altars, from York along to London town?"