driven from their homes to beg or
to starve? Have not the houseless poor, whom we fed at our gates, and
lodged within our wards, gone away hungry and without rest? Have not the
sick, whom we would have relieved, died untended by the hedge-side? I am
the head of the poor in Lancashire, the redresser of their grievances,
and therefore I style myself Earl of Poverty. Have I not done well?"

"You have, lord abbot," replied Father Eastgate.

"Poverty will not alone be the fate of the Church, but of the whole
realm, if the rapacious designs of the monarch and his heretical
counsellors are carried forth," pursued the abbot. "Cromwell, Audeley,
and Rich, have wisely ordained that no infant shall be baptised without
tribute to the king; that no man who owns not above twenty pounds a year
shall consume wheaten bread, or eat the flesh of fowl or swine without
tribute; and that all ploughed land shall pay tribute likewise. Thus the
Church is to be beggared, the poor plundered, and all men burthened, to
fatten the king, and fill his exchequer."

"This must be a jest," observed Father Haydocke.

"It is a jest no man laughs at," rejoined the abbot, sternly; "any more
than the king's counsellors will laugh at the Earl of Poverty, whose
title they themselves have created. But wherefore comes not the signal?
Can aught have gone wrong? I will not think it. The whole country, from
the Tweed to the Humber, and from the Lune to the Mersey, is ours; and,
if we but hold together, our cause must prevail."

"Yet we have many and powerful enemies," observed Father Eastgate; "and
the king, it is said, hath sworn never to make terms with us. Tidings
were brought to the abbey this morning, that the Earl of Derby is
assembling forces at Preston, to march upon us."

"We will give him a warm reception if he comes," replied Paslew,
fiercely. "He will find that our walls have not been kernelled and
embattled by licence of good King Edward the Third for nothing; and that
our brethren can fight as well as their predecessors fought in the time
of Abbot Holden, when they took tithe by force from Sir Christopher
Parsons of Slaydburn. The abbey is strong, and right well defended, and
we need not fear a surprise. But it grows dark fast, and yet no signal
comes."

"Perchance the waters of the Don have again risen, so as to prevent the
army from fording the stream," observed Father Haydocke; "or it may be
that some disaster hath befallen our leader."

"N