wn
lieges. Such a one am I. Then again, there are those who take such as
me and transfer, carry or convey us into a bog or morass. Such a one is
this graceless old man with the ax, whom I have seen already this day.
There are also those who tear, destroy or scatter the papers of the law,
of which this young man is the chief. Therefore, I would rede you, dame,
not to rail against us, but to understand that we are the King's men on
the King's own service."

"What then is your errand in this house at this hour of the night?"

The summoner cleared his throat pompously, and turning his parchment to
the light of the cressets he read out a long document in Norman-French,
couched in such a style and such a language that the most involved and
foolish of our forms were simplicity itself compared to those by which
the men of the long gown made a mystery of that which of all things on
earth should be the plainest and the most simple. Despair fell cold upon
Nigel's heart and blanched the face of the old dame as they listened to
the dread catalogue of claims and suits and issues, questions of peccary
and turbary, of house-bote and fire-bote, which ended by a demand for
all the lands, hereditaments, tenements, messuages and curtilages, which
made up their worldly all.

Nigel, still bound, had been placed with his back against the iron
coffer, whence he heard with dry lips and moist brow this doom of his
house. Now he broke in on the recital with a vehemence which made the
summoner jump:

"You shall rue what you have done this night!" he cried. "Poor as we
are, we have our friends who will not see us wronged, and I will plead
my cause before the King's own majesty at Windsor, that he, who saw the
father die, may know what things are done in his royal name against the
son. But these matters are to be settled in course of law in the King's
courts, and how will you excuse yourself for this assault upon my house
and person?"

"Nay, that is another matter," said the sacrist. "The question of debt
may indeed be an affair of a civil court. But it is a crime against the
law and an act of the Devil, which comes within the jurisdiction of the
Abbey Court of Waverley when you dare to lay hands upon the summoner or
his papers."

"Indeed, he speaks truth," cried the official. "I know no blacker sin."

"Therefore," said the stern monk, "it is the order of the holy father
Abbot that you sleep this night in the Abbey cell, and that to-morrow