you be brought before him at the court held in the chapter-house so that
you receive the fit punishment for this and the many other violent and
froward deeds which you have wrought upon the servants of Holy Church.
Enough is now said, worthy master summoner. Archers, remove your
prisoner!"

As Nigel was lifted up by four stout archers, the Dame Ermyntrude would
have rushed to his aid, but the sacrist thrust her back.

"Stand off, proud woman! Let the law take its course, and learn to
humble your heart before the power of Holy Church. Has your life not
taught its lesson, you, whose horn was exalted among the highest and
will soon not have a roof above your gray hairs? Stand back, I say, lest
I lay a curse upon you!"

The old dame flamed suddenly into white wrath as she stood before the
angry monk: "Listen to me while I lay a curse upon you and yours!"
she cried as she raised her shriveled arms and blighted him with her
flashing eyes--

"As you have done to the house of Loring, so may God do to you, until
your power is swept from the land of England, and of your great Abbey
of Waverley there is nothing left but a pile of gray stones in a green
meadow! I see it! I see it! With my old eyes I see it! From scullion to
Abbot and from cellar to tower, may Waverley and all within it droop and
wither from this night on!"

The monk, hard as he was, quailed before the frantic figure and the
bitter, burning words. Already the summoner and the archers with their
prisoner were clear of the house. He turned and with a clang he shut the
heavy door behind him.

V. HOW NIGEL WAS TRIED BY THE ABBOT OF WAVERLEY

The law of the Middle Ages, shrouded as it was in old Norman-French
dialect, and abounding in uncouth and incomprehensible terms, in
deodands and heriots, in infang and outfang, was a fearsome weapon in
the hands of those who knew how to use it. It was not for nothing that
the first act of the rebel commoners was to hew off the head of the
Lord Chancellor. In an age when few knew how to read or to write, these
mystic phrases and intricate forms, with the parchments and seals which
were their outward expression, struck cold terror into hearts which were
steeled against mere physical danger.

Even young Nigel Loring's blithe and elastic spirit was chilled as
he lay that night in the penal cell of Waverley and pondered over the
absolute ruin which threatened his house from a source against which all
his courage was of n