o avail. As well take up sword and shield to defend
himself against the black death, as against this blight of Holy Church.
He was powerless in the grip of the Abbey. Already they had shorn off
a field here and a grove there, and now in one sweep they would take in
the rest, and where then was the home of the Lorings, and where should
Lady Ermyntrude lay her aged head, or his old retainers, broken and
spent, eke out the balance of their days? He shivered as he thought of
it.

It was very well for him to threaten to carry the matter before the
King, but it was years since royal Edward had heard the name of Loring,
and Nigel knew that the memory of princes was a short one. Besides, the
Church was the ruling power in the palace as well as in the cottage, and
it was only for very good cause that a King could be expected to cross
the purposes of so high a prelate as the Abbot of Waverley, as long as
they came within the scope of the law. Where then was he to look for
help? With the simple and practical piety of the age, he prayed for the
aid of his own particular saints: of Saint Paul, whose adventures by
land and sea had always endeared him; of Saint George, who had gained
much honorable advancement from the Dragon; and of Saint Thomas, who
was a gentleman of coat-armor, who would understand and help a person of
gentle blood. Then, much comforted by his naive orisons he enjoyed the
sleep of youth and health until the entrance of the lay brother with the
bread and small beer, which served as breakfast, in the morning.

The Abbey court sat in the chapter-house at the canonical hour of
tierce, which was nine in the forenoon. At all times the function was
a solemn one, even when the culprit might be a villain who was taken
poaching on the Abbey estate, or a chapman who had given false measure
from his biased scales. But now, when a man of noble birth was to be
tried, the whole legal and ecclesiastical ceremony was carried out with
every detail, grotesque or impressive, which the full ritual prescribed.
The distant roll of church music and the slow tolling of the Abbey bell;
the white-robed brethren, two and two, walked thrice round the hall
singing the "Benedicite" and the "Veni, Creator" before they settled in
their places at the desks on either side. Then in turn each high officer
of the Abbey from below upward, the almoner, the lector, the chaplain,
the subprior and the prior, swept to their wonted places.

Finally there c