"
"Good!" cried the Abbot. "I would have three fish-stews in every
well-ordered house--one dry for herbs, one shallow for the fry
and the yearlings, and one deep for the breeders and the
tablefish. But still, I have not heard you say how the pike came
in the Abbot's pond."
A spasm of anger passed over the fierce face of the sacrist, and
his keys rattled as his bony hand clasped them more tightly.
"Young Nigel Loring!" said he. "He swore that he would do us
scathe, and in this way he has done it."
"How know you this?"
"Six weeks ago he was seen day by day fishing for pike at the
great Lake of Frensham. Twice at night he has been met with a
bundle of straw under his arm on the Hankley Down. Well, I wot
that the straw was wet and that a live pike lay within it."
The Abbot shook his head. "I have heard much of this youth's wild
ways; but now indeed he has passed all bounds if what you say be
truth. It was bad enough when it was said that he slew the King's
deer in Woolmer Chase, or broke the head of Hobbs the chapman, so
that he lay for seven days betwixt life and death in our
infirmary, saved only by Brother Peter's skill in the pharmacies
of herbs; but to put pike in the Abbot's pond--why should he play
such a devil's prank?"
"Because he hates the House of Waverley, holy father; because he
swears that we hold his father's land.
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