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.
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