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 no 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.
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