"
The prelate's heavy cheeks flushed with anger as this old
grievance came fresh into his mind. His eyes hardened as he
looked at the prisoner. "Tell me, Squire Nigel, did you indeed
put pike in the pond?"
The young man drew himself proudly up. "Ere I answer such a
question, father Abbot, do you answer one from me, and tell me
what the monks of Waverley have ever done for me that I should
hold my hand when I could injure them?"
A low murmur ran round the room, partly wonder at his frankness,
and partly anger at his boldness.
The Abbot settled down in his seat as one who has made up his
mind. "Let the case of the summoner be laid before me," said he.
"Justice shall be done, and the offender shall be punished, be he
noble or simple. Let the plaint be brought before the court."
The tale of the summoner, though rambling and filled with endless
legal reiteration, was only too clear in its essence. Red Swire,
with his angry face framed in white bristles, was led in, and
confessed to his ill treatment of the official. A second culprit,
a little wiry nut-brown archer from Churt, had aided and abetted
in the deed. Both of them were ready to declare that young Squire
Nigel Loring knew nothing of the matter. But then there was the
awkward incident of the tearing of the writs. Nigel, to whom a
lie was an impossibility, had to admit that with his own hands he
had shredded those august documents.
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