The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan

ing so that he, the active one, had always much upon his hands. But all such time as he could save from his duties he devoted to praying for the soul of the cousin he had slain by misc

t of the sun and the dry clear nights. So that it was considered that the saints must be blessing that part. Nevertheless, these naughty bondsmen, owing some three, some five days' labour of themselves and their wives and children to the monastery, must needs always be seeking to slip away to their own lands and doing their scythe work there. This they would do, if no monk watched them, though by so doing they robbed the monastery and went in danger of excommunication. But those, a

isting the monk Oswald to write-all of them searching here and there-than by the work done by their bondsmen, the good es

or Asser from Vergil and Flaccus. But, in those days, the Prior had over-ridden them, pointing out that this novice was very wealthy; that their kitchen and dinner tables were in a sad state, that they had no longer money enough to pursue, upon a princely scale, the succouring of the poor that sat upon their benches, and that they could with the greater serenity pursue their studies and sleep after meat, if they had amongst them a

bars of iron and other weapons that drew no blood, those being, according to the canon, the proper arms for churchmen. These haughty monks accepted this Francis, who was known to the world as Sir Hugh Ridley, to be o

lazy band. Thirty men-at-arms they had for their protection under the leadership of a knight, Sir Nicholas Ewelme, and they afforded shelter and victuals for 136 poor men, each of the seventeen monks being the patron of eight of them. These poor men sat in the sun on benc

low leather were bringing in sacks and baskets. These sacks and baskets, as the monk Francis knew from the dress of those peasants, contained ammunition, small round balls of lead or, in the alternative, well-round

rds that came out of the chambers in the arch starting to pick up the balls. And the monk Francis smiled to think how universal is the desire in men to help in picking up small, round objects that fall out of a sack. So that if the false Scots had been minded to take that place,

ed that it was said that the young Lord Lovell had been seen, having come out of captivity of the false Gilbert Elliott. The monk said he hoped well that that was

ith the accounts for the building of the great new tower that the Earl had given to the monastery. But the former men of the Lord Lovell crowded before the monk and after him into his outer room, all bringing tidings th

tery was rather for the relief of poor men ruined by raiders, for travellers and for criminals seeking sanctuary. He would very gladly have had news of his friend whom he loved, and have settled the disposal of these sturdy, idle and hungry men. Yet, being a man of many affairs, he thought that the day could only be got through by doing all things

ed and dirty lay brother, he bade him drive out the rest and bar the door. And so he took John Harbottle by the slee

r the repair of his clothes. Beneath this shelf was a curtain, and this hid the spare garments of the monk, as the vestments in which he said the simpler offices, his spare breeches, stockings, braces, and belt. At the other side of the bed head was a large crucifix of painted wood, from which there hung Our Lord who was represented a

unhanselled soul than with agonies of ecstasy. And so, with a strong will he prayed, year in, year out, fo

le pulpit. This had in its side a round opening, and in the interior such books, papers, or parchments as t

at he was to peruse with John Harbottle, and that esquire sto

ster of Lovell

" the monk Fr

trouble in store for h

nt that the religious of that countryside were not best pleased with the Earl Percy; they considered that sorcery was a matter for the courts ecclesiastical. But each was a man of

year, (as well for that part of the work of the new tower there as for the carriage of stone and other stuff by the contract, in gross) 100 shillings...." The Earl

bottle said, and

the same, for the doors and windows, 8s.; bought seven locks 4s. 2d., with keys; six latches 12d.; and

he

have things so c

"you must haggle as I do an

eat chamber and the tower came to ￡10 6s. 4d., and since they owed Robert Chambers and

beneath his girdle and counted out the money, throwin

his belt two pap

bearings of my lord to set up upon the tower, and that shall c

ar of Xt. j

s builded by

rthumberland of gr

the good lady full

soule's

be set up,"

en your favourer in all things. That you may the earlier come to it, read you this p

monk said, gravely, "that we will, i

is greater glory,"

took the pap

armytage builded in a rock of stone against the church of Castle Lovell," and, later on ... "the gate and pasture of twenty kye and a bull wit

p over his should

have us to take over the commandment of

little nervously at his han

he holy hermit is de

riding over from Alnwick to Castle Lovell. It is a great burden, yet th

cause it was esteemed a privil

rd save his soul as well by making your brot

that he may not

piritu tuo,' as his manner was. And, after a whole day lost, he will answer; or maybe not till the next day, and there are two days lost when I should be getting rents or going upon my lord's business. And I am not the man to have much dealing with these holy beings. A plain blunt man! It gives me a g

at the paper with the

this thing it is upon me that the pain and labour will fall, for there is none else in this monastery to do it. So I must go over to Castle Lovell once by

it," John Harbottle said, "that is a g

ddition to the grassground, the garden and orchard at Conygarth, the pasturage of kine, bulls, horses and the drau

eant," John Harbottle ans

t this gift. For the monastery must lose so much of my time and prayers, though, God knows, those are little wor

beneath his breath, and then he sigh

my fisshyng of Warkworth, by thands of my fermour of the same for the tyme beynge, yerly at the times there used and accustomed to, even portions. In wytnes whereof to these my letters pa

o relieve you of travels and the fear of a holy man, having no advantage myself and seeking none, since I am a monk, so I will take it as a kindness if you will do, for my sake, wh

espouse that lording's cause it would be a good thing for the Percy to be advised to let him be, and this monk had great voice with the lower order of people whom the Earl had

nour in heaven by reason that a man be found to be walled up in a space

nd the penalty for such conversation is that at every Easter and high feast I must stand beside the high altar, in

heretic and no more than a plain, blunt man. A

kett. For he was not able to move his foot from his bed or put his hand to his mouth or perform any bodily function. And so, in a dream he was bidden to go to your Abbey of the Premonstratensian Brotherhood and the foot of Simon de Montfort should cure him. Which, when it was known to the canons, there serving God, in order that this merchant might approach more easily-for as yet he heavily laboured in his lameness-and lest he should suffer too much, two of them brought it reverently to him, in its silver shoe. But, before

the Church and more particularly of the Bishop Palatine with whom these monks had a great friendship. And this not only in the matter of the Young Lovell, where the Earl h

hey have St. Guthric, and in Newminster the zone and mass-book of St. Robert, and in Blondeland the girdle of St. Mary the Mother of God. And all these cure, according to their marvellous faculties, the halt, the blind, those who have the shaking palsy and those with the falling sickness. And in Hexham they have the Red-book of Hexham, and at Tynemouth they ha

pushed it ajar. They heard immediately a great outcry from beyond and the lay brother whispered that

s not much beloved by the Lovell men-at-arms, and the monk Francis feared that they might offer him some violence now that their spirits were inflamed, and their stomachs rendered proud and rebellious by the return of their lord who should take them into his service aga