"He knew not of so important a personage when that
epistle was elaborated from his pen."
"How?" said the abbot, his features gathering into a portentous scowl.
"Nay, I beseech your reverence's grace, that you throw off all such
disturbed apprehensions; for in troth a messenger of my bearing and
capacity were worth a knight's ransom in these evil days, when the monks
may not abroad with safety."
"Speak out. Remember I have yet the power to punish both insolence and
treachery."
The abbot's lip curled upwards, pale and quivering with rage, not
unmixed with apprehension.
"Grammercy," said the stranger, with a provokingly careless expression
of cool and contemptuous defiance--"I cry you none--I am at present
nameless. To work, to work, lord abbot. Thou hast holden back too long;
and there is a shrewd suspicion abroad of thine integrity in the good
cause. Hold!" said he, rising, as the reverend prelate was on the point
of summoning his attendants; "I am not thy prisoner! Impotent, I would
crook my finger thus, and thou shouldest crouch at my bidding. Nay,
these be evil days, I say again; and more strange things may come to
pass than bearding a lordly abbot in his den!"
Great was the astonishment of Paslew.
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