several courses of rubble-stone, ready to receive the grouting or
cement. Yet in one night was the whole mass conveyed, without the loss
of a single stone, to the summit of a steep hill on the opposite bank,
and apparently without any visible marks or signs betokening the agents
or means employed for its removal. It did seem as though their pathway
had been the viewless air, so silently was all track obliterated. Great
was the consternation that spread among the indwellers of the four
several clusters of cabins dignified by the appellation of villages, and
bearing, with their appendages, the names of Castletown, Spoddenland,
Honorsfield, and Buckland. With dismay and horror this profanation was
witnessed. The lord, more especially, became indignant. This daring
presumption--this wilful outrage, so like bidding defiance to his power,
bearding the lion even in his den, was deemed an offence calling for
signal vengeance upon the perpetrators.

At the cross in Honorsfield a proclamation was recited, to the intent,
that unless the offending parties were forthwith given up to meet the
punishment that might be awarded to their misdeeds, a heavy mulct would
follow, and the unfortunate villains and _bordarii_ be subject to such
further infliction as might still seem wanting to assuage their lord's
displeasure. Now this was a grievous disaster to the unhappy vassals,
seeing that none could safely or truly accuse his neighbour. All were
agreed that human agency had no share in the work. The wiser part threw
out a shrewd suspicion, that the old deities whom their forefathers had
worshipped, and whose altars had been thrown down and their sacrifices
forbidden, had burst the thraldom in which they were aforetime held by
the Christian priests, and were now brooding a fearful revenge for the
many insults they had endured. But the decree from the lord was hasty,
and the command urgent; so that a council was holden for the devising of
some plan for their relief.