prowess were brought back to her, of his daring as a rider, of his
debonair courage, of his skill with all weapons; but still she,
who had both husband and son torn from her by a bloody death,
could not bear that this, the last of the Lorings, the final bud
of so famous an old tree, should share the same fate. With a
weary heart, but with a smiling face, he bore with his uneventful
days, while she would ever put off the evil time until the harvest
was better, until the monks of Waverley should give up what they
had taken, until his uncle should die and leave money for his
outfit, or any other excuse with which she could hold him to her
side.

And indeed, there was need for a man at Tilford, for the strife
betwixt the Abbey and the manor-house had never been appeased, and
still on one pretext or another the monks would clip off yet one
more slice of their neighbor's land. Over the winding river,
across the green meadows, rose the short square tower and the high
gray walls of the grim Abbey, with its bell tolling by day and
night, a voice of menace and of dread to the little household.

It is in the heart of the great Cistercian monastery that this
chronicle of old days must take its start, as we trace the feud
betwixt the monks and the house of Loring, with those events to
which it gave birth, ending with the coming of Chandos, the
strange spear-running of Tilford Bridge and the deeds with which
Nigel won fame in the wars. Elsewhere, in the chronicle of the
White Company, it has been set forth what manner of man was Nigel
Loring. Those who love him may read herein those things which
went to his making. Let us go back together and gaze upon this
green stage of England, the scenery, hill, plain and river even as