manor house has ever been a center for the stirring up of strife,
and now not content with your harsh showing toward us, the
Cistercian monks of Waverley, you have even marked your contempt
for the King's law, and through your servants have mishandled the
person of his messenger. For such offenses it is in my power to
call the spiritual terrors of the Church upon your head, and yet I
would not be harsh with you, seeing that you are young, and that
even last week you saved the life of a servant of the Abbey when
in peril. Therefore, it is by temporal and carnal means that I
will use my power to tame your overbold spirit, and to chasten
that headstrong and violent humor which has caused such scandal in
your dealings with our Abbey. Bread and water for six weeks from
now to the Feast of Saint Benedict, with a daily exhortation from
our chaplain, the pious Father Ambrose, may still avail to bend
the stiff neck and to soften the hard heart."

At this ignominious sentence by which the proud heir of the house
of Loring would share the fate of the meanest village poacher, the
hot blood of Nigel rushed to his face, and his eye glanced round
him with a gleam which said more plainly than words that there
could be no tame acceptance of such a doom. Twice he tried to
speak, and twice his anger and his shame held the words in his
throat.

"I am no subject of yours, proud Abbot!" he cried at last. "My
house has ever been vavasor to the King. I deny the power of you
and your court to lay sentence upon me. Punish these your own
monks, who whimper at your frown, but do not dare to lay your hand
upon him who fears you not, for he is a free man, and the peer of
any save only the King himself."