rocky valley. Tall black trees stood all round him, the vanguards of
the forest host.




CHAPTER III

HOLY THORN AND HOLY CHURCH


In South Morgraunt stands Holy Thorn, more properly the Abbey of Saint
Giles of Holy Thorn, a broad and fair foundation, one of the two set
up in the forest by the Countess Isabel, Dowager of March and
Bellesme, Countess of Hauterive and Lady of Morgraunt in her own
right. Where the Wan river makes a great loop, running east for three
miles, and west again for as many before it drives its final surge
towards the Southern Sea, there stands Holy Thorn, Church and Convent,
watching over the red roofs of Malbank hamlet huddled together across
the flood. Here are green water-meadows and good corn-lands, the abbey
demesne; here also are the strips of tillage which the tenants hold;
here the sluices which head up the river for the Abbey mills, make
thunderous music all day long. Over this cleared space and over some
leagues of the virgin forest, the Abbot of Saint Thorn has sac and
soc, tholl and theam, catch-a-thief-in, catch-a-thief-out, as well as
other sovereign prerogatives, all of which he owes to the regret and
remorse of the Countess Isabel over the death of her first husband and
only lover, Fulk de Breaute. Further north, in Mid-Morgraunt, is
Gracedieu, her other foundation--equally endowed, but holding white
nuns instead of white monks.