“The Reverend Abbot,” answered Carleton, “will do the cause good service, I doubt not, in making clear for our Commissioners the substance of old scrolls and charters which they must study, and mayhap in inditing in fair Latin hand the articles which we present to the King. In his hands we may be sure the interests of his order, and particularly of the Abbey of Moberley, will not suffer. But I say ’tis well that we of the baronage have a representative of our own number who can see that this scroll, for which we risk our lives and fortunes, truly and amply provides for remedy of the wrongs we suffer.” “And _I_ say,” shouted Lord Esmond, springing to his feet the instant Carleton had finished, “that if we are to have a representative of our order in the inditing of this scroll, as my Lord Carleton says, we should have a representative indeed. De La Roche is a true man and a capable soldier, as none will deny; but we have here many lords and gentlemen of longer service and of purest Norman blood. The Knight of Grimsby, as all may know, is yeoman and Saxon born. Such a man, be he never so learned, must ever think as the folk from whom he sprung and can never rightly guard our rights and privileges.” For an hour we had debated of our wrongs and the measures that should put an end to them, each speaker being fiercely bent upon the thing that should lift the oppression that had borne most heavily upon him and caring little for aught else. But finally ’twas seen that the whole assembly could accomplish naught but argument and loud bickering, and that the writing of the scroll must be done by a few chosen men who should later bring their work before the whole body of leaders for their assent and undertaking. Two of the oldest of the northern leaders, the Baron De Longville and the Lord of Esmond, had been first named, then the learned and courtier-like Abbot of Moberley who was beneath the insurgent banner because of the King’s high-handed procedure in the matter of Moberley Abbey, where, during the absence on pilgrimage of the rightful holder, he had declared the abbacy vacant and conferred it with all its lands upon one of his shameless favorites from Normandy. A moment before, my own name had been added to the list in recognition of the services of the Western lords that had well broken the power of the King in all their countryside. Following Lord Esmond’s bitter speech, came shouts of approval from some of the other northerners; and it seemed like that my old friend and comrade would be deprived of the honor which Geoffrey of Carleton had sought to have conferred upon him. But the venerable De Lacey, long the Lord High Constable of England, and still a power in the land, though bent and snowy-haired with age, rose slowly to his feet and addressed the Marshal and the company: