"It was even with him," the Bishop said. "He seemed a worthy and a pious man and full of zeal for this see of Durham." "Well, you shall hear," the monk said. "I will wager he came with this advice—that you should lay hands upon the estates of the Young Lovell under a writ of sorcery, and so divide them between yourself and the Knights of Haltwhistle and Cullerford. Thus you should be beforehand with the Earl of Northumberland who would do as much for the King’s disgrace in these parts." "It was even that that he reded me do," the Bishop said. "He urged the see should gain much good land thereby." "And lose much worship," the monk said. "It is that that Sir Bertram wishes." "I can see as much as that," the Bishop answered. "And this Master Stone—who is an ill-looking man—never told me that the Young Lovell, as you say, was come again, but said that he was dead and that Cullerford and Haltwhistle, being by marriage his heirs, would very willingly divide with me. He was insistent with me to issue that writ this afternoon." "Well, it was a clever, foul scheme," the monk Francis said. "For well that bailiff knew the Young Lovell had been seen riding into Castle Lovell! Hard he has ridden here—if a lawyer can ride hard—to get that writ against the Young Lovell or ever we could come to you. So with that he would have earned great disgrace for you and this see. But what I would have you do is to confirm, as far as the see goes, that Young Lovell in his inheritance. So it will rest with the King, the Earl of Northumberland, and this Sir Bertram to dispossess him. And thus shall their names stink in the nostrils of all this country-side. For that young man is very beloved, by gentle and simple, having fought well against the false Scots at Kenchie’s Burn, as these eyes did see." The monk spoke long and earnestly in that sense; and indeed he had the right of it. There would have been none in that country that would not have cried shame on the Church for her greed, if the Bishop had divided these lands with foul knights like Sir Walter Limousin and Symonde Vesey and Vesey the outlaw and the Decies. But if the Bishop would confirm Sir Paris Lovell in the lands over which the see had rights and overlordships, great discredit would fall upon the Percy for having, in a Warden’s Court, essayed to ruin the Young Lovell on a false charge.