So, having brought John Harbottle in, he sat himself down on his three-legged stool of wood before his double pulpit. This had in its side a round opening, and in the interior such books, papers, or parchments as the monk Francis had in immediate use. He was of a very orderly nature, rather like a soldier than a priest. He reached into the inside of his pulpit for his parchment that he was to peruse with John Harbottle, and that esquire stood behind him leaning over his back. Then John Harbottle said: "Meseems the Master of Lovell has come back?" "That I hear," the monk Francis answered. "I think there is heavy trouble in store for him," John Harbottle said. "I think there is but little," the monk answered. John Harbottle meant that the Earl Percy, in the Border Warden’s Court, had given judgment against the Young Lovell. The monk meant that the religious of that countryside were not best pleased with the Earl Percy; they considered that sorcery was a matter for the courts ecclesiastical. But each was a man of few words, and without any more, the monk Francis unfolded his parchment. They went to their accounts, John Harbottle standing behind the monk and checking each item as he read it: "And in the like payment of money to the prior of the house of the Brethren of St. Cuthbert, within the parish of Belford, near the wood called Newlands, for this year, (as well for that part of the work of the new tower there as for the carriage of stone and other stuff by the contract, in gross) 100 shillings...." The Earl was giving the tower to the monks, they employing two contractors called Richard Chambers and John Richardson to build it for them and the Earl paying the accounts. "Just!" John Harbottle said, and the monk read on— "Carting four loads of lead, 24s. 6d.; bought eight loads of stone, 10d.; iron, with the workmanship of the same, for the doors and windows, 8s.; bought seven locks 4s. 2d., with keys; six latches 12d.; and snecks and other iron 4s. 2d...." So the monk read on, and the receiver nodded his head, saying, "Just." Once he said— "I wish I could have things so cheap for my lord." "Then," the monk answered, "you must haggle as I do and in God His high service." So they made out between them that all these things, and making the arch between the great chamber and the tower came to £10 6s. 4d., and since they owed Robert Chambers and John Richardson already £17 13s. 4d., the whole payment then to be made was £27 19s. 8d. The esquire, John Harbottle, pulled his money bag from beneath his girdle and counted out the money, throwing it on to the bed, for there was no table in that cell. Then he drew from his belt two papers and so he said: "My lord will have you buy from Christiana Paynter the armorial bearings of my lord to set up upon the tower, and that shall cost you 3s. And this you shall have carved upon the same stone: