"’In the year of Xt. jhu MCCCCLXXXV This tower was builded by Sir Henry Percy The IV. Earl of Northumberland of great honour and worth That espoused Maud the good lady full of virtue and beauty ... Whose soule’s God save.’" "That shall be set up," the monk said. "Then," John Harbottle said, "there is this you may do to convenience me who have been your favourer in all things. That you may the earlier come to it, read you this paper which I have written out, but in English, for I have no Latin beyond mass-Latin." "What we may do to please you," the monk said, gravely, "that we will, if it be not to the discredit of God." "It is rather to His greater glory," the esquire said. So the monk took the paper and read: "The Prior of Belford, Patent of XX merks by yere. Henry Erle of Northumberland...." The monk glanced on, and his eye fell upon the words, "myn armytage builded in a rock of stone against the church of Castle Lovell," and, later on ... "the gate and pasture of twenty kye and a bull with their calves sukyng,"—"One draught of fisshe every Sondaie in the year to be drawen fornenst the said armytage, called the Trynete draught...." The monk looked up over his shoulder at the esquire. "I perceive," he said, "that you would have us to take over the commandment of my Lord’s hermitage at Castle Lovell." John Harbottle looked down a little nervously at his hands. That was what he sought. "I have heard that the holy hermit is dead?" the monk asked. "It is even that," John Harbottle said. "I am worn with the trouble of riding over from Alnwick to Castle Lovell. It is a great burden, yet there is the hermitage that must be kept up for the honour of the Percies." "That," the monk said, "was because it was esteemed a privilege to house a holy anchoret." "Then," John Harbottle asked, "may not my lord save his soul as well by making your brotherhood a payment to watch over the holy man?" "I am not saying that he may not," the monk said. "Then of your courtesy, do this for me," John Harbottle said, "for it is a troublesome matter. This last year, once a month, news has been sent me that this holy man was dead. Then I have ridden over to Castle Lovell and lost a day, calling into the hole in his cell to see if he would answer ’Et cum spiritu tuo,’ as his manner was. And, after a whole day lost, he will answer; or maybe not till the next day, and there are two days lost when I should be getting rents or going upon my lord’s business. And I am not the man to have much dealing with these holy beings. A plain blunt man! It gives me a grue to be thus calling in at a little hole. And the stench is very awful. I do my duty by the blessed sacraments on Sundays and feast days. And if he be dead, I must find a successor. It will not be very easy for me to find a man to go into that kennel and be walled up. And never again to come out...." The monk looked again at the paper with the particulars of the gift.