The stranger, on his introduction, was received with some ostentation, and not a little ceremony.  They were evidently unknown to each other; but the keen glance of the abbot instantly detected the signal for some secret message.  Paslew was habited in the Cistercian gown, and scapulary of white cloth.  His eye was dark, but restless; his lips, drawn in, were narrow and compressed, showing the curbed impetuosity of his spirit.  Either as a churchman or a warrior, he seemed fitted for daring enterprise; yet was he of a wary and cautious bearing, a characteristic which his monkish education had in all probability thrown over his natural temperament.  The attendants having departed, the stranger drew an unsealed letter from his bosom.’

“A written message, my lord abbot, from the Abbot of Kirkstall.  ’Tis now for your reverence’s private regard, afterwards at your discretion.”  The abbot hastily glanced over this piece of quaint and formal latinity, occasionally darting a rapid and penetrating look at his visitor.

“He says not aught regarding so goodly a messenger,” said Paslew, carelessly.

“I should have marvelled if he had,” returned the other, with a contemptuous smile.  “He knew not of so important a personage when that epistle was elaborated from his pen.”

“How?” said the abbot, his features gathering into a portentous scowl.

“Nay, I beseech your reverence’s grace, that you throw off all such disturbed apprehensions; for in troth a messenger of my bearing and capacity were worth a knight’s ransom in these evil days, when the monks may not abroad with safety.”

“Speak out.  Remember I have yet the power to punish both insolence and treachery.”

The abbot’s lip curled upwards, pale and quivering with rage, not unmixed with apprehension.

“Grammercy,” said the stranger, with a provokingly careless expression of cool and contemptuous defiance—­“I cry you none—­I am at present nameless.  To work, to work, lord abbot.  Thou hast holden back too long; and there is a shrewd suspicion abroad of thine integrity in the good cause.  Hold!” said he, rising, as the reverend prelate was on the point of summoning his attendants; “I am not thy prisoner!  Impotent, I would crook my finger thus, and thou shouldest crouch at my bidding.  Nay, these be evil days, I say again; and more strange things may come to pass than bearding a lordly abbot in his den!”

Great was the astonishment of Paslew.  The stranger stood proudly erect; his arms were folded, and a withering glance shot from beneath his brows.  Even John Paslew, unused to a sense of inferiority before his fellow-men, felt cowed before him.  For the first time, in all likelihood, he knew not how or what to answer.  The stranger interrupted this painful silence.

“Since the monks are forbidden to be out a-gadding, the cowl and scapulary might have found some hindrance over the moors from Kirkstall.  With my hawk and bearing-pole, I can follow on to the sport without let or question.”  The latter part of this speech seemed to throw some light on the purpose for which this messenger had been selected.  Paslew was preparing for a further inquiry, when he was again interrupted.