Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
Now she was a ghost with a dowry; stricken, but holding a fief. He judged the chain, the time, the place, the chances. He had three men. It was enough. Next Sunday he would act. Then for the forest roads and High March! That next Sunday was Lammas Day and a solemn feast. All Malbank was in the nave, a beaten and weather-scarred bundle of drabs packed in one corner under the great vaulting ribs.
Now it so happened that as Prosper le Gai entered the purlieus of Morgraunt, the Countess Isabel sat in the Abbey parlour of Saint Thorn, knitting her fine brows over a business of the Abbot's, no less than the granting of a new charter of pit and gallows, pillory and tumbril to him and his house over the villeins of Malbank, and the whole fee and soke.
I accept your civilities, but I make no promises you know our legend? Well, I bide my time he he! No boasting, but upon my honour, my reputation does not make me out ungrateful. I say to you, go to Malbank; observe, watch, judge, then report to me. The detail I leave to you. I should recommend a disguise. The place has become one of pilgrimage go as a pilgrim!
"Excellent indeed," Prosper cried; "that jumps with what I had determined on before. Moreover, I suppose that Gracedieu is outside the Malbank fee?" "Yes, lord, it is far beyond that." "And how far is it to Gracedieu?" "It is the journey of two days and nights, my lord." "Well," said he, "then those nights we must sleep in the forest. How will that suit you, child?"
Malbank is your nearest habitation; Spenshaw, Heckaby, Dunsholt Thicket, Hartshold, Deerleap are forest names, not names of the necessities of men. You may wander a month if you choose, telling one green hollow from another; or you may go to Holy Thorn at Malbank, or endure unto Wanmouth and the sea.
In matters of gallantry his reputation was risky: it was certain that he had more than a monk, and suspected that he had less than a gentleman should have. The women of Malbank asseverated that venison was not his only game. That may or may not have been. The man loved power, and may have warred against women for lack of something more difficult of assault.
"Yes, yes," she went on, the old ruminant, "he hath a rare twist for women, if they speak the truth who know him. There is one he hath hunted high and low, in forest and out, they say, and hath made himself a lord for her sake, whereas he was but a stalled ox in Malbank cloister. He hath made himself a lord, and killed his hundreds of honest men, and now he hath lost her. He he!"
Her pleading lips, her dear startled eyes stung him out of himself. And then he found out why her eyes were startled and why her lips were mute. She was lovely. Yes, for she loved. This beseeching child, then, loved him. He knew himself homeless now until she took him in. The Abbot Richard of Malbank Saint Thorn went hunting the deer in Morgraunt with a good company of prickers and dogs.
"But this lord is an outlaw who was once a monk down at Malbank in the south; and hath renounced his flock and gathered together a crew as unholy as himself. And the story goes that he did it all for the sake of a girl who scorned him. So he will be lord of all, and God of no account so far as I can see. And the name of this almighty scamp, Messire-" "Is Galors de Born," put in Prosper.
Where the Wan river makes a great loop, running east for three miles, and west again for as many before it drives its final surge towards the Southern Sea, there stands Holy Thorn, Church and Convent, watching over the red roofs of Malbank hamlet huddled together across the flood.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking