“I say nay,” shouted Esmond. “Let the articles even stand as they were.”
“And thou, Most Reverend Abbot?”
“I say nay,” replied the churchman quietly.
“And thou, Mountjoy?”
“Aye,” I answered loudly. “These changes seem to me to take naught from us and to be well conceived to gain us many friends.”
“De La Roche?”
“Aye.”
De Longville gazed first at the floor beneath his feet then at the ceiling overhead and bent his brows in a painful frown. At length he said:
“It seems I have the casting vote. I see little use in these changes, save to pamper churls and thralls that too often already raise their heads with complaints and demands. Some of them verily believe they might govern the land as well as their betters. ’Tis a dangerous tendency that must be checked. I say nay also.”
Lord Esmond turned toward Cedric with a smile of triumph; and my heart became as lead to think of his defeat. But the Knight of Grimsby was instantly on his feet again with a new proposal, which to my amaze he uttered with a broad and pleasant smile on his face, such as he might have worn had his amendings been received with utmost acclaim.