“Trust me, holy Father, I will suffer nought harmful to enter my doors, nor any man disapproved by your Lordship. Is there news abroad, may man wit?”
“Ay, we had last night an holy palmer in our abbey,” responded the Abbot, with a calmer brow. “He left us this morrow on his way to Jesmond. You wist, doubtless, that my Lord of York is departed?”
“No, verily—my Lord of York! Is yet any successor appointed?”
“Ay, so ’tis said—Father Neville, as men say.”
Amphillis looked up with some interest, on hearing her own name.
“Who is he, this Father Neville?”
“Soothly, who is he?” repeated the Abbot, with evident irritation. “Brother to my Lord Neville of Raby; but what hath he done, trow, to be advanced thus without merit unto the second mitre in the realm? Some meaner bishop, or worthy abbot, should have been far fitter for the preferment.”
“The worthy Abbot of Darley in especial!” whispered Agatha in the ear of Amphillis.
“What manner of man is he, holy Father, by your leave?”
“One of these new sectaries,” replied the Abbot, irascibly. “A man that favours the poor priests of whom you spake, and swears by the Rector of Ludgarshall, this Wycliffe, that maketh all this bruit. Prithee, who is the Rector of Ludgarshall, that we must all be at his beck and ordering? Was there no truth in the whole Church Catholic, these thirteen hundred years, that this Dan John must claim for to have discovered it anew? Pshaw! ’tis folly.”