Hugh Raket mumbled that he had had very little of all this.
"Filthy knave," his lord said, "I know not what you had but you had your share, you and Barty of the Comb and Jock Corbit. And well I know that I was—God help and save me—surety for you and my other men at the Warden's Court where complaint was made against ye. And well I know that when ye should have assoiled yourselves by arms, it was my armourer that had made the arms ye wore, and so war-like did ye appear that none came into the field against ye, the complainers being mostly Scots widows that ye had made. God keep and save me! now I wish I had never done those things for you, for you came away with no bills fouled against ye and ye had the Scots horned cattle, and black and white mail, and their nags and geldings and goats, and so ye have waxed fat, and would rise up against your betters."
The bondsman was silent, deeming that the better course before the visible anger of his lord, and the Young Lovell continued:
"If ye would not pay your just dues to me where then should ye be? If it were not for the fear of my name how should you be safe in the nights? And how may I make my name feared but by keeping a great store of knights and men-at-arms and bondsmen and my Castle very strong? Where should ye be if I had no lead upon my roofs, and the rain and frost destroyed my towers? Ye would be men undone, for the false Scots would come burning and slaying, and the Lords Percy should take all ye had, and the Bishops Palatine would sell ye into slavery. So I rede ye well, pay me what ye owe me, or I will be in your steads and barnekyns a very burning torch, and upon your nags and geldings a death rider such as ye never saw."
The bondsman fell upon his knees before his lord's horse.
"Ah gentle lording," he cried out, "God forbid that we should not pay ye all that we owe. Then indeed were we all undone, for no men ever had lord so gentle and so kind."
"Foul knave," his lord said, "I know that if by my murder ye might well profit, murder me ye would, you and your fellows; but ye dare not for fear of the Scots."
The bondsman wept and groaned with his hands held up, and his hood fallen from his face.
"Now, by God's dreadful grace, that is not so," he cried. "For if I would have murdered ye—and I tremble at that word—might I not have done so even now, when I had the arms and weapons that I surrendered to you so that ye might have killed me? Ye are my very dread lord, and well I know it. For I have sate under the mass priest and heard his sermons, and well I know how that the lion is the symbol and token of Antichrist, the dragon of Satan, the basilisk of death, and the aspic of the sinner that shut his ears to the teachings of life. And have I not seen all these trampled beneath the feet of the Saviour in stone set upon the church door? And shall I be like unto the aspic and pass from life to hell ... the aspic that shutteth his ears? Alas, no! I do know that there are set over me, God and the Saints and the most dreadful King Henry, Seventh of that name, and the Bishop Palatine and the Border Warden and the monks of St. Radigund. But before all these men and next only to God, comes my most dread Lord Lovell of the Castle, and that if I do not serve him with all rights and dues, fire and sword will be my portion in this life or else the barren hillside and hell-flame in after time...."
The Lord Lovell said: