Then he drew from his belt two papers and so he said:
"My lord will have you buy from Christiana Paynter the armorial bearings of my lord to set up upon the tower, and that shall cost you 3s. And this you shall have carved upon the same stone:
"'In the year of Xt. jhu MCCCCLXXXV
This tower was builded by Sir Henry Percy
The IV. Earl of Northumberland of great honour and worth
That espoused Maud the good lady full of virtue and beauty
... Whose soule's God save.'"
"That shall be set up," the monk said.
"Then," John Harbottle said, "there is this you may do to convenience me who have been your favourer in all things. That you may the earlier come to it, read you this paper which I have written out, but in English, for I have no Latin beyond mass-Latin."
"What we may do to please you," the monk said, gravely, "that we will, if it be not to the discredit of God."
"It is rather to His greater glory," the esquire said.
So the monk took the paper and read:
"The Prior of Belford, Patent of XX merks by yere. Henry Erle of Northumberland...." The monk glanced on, and his eye fell upon the words, "myn armytage builded in a rock of stone against the church of Castle Lovell," and, later on ... "the gate and pasture of twenty kye and a bull with their calves sukyng,"—"One draught of fisshe every Sondaie in the year to be drawen fornenst the said armytage, called the Trynete draught...."
The monk looked up over his shoulder at the esquire.