"Father in God, tell me truly, I do pray, all that you know from this lawyer."
"Brother," the Bishop said, "God help us, this lawyer was insistent that the tale of sorcery against this lording should be let to lapse or changed for another, such as that he consorted with old fairies and worse."
"How then," the monk Francis said, "would he put aside his former perjuries?"
"He would say," the Bishop said, "that his eyes deceived him, magic being in the air, and that on that morning the Young Lovell rode furiously past him going as if he knew not whither."
"Why so he did!" the monk Francis said, "but that shall not save the lawyer. His former oaths are written down."
"Brother," the Bishop said, "it is that lawyer's plan to begin another suit in the courts ecclesiastical and there not to swear at all, but ignoring the bill before the Wardens, to bring many witnesses about this fairy lady."
"What other witnesses has he?" the monk Francis asked. He spoke like a man without hope.
"You must know," the Bishop said, "that this lawyer during these months was enquiring of the Young Lovell in the past. So in Newcastle he found a master-tailor to whom the Young Lovell for long owed four pounds. And one day in February this tailor, needing money, went out from Newcastle towards Castle Lovell, riding upon an ass. And so, upon the way, he saw a lady that had a white horse and was little and dark. He was in tribulation for his money and pondered much upon the Young Lovell whether he was a lording that would pay him or one that would have him beaten at the gate.
"And, as he thought that, this lady looked upon him as if she would ask the way to where the Young Lovell dwelt. She was little and swart and had a green undercoat.
"And again in February there was a ship boy that went from Sunderland with a white falcon his ship had brought from Hamboro', for the Young Lovell. Now, upon this voyage, this ship boy had conceived a great love for that falcon even as boys will that upon ships are beaten by all and conceive loves for dumb beasts. So that ship boy went pondering with the white hawk and wondering and almost weeping to think that that lording might be a cruel master to the falcon. For he loved that falcon very well. So he was aware of a kind, fair lady with a white horse that looked upon him as much as to say that the Young Lovell would be a gentle and kind lord to that fowl. She was a great fair woman in a German hood of black velvet—such a one as that ship boy had seen and, as boys will, had conceived an ardent love for, in Hamboro'."