“Are you making the claim that his Grace, by confirming the abbey in itsrights, is taking revenge on the town?” asked the abbot with soft and perilousgentleness.
“I am saying that he never so much as gave the town a thought, or itsinjuries a look, or he might have made some concession.”
“Ah! Then should not this appeal of yours be addressed rather to the LordGilbert Prestcote, who is the king’s sheriff, and no doubt has his ear, ratherthan to us?”
“It has been so addressed, though not with regard to the fair. It is not forthe sheriff to give away any part of what has been bestowed on the abbey. Onlyyou, Father, can do that,” said Geoffrey Corviser briskly. It began to beapparent that the provost knew his way about among the pitfalls of words everybit as well as did the abbot.
“And what answer did you get from the sheriff?”
“He will do nothing for us until his own walls at the castle are made good.He promises us the loan of labour when work there is finished, but labour wecould supply, it’s money and materials we need, and it will be a year or morebefore he’s ready to turn over even a handful of his men to our needs. In sucha case, Father, do you wonder that we find the fair a burden?”
“Yet we have our needs, too, as urgent to us as yours to you,” said theabbot after a thoughtful moment of silence. “And I would remind you, our landsand possessions here lie outside the town walls, even outside the loop of theriver, two protections you enjoy that we do not share. Should we, men, be askedto pay tolls for what cannot apply to us?”