guerdon knights, break the last links in the chain of Saxon
thraldom?


END OF THE FIRST BOOK




BOOK II


Book 2 Chapter 1



The building which was still called MARNEY ABBEY, though
remote from the site of the ancient monastery, was an
extensive structure raised at the latter end of the reign of
James the First, and in the stately and picturesque style of
that age. Placed on a noble elevation in the centre of an
extensive and well wooded park, it presented a front with two
projecting wings of equal dimensions with the centre, so that
the form of the building was that of a quadrangle, less one of
its sides. Its ancient lattices had been removed, and the
present windows though convenient accorded little with the
structure; the old entrance door in the centre of the building
however still remained, a wondrous specimen of fantastic
carving: Ionic columns of black oak, with a profusion of
fruits and flowers, and heads of stags and sylvans. The whole