think, dame, of a couple of moor-cocks or a cushat for a pie?"

   "Thy liquorish tooth will lead thee into some snare, goodman, ere it ha' done watering. What did Master Chadwyck say, who is to wed Mistress Alice, our master's daughter, if nought forefend? What did he promise thee but a week agone, should he catch thee at thy old trade again?"

   "A murrain light on the snivelling bully! Let him stay at his own homestead, and not take mastership here, to trouble us with his humours ere the portion be his. His younger brother Oliver is worth a whole pack of such down-looked, smooth-faced hypocrites. Oliver Chadwyck is the boy for a snug quarrel. His fingers itch for a drubbing, and he scents a feud as a crow scents out carrion. The other—mercy on me!—is fit for nought but to be bed-ridden and priest-ridden like his father and his mother to boot."

   "Hush, Ralph," said the cautious dame; "let thine hard speeches fall more gently on thy master's son, that is to be. His own parents too—methinks the son of Jordan and Eleanor Chadwyck should earn a kinder word and a lighter judgment from thy tongue."

   "Whew! my courteous dame. How now! and so because they are become part of the movables of Holy Church, I trow, they must be handled softly, forsooth! Tut, tut, beldame, they are—let me see, so it runs; the old clerk of St Chad's rang the nomine in my ears long enough, and I am not like to forget it. They be 'Trinitarians,' said he, 'of the house of St Robert near Knaresborough, admitted by Brother Robert, the minister of the Holy Trinity, for the redemption of captives imprisoned by the pagans, for the faith of Jesus Christ.' Gramercy, what a bead-roll of hard words! They say we are like to have a '

    Holy War

   ' again, when we have settled our own reckonings; and the blood and groats of old England are again to be spent for the purchase of '

    Holy Land

   .' O' my halidome, wench, but I would let all the priests and friars fight for it. Cunning rogues! they set us together by the ears, and then run away with the pudding."

   No doubt this profane speech rendered him easier of access to the tempter, and the powers of evil; who, ever watchful for the slips of silly mortals, report such unholy words at head-quarters, where Satan and his crew are assembled in full council.

   The dame 

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