devil.”      

       “She shall not renounce the devil,” said the baron, “unless I please. You are very ready with your undertakings. Will you undertake to make her renounce the earl, who, I believe, is the devil incarnate? Will you undertake that?”      

       “Will I undertake,” said the friar, “to make Trent run westward, or to make flame burn downward, or to make a tree grow with its head in the earth and its root in the air?”      

       “So then,” said the baron, “a girl’s mind is as hard to change as nature       and the elements, and it is easier to make her renounce the devil than a lover. Are you a match for the devil, and no match for a man?”      

       “My warfare,” said the friar, “is not of this world. I am militant not against man, but the devil, who goes about seeking what he may devour.”      

       “Oh! does he so?” said the baron: “then I take it that makes you look for him so often in my buttery. Will you cast out the devil whose name is Legion, when you cannot cast out the imp whose name is Love?”      

       “Marriages,” said the friar, “are made in heaven. Love is God’s work, and therewith I meddle not.”      

       “God’s work, indeed!” said the baron, “when the ceremony was cut short in the church. Could men have put them asunder, if God had joined them together? And the earl is now no earl, but plain Robert Fitz-Ooth:       therefore, I’ll none of him.”      

       “He may atone,” said the friar, “and the king may mollify. The earl is a worthy peer, and the king is a courteous king.”      

       “He cannot atone,” said Sir Ralph. “He has killed the king’s men; and if the baron should aid and abet, he will lose his castle and land.”      

       “Will I?” said the baron; “not while I have a drop of blood in my veins. He that comes to take them shall first serve me as the friar serves my flasks of canary: he shall drain me dry as hay. Am I not disparaged? Am I not outraged? Is not my daughter vilified, and made a mockery? A girl half-married? There was my butler brought home with a broken head. My butler, friar: there is that may move your sympathy. Friar, the earl-no-earl shall come no more to my daughter.”      

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