uld teach them of Him, even though he did not come in the
God-directed order.

Some such thoughts in a more chaotic form surged through Edred's
head as he stood listening, almost causing him to lose the words of
the preacher, though the tenor of his discourse was plain. He
almost wished he might enter into a discussion with this
enthusiast, and point out to him where he thought him extravagant
and wrong; but young as he was, Edred yet knew something of the
futility of argument with those whose minds are made up, and
caution withheld him from entering into any argument with one who
was plainly a Lollard preacher. So, after listening with sympathy
and interest for a long while, he quietly stole away again.

The bull baiting was over by this time. The games and other sports
were recommencing with greater energy after this brief interruption.
The miracle play was again represented, and Edred stood a few minutes
to watch, thinking within his heart that this representation, half
comical, half blasphemous (though the people who regarded it seemed
in no way aware of this), was a strange way of bringing home the
realities of the Scriptures, when it could be done so far more
faithfully and eloquently by simply reading the gospel words in the
tongue of the common people.

His eye roved from the actors, with their mincing words and
artificial gestures, to the group still collected beneath the tree,
and he could not but contrast the two methods in his own mind, and
wonder for a moment whether the Lollards could be altogether so
desperately wicked as their enemies would make out.

He was half afraid of allowing himself to think too much on such
themes, and went in search of his brothers. He found Warbel looking
out for him in some anxiety. He had missed the boy for some little
while from his charge, and as the field was filling fast with
followers and servants wearing the Mortimer livery, he was glad to
have the three boys all together beneath his care.

He would have been glad to get them to leave the place, but Bertram
would not hear of it. He wished to try his own skill at some of the
sports; and Julian, of course, must needs follow his example.

The skill and address of the Chadgrove brothers won the hearty
admiration of the rustics, but it also brought them more than once into
rivalry and collision with some of Mortimer's gentlemen-at-arms, who
were not best pleased to be overmatched by mere striplings. It was also
galli