the best friend that the borel folk ever had."

"True, Jenkin," said another workman; "but it is not all good that is
brought by it either. We well know that through it corn-land has been
turned into pasture, so that flocks of sheep with perchance a single
shepherd wander now where once a hundred men had work and wage."

"There is no great harm in that," remarked the tooth-drawer, "for the
sheep give many folk their living. There is not only the herd, but the
shearer and brander, and then the dresser, the curer, the dyer, the
fuller, the webster, the merchant, and a score of others."

"If it come to that." said one of the foresters, "the tough meat of them
will wear folks teeth out, and there is a trade for the man who can draw
them."

A general laugh followed this sally at the dentist's expense, in the
midst of which the gleeman placed his battered harp upon his knee, and
began to pick out a melody upon the frayed strings.

"Elbow room for Floyting Will!" cried the woodmen. "Twang us a merry
lilt."

"Aye, aye, the 'Lasses of Lancaster,'" one suggested.

"Or 'St. Simeon and the Devil.'"

"Or the 'Jest of Hendy Tobias.'"

To all these suggestions the jongleur made no response, but sat with his
eye fixed abstractedly upon the ceiling, as one who calls words to his
mind. Then, with a sudden sweep across the strings, he broke out into
a song so gross and so foul that ere he had finished a verse the
pure-minded lad sprang to his feet with the blood tingling in his face.

"How can you sing such things?" he cried. "You, too, an old man who
should be an example to others."

The wayfarers all gazed in the utmost astonishment at the interruption.

"By the holy Dicon of Hampole! our silent clerk has found his tongue,"
said one of the woodmen. "What is amiss with the song then? How has it
offended your babyship?"

"A milder and better mannered song hath never been heard within these
walls," cried another. "What sort of talk is this for a public inn?"

"Shall it be a litany, my good clerk?" shouted a third; "or would a hymn
be good enough to serve?"

The jongleur had put down his harp in high dudgeon. "Am I to be preached
to by a child?" he cried, staring across at Alleyne with an inflamed and
angry countenance. "Is a hairless infant to raise his tongue against me,
when I have sung in every fair from Tweed to Trent, and have twice been
named aloud by the High Court of the Minstrels at Beverley? I shall sing
no more