eir calling, are
already utterly given over to the performance of his business. If that
is not enough for him, then this bishop will come with his people. He
will come, I say, and hear his orders from the king's own lips. He will
come ready to carry out what is right next after those same orders.

"But as for you, take the bundle of twelve letters which you say you
have brought to us, and be off with them and make just what use you
please of them. But every single word which I speak to you, be sure to
repeat to our lord the archbishop: and do not fail to end with the
message that if the arrangement holds that our clergy are to go to the
king, I myself likewise will go with them. I have not gone before
without them; and they will not go without me now. This is the right
relation between a good shepherd and good sheep: he must not scatter
them by foolishly letting them out of his ken. They must not get into
trouble by rash escape from him."

The letter carrier, a court cleric, was finely indignant. He was a man
careful-chosen, haughty by nature, but still more haughty as royal
envoy. He was bridling up for a volley of threats when the bishop cut
him short, and ordered him off at the double. He slunk away abashed. A
deputation, of weight, from Lincoln next waited upon the archbishop to
expostulate with him for playing chuck taw with the immunity of the
church, and franking with his authority such messages. He smiled
graciously, after the manner of his kind, and hid his spleen. He meant
no harm, of course: if harm there were, he was glad to be disobeyed, and
he would make all quiet and right. Of course in reality he took care to
twist the Lion's tail with both hands, and the next thing was a public
edict, that all the goods of the bishop were to be taken care of by the
king's collectors. The good man heard and remarked, "Did I not tell you
truly of these men: their voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the
hands of Esau?" It was easier to order than to execute. The anathema
counted for much, but the public conscience no doubt for more. The
officers balked and remonstrated. Richard insisted, but his tools bent
in his hand. "Those English are scared at shadows," he said; "let us
send Mercadier. He will know how to play with the Burgundian fellow."
This amiable man was the captain of the Routiers, whose playful habits
may be guessed from the fact that he is the gentleman who afterwards
skinned Bertrand de Gourdon for shoo