ing Harry's head,
declared that the country was being sucked dry by these rapacious
ecclesiastics; that the monks encroached every year on the common land,
absorbed the little farms, paid inadequate wages, and--which appeared
his principal grievance--killed their own meat.

Ralph, with praiseworthy tolerance, pushed this last argument aside, but
appeared to reflect on the others as if they were new to him, though he
had heard them a hundred times, and used them fifty; and while he
weighed them, another took up the tale; told a scandalous story or two,
and asked how men who lived such lives as these which he related, could
be examples of chastity.

Once more the little old man burst into the fray, and waving his pot in
an access of religious enthusiasm, rebuked the last speaker for his
readiness to pick up dirt, and himself instanced five or six Religious
known to him, whose lives were no less spotless than his own.

Again Ralph interposed in his slow voice, and told them that that too
was not the point at issue. The question was not as to whether here and
there monks lived good lives or bad, for no one was compelled to imitate
either, but as to whether on the whole the existence of the Religious
Houses was profitable in such practical matters as agriculture, trade,
and the relief of the destitute.

And so it went on, and Ralph began to grow weary of the inconsequence of
the debaters, and their entire inability to hold to the salient points;
but he still kept his hand on the rudder of the discussion, avoided the
fogs of the supernatural and religious on the one side towards which the
little old man persisted in pushing, and, on the other, the blunt views
of the butcher and the man who had told the foul stories; and contented
himself with watching and learning the opinion of the company rather
than contributing his own.

Towards the end of the evening he observed two of his men, who had
slipped in and were sitting at the back of the little stifling room,
hugely enjoying the irony of the situation, and determined on ending the
discussion with an announcement of his own identity.

Presently an opportunity occurred. The little old man had shown a
dangerous tendency to discourse on the suffering souls in purgatory, and
on the miseries inflicted on them by the cessation of masses and
suffrages for their welfare; and an uncomfortable awe-stricken silence
had fallen on the others.

Ralph stood up abruptly, and began to s