lor who rides so gaily by the old knight's side,
and who regards him with love and reverence, is his son, a brave young
knight of twenty years of age, as we guess. He has borne him well in
Flanders, Artois, and Picardy, and has watered many a French vineyard
with French blood. See how smart he is in his short gown and long wide
sleeves. He can joust, and dance, and sing, and write love verses, with
any one between here and Paris. The citizens' daughters devour him with
their eyes as he rides under their casements.

There rides behind this worthy pair a stout yeoman, such as you can see
a dozen of every morning, in this reign, in ten minutes' walk down
Cheapside, for the nobles' houses in the City swarm with such
retainers--sturdy, brown-faced country fellows, quick of quarrel, and
not disposed to bear gibes. He wears a coat and hood of Lincoln green,
and has a sword, dagger, horn, and buckler by his side. The sheaf of
arrows at his girdle have peacock-feathers. Ten to one but that fellow
let fly many a shaft at Cressy and Poictiers, for he is fond of saying,
over his ale-bowl, that he carries "ten Frenchmen's lives under his
belt."

The prioress Chaucer sketches so daintily might have been seen any day
ambling through Bishopsgate from her country nunnery, on her way to
shrine or altar, or on a visit to some noble patroness to whom she is
akin. "By St. Eloy!" she cries to her mule, "if thou stumble again I
will chide thee!" and she says it in the French of Stratford at Bow. Her
wimple is trimly plaited, and how fashionable is her cloak! She wears
twisted round her arm a pair of coral beads, and from them hangs a gold
ornament with the unecclesiastical motto of "Amor vincit omnia." Behind
her rides a nun and three priests, and by the side of her mule run the
little greyhounds whom she feeds, and on whom she doats.

The rich monk that loved hunting was a character that any monastery of
Chaucer's London could furnish. Go early in the morning to Aldersgate or
Cripplegate, and you will be sure to find such a one riding out with his
greyhounds and falcon. His dress is rich, for he does not sneer at
worldly pleasures. His sleeves are trimmed with fur, and the pin that
fastens his hood is a gold love-knot. His brown palfrey is fat, like its
master, who does not despise a roast Thames swan for dinner, and whose
face shines with good humour and good living. It is such men as these
that Wycliffe's followers deride, and point the