Buckinghamshire is full of smooth round hills and woodlands of
hawthorn and beech, and it is a famous country for its brooks and
shaded waterways running through the low hay meadows. Upon its hills
feed a thousand sheep, scattered like the remnants of the spring snow,
and it was from these that the merchants made themselves fat purses,
sending the wool into Flanders in exchange for silver crowns. There
were many strong castles there too, and rich abbeys, and the King's
Highway ran through it from North to South, upon which the pilgrims
went in crowds to worship at the Shrine of the Blessed Saint Alban.
Thereon also rode noble knights and stout men-at-arms, and these you
could follow with the eye by their glistening armour, as they wound
over hill and dale, mile after mile, with shining spears and shields
and fluttering pennons, and anon a trumpet or two sounding the same
keen note as that which rang out dreadfully on those bloody fields of
France. The girls used to come to the cottage doors or run to hide
themselves in the wayside woods to see them go trampling by; for
Buckinghamshire girls love a soldier above all men. Nor, I warrant
you, were jolly friars lacking in the highways and the by-ways and
under the hedges, good men of religion, comfortable of penance and
easy of life, who could tip a wink to a housewife, and drink and crack
a joke with the good man, going on their several ways with tight
paunches, skins full of ale and a merry salutation for every one. A
fat pleasant land was this Buckinghamshire; always plenty to eat and
drink therein, and pretty girls and lusty fellows; and God knows what
more a man can expect in a world where all is vanity, as the Preacher
truly says.

There was a nunnery at Maids Moreton, two miles out from Buckingham
Borough, on the road to Stony Stratford, and the place was called
Maids Moreton because of the nunnery. Very devout creatures were the
nuns, being holy ladies out of families of gentle blood. They
punctually fulfilled to the letter all the commands of the pious
founder, just as they were blazoned on the great parchment Regula,
which the Lady Mother kept on her reading-desk in her little cell. If
ever any of the nuns, by any chance or subtle machination of the Evil
One, was guilty of the smallest backsliding from the conduct that
beseemed them, they made full and devout confession thereof to the
Holy Father who visited them for this purpose. This good man loved
swan's m