“‘We be not jugglers, we be poor brethren of our Lord and Saint Francis.’
“Now the monks were very jealous of the new Order, so unlike themselves, in its renunciation of ease and luxury, and in very spite they called them knaves and impostors, and kicked them out of doors.”
“What did they do?”
“They slept under a tree, and the angels comforted them. The next day they got to Oxford and began their work. The plague had been raging in the poorer quarters of the city, and they brought the joy of the Gospel to those miserable people. At length their numbers increased, and they built this house wherein we dwell.”
In such conversation as this Martin passed a happy hour, then went to the first lecture he attended, in the schools attached to the friary, where the great works of Augustine and Aquinas formed the text books; no Creek as yet. He passed from Latin to Logic, as the handmaid of theology. The great thinker Aristotle supplied the method, not the language or matter, and became the ally of Christianity, under the rendering of a learned brother.
Then followed the noontide meal, a stroll with some younger companions of his own age, to whom he had been specially introduced, which led them so far afield that they only returned in time for the vesper service, at the friary.
After the service Martin should have returned to his lodgings at once, but, tempted by the novelty of all he saw about him, he lingered in the streets, and saw cause to alter his opinion of the extreme propriety of the students. Some of them were playing at pitch and toss in the thievish corners. At least half a dozen pairs of antagonists were settling their quarrels with their fists or with quarterstaves, in various secluded nooks. Songs, gay rather than grave, not to say a trifle licentious, resounded; while once or twice he was asked: “Are you North or South?”—a query to which he hardly knew how to reply, Kenilworth being north and Sussex south of Oxford.
But the penalty of not answering was a rude jostling, which tried his temper sadly, and awoke the old Adam within him, which our readers remember only slumbered. He looked through the open door of a tavern. It was full of the young reprobates, and the noise and turmoil was deafening.
As he stood by the door, three or four grave-looking men came along.
“We must get them all home, or there will be bloodshed tonight,” Martin heard one say.