“‘Nay,’ quoth the sick man, ‘by Saint Simon,
I have been shriven this day by my curate.’
******
‘Give me then of thy gold to make our cloister,’”
and again he proclaims the virtues and morals of his order.
“‘For if ye lack our predication,[52]
Then goth this world all to destruction.
For whoso from this world would us bereave,
So God me save, Thomas, by your leave,
He would bereave out of this world the sun,’” &c.
And so ends with the ever-recurring burden:—
“‘Now, Thomas, help for Sainte Charitee.’
This sicke man wax well nigh wood for ire,[53]
He woulde that the frere had been a fire,
With his false dissimulation;”
and proceeds to play a practical joke upon him, which will not bear even hinting at, but which sufficiently shows that superstition did not prevent men from taking great liberties, expressing the utmost contempt of these men. Moreover,—
“His mennie which had hearden this affray,
Came leaping in and chased out the frere.”
Thus ignominiously turned out of the goodman’s house, the friar goes to the court-house of the lord of the village:—
“A sturdy pace down to the court he goth,
Whereat there woned[54] a man of great honour,
To whom this friar was alway confessour;
This worthy man was lord of that village.
This frere came, as he were in a rage,
Whereas this lord sat eating at his board.
*****
This lord gan look, and saide, ‘Benedicite!
What, frere John! what manner of world is this?
I see well that something there is amiss.’”
We need only complete the picture by adding the then actors in it:—