“The Lord Pope is infallible when he speaketh ex cathedrâ, but so only.”
“But how,” saith he that spake, “shall we know when he is sat in his chair and when he is out of it?”
An odd look came into Father Philip’s eyes.
“Master,” saith he, “when I was a little lad, my mother told me divers times that it was not seemly to ask curious questions.”
But I guess what the good Friar thought, though it be not always discreet to speak out man’s thoughts. Ah me! will the time ever come when man may say what he will, with no worse thereafter than a sneer or a sharp rebuke from his neighbour? If so were, I would I had been born in those merry days—but I should want Jack to be born then belike.
“Sissot,” saith a voice over my shoulder, “wist thou the full meaning of thy wish?”
Jack is given to coming in quietly—I never knew him make a noise—and peeping over my shoulder to see how my chronicle maketh progress: for he can well read, though he write not.
“What so, Jack?” said I.
“I reckon we should be the younger by some centuries,” quoth he, “and perchance should not be at all. But allowing it, dost thou perceive that such a difference should mean a change in all things?—that no fear should in likelihood mean no reverence nor obedience, and might come to mean more than that?”
“That were dread!” said I. “What manner of times should they be?”