“Ay, Madge is a feat scribe, truly!” remarked Dame Lovell, to Margery’s unspeakable distress. “She hath written two Breviaries, I wis.”
“Two!” said Sir Geoffrey, laughing. “One for Sundays and feasts, and the other for week-days? Madge, bring us both of them.”
Margery left the room, and returned in a few minutes, with both the books in her hand. Sir Geoffrey took them, and opened the illuminated one—the genuine Breviary—first. Margery reseated herself, and took up her distaff, but the thread was very uneven, and she broke it twice, while her father turned over the leaves of the book, and praised her writing and illuminations. His praise was sweet enough, but some time he must come to the end, and then—!
How fervently Margery wished that Dame Lovell would ask an irrelevant question, which might lead to conversation—that Friar Andrew would awake—that Cicely would rush in with news of the cows having broken into the garden—or that anything would occur which would put a stop to the examination of those volumes before Sir Geoffrey arrived at the last leaf! But everything, as it always is under such circumstances, was unusually quiet; and Sir Geoffrey fastened the silver clasps of the Breviary, and opened the book without anything to hinder his doing so. Margery stole furtive looks at her father over her distaff, and soon observed an ominous look of displeasure creeping over his face. He passed over several leaves—turned to the beginning, and then to the end,—then, closing the volume, he looked up and said, in a stern voice—
“Andrew!”
Friar Andrew snored placidly on.
“Andrew!” said Sir Geoffrey, in a louder tone.
Friar Andrew gave an indistinct sound between a snore and a grunt. Sir Geoffrey rose from his seat, and striding over to where his confessor slept, laid hold of his shoulders, and gave him such a shake as nearly brought him to the stone floor.
“Awake, thou sluggard!” said he, angrily. “Is it a time for the shepherd to sleep when the wolf is already in the fold, and the lambs be in danger?”
“Eh? Oh! ay!” said Friar Andrew, half awake. “Time to sup, eh?”