In another similar book the story is narrated of the ill-treatment by a forester of an abbot whose house was near a royal forest. The abbot was no doubt like the monk who made the celebrated pilgrimage to Canterbury—
‘An outrydere that lovede venerye.
*****
He yaf nat of that text a pulled hen
That seith that hunters been nat holy men.’
And perhaps the forester had good reason to complain of him. But in the account of the quarrel, the forester is said to have gone into the abbot’s kitchen and taken away his cabbages—not very likely things for a forester to take, as he probably would have found something far better worth carrying off. However, on looking at the MS. it appears almost certain that what was read as chous is really chens, that is, chiens. In fact, they were the
‘Grehoundes he hadde as swifte as fowel in flight,
For priking and for hunting for the hare,’
who were perhaps lying before the fire asleep after a long afternoon’s coursing.
In the same case it is said that the forester’s treatment of the tenants on one of the abbey farms is so bad that no one dare die there; it is suggested, because the forester would not allow anyone to come to administer the last consolations of religion. But the words de murir, on which the observation is based, are merely a careless scribe’s writing of demeurer.