"My lady has bidden me read these parchments to you," said the monk, with scant ceremony, and the next minute he began mumbling over the legal phrases of a lease. But before he had read far Miles said,—
"Who is this Giles Morpeth who is to have three farms, and expel the present holders on so short a notice?"
"A citizen of London, I believe, who bath a mind to make money in wool. Is there aught to be said against that?"
"Yea, indeed! a good deal," said Miles, with a flash of anger, for the monk spoke in a sneering tone which he would not have used to his brother John. "In the first place these yeomen, who are to be driven forth, have done naught to deserve such treatment at our hands. They have dwelt on the land as long as we have, and wherefore should they be driven to the trade of thieves and beggars?"
"Is not the land your father's, and may he not do as he will with his own?"
"Nay, but it is not wholly his own, or the law would not give me a share in its disposal; and wherefore should I strip myself of my right to the disposal of the land for forty years, and give it to a stranger? Nay, I will have no hand in such robbery," said Miles.
This aspect of the case had not struck him before, but he saw at once that he was much more likely to be able to help the tenants if he made common cause with them. And, indeed, as he spoke, the look on the monk's face changed, and he said, "I thought it was this accursed Erasmus and his New Testament that made you unwilling to obey the command of Sir Thomas."
"Then my father hath told you of my objection to expel these poor people?"
"Nay, he told me you had gone mad over this new learning that threatened to turn the world upside down."
"Well, I am not so mad as to affix my name to that which will deprive me of all power over my own land for forty years. My father is an old man now, and worn with his service in the King's wars, and that he is not likely to live many years longer. Why then should he want me to do this thing?"