“He smelleth ever o' mouldy thatch,” she murmured. “I 'll warrant he beat his wife.”
And Kitte answered drily:—
“No doubt but she deserved all she got.”
“My father doth never beat thee,” Calote averred.
“Thy father is no common man,” said Kitte, “but a poet,—and a priest.”
“I 'll not marry a common man,” cried Calote, tossing the ribbon on the floor.
“Thou wilt not find another like to thy father,” quoth Kitte. She laid her hand upon her daughter's shoulder and looked down for a moment on the yellow hair; then, as she had taken resolve, she said, “Natheless, an' 't were to live again, I 'd take t' other man.”
Calote looked up, white; there was a question in her eyes.
“Ah, no!” said Kitte, answering, “'t was thy father I loved, fast eno'. The other man was a lord's son; he did not woo me in way of marriage. But I was desperate for love of thy father. I said, 'What matter? I will give myself to this lord, and forget.' Then my mother watched; and she betrayed me to Will; for that all our women were honest and she feared for my soul. And Will came to me and said, 'Choose! shall it be marriage with a clerk in orders,—a poor sort of marriage and hopeless,—but yet a marriage? Or shall it be the other, with this lording?' And his humilité and sweet pleasure that I had sighed for him so played upon me that I mistook; I thought he loved me. But a priest with a wife is a maimed creature. To marry the man we love is not alway the best we may do for him. Were thy father free, he might be well on to a bishopric by now.”
“Bishops be not so enviable,” answered Calote. “Here 's Wykeham thrust forth by John of Gaunt, all his estates confiscate, and he hunted hither and yon by the king's men. My father envieth not such.”