Champion countrie.
9
In Norfolke behold the [dispaire]
of tillage too much to be borne:
By drouers from faire to faire,
and others destroieng the corne.
By custome and couetous [pates],
by gaps, and by opening of gates.[4][E386]
10
What speake I of commoners by,
with drawing all after a line:
So noieng the corne, as it ly,
with cattle, with [conies],[5] and swine.
When thou[6] hast bestowed thy cost,
looke halfe of the same to be lost.
11
The flocks of the Lords of the soile
do yeerly the winter corne wrong:
The same in a manner they spoile,
with feeding so [lowe] and so long.
And therefore that champion feeld
doth seldome good winter corne yeeld.
Champion noiances.
12[7]
By Cambridge a towne I doo knowe,
where many good husbands doo dwell;
Whose losses by [losels] doth showe,[E387]
more here than is needfull to tell:
Determine at court what they shall,
performed is nothing at all.[E388]
13
The champion robbeth by night,
and prowleth and [filcheth] by day:
Himselfe and his beast out of sight,
both spoileth and maketh away
Not onely thy grasse, but thy corne,
both after, and er it be shorne.
14
Pease bolt with thy pease he will haue,
his houshold to feede and his hog:
Now stealeth he, now will he craue,
and now will he [coosen] and [cog].
In Bridewell a number be stript,
lesse woorthie than theefe to be whipt.[E389]
15
The [oxboy], as ill is as hee,
or [worser], if worse may be found:
For spoiling from thine and from thee,
of grasse and of corne on the ground.
Laie neuer so well for to saue it,
by night or by daie he will haue it.
16
What orchard vnrobbed escapes?
or [pullet] dare walke in their jet?
But homeward or outward (like apes)
they count it their owne they can get.
Lord, if ye doo take them,[E390] what [sturs]!
how hold they togither like [burs]!