Let them toil and swinken, and labor, and plough the land, and take wives to themselves----" "Alas! alas!" cried Alleyne aghast, "you have surely sucked this poison from the man Wicliffe, of whom I have heard such evil things." "Nay, I know him not.

I have learned it by looking from my own chamber window and marking these poor monks of the priory, their weary life, their profitless round.

I have asked myself if the best which can be done with virtue is to shut it within high walls as though it were some savage creature.

If the good will lock themselves up, and if the wicked will still wander free, then alas for the world!" Alleyne looked at her in astonishment, for her cheek was flushed, her eyes gleaming, and her whole pose full of eloquence and conviction.

Yet in an instant she had changed again to her old expression of merriment leavened with mischief.
"Wilt do what I ask ?" said she.
"What is it, lady ?" "Oh, most ungallant clerk! A true knight would never have asked, but would have vowed upon the instant.