sentimental as to weep for a mouse caught in a trap:
all characteristic of a respectable, kind-hearted lady who has lived in
seclusion. A monk, of course, in the fourteenth century was everywhere
to be seen; and a monk we have among the pilgrims, riding a "dainty"
horse, accompanied with greyhounds, loving fur trimmings on his
Benedictine habit and a fat swan to roast. The friar, too, we see,--a
mendicant, yet merry and full of dalliances, beloved by the common
women, to whom he gave easy absolution; a jolly vagabond, who knew all
the taverns, and who carried on his portly person pins and songs and
relics to sell or to give away. And there was the merchant, with forked
beard and Flemish beaver hat and neatly clasped boots, bragging of his
gains and selling French crowns, but on the whole a worthy man. The
Oxford clerk or scholar is one of the company, silent and sententious,
as lean as the horse on which he rode, with thread-bare coat, and books
of Aristotle and his philosophy which he valued more than gold, of which
indeed he could boast but little,--a man anxious to learn, and still
more to teach. The sergeant of the law is another prominent figure, wary
and wise, discreet and dignified, bustling and busy, yet not so busy as
he seemed to be, wearing a coat of divers colors, and riding very badly.
A franklin, or country gentleman, mixes with the company, with a white
beard and red complexion; one of Epicurus's own sons, who held that ale
and wheaten bread and fish and dainty flesh, partridge fat, were pure
felicity; evidently a man given to hospitality,--

"His table dormant in his hall alway
Stood ready covered all the longe day."

He was a sheriff, also, to enforce the law, and to be present at all the
county sessions. The doctor, of course, could not be left out of the
company,--a man who knew the cause of every malady, versed in magic as
well as physic, and grounded also in astronomy; who held that gold is
the best of cordials, and knew how to keep what he gained; not luxurious
in his diet, but careful what he ate and drank. The village miller is
not forgotten in this motley crowd,--rough, brutal, drunken, big and
brawn, with a red beard and a wart on his nose, and a mouth as wide as a
furnace, a reveller and a jangler, accustomed to take toll thrice, and
given to all the sins that then abounded. He is the most repulsive
figure in the crowd, both vulgar and wicked. In contrast with him is the
_reve_, or