two counsellors
Worth any drove of priests.

Lewis. And who are they?

Wal. God and his lady-love, [aside] He'll open at that--

Lewis. I could be that man's squire.

Wal [aside] Again run riot--
Now for another cast, [aloud] If you'd sleep sound, Sir,
You'll let priests pray for you, but school you never.

Lewis. Mass! who more fitted?

Wal. None, if you could trust them;
But they are the people's creatures; poor men give them
Their power at the church, and take it back at the ale-house:
Then what's the friar to the starving peasant?
Just what the abbot is to the greedy noble--
A scarecrow to lear wolves. Go ask the church plate,
Safe in knights' cellars, how these priests are feared.
Bruised reeds when you most need them.--No, my Lord;
Copy them, trust them never.

Lewis. Copy? wherein?

Wal. In letting every man
Do what he likes, and only seeing he does it
As you do your work--well. That's the Church secret
For breeding towns, as fast as you breed roe-deer;
Example, but not meddling. See that hollow--
I knew it once all heath, and deep peat-bog--
I drowned a black mare in that self-same spot
Hunting with your good father: Well, he gave
One jovial night, to six poor Erfurt monks--
Six picked-visaged, wan, bird-fingered wights--
All in their rough hair shirts, like hedgehogs starved--
I told them, six weeks' work would break their hearts:
They answered, Christ would help, and Christ's great mother,
And make them strong when weakest: So they settled:
And starved and froze.

Lewis. And dug and built, it seems.

Wal. Faith, that's true. See--as garden walls draw snails,
They have drawn a hamlet round; the slopes are blue,
Knee-deep with flax, the orchard boughs are breaking
With strange outlandish fruits. See those young rogues
Marching to school; no poachers here, Lord Landgrave,--
Too much to be done at home; there's not a village
Of yours, now, thrives like this. By God's good help
These men have made their ownership worth something.
Here comes one of them.

Lewis. I would speak to him--
And learn his secret.--We'll await him here.

[Enter Conrad.]

Con. Peace to you, reverend and war-worn knight,
And you, fair youth, upon whose swarthy lip
Blooms the rich promise of a noble manhood.
Methinks, if simple monks may read your thoughts,
That with no envious or distasteful eyes
Ye watch the labours of God's poor elect.

Wal. Why--we were saying, how you cunning rooks
Pi