tell wherefore, when man
doth ill, the penalty thereof should be made to run over on his innocent
sons. Because Sir Hugh forfeited the earldom, wherefore passed it not
to his son, that was loyal man and true, and one of the King's best
councillors all his life? On the contrary part, it was bestowed on Sir
Hugh de Audley, that wedded the Lady Margaret (widow of Sir Piers de
Gavaston), that stood next of the three coheirs. And it seemeth me
scarce just that Sir Hugh de Audley, that had risen up against King
Edward of old time, and been prisoned therefor, and was at best but a
pardoned rebel, should be singled out for one of the finest earldoms in
England, and not Sir Hugh Le Despenser, whose it was of right, and to
whose charge--save the holding of the Castle of Caerphilly against Queen
Isabel, which was in very loyalty to his true lord King Edward--no fault
at all could be laid. I would I had but the world to set right! Then
should there be justice done, and every wrong righted, and all crooked
ways put straight, and every man and woman made happy. Dear heart, what
fair and good world were this, when I had made an end of--

Did man laugh behind me?

"Jack! Soothly, I thought it must be thou. What moveth thy laughter?"

"Dame Cicely de Chaucombe," saith he, essaying to look sober--which he
managed but ill. "The Annals of Cicely, likewise; and the imaginings of
Cicely in especial."

"Well, what now mispayeth [displeases] thee?" quoth I.

"There was once man," saith Jack, "thought as thou dost. And seeing
that the hollyhocks in his garden were taller than the daisies, he bade
his gardener with a scythe cut short the hollyhocks, that all the
flowers should be but of one height."

"Well, what happed?" said I.

"Why, next day were there no hollyhocks. And then the hollyhock stems
and the daisies both laid 'plaint of the gardener."

"Both?" said I.

"Both. They alway do."

"But what 'plaint had the daisies to offer?"

"Why, that they had not been pulled up to the height of the hollyhocks,
be sure."

"But how could they so?"

"Miscontent hath no `can' in his hornbook. Not what thou canst, but
what he would, is his measure of justice."

"But justice is justice," said I--"not what any man would, but what is
fair and even."

"Veriliest. But what is fair and even? If thou stand on Will's haw
[hillock], the oak on thy right hand is the largest tree; if thou stand
on Dick's, it shall be the beech on