ious Ajax, not a messy stone more than
two modern men could raise, but a vast dish of beef more than fifty
ancient yeomen could eat, and whirled it like a coit, in terrorem, over
the head of the friar, to the extremity of the apartment,

Where it on oaken floor did settle,
With mighty din of ponderous metal.

"Nay father," said Matilda, taking the baron's hand, "do not harm the
friar: he means not to offend you. My gaiety never before displeased
you. Least of all should it do so now, when I have need of all my
spirits to outweigh the severity of my fortune."

As she spoke the last words, tears started into her eyes, which, as if
ashamed of the involuntary betraying of her feelings, she turned away to
conceal. The baron was subdued at once. He kissed his daughter, held out
his hand to the friar, and said, "Sing on, in God's name, and crack away
the flasks till your voice swims in canary." Then turning to Sir Ralph,
he said, "You see how it is, sir knight. Matilda is my daughter; but she
has me in leading-strings, that is the truth of it."

CHAPTER V

'T is true, no lover has that power
To enforce a desperate amour
As he that has two strings to his bow
And burns for love and money too.--BUTLER.

The friar had often had experience of the baron's testy humour; but
it had always before confined itself to words, in which the habit of
testiness often mingled more expression of displeasure than the internal
feeling prompted. He knew the baron to be hot and choleric, but at the
same time hospitable and generous; passionately fond of his daughter,
often thwarting her in seeming, but always yielding to her in fact. The
early attachment between Matilda and the Earl of Huntingdon had given
the baron no serious reason to interfere with her habits and
pursuits, which were so congenial to those of her lover; and not being
over-burdened with orthodoxy, that is to say, not being seasoned with
more of the salt of the spirit than was necessary to preserve him from
excommunication, confiscation, and philotheoparoptesism, [1] he was not
sorry to encourage his daughter's choice of her confessor in brother
Michael, who had more jollity and less hypocrisy than any of his
fraternity, and was very little anxious to disguise his love of the good
things of this world under the semblance of a sanctified exterior. The
friar and Matilda had often sung duets together, and had been accustomed
to the baron's chimin