isturbing the peace of a neighbouring state. Yet so it is, that his
name is freely used by those who uphold and inflame the discontents at
Liege. There is, moreover, in the land, a nobleman of good descent, and
fame in warlike affairs, but otherwise, so to speak, Lapis offensionis
et petra scandali--and a stumbling block of offence to the countries of
Burgundy and Flanders. His name is William de la Marck."

"Called William with the Beard," said the young Scot, "or the Wild Boar
of Ardennes?"

"And rightly so called, my son," said the Prior, "because he is as the
wild boar of the forest, which treadeth down with his hoofs and rendeth
with his tusks. And he hath formed to himself a band of more than a
thousand men, all, like himself, contemners of civil and ecclesiastical
authority, and holds himself independent of the Duke of Burgundy, and
maintains himself and his followers by rapine and wrong, wrought without
distinction upon churchmen and laymen. Imposuit manus in Christos
Domini--he hath stretched forth his hand upon the anointed of the Lord,
regardless of what is written, 'Touch not mine anointed, and do my
prophets no wrong.'--Even to our poor house did he send for sums of
gold and sums of silver, as a ransom for our lives, and those of
our brethren, to which we returned a Latin supplication, stating our
inability to answer his demand, and exhorting him in the words of the
preacher, Ne moliaris amico tuo malum, cum habet in te fiduciam [devise
not evil against thy neighbour who dwelleth by thee in security].
Nevertheless, this Guilielmus Barbatus, this William de la Marck, as
completely ignorant of humane letters as of humanity itself, replied, in
his ridiculous jargon, Si non payatis, brulabo monasterium vestrum [if
you do not pay, I will burn your monastery. A similar story is told of
the Duke of Vendome, who answered in this sort of macaronic Latin the
classical expostulations of a German convent against the imposition of a
contribution. S.]."

"Of which rude Latin, however, you, my good father," said the youth,
"were at no loss to conceive the meaning?"

"Alas! my son," said the Prior, "Fear and Necessity are shrewd
interpreters, and we were obliged to melt down the silver vessels of our
altar to satisfy the rapacity of this cruel chief. May Heaven requite it
to him seven fold! Pereat improbus--Amen, amen, anathema esto! [let the
wicked perish. Let him be anathema! 'In pronouncing an anathema against
a per