the ox?" [Note 1.]

"Not I!" cried De Valence, with a hearty laugh. "Why, what mean you?
are we to dine on a haunch of lion when it comes?"

"Nay, for that were to make us worse than either, methinks. I suppose
we shall give over eating what has had life, at that time."

"_Merci, mille fois_!" laughed his uncle. "My dinner will be spoiled.
Not thine, I dare say. I'll be bound, Sire, our fair cousin will munch
his apples and pears with all the gusto in the world, and send his
squire to the stable to inquire if the lion has a straw doubled under
him."

"Bah!" said the King. "What are you talking about?"

"How much will this business of the Jews cost your Grace?" asked De
Valence, dropping his sarcasms.

"Cost _me_?" demanded Edward, with a short laugh. "Did our fair uncle
imagine we meant to execute such a project at our own expense? Let the
rogues pay their own travelling fees."

"Ha! good!" said the Poitevin noble. "And our fair cousin of Lancaster
shall chant the _De Profundis_ while they embark, and I will offer a
silver fibula to Saint Edward that they may all be drowned. How sayest,
fair Cousin?"

"Nay," was Lancaster's answer, in a doubtful tone. "I reckon we ought
not to pity them, being they that crucified our Lord. But--"

But for all that, his heart cried out against his creed. Yet it did not
occur to him that the particular men who were being driven from their
homes for no fault of theirs, and forced with keen irony of oppression
to pay their own expenses, were not those who crucified Christ, but were
removed from them by many generations. The times of the Gentiles were
not yet fulfilled, and the cry, "His blood be on us, _and on our
children_" had not yet exhausted its awful power.

There was one person not present who would heartily have agreed with
Lancaster. This was his cousin and namesake, Edmund, Earl of Cornwall,
who not only felt for the lower animals--a rare yet occasional state of
mind in the thirteenth century--but went further, and compassionated the
villeins--a sentiment which very few indeed would have dreamed of
sharing with him. The labourers on the land were serfs, and had no
feelings,--that is, none that could be recognised by the upper classes.
They were liable to be sold with the land which they tilled; nor could
they leave their "hundred" without a passport. Their sons might not be
educated to anything but agriculture; their daughters could not be
married with