re soberly, was another person joyful--even the chaplain,
for he saw the making of a valiant friar of Saint Francis in
Martin. That wondrous saint, Francis of Assisi {10}, whose
mission it was to restore to the depraved Christianity of the day
an element it seemed losing altogether, that of brotherly love, was
an embodiment of the sentiment of a later poet:

He prayeth best who loveth best,
All things both great and small,
For the dear God, who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

And wondrous was his power over the rudest men and the most savage
animals in consequence. All things loved Francis--the most timid
animals, the most shy birds, all alike flocked around him when he
appeared.

The brotherhood he had founded was unlike the monastic orders; its
members were not to retire from the world, but to live in it, and
devote themselves entirely to the good of mankind; they were to
renounce all worldly wealth, and embrace chastity, poverty, and
obedience--theirs was not to be the joy of family life, theirs no
settled abode. Wandering from place to place they were to live
solely on the alms of those to whom they preached the gospel of
peace.

Established only at the beginning of the century of our tale, it
had already extended its energies throughout Europe. They came to
England in 1224, only four clergy and five laymen. Already they
numbered more than twelve hundred brethren in England alone; and
they were found where they were most needed, in the back slums of
the undrained and crowded towns, amongst the hovels of the serfs
where plague was raging, where leprosy lingered--there were the
Franciscans in this the heroic age of their order, before they had
fallen from their first love, and verified the proverb--Corruptio
optimi est pessima. Under their teaching a new school of theology
had arisen at Oxford; the great Bishop of Lincoln, Robert
Grosseteste, was its first lecturer, the most enlightened prelate
of the day; and now Adam de Maresco, a warm friend of Earl Simon,
was at its head. To his care the earl determined to commend young
Martin.

Chapter 5: Martin Leaves Kenilworth.

Martin was henceforth relieved of his customary exercises in the
tilt yard and elsewhere, which had become distasteful to him in
proportion as the longing for a better life had grown upon his
imagination. Of course the other boys treated him with huge
contempt; and sent him metaphorically "to Coventry," the actual
spires of which