ts how to drive a
bargain. Saint Austin! but he deemed you came to look after your
kinsman's corrody."

"He said the king spake of a visitation to abolish corrodies from
religious houses," said Ambrose.

"He'll abolish the long bow from them first," said Father Shoveller.
"Ay, and miniver from my Lord Abbot's hood. I'd admonish you, my good
brethren of Saint Grimbald, to be in no hurry for a visitation which
might scarce stop where you would fain have it. Well, my sons, are ye
bound for the Forest again? An ye be, we'll wend back together, and ye
can lie at Silkstede to-night."

"Alack, kind father, there's no more home for us in the Forest," said
Ambrose.

"Methought ye had a brother?"

"Yea; but our brother hath a wife."

"Ho! ho! And the wife will none of you?"

"She would have kept Ambrose to teach her boy his primer," said Stephen;
"but she would none of Spring nor of me."

"We hoped to receive counsel from our uncle at Hyde," added Ambrose.

"Have ye no purpose now?" inquired the Father, his jolly good-humoured
face showing much concern.

"Yea," manfully returned Stephen. "'Twas what I ever hoped to do, to
fare on and seek our fortune in London."

"Ha! To pick up gold and silver like Dick Whittington. Poor old Spring
here will scarce do you the part of his cat," and the monk's hearty
laugh angered Stephen into muttering, "We are no fools," but Father
Shoveller only laughed the more, saying, "Fair and softly, my son, ye'll
never pick up the gold if ye cannot brook a kindly quip. Have you
friends or kindred in London?"

"Yea, that have we, sir," cried Stephen; "our mother's own brother,
Master Randall, hath come to preferment there in my Lord Archbishop of
York's household, and hath sent us tokens from time to time, which we
will show you."

"Not while we be feasting," said Father Shoveller, hastily checking
Ambrose, who was feeling in his bosom. "See, the knaves be bringing
their grampus across the court. Here, we'll clean our hands, and be
ready for the meal;" and he showed them, under a projecting gallery in
the inn yard a stone trough, through which flowed a stream of water, in
which he proceeded to wash his hands and face, and to wipe them in a
coarse towel suspended nigh at hand. Certainly after handling sheep
freely there was need, though such ablutions were a refinement not
indulged in by all the company who assembled round the well-spread board
of the White Hart for the meal af