THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
of mind, of which the Prior made an Easter offering every year to the Bishop of Llandaff, and on which many high ecclesiastical persons had been regaled on Gaudy-Days. While Brother Pacificus was stripping this peppery unctuous customer of his skin, Sir Payne's blue eyes twinkled finely, for he knew the taste of these gay fellows and was aware that it was always necessary to drink a lot of good wine afterwards; and when a man had done this he was in the humour to pull Satan's tail and follow up the attention with a hearty kick. And when the two comrades were in the midst of their disjune the knight began to ask the monk (who knew everybody) about the barge he had seen the day before. "An old knight, Father, steered it; a well-looking man with a white beard and a gyppon all glistening with gold; and below him sat a fair young lady, golden haired and intolerably beautiful, in a tunic of white velours; and other ladies and knights were there, and minstrels also." "You saw, I think, Sir Rowland Bluet; for he often goes thus on the water, and his daughter Alianor is truly a comely maiden; but what was his coat, since you doubtless noted it?" "He bore three golden chevrons on a sanguine field crusoly of the first, and the maiden's cote hardie was pounced all over with the golden crosses." "That to be sure is Sir Rowland's coat; a good knight, a very worshipful gentleman, but somewhat stern and not by any man to be trifled with. But you may see his house not far from the Castle, with a high wall all around it and a great chestnut tree
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