“What says he now, father?” asked Bertram eagerly, forgetting in his eagerness the generally observed maxim that the sons spoke not at table till they were directly addressed.  But the knight did not himself heed this breach of decorum.

“It is the same old story; but every year he grows more grasping and more insolent.  Today he complains, forsooth, that the last buck we killed was killed on his ground, and by rights belonged to him.  He threatens that his foresters and huntsmen will wage war with us in future if we ‘trespass’ upon his rights, and wrest our spoil from us!  Beshrew me if I submit to much more!  Patience and forbearance are useless with such a man.  I would I had not conceded all I have done in the interests of peace.”

Bertram’s face was crimson with anger, Edred’s eyes had widened in astonishment, whilst Julian burst out in indignant remonstrance and argument.

“His ground! his rights!  How can he dare say that?  Why, the buck was killed at Juno’s Pool; and all the world knows that that is within the confines of Chad, and that all forest rights there belong to the Lord of Chad!  I would I could force his false words down his false throat!  I would I could—­” but the boy suddenly ceased, because he caught his mother’s warning eye upon him, and saw that his father had opened his lips to speak.

“Ay, and he knows it himself as well as we do; but he is growing bolder and bolder through that monstrous claim he is ever threatening to push—­the claim of his son-in-law to be rightful Lord of Chad!  Phew! he will find it hard to prove that claim, or to oust the present lord.  But Mortimer has money and to spare, and Chad has long been to him what Naboth’s vineyard was to King Ahab—­

“Brother Emmanuel, that simile is thine, and a right good one, too.

“He will seize on any pretext to pick a quarrel; and if he dares, he will push that quarrel at the point of the sword.  I do not fear him; I have the right on my side.  But we may not blind ourselves to this:  that he is a right bitter and treacherous foe, and that should we give any, even the smallest cause of suspicion or offence, he would seize upon that to ruin us.”

Sir Oliver looked keenly round the table at all assembled there, and many knew better than his sons what was in his mind at the time and what had caused him to speak thus.

For a long while now the leaven of Lollardism had been working silently in the country, and there were very many even amongst orthodox sons of the Church who were more or less “bitten” by some of the new notions.  It need hardly be said that wherever light is, it will penetrate in a mysterious and often inexplicable fashion; and although there was much extravagance and perversion in the teachings of the advanced Lollards, there was undoubtedly amongst them a far clearer and purer light than existed in the hearts of those of the common people who had been brought up beneath the sway of the priests, themselves so often ignorant and ill-living men.