FRIAR. "Forsooth we meditate and pray--"
BELTANE. "And eat!"
FRIAR. "Aye verily, we do a little in that way as the custom is, for your reverent eater begetteth a devout pray-er. The which mindeth me I grow an hungered, yet will I forego appetite and yield thee this fair pasty for but two of thy gold pieces. And, look ye, 'tis a noble pasty I had this day from my lord Pertolepe's own table."
BELTANE. "That same lord that showed mercy on yonder poor maimed wretch? Know you him?"
FRIAR. "In very sooth, and 'tis a potent lord that holdeth me in some esteem, a most Christian knight--"
BELTANE. "That ravisheth the defenceless! Whose hands be foul with the blood of innocence--"
FRIAR. "How--how? 'Tis a godly lord who giveth bounteously to Holy Church--"
BELTANE. "Who stealeth from the poor--"
FRIAR. "Stealeth! Holy Saint Dunstan, dare ye speak thus of so great a lord--a son of the Church, a companion of our noble Duke? Steal, forsooth! The poor have nought to steal!"
BELTANE. "They have their lives."
FRIAR. "Not so, they and their lives are their lord's, 'tis so the law and--"
BELTANE. "Whence came this law?"
FRIAR. "It came, youth--it came--aye, of God!"
BELTANE. "Say rather of the devil!"
FRIAR. "Holy Saint Michael--'tis a blasphemous youth! Never heard ears the like o' this--"
BELTANE. "Whence cometh poverty and famine?"
FRIAR. "'Tis a necessary evil! Doth it not say in Holy Writ, 'the poor ye have always with you'?"
BELTANE. "Aye, so shall ye ever--until the laws be amended. So needs must men starve and starve--"
FRIAR. "There be worse things! And these serfs be born to starve, bred up to it, and 'tis better to starve here than to perish hereafter, better to purge the soul by lack of meat than to make of it a fetter of the soul!"
"Excellently said, holy sir!" quoth Beltane, stooping of a sudden. "But for this pasty now, 'tis a somewhat solid fetter, meseemeth, so now do I free thee of it--thus!" So saying, my Beltane dropped the pasty into the deeper waters of the brook and, thereafter, took up his staff. "Sir Friar," said he, "behold to-day is thy soul purged of a pasty against the day of judgment!"
Then Beltane went on beside the rippling waters of the brook, but above its plash and murmur rose the deeptoned maledictions of Friar Gui.