Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/430

 41 o WJlory of Do me flic Manners they go on treating him worfe and worfe, until he is laved from a61ual deftitution by a deception he praftifes upon them. In one verfion of the ftory, given in Enghlli verfe in a manufcript of the fifteenth century, the father goes to a friend and borrows a large fum of money in gold, which he places in his coiler, and, having invited them to his dwelling, and perfuaded them to remain all night, he contrives that early in the morning they Ihall, as by accident, efpy him counting his gold. The unfilial children, who fuppofed that he had given them all he polTeffed, were aftonillied to find him ftill rich, and were induced, by their covetoufnefs, to treat him better during the reft of his life. The poem defcribes the old man leaving his bed to count the gold in his cheft : — But on the moroiv, at brode daf light. The fad'ir ros, and, for they (hulden here What that he d'lde in a boljious manere. Unto his chefl, ivhich thre lokkes hadde. He luent, and therat lurethed he ful fadde. And ivhan it ivas opened and unpit. The bagged gold bi the merchaunt hym lent He hath untied, and Jireight forth ivith it Unto his bcddis feete gone is and ivent, What doth thanne this f el man and prudent But out the gold on a tapit hath [hot. That in the bagges left ther no grot. — MS. Harl. 372, fol. 88, v°. Robbers, or plunderers in time of war, when breaking into a houfe, always made dire£t for the chamber. Among the letters of the Pafton family, is a paper by a retainer of fir John Faftolf, who had a houfe in Southwark, giving an account of his fufterings during the attack upon London by Jack Cade and the commons of Kent in i4';o, in which he tells how " the captain (Cade) fent certain of his meny to my chamber in your rents, and there broke up my cheft, and took away one obligation of mine that was due unto me of 36/. by a prieft of Paul's and one other obligation of one Knight of 10/., and my purfe with five rings of gold, and I /A. 6d. of gold and filver ; and one harnefs {Ju'it of armour) com- plete of the touch of Milan ; and one gown of fine perfe blue, furred with martens; and two gowns, one furred with bogey {ludge), and one other lined with frieze." One of John Pafton's correfpondents, writing from