Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/148

128 face; the pardoner, with his wallet "bret-full of pardons, come from Rome all hot"; the lively prioress with her courtly French lisp, her soft, little red mouth, and "Amor vincit omnia" graven on her brooch. Learning is there in the portly person of the doctor of physic, rich with the profits of the pestilence; the busy serjeant-of-law, "that ever seemed busier than he was"; the hollow-cheeked clerk of Oxford, with his love of books, and short, sharp sentences that disguise a latent tenderness which breaks out at last in the story of Griseldis. Around them crowd types of English industry: the merchant; the franklin, in whose house "it snowed of meat and drink"; the sailor fresh from frays in the Channel; the buxom wife of Bath; the broad-shouldered miller; the haberdasher, carpenter, weaver, dyer, tapestry-maker, each in the livery of his craft; and last, the honest ploughman, who would dyke and delve for the poor without hire.

All these types we can picture as they journeyed over the rough and almost impassable roads of medieval England. For the roads and bridges were indeed of the most hopeless description; moreover, they were infested with beggars of every kind, robbers and banditti lay in wait