Page:Historical Lectures and Addresses.djvu/118

 "This will altogether undo us". He went to the next house, and when they said, "God provide for you," he simply smiled in their faces as if he did not understand their language, and when the door was shut in his face, he sat down on the doorstep and waited, until at last the peasants, seeing that he could not be got rid of, gave him some bread, and so the friars learnt how to get over the first refusal.

They had somewhat easier experiences on first coming to England, but there the way had been a little prepared for them by the Dominicans. A small party of Franciscans arrived in September, 1224, and went first to Canterbury, then to Oxford, and then settled in London, and afterwards at Northampton, Cambridge and Lincoln. In all cases their history was pretty much the same. At Oxford, they first went to the Dominican House, and they were at once welcomed and helped. At Canterbury, the Master of the Hospital gave them a site, and the citizens built them a little house. It is noticeable that in England they retained their simplicity for the longest time. But the characteristic which most helped them, and which was to a great extent new, and gave a new force to their teaching, was their exceeding cheerfulness. Nowhere was that characteristic more conspicuous than in England. At Oxford, the brothers had to be prevented by a solemn ordinance from laughing so much at their prayers. As they knelt, their sense of humour would overcome them, and they would roll upon the floor in uncontrollable paroxysms of laughter. The stories told about them show their exceeding lightheartedness under circumstances of great privation.