Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/103

 other side of Wentwood Chase, since he suspected that this item might be set down to his account, and the bill presented in a manner not at all to his taste. However a few weeks after the wag left Caerleon, not liking the Welsh way of joking, and it is said that he died shortly afterwards of a bad sore throat, a complaint which was very common in those glorious old days, in fine he lost his head, and that is a loss fatal to all of us unless we happen to be saints and then, you know, one can pick up one's head and go up the hill. As for Griffith the Delver he returned to his hovel in Caerleon-over-Bridge, and though he missed at first the flaming light of the jewells [sic] and the tolling of the golden bell, yet he settled down and passed the remnant of his days in great comfort. But he did no more digging for he had found a much better employment than scratching and tormenting Mother Earth. What was that? Why to do nothing, of which he soon learnt the art, for he was a good Silurian at bottom and most likely never would have done anything all his life, if he had not been so unfortunate as to hear how History is written. So he sat in the sun in summer and by the fire in winter, and the good old monks took care of him and gave him plenty to eat and drink while he was alive, and a handsome funeral with plenty of tapers after that he had finished with this world; the which event happened when he was aged ninety-five and getting rather tired. For this is what we must all come to, even if we pass our days in the beautiful sunlight and by the warm hearth,