Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/197

 quills that made ugly marks against everything and wrote down unpleasant items. And the business was to inspect, peer into, tote up, balance, and certify, charters, copyhold-rolls, receipts, grants, manor-lists; and to set these against sundry bills of debts that filled a capacious chest and seemed likely to lift the lid off their receptacle, to say nothing of lifting the lead off Penhow, the cattle off the meadows, and the fish out of the pool, if some order were not taken with them. Against these hideous bills the manor-rolls showed very poorly, though they were famously written and engrossed on great skins of parchment, and as Master Hierome Jessaye declared, had been executed by an Italian clerk as beautifully and artificially as any he had ever seen. But as the man-of-law was pleased also to remark fair flourishes fill not full flagons, nor gold frets an abounding chest, and sometimes 'tis better to have a single live sheep than a dozen sheepskins; and the next time Master Hierome came to Penhow after making these facetious observations, he brought a little horn of red ink with him with which he wrote down terrible things that seemed to promise abundance of dry bread and as much cold water as it liked you for Penhow; and Roger began to recollect that there was no well in the castle and all the water had to be fetched in a bouget from the fountain down below, for hitherto he had looked upon his cellar and his ale-tubs as the only fountains with which he was concerned. Meanwhile Master Pykott was hard at work with a lot of little sticks notched all over with lines and