Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/34

 to nought, that his days were passed in misery and woe, and that he wished for nothing better than to die; yet he submitted himself to his liege lord, and craved mercy. But my lord looked pitifully upon this wretched sinner, and charged Levrier d'Argent, his herald, to set him in the ingle-nook, and there to deliver to him the sentence of the Court; and that was brought in a great tankard of old ale, so strong that it burned upon the fire like oil, so concocted that it smelt as a garden of spices of Arabia. Then the session went on, and the Sub-chanter raised the song—

Potus blandus! Potus fortis

Regibus, cleris et scortis

Et in hortis atque portis

O dulcis cervisia:

after the order appointed in the Consuetudinary of the Court. Then was read a piece from "The Red Book of Rabanus Jocosus," and the whole assembly from the High Tosspot to the Clericus Spigotti recounted tales so quaint and admirable that the guilty, pardoned man was like to have been bursten with laughter, notably at the tale of a certain clerk, called The History of the Silver Tankard with the Golden Spout, and how rain water flowed forth from it. Which I would gladly set down here had I not sworn by Gwen-Wen and the Round Table not to publish nor blaze abroad the acts done in Cervisage at the Greyhound; but this tale is engrossed on the Court Rolls, with many other choice relations that the Court has heard told