Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/57



ALL GOOD Silurists love the sweet town of Abergavenny, wherefore I need crave no pardon in telling a tale of it. But you know there stands outside the east gate a very fine church that was formerly the quire of the good old monks, settled there by the great Lord Marcher Hamelin de Baladun, not by Drogo de Baladun nor Bryan de Insula, as some have said; though indeed this question is of little importance to my history. And you know what curious and special works are to be seen in this quire, what storied and annealed windows, with monuments of charge and show most choicely wrought, and blazoned with right noble bearings. There the great lords lie well, as it becomes lords to lie, decked out in their harness, their head and feet resting on strange monstrous creatures and with calm faces and uplifted hands, wrought full rarely in the goodly stone and alabaster. Beside these are their dear wives and sweethearts vested in wimple, couvre-chef, and cote-hardie, with their little pets cut beside them. One of these sweet ladies hath a squirrel in her hand and they say that while she ran after the merry little beast she fell down from the castle wall and quite lost her breath. Is it not pitiful to think of this and of all these ladies and their knights, who of old time loved and laughed right heartily and were warm and glowing from head to foot,