Page:The Life of Sir Thomas More (William Roper, ed by Samuel Singer).djvu/117

 Year's gift, he, upon her importunate pressing upon him thereof, of courtesy refused not to receive it. Then the Lord of Wiltshire, for hatred of his religion preferrer of this suit, with much rejoicing said unto the lords; "Lo, my lords, did I not tell you, my lords! that you should find this matter true?" Whereupon Sir Thomas More desired their lordships that as they had heard him courteously tell the one part of his tale, so that they would vouchsafe of their honours indifferently to hear the other. After which obtained, he farther declared unto them, that albeit he had indeed with much work received that cup, yet immediately thereupon caused he his butler to fill it with wine, and of that cup drank to her; and that when he had so done and she pledged him, then as freely as her husband had given it to him, even so freely gave he the same again to her to give unto her husband for his new year's gift: which, at his instant request, though much against her will, at length yet she was fain to receive, as herself and certain other there present before them deposed. Thus was the great mountain turned scant to a little molehill.

So I remember that at another time, upon a new year's day, there came unto him one Mistress Croker a rich widow, for whom with no small pains he had made a decree in the Chancery against the Lord of Arundel, to present him with a pair of gloves and forty pounds in angels in