generally he rode the hindermost of our party. Yet for all his
uncouthness he kept his master's property well, although some said
the tenants dreaded him as the plague. He had told me that his house
was built fairly upon a wide heath, yet shaded with green trees.

"If I liked," he said, "I could tell a tale against your craft, and
show how a miller was tricked and fared worse than your carpenter.
But I am old, and my term of life is nearly done. Quarrelling and
scorn befit not white hairs, yet little is left us old men but envy,
malice, and all uncharitableness."

At that Harry Bailey interrupted him. "Why all this grumbling and
sermoning?" he said in his lordliest tones. "What has a reeve to do
with texts? Tell your tale, my man, and don't waste time. Look, there
is Deptford, and half our morning's gone! Yonder is Greenwich! Come,
we have no time to listen to your moralising. Begin!"

"Forgive me then," said Oswald, "if I tell you a tale to cap the
Miller's. Such drunken scoundrels deserve quittance. Here is my
story."



THE REEVE'S TALE OF THE MILLER OF TRUMPINGTON

At Trumpington, a hamlet not far from Cambridge, there runs a brook;
over it is a bridge. On this brook there stands a mill, and there a
miller had his dwelling many a year. He was proud as a peacock, handy
with the pipes, a good man at fishing and at wrestling or in an
archery match. He always went armed; at his side a claymore--and