with a white beard and red complexion; one of Epicurus's own sons,
who held that ale and wheaten bread and fish and dainty flesh,
partridge fat, were pure felicity; evidently a man given to
hospitality,--


"His table dormant in his hall alway
Stood ready covered all the longe day."


He was a sheriff, also, to enforce the law, and to be present at
all the county sessions. The doctor, of course, could not be left
out of the company,--a man who knew the cause of every malady,
versed in magic as well as physic, and grounded also in astronomy;
who held that gold is the best of cordials, and knew how to keep
what he gained; not luxurious in his diet, but careful what he ate
and drank. The village miller is not forgotten in this motley
crowd,--rough, brutal, drunken, big and brawn, with a red beard and
a wart on his nose, and a mouth as wide as a furnace, a reveller
and a jangler, accustomed to take toll thrice, and given to all the
sins that then abounded. He is the most repulsive figure in the
crowd, both vulgar and wicked. In contrast with him is the reve,
or steward, of a lordly house,--a slender, choleric man, feared by
servants and gamekeepers, yet in favor with his lord, since he
always had money to lend, although it belonged to his master; an
adroit agent and manager, who so complicated his accounts that no
auditor could unravel them or any person bring him in arrears. He
rode a fine dappled-gray stallion, wore a long blue overcoat, and
carried a rusty sword,--evidently a proud and prosperous man. With
a monk and friar, the picture would be incomplete without a