fight effectively, with sword or pike, or even with oaken cudgel;
no man would live quietly without beef and ale if he had them not;
he fought till he either got them, or was put out of condition to
want them. They were not, and could not be, subjected to that
powerful pressure of all the other classes of society, combined by
gunpowder, steam, and fiscality, which has brought them to that
dismal degradation in which we see them now. And there are the
people of the twelfth century.

MR. MAC QUEDY. As to your king, the enchanter has done him ample
justice, even in your own view. As to your lords and their ladies,
he has drawn them too favourably, given them too many of the false
colours of chivalry, thrown too attractive a light on their
abominable doings. As to the people, he keeps them so much in the
background, that he can hardly be said to have represented them at
all, much less misrepresented them, which indeed he could scarcely
do, seeing that, by your own showing, they were all thieves, ready
to knock down any man for what they could not come by honestly.

MR. CHAINMAIL. No, sir. They could come honestly by beef and ale,
while they were left to their simple industry. When oppression
interfered with them in that, then they stood on the defensive, and
fought for what they were not permitted to come by quietly.

MR. MAC QUEDY. If A., being aggrieved by B., knocks down C., do
you call that standing on the defensive?

MR. CHAINMAIL. That depends on who or what C. is.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Gentlemen, you will never settle this