XXVI. HOW NIGEL FOUND HIS THIRD DEED

XXVII. HOW THE THIRD MESSENGER CAME TO COSFORD




INTRODUCTION


Dame History is so austere a lady that if one, has been so
ill-advised as to take a liberty with her, one should hasten to
make amends by repentance and confession. Events have been
transposed to the extent of some few months in this narrative in
order to preserve the continuity and evenness of the story. I
hope so small a divergence may seem a venial error after so many
centuries. For the rest, it is as accurate as a good deal of
research and hard work could make it.

The matter of diction is always a question of taste and discretion
in a historical reproduction. In the year 1350 the upper classes
still spoke Norman-French, though they were just beginning to
condescend to English. The lower classes spoke the English of the
original Piers Plowman text, which would be considerably more
obscure than their superiors' French if the two were now
reproduced or imitated. The most which the chronicles can do is
to catch the cadence and style of their talk, and to infuse here
and there such a dash of the archaic as may indicate their fashion
of speech.