more people than work could be found for.

[Illustration: EDGAR TALKS MATTERS OVER WITH THE PRIOR OF ST. ALWYTH.]

"So long as each was called upon only to pay his fifteenth to the king's
treasury they were contented enough, but now they are called upon for a
tenth as well as a fifteenth, and often this is greatly exceeded by the
rapacity of the tax-collectors. Other burdens are put upon them, and
altogether men are becoming desperate. Then, too, the cessation of the
wars with France has brought back to the country numbers of disbanded
soldiers who, having got out of the way of honest work and lost the habits
of labour, are discontented and restless. All this adds to the danger. We
who live in the country see these things, but the king and nobles either
know nothing of them or treat them with contempt, well knowing that a few
hundred men-at-arms can scatter a multitude of unarmed serfs."

"And would you give freedom to the serfs, good Father?"

"I say not that I would give them absolute freedom, but I would grant them
a charter giving them far greater rights than at present. A fifteenth of
their labour is as much as they should be called upon to pay, and when the
king's necessities render it needful that further money should be raised,
the burden should only be laid upon the backs of those who can afford to
pay it. I hear that there is much wild talk, and that the doctrines of
Wickliffe have done grievous harm. I say not, my son, that there are not
abuses in the Church as well as elsewhere; but these pestilent doctrines
lead men to disregard all authority, and to view their natural masters as
oppressors. I hear that seditious talk is uttered openly in the villages
throughout the country; that there are men who would fain persuade the
ignorant that all above them are drones who live on the proceeds of their