"The rich grow fat, and the poor starve," he went on, "'tis hunger
makes a man kill his brother for a mouthful of mouldy bacon."
"Nay," said the miller, "there was no need to kill, Father. A man
could have taken the meat from two lone women and left them their
lives."
"Why take from folk as poor as themselves?" said mine host. "Let
them rob the rich an they must rob."
"Ay," said the friar, "rob the rich, say you, take their own, say
I. God did not make this world that one man should be over full
and another go empty; nor is it religion that the monks' should
live on the fat o' the land and grind the faces of the poor. How
many manors, think you, has the Abbat of St Edmund's, and how many
on his land lack bread?"
Hilarius listened, scarlet with indignation, a flood of wrathful
defence pent at his lips, for the blind friar laid a restraining
hand on his sleeve.
Mine host scratched his head doubtfully. The teaching was
seditious, and made a man liable to stocks and pillory; but it
tickled the ears of the common folk and 'twas ill to quarrel with
the Mendicants.
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