FORE:"What! think you, sir treasurer," asked De Boteler, "that the knaves, vile as they are, would harm his grace?"The reader will, perhaps, feel some surprise that an esquire of the rich and powerful Lord de Boteler should be thus competing with the yeoman for the hand of a portionless humble nief; but it is necessary to observe, in the first place, that in the fifteenth century esquires were by no means of the consideration they had enjoyed a century before. Some nobles, indeed, who were upholders of the ancient system, still regarded an esquire as but a degree removed from a knight, but these were merely exceptions;the general rule, at the period we are speaking of, was to consider an esquire simply as a principal attendant, without the least claim to any distinction beyond. Such a state of things accorded well with the temper of De Boteler;he could scarcely have endured the equality, which, in some measure, formerly subsisted between the esquire and his lord. With him the equal might be familiar, but the inferior must be submissive; and it was, perhaps, the humility of Calverley's deportment that alone had raised him to the situation he now held. Calverley, besides, had none of the requisites of respectability which would have entitled him to take a stand among a class such as esquires had formerly been.
FORE:Albert had been known openly to scoff at hell, whereas Pete had never thought much about it. Now it confronted them both under a new aspectthe scoffer trembled and the thoughtless was preoccupied.
FORE:He turned on her almost fiercely, his lips curled back from his teeth in a sneer.
THREE:The latter became tired first of his reserve, and perceiving that Calverley, like a spirit, would only speak when spoken to, resolved, with characteristic modesty, to plunge in medias res.
THREE:"And here," said Calverley, unfolding the royal grant, "is the deed that transfers the king's villein to his late and rightful lord."
