"But I disagree with you," the Bishop interposed, his pale, ascetic face betraying by a faint glow the intensity of his feelings.
"But why should there be a conflict?" the Bishop demanded warmly.
So the holy men came to the church; the Bishop and the Prior jesting and laughing between themselves about certain fair dames, their words more befitting the lips of laymen, methinks, than holy clerks.
Truly, good Lord Bishop, many a knight and burgher, clerk and layman, have danced to my music, willy-nilly, and most times greatly against their will; such is the magic of my harping.
Thereat the
Bishop of London was angry again, and cried out saying that it was not the custom for those who had come to answer for their misdeeds to sit.
Already were the guests beginning to assemble, when the
Bishop, back in the vestry, saw a minstrel clad in green walk up boldly to the door and peer within.
'I am told,' said
Bishop magnate to Horse Guards, 'that Mr Merdle has made another enormous hit.
The
bishop looked anxiously at the man sobbing in the ingle-nook.
"Yes, Father," laughed the great fellow, "for the sake of Holy Church I did indeed confiscate that temptation completely, and if you must needs have proof in order to absolve me from my sins, come with me now and you shall sample the excellent discrimination which the
Bishop of Norwich displays in the selection of his temptations."
From the "Master of Sentences," he had passed to the "Capitularies of Charlemagne;" and he had devoured in succession, in his appetite for science, decretals upon decretals, those of Theodore,
Bishop of Hispalus; those of Bouchard,
Bishop of Worms; those of Yves,
Bishop of Chartres; next the decretal of Gratian, which succeeded the capitularies of Charlemagne; then the collection of Gregory IX.; then the Epistle of
"Oh," said Bazin, without hesitation, "now that monseigneur is a
bishop, I shall soon have my orders, or at least my dispensations." And he rubbed his hands.
It seemed to him that the voice of the
bishop's, but just now so playful and gay, had become funereal and sad; that the wax lights changed into the tapers of a mortuary chapel, the very glasses of wine into chalices of blood.
