It was easy for Wyclif in the shelter of the University to warn against over-haste and to protest that education must come before a lasting reform could be accomplished, and that one must build on solid foundations for the future. It was not so easy for the wandering poor priest, with the sufferings of the people ever before him, to refrain from pressing the Gospel into immediate action. Annys began very soon to suspect that it was impossible to feed the people with the knowledge of Holy Writ and expect no indigestion to come from the strange diet. If Life truly began to be tested by Holy Writ, some idols must fall—if the Church Hierarchical, alas for it! If Christian society were to be modelled on the plain teachings of its Founder, some strange sights would be seen.

Annys had not needed to be stoned to feel rise up within him a fierce hatred toward that stately church that reared its head so haughtily to heaven. Ah, truly he held with St. Boniface of old that "in the catacombs the candlesticks were of wood, but the priests were golden. Now the candlesticks are of gold."

That morning, when he preached to the men in the fields and told them in homely language of the life of their Lord and His death to save them, a summons had come from the Bishop of Ely bidding Robert Annys appear before him. And, wondering what the Bishop could want of him (unless to order him peremptorily from his diocese, in which case it was scarcely necessary to do so in person), he had had himself rowed over the wide-spreading meres that separated the isle of Ely from the mainland. As he slowly approached the glorious pile, there came over him with a curious stir the memory of that King Canute who had also been thus rowed across and who had bade the oarsmen pause midway that he might listen to the beautiful chanting of the monks.

Truth to tell, for all his passionate disdain for what lay outside of the true heart of Christianity, he was more profoundly moved by the beauty of Ely Minster than he would have dreamed it possible. For he was an ardent student of history, and here before him was wrought as true and noble an epic as ever was writ on parchment. Into these noble arches and soaring towers, these delicate pinnacles, these exquisite traceries, surely the adoring heart of Mediævalism had lavishly poured itself. This russet priest was an artist and worshipped beauty, hence he could not look on Ely unmoved. He was an Englishman to the fingertips, hence he could not stand on ground so alive with heroic traditions and not thrill to the memory of them. As he stood there in the gathering darkness before the church, he saw a long struggle before him. He saw the Bishop of Ely and the whole powerful Church of Rome leagued against him. And why? Because he followed Christ's clear mandates. Yet he was certain that nothing that the Hierarchy could do would conquer him. He would stand to the end, alone if need be, but fearlessly true to his convictions, true to the master who had sent him out into the world to do His work. Something of the grim determination of those Saxons of old entered into him, those hardy warriors who had fought so many hundred years before on that very spot and made their last dogged stand against the conquering Normans; something, too, of the undaunted will of that old monk-architect, who, even amid the roar of the falling walls of the old tower of Ely, had conceived the great new tower, the wonderful octagon which was unique in all England.

No! no threat of imprisonment or other punishment on the morrow could make him swerve from the course he had chosen. He would continue to go among his people with only a book and a bag. His people who awaited him among the hayricks, who let plough rest idle in the furrow or tossed aside the spade that they might hearken to him. His people! His eyes dimmed with tears as he thought of the pathetic figure of Piers Ploughman standing in the fields, the light of a great wonder in his face,—Piers in the condition of a man who has had his eyes bandaged for a long time, and now for the first time has had the bandage removed. In the strange light that now bursts upon him the most familiar objects take on a new and strange appearance. In the transformation that is going on about him, all that his honest heart has held stable, omnipotent, eternal, now sways unsteadily before him: Feudal Lords, Sheriffs, King's men and Kings; Fees in Tithe, Manorial Holdings, Rights of Labor, Acts of Parliament, and even Holy Church herself. No, no, come what may, he could never desert Piers now:—

The night closed slowly down upon the Cathedral. At last its great mass was felt rather than seen.

"Thy strength against mine," the poor priest murmured, as he lingered yet an instant.

"Thy strength against mine."

II

The following morning Thomas Goldynge, Bishop of Ely, lay in bed awaiting those to whom he had promised audience. It was with considerable curiosity that he awaited the young poor priest whom he had summoned. He sighed with relief as he realized that the hard fight which he had waged against Rome was ended. It was a contest over the best method of suppressing the poor priests, and it had taken many secret embassies to Rome, and many letters in cipher sent to trusted friends at the Papal Court. Indeed, it had looked at one time as if the Bishop himself, aged as he was, would have to undertake the long and tedious journey to the Holy City, for the Bishop looked upon this matter as one of vital importance to the Church. He agreed with the Papal Legate that the incendiary preaching of the poor priests must be stamped out, but he had some theories of his own as to this stamping-out process, and persecution bore no part in them. He, more than any other Churchman, realized that the English people needed careful handling. How was the Italian Legate to understand anything of the rage and indignation that were growing up in the hearts of the English against foreign subjection, against a Church that gave the best sees in the land to Italians who scarce deigned to make acquaintance with the very outsides of their churches? The substance of the people was being wrung from them to help the cause of their bitter enemies. The King of England had little or nothing left for his needs because the Church refused to give up one tittle of its moneys for the good of the realm. Goldynge was an Englishman, and he had struggled all his life to place Englishmen in English churches. He was against the new spirit of Nationalism, however, when it asserted itself against the most sacred prerogatives of the Church, for he could look far ahead and see that this spirit might become powerful enough to wreck the Church Universal and give birth in England to a Church that would forswear all allegiance to Rome. He was for doing all in his power to redress the wrongs of the people and keep the breach from widening, for Holy Church had about all the schisms it could well take care of for some time to come.

When Robert Annys was ushered in with head flung well back and every line in the lithe young body eloquent of a proud defiance, the Bishop raised himself on the pillow and looked long and eagerly into his face. Therein he read all that he had counted to find. In the