spies me at the work with my old scythe, and come across to me, and
says he, "Why, Thomas," says he, not knowin' of my name, "Why,
Thomas," says he, "you look like old Time himself a mowing of us all
down," says he. "For sure, my lord," says I, "your lordship reads it
aright, for all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man is as the
flower of the field." He look humble at that, for, great man as he
be, his earthly tabernacle, though more than sizeable, is but a
frail one, and that he do know. And says he, "Where did you read
that, Thomas?" "I am not a larned man, please your lordship," says
I, "and I cannot honestly say I read it nowheres, but I heerd the
words from a book your lordship have had news of: they do call it
the Holy Bible. But they tell me that they of your lordship's
persuasion like it not." "You are very much mistaken there, Thomas,"
says he. "I read my Bible most days, only not the English Bible,
which is full of errors, but the Latin, which is all as God gave
it," says he. And thereby I had not where to answer withal.'

'I fear you proved a poor champion of the truth, master Croning.'

'Confess now, Cast-down Upstill, had he not both sun and wind of
me--standing, so to say, on his own hearth-stone? Had it not been
so, I could have called hard names with the best of you, though that
is by rights the gift of the preachers of the truth. See how the
good master Flowerdew excelleth therein, sprinkling them abroad from
the watering-pot of the gospel. Verily, when my mind is too feeble
to grasp his argument, my memory lays fast hold upon the hard names,
and while I hold by them, I have it all in a nutshell.'

Fortified occasionally by a pottle of ale, and keeping their spirits
constantly stirred by much talking, they had been all day occupied