Sir Amias desired his servants to take the knave to the village stocks. 'There wait,' said he, 'my company; and if I find a companion in the state of intoxication he is in, let him be the King's son, my loyalty to his father shall make the law take its course, even with this fool.' So spoke Sir Amias, and his resolution was equal to his words. The knight and the priest set forth, and went as directed to the Masque and Mummers. He had no definite idea as to the issue of his proceeding; but like a brave soldier, strong in the fulfilment of his duty, he marched up to the scene of riot, taking with him such constables as he thought fit for the occasion. A man of less determination might have been deterred from going to the scene. A man with less sense of honor would not have done as he did; and a man, who feared God and honored the King less, would have been afraid to put the law in execution upon a man who presumed to be of an order above all law, and yet chose to transgress. Amidst a set of mummers, masks, and profligates, smugglers, and debauchees, who should be holding forth, with spirits inflated with sack, but Wolsey, the priest of Lymington. Sir Amias did not parley with him in the least; though, in a moment, the fiery priest turned upon him all the gibes of the company, and in his drunken revel, held him up to ridicule before them. It has been said, the knight was uncourteous; but though he knew that man would accuse him of spite, he cared not for any one in the discharge of his duty. The law is never stronger than when it deals equal justice to all. Sir Amias felt that he could not punish his own servant for a fault which the leader of the parish was himself guilty of, without making him an example of the same punishment. He at once put the law into execution, and with such determined resolution, that the very company who, the moment before, were disposed to laugh at the knight, were the first to join in roars of ridicule at the priest of Lymington in the village stocks. He was, indeed, laid by the heels by the gallant Sir Amias, a spectacle of justice such as did no injury even to the man who endured it, but served him right, not only because he ought to have known better, but because he did know better, and was the worst of the two. The two drunkards were a contrast, even in their cups. The servant boasted of his company; and the priest railed against the law, the knight, the stocks, and the people, and threatened them all with the anathemas of Rome. Neither he nor his companion were released till they were sober. One lost his situation as the servant of Sir Amias, and the other found himself so uncomfortable in the company either of nobles or commoners, after this affront to his dignity, that he resigned his living into the hands of his patron; and accepted the office of secretary to Sir John Nafant, who was then governor of Calais. CHAPTER XXXII. THE MONASTERIES.