"Hast forgotten the funerals?" said Peter, dryly, with a significant nod towards the door beyond. Then, noting no gleam of comprehension on the faces of the others, he strode to this door, and threw it open. Within, in the half light, they could see through the narrow archway the dim outlines of rich banners standing piled against the walls, and candles heaped on chests of vestments, and velvet palls. "How make it good?" cried the worldly Peter. "Where we have put pence into that room we shall draw forth rose-nobles. Know you not the King's charge to his fighting men, 'Kill the lords, but spare the commons!' By sundown of the morrow one may walk among dead knights round about like sheeps' carcasses on a murrain'd moor. The Gastons, if there the Queen holdeth her place till she be met, will turn to marshes with gentle blood. And where shall they be buried, but here, within the holy Abbey's walls? Then see what comes: item, for tolling the death-bells; item, for streaking-board and face-cloth; item, for so many sin-eaters, to be of our own servitors; item, for so much waste of funeral torches; item, for funeral sermons; item, for the hiring of palls; item, for hiring of garlands of wax and gum to hang over the graves; item, for masses and candles before the rood at month's mind; item----" "Peace, greedy Peter!" broke in the artist Thomas; "wert thou bred for a gravedigger? His Lordship mislikes this funeral zeal of thine. When thy grumbling for that the great Earl came not here from Barnet for his burial reached the Abbot's ears, he spoke wrothfully concerning it." "So would he not, when I had shown him the charges in my book for that same," retorted Peter. "For how lives an Abbey save by the death of generous and holy men and women? And was it not a foul thing that the great Earl--lord of this manor, patron of this Abbey--should not have profitably laid his bones here, where now for four hundred years lie all the lords of Tewkesbury, Fitz-Hamons, Clares, De Spensers, Beauchamps--but should be filched away to Berkshire to enrich those Austin friars instead? Thus is religion scandalized, Sir Scrivener!" Thomas turned away at this, mistrusting his temper in further argument; and Hugh would gladly have followed him out of the room, but that Peter bent his steps toward the storage chamber beyond, where lay hidden those wretched morris trappings. Prudence counselled the lad to depart, and let discovery take care of itself; but anxiety held him back, and he went in at the heels of the Sacristan. Old Peter sent a speculative eye shrewdly over the contents of the room, making a rough enumeration as he progressed, and offering comments aloud from time to time half to himself.