‘One day his Lady-wife, conceiving that a little religious book, which a godly man had sent her, entitled _A Little Sooth Sermon of the Seven Deadly Sins_, might aid to cleanse his filthy and impure heart, came to him as he sat on a bench in the base court singing a vain amorous song beneath the window of his wanton, and, calling him from his lightness, began forthwith to read to him from the book. She had not interrupted him long or read far, when the blood rushed madly to his impious brain, the veins knotted on his forehead, his complexion became sanguine and purple, and without more ado, drawing his dagger from his girdle, he rushed upon her and slew her with a hundred thrusts thereof, afterwards casting her martyred body into the moat. ‘Now, look ye, good men, what befell after this evil and horrid deed. The wicked Lord, after he had gone so far in iniquity, considered that the Devil would be sure to have him at the last. Therefore, like Ralph here, he determined to have his fling, and to lead his life with as much solace and mirth and gladness as might be, thus blotting out from his soul the consciousness of the eternal miseries which awaited him. But mark ye what happened in the sequel. ‘Vill Beaumont was utterly given over to all kinds of wretchedness and distress, for it lay close under the castle, and the men-at-arms were wont often to come down thither and despoil the villagers, slaying the sheep and cattle in the fields, trampling the standing rye and corn, devouring the bread and meat which God sent for the bellies of His poor, and wantonly and in derision spilling the thin ale from their barrels. Yea, twice or thrice, when these insolent men of war were in their cups, they had fired the village and burnt down the better half of it, whereby some poor souls, being chiefly babes and old and infirm persons, were sent to their account, unshriven and unanointed, with their sins upon them, Christ have mercy. When the villeins came and made complaint to their Lord, he would cry out upon them fiercely, “What, ye swine, ye cattle, is there not ploughing? Is there no ditching? Away, ye beasts,” and he would drive them headlong from his presence with curses and buffets, and then call to his Bailey to put more work upon them, that they should have no leisure to waste in grumbling and tale-bearing.