"And my Abbot did make penances full sore and many, so that Johannes had need of drink and good cheere to help his weakness. '(O) for the full bowle,' quoth he, '... for one good drink; there is so much amiss.' "And ye have found the place wherein I lay, and even now the scent of good ale hangs round the floores. I go, who have told ye. Peccavi!' "'Well,' saith Father Abbot, 'ye have disgraced us before ye Kinge, and he will not remember us in the day of our adversity.' "'Nay,' saith Johannes, 'but the Kinge, who was of an evil choler, was afterwards right merrie because of poor Johannes and the vat of good ale. Alas! That soe much of good ale was squandered for a King's pastime!' Whereat there went more Paternosters and much penance in claustro. Ye have it. What more wold ye?" The foregoing was very difficult to decipher, and its substance so entirely different from anything we might have expected, that practically nothing could at the time be made of it. It was therefore asked for again. "I have told ye. Why ask me more? They who brought the vat of ale pulled hym uppe with a rope, for ye King called for more brown ale such as we in ye Abbey were wont to brew. Ye rope broke, and ye King was merrie, and this I say, gainsay who may, it was not Johannes and ye ale which destroyed our faire Abbey, but ye lust of ye King and ye haste which (he had for the possession) of our house. "Why did they say that I who soe loved my Abbey, had compassed its ruin? I didde paternosters for that which wasne my sinne. Ye rope it broke. Hee was the misdoer. "Ye Guesten Hall was over against the Monks' Hall, and there were, as you say, great screenen between the two tables, and ye Abbate hadde his high table, and likewise ye Kinge had his, but they had an screne. The Kinge's party did royster in their cuppes. "What of ye Hall? Faire tapestry and carven oake, and six high windowes in the syde of him, and one faire windowe in ye gables, and under hym a gallery where were singing men to please the King's majestie, and cunning minstrelsie. Ye pulpitte was silent--not homilies, but the brethren did list to songs of prowess and pleasure instead of paternosters. But in that pollution was death to our howse, for the Kinge did lust after our meats and wines and (cared) not to save us from (the coming doom); and he whom we trusted, the great Cardinal, was falling, although we knew it not. 'Wait,' said our Abbot, 'he is our friend who made me Abbot. Ask hym to our house.'" This passage was again very difficult to decipher, and before anything had been made of it I asked for it again. J.A. was without any idea of its contents.