he is now willing to give more.  Roast the lawyers by the fire of their own parchments and papers till their learned bowels burst forth; let the litigous busybodies hang above them with their nostrils deepest down the roasting chimneys, in order to inhale the noxious vapors arising thence, to see if they will ever get their fill of law.  Throw the recorders amongst the retailers who prevent or forestall the sale of corn, who mix it and sell the mixture at double the price of the pure corn:  similarly, they demand for wrong double the fees formerly given for right.  As to the catchpolls, let them free to hunt about and lie in the ravines and bushes of the earth, to capture those that are debtors to the infernal crown; for what devil of you could do the work better than they?”

Shortly there appear twenty demons, like Scotch-men, with packs across their shoulders, which they cast down before the throne of despair, and which turned out to be gipsies.  “Ho there!” cried Lucifer, “how was it that ye who knew the fortune of others so well, did not know that your own fortune was leading you hither?” No answer was given, for they were amazed at seeing here beings uglier than themselves.  “Throw the tan-faced loons to the witches,” bade the King, “there are no cats or rush-lights here for them, but divide a frog between them every ten thousand years, if they will be quiet and not deafen us with their barbarous chatter.”

After them came, methought, thirty labourers.  Everybody wondered to see so many of that honest calling, so seldom did any of them appear; but they did not all come from the same parts nor for like faults—­some for raising prices, many for withholding their tithes, and defrauding the parson of his dues, others for leaving their work to follow after the gentry, and who in trying to stride along with their masters, strained themselves, some for doing work on the Sabbath, some for thinking of their sheep and kine in church, instead of giving attention to the reading of Holy Writ, and others for wrongful bargains.  When Lucifer began to question them, lo! they were all as pure as gold, and not one of them found anything amiss in himself so as to deserve such a dwelling place.  One can scarcely believe what neat excuses each one had to hide his sin, although they were already in hell for it, offering them merely out of evil disposition to thwart Lucifer and to accuse the righteous Judge, who had condemned them, of injustice.  But it was still more astonishing to see how cleverly the Evil One exposed their foul sins, and how he answered with a home-thrust their false excuses.  When these were about to receive their infernal doom, forty scholars were borne forward by porpoise-shaped fiends, uglier, if possible, than Lucifer himself.  And when they heard the labourers pleading, they too waxed bold to give excuses, but what ready answers the old Serpent had for them with all their knavery and learning!  As it happened that I heard similar pleas in another court of justice I will hereafter recount them together, and now proceed with what I saw in the meantime.