XUI REYNARD THE FOX 99

pray for your Majesty’s soul in all my travel,
above any charitable devotion. Also mine
aunt, Dame £veswine, hath other two shoes,
which would your Majesty bestow upon me,
I should be most infinitely bound to you, nor
should you do to her any wrong, because she
goes seldom abroad.’

The Queen replied, ‘ Reynard, I can per-
ceive how you can want such shoes, for your
journey is full of labour and difficulty, both in
respect of the stony mountains and the gravelly
ways, and therefore you shall have (though it
touch their life never so nearly) from each of
them a pair of shoes to accomplish and finish
your journey.’