After this event, feveral of the wifeft and richeft citizens in Ghent began to murmur, and were much vexed : they faid among themfelves, that a great outrage had been committed when the earl's bailiff had thus been murdered in the execution of his office I and that their lord would be juftly of-fended* and never grant them peace : that thefe wicked people had put the town to the hazard of being totally deftrpyed, if God did not fpcedily afford a remedy. • Notwiehftanding all thefe words,- there was not one among them who had courage perfonally to correft or reprove the aqthors of thefe atrocitieis. • John de Faucille, who at that time was a man Jiuch renowned for his wifdom ip Ghçnt, on find-ing things carried to fuch lengths as the murdering of the earl's bailiff, thought it puft end badly : that he might not be Mpeftçd by the earl, he left the town privately, and Went to a handfomc conn-try-houfe which he had near Ghent, and there re-gained, having given orders to tell every one he was vçry unwejl and melancholy, and could fee none but his own. people. Eyery day, however, He had news from Ghent; for he had left there the greater part of his family, his wife, his children §nd his friends* and thus he diflembled for a con-fidcrable time* CHAP. 118