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The burden of Wycliffe's teaching was the exposure of the indolent fictions which passed under the name of religion in the established theory of the church. He was a man of most simple life; austere in appearance, with bare feet and russet mantle. As a soldier of Christ, he saw in his Great Master and his Apostles the patterns whom he was bound to imitate.
The strenuous advocate for reducing the clergy to apostolic poverty was not likely to find favour among the prelates. Wycliffe's only clerical supporters at this stage were the mendicant friars, from whose characteristic opinions as regards "evangelical poverty" he never at any time swerved. He was, however, eloquent and zealous, and he had a following.
Leigh knew that he could count on Miss Wycliffe's friendliness and upon her tact in meeting a situation, but he guessed that, if her companions were of like mind with the bishop, his present guest might be made to feel that he was an intruder. "Just look at that car over in the valley," Emmet called, without turning. "It crawls through the darkness like an illuminated centipede."
While the Anglo-Saxon versions were confined for the most part to the few religious houses where they were written, Wycliffe's Bible, in spite of its disadvantage of being only manuscript, was circulated largely through the kingdom; and, though the cost a good deal restricted its possession to the wealthier classes, those who could not hope to possess it gained access to it too, as well through their own efforts as through the ministrations of Wycliffe's "pore priestes."
The book was nearly always one of Wycliffe's, and the reading invariably closed with a chapter of his Testament. Now and then, but only now and then, she would ask for a little poetry taking by preference that courtly writer whom she knew as a great innovator, but whom we call the father of English poetry. But she was very particular which of his poems was selected.
He was a man of keen intuitions, and divined a sensitiveness on his companion's part in regard to the rather inglorious figure he had cut, in spite of Miss Wycliffe's openly expressed interest. After all, might not this interest of hers savour of ostentatious patronage?
Hitherto the revolt against the popes had only assailed their political supremacy; but now heresies that included complete denial of the religious authority of the Church began everywhere to arise. In England Wycliffe's preachings and pamphlets grew more and more opposed to Roman doctrine.
In Antwerp, under the care of these men, was established the printing press, by which books were supplied, to accomplish for the teaching of England what Luther and Melancthon were accomplishing for Germany. Tyndal's Testament was first printed, then translations of the best German books, reprints of Wycliffe's tracts or original commentaries.
"You were saying, Miss Felicity," he reminded her. "What was it?" she asked, recovering herself with an effort. "Oh, yes. I was about to suggest that your height marks you out as the proper person to hold up the hoops." "Agreed!" he cried. "If you will stand by and hand them up." This raillery was only a passing incident, for Miss Wycliffe's mood had suffered a permanent eclipse.
Two priests accompanied the insurgents, not Wycliffe's followers, but the licentious counterfeits of them, who trod inevitably in their footsteps, and were as inevitably countenanced by their doctrines. The insurrection was attended with the bloodshed, destruction, and ferocity natural to such outbreaks.
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