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<h2> CHAPTER XXXVII </h2>
<p>The culprits were condemned to stand pinioned in the marketplace for two
hours, that should any persons recognize them or any of them as guilty of
other crimes, they might depose to that effect at the trial.</p>
<p>They stood, however, the whole period, and no one advanced anything fresh
against them. This was the less remarkable that they were night birds,
vampires who preyed in the dark on weary travellers, mostly strangers.</p>
<p>But just as they were being taken down, a fearful scream was heard in the
crowd, and a woman pointed at one of them, with eyes almost starting from
their sockets: but ere she could speak she fainted away.</p>
<p>Then men and women crowded round her, partly to aid her, partly from
curiosity. When she began to recover they fell to conjectures.</p>
<p>“'Twas at him she pointed.”</p>
<p>“Nay, 'twas at this one.”</p>
<p>“Nay, nay,” said another, “'twas at yon hangdog with the hair hung round
his neck.”</p>
<p>All further conjectures were cut short. The poor creature no sooner
recovered her senses than she flew at the landlord like a lioness. “My
child! Man! man! Give me back my child.” And she seized the glossy golden
hair that the officers had hung round his neck, and tore it from his neck,
and covered it with kisses; then, her poor confused mind clearing, she saw
even by this token that her lost girl was dead, and sank suddenly down
shrieking and sobbing so over the poor hair, that the crowd rushed on the
assassin with one savage growl. His life had ended then and speedily, for
in those days all carried death at their girdles. But Denys drew his sword
directly, and shouting “A moi, camarades!” kept the mob at bay. “Who lays
a finger on him dies.” Other archers backed him, and with some difficulty
they kept him uninjured, while Denys appealed to those who shouted for his
blood.</p>
<p>“What sort of vengeance is this? would you be so mad as rob the wheel, and
give the vermin an easy death?”</p>
<p>The mob was kept passive by the archers' steel rather than by Denys's
words, and growled at intervals with flashing eyes. The municipal
officers, seeing this, collected round, and with the archers made a guard,
and prudently carried the accused back to gaol.</p>
<p>The mob hooted them and the prisoners indiscriminately. Denys saw the
latter safely lodged, then made for “The White Hart,” where he expected to
find Gerard.</p>
<p>On the way he saw two girls working at a first-floor window. He saluted
them. They smiled. He entered into conversation. Their manners were easy,
their complexion high.</p>
<p>He invited them to a repast at “The White Hart.” They objected. He
acquiesced in their refusal. They consented. And in this charming society
he forgot all about poor Gerard, who meantime was carried off to gaol; but
on the way suddenly stopped, having now somewhat recovered his presence of
mind, and demanded to know by whose authority he was arrested.</p>
<p>“By the vice-baillie's,” said the constable.</p>
<p>“The vice-baillie? Alas! what have I, a stranger, done to offend a
vice-baillie? For this charge of sorcery must be a blind. No sorcerer am
I; but a poor true lad far from his home.”</p>
<p>This vague shift disgusted the officer. “Show him the capias, Jacques,”
said he.</p>
<p>Jacques held out the writ in both hands about a yard and a half from
Gerard's eye; and at the same moment the large constable suddenly pinned
him; both officers were on tenterhooks lest the prisoner should grab the
document, to which they attached a superstitious importance.</p>
<p>But the poor prisoner had no such thought. Query whether he would have
touched it with the tongs. He just craned out his neck and read it, and to
his infinite surprise found the vice-bailiff who had signed the writ was
the friendly alderman. He took courage and assured his captor there was
some error. But finding he made no impression, demanded to be taken before
the alderman.</p>
<p>“What say you to that, Jacques?”</p>
<p>“Impossible. We have no orders to take him before his worship. Read the
writ!”</p>
<p>“Nay, but good kind fellows, what harm can it be? I will give you each an
ecu.”</p>
<p>“Jacques, what say you to that?”</p>
<p>“Humph! I say we have no orders not to take him to his worship. Read the
writ!”</p>
<p>“Then say we take him to prison round by his worship.”</p>
<p>It was agreed. They got the money; and bade Gerard observe they were doing
him a favour. He saw they wanted a little gratitude as well as much
silver. He tried to satisfy this cupidity, but it stuck in his throat.
Feigning was not his forte.</p>
<p>He entered the alderman's presence with his heart in his mouth, and begged
with faltering voice to know what he had done to offend since he left that
very room with Manon and Denys.</p>
<p>“Nought that I know of,” said the alderman.</p>
<p>On the writ being shown him, he told Gerard he had signed it at daybreak.
“I get old, and my memory faileth me: a discussing of the girl I quite
forgot your own offence: but I remember now. All is well. You are he I
committed for sorcery. Stay! ere you go to gaol, you shall hear what your
accuser says: run and fetch him, you.”</p>
<p>The man could not find the accuser all at once. So the alderman, getting
impatient, told Gerard the main charge was that he had set a dead body a
burning with diabolical fire, that flamed, but did not consume. “And if
'tis true, young man, I'm sorry for thee, for thou wilt assuredly burn
with fire of good pine logs in the market-place of Neufchasteau.”</p>
<p>“Oh, sir, for pity's sake let me have speech with his reverence the cure.”</p>
<p>The alderman advised Gerard against it. “The Church was harder upon
sorcerers than was the corporation.”</p>
<p>“But, sir, I am innocent,” said Gerard, between snarling and whining.</p>
<p>“Oh, if you think you are innocent—officer, go with him to the cure;
but see he 'scape you not. Innocent, quotha?”</p>
<p>They found the cure in his doublet repairing a wheelbarrow. Gerard told
him all, and appealed piteously to him. “Just for using a little
phosphorus in self-defence against cut-throats they are going to hang.”</p>
<p>It was lucky for our magician that he had already told his tale in full to
the cure, for thus that shrewd personage had hold of the stick at the
right end. The corporation held it by the ferule. His reverence looked
exceedingly grave and said, “I must question you privately on this
untoward business.” He took him into a private room and bade the officer
stand outside and guard the door, and be ready to come if called. The big
constable stood outside the door, quaking, and expecting to see the room
fly away and leave a stink of brimstone. Instantly they were alone the
cure unlocked his countenance and was himself again.</p>
<p>“Show me the trick on't,” said he, all curiosity.</p>
<p>“I cannot, sir, unless the room be darkened.”</p>
<p>The cure speedily closed out the light with a wooden shutter. “Now, then.”</p>
<p>“But on what shall I put it?” said Gerard. “Here is no dead face. 'Twas
that made it look so dire.” The cure groped about the room. “Good; here is
an image: 'tis my patron saint.”</p>
<p>“Heaven forbid! That were profanation.”</p>
<p>“Pshaw! 'twill rub off, will't not?”</p>
<p>“Ay, but it goes against me to take such liberty with a saint,” objected
the sorcerer.</p>
<p>“Fiddlestick!” said the divine.</p>
<p>“To be sure by putting it on his holiness will show your reverence it is
no Satanic art.”</p>
<p>“Mayhap 'twas for that I did propose it.” said the cure subtly.</p>
<p>Thus encouraged, Gerard fired the eyes and nostrils of the image and made
the cure jump. Then lighted up the hair in patches; and set the whole face
shining like a glow-worm's.</p>
<p>“By'r Lady,” shouted the cure, “'tis strange, and small my wonder that
they took you for a magician, seeing a dead face thus fired. Now come thy
ways with me!”</p>
<p>He put on his grey gown and great hat, and in a few minutes they found
themselves in presence of the alderman. By his side, poisoning his mind,
stood the accuser, a singular figure in red hose and red shoes, a black
gown with blue bands, and a cocked hat.</p>
<p>After saluting the alderman, the cure turned to this personage and said
good-humouredly, “So, Mangis, at thy work again, babbling away honest
men's lives! Come, your worship, this is the old tale! two of a trade can
ne'er agree. Here is Mangis, who professes sorcery, and would sell himself
to Satan to-night, but that Satan is not so weak as buy what he can have
gratis, this Mangis, who would be a sorcerer, but is only a quacksalver,
accuses of magic a true lad, who did but use in self-defence a secret of
chemistry well-known to me and all churchmen.”</p>
<p>“But he is no churchman, to dabble in such mysteries,” objected the
alderman.</p>
<p>“He is more churchman than layman, being convent bred, and in the lesser
orders,” said the ready cure. “Therefore, sorcerer, withdraw thy plaint
without more words!”</p>
<p>“That I will not, your reverence,” replied Mangis stoutly. “A sorcerer I
am, but a white one, not a black one. I make no pact with Satan, but on
the contrary still battle him with lawful and necessary arts, I ne'er
profane the sacraments, as do the black sorcerers, nor turn myself into a
cat and go sucking infants' blood, nor e'en their breath, nor set dead men
o' fire. I but tell the peasants when their cattle and their hens are
possessed, and at what time of the moon to plant rye, and what days in
each month are lucky for wooing of women and selling of bullocks and so
forth: above all, it is my art and my trade to detect the black magicians,
as I did that whole tribe of them who were burnt at Dol but last year.”</p>
<p>“Ay, Mangis. And what is the upshot of that famous fire thy tongue did
kindle?”</p>
<p>“Why, their ashes were cast to the wind.”</p>
<p>“Ay. But the true end of thy comedy is this. The parliament of Dijon hath
since sifted the matter, and found they were no sorcerers, but good and
peaceful citizens; and but last week did order masses to be said for their
souls, and expiatory farces and mysteries to be played for them in seven
towns of Burgundy; all which will not of those cinders make men and women
again. Now 'tis our custom in this land, when we have slain the innocent
by hearkening false knaves like thee, not to blame our credulous ears, but
the false tongue that gulled them. Therefore bethink thee that, at a word
from me to my lord bishop, thou wilt smell burning pine nearer than e'er
knave smelt it and lived, and wilt travel on a smoky cloud to him whose
heart thou bearest (for the word devil in the Latin it meaneth 'false
accuser'), and whose livery thou wearest.”</p>
<p>And the cure pointed at Mangis with his staff.</p>
<p>“That is true i'fegs,” said the alderman, “for red and black be the foul
fiendys colours.”</p>
<p>By this time the white sorcerer's cheek was as colourless as his dress was
fiery. Indeed the contrast amounted to pictorial. He stammered out, “I
respect Holy Church and her will; he shall fire the churchyard, and all in
it, for me: I do withdraw the plaint.”</p>
<p>“Then withdraw thyself,” said the vice-bailiff.</p>
<p>The moment he was gone the cure took the conversational tone, and told the
alderman courteously that the accused had received the chemical substance
from Holy Church, and had restored it her, by giving it all to him.</p>
<p>“Then 'tis in good hands,” was the reply; “young man, you are free. Let me
have your reverence's prayers.”</p>
<p>“Doubt it not! Humph! Vice-baillie, the town owes me four silver franks,
this three months and more.”</p>
<p>“They shall be paid, cure, ay, ere the week be out.”</p>
<p>On this good understanding Church and State parted. As soon as he was in
the street Gerard caught the priest's hand, and kissed it.</p>
<p>“Oh, sir! Oh, your reverence. You have saved me from the fiery stake. What
can I say, what do? what?”</p>
<p>“Nought, foolish lad. Bounty rewards itself. Natheless—Humph?—I
wish I had done't without leasing. It ill becomes my function to utter
falsehoods.”</p>
<p>“Falsehood, sir?” Gerard was mystified.</p>
<p>“Didst not hear me say thou hadst given me that same phosphorus? 'Twill
cost me a fortnight's penance, that light word.” The cure sighed, and his
eye twinkled cunningly.</p>
<p>“Nay, nay,” cried Gerard eagerly. “Now Heaven forbid! That was no
falsehood, father: well you knew the phosphorus was yours, is yours.” And
he thrust the bottle into the cure's hand. “But alas, 'tis too poor a
gift: will you not take from my purse somewhat for Holy Church?” and now
he held out his purse with glistening eyes.</p>
<p>“Nay,” said the other brusquely, and put his hands quickly behind him;
“not a doit. Fie! fie! art pauper et exul. Come thou rather each day at
noon and take thy diet with me; for my heart warms to thee;” and he went
off very abruptly with his hands behind him.</p>
<p>They itched.</p>
<p>But they itched in vain.</p>
<p>Where there's a heart there's a Rubicon.</p>
<p>Gerard went hastily to the inn to relieve Denys of the anxiety so long and
mysterious an absence must have caused him. He found him seated at his
ease, playing dice with two young ladies whose manners were unreserved,
and complexion high.</p>
<p>Gerard was hurt. “N'oubliez point la Jeanneton!” said he, colouring up.</p>
<p>“What of her?” said Denys, gaily rattling the dice.</p>
<p>“She said, 'Le peu que sont les femmes.'”</p>
<p>“Oh, did she? And what say you to that, mesdemoiselles?”</p>
<p>“We say that none run women down, but such as are too old, or too
ill-favoured, or too witless to please them.”</p>
<p>“Witless, quotha? Wise men have not folly enough to please them, nor
madness enough to desire to please them,” said Gerard loftily; “but 'tis
to my comrade I speak, not to you, you brazen toads, that make so free
with a man at first sight.”</p>
<p>“Preach away, comrade. Fling a byword or two at our heads. Know, girls,
that he is a very Solomon for bywords. Methinks he was brought up by hand
on 'em.”</p>
<p>“Be thy friendship a byword!” retorted Gerard. “The friendship that melts
to nought at sight of a farthingale.”</p>
<p>“Malheureux!” cried Denys, “I speak but pellets, and thou answerest
daggers.”</p>
<p>“Would I could,” was the reply. “Adieu.”</p>
<p>“What a little savage!” said one of the girls.</p>
<p>Gerard opened the door and put in his head. “I have thought of a byword,”
said he spitefully—</p>
<p>“Qui hante femmes et dez<br/>
Il mourra en pauvretez.<br/></p>
<p>“There.” And having delivered this thunderbolt of antique wisdom, he
slammed the door viciously ere any of them could retort.</p>
<p>And now, being somewhat exhausted by his anxieties, he went to the bar for
a morsel of bread and a cup of wine. The landlord would sell nothing less
than a pint bottle. Well then he would have a bottle; but when he came to
compare the contents of the bottle with its size, great was the
discrepancy: on this he examined the bottle keenly, and found that the
glass was thin where the bottle tapered, but towards the bottom
unnaturally thick. He pointed this out at once.</p>
<p>The landlord answered superciliously that he did not make bottles: and was
nowise accountable for their shape.</p>
<p>“That we will see presently,” said Gerard. “I will take this thy pint to
the vice-bailiff.”</p>
<p>“Nay, nay, for Heaven's sake,” cried the landlord, changing his tone at
once. “I love to content my customers. If by chance this pint be short, we
will charge it and its fellow three sous insteads of two sous each.”</p>
<p>“So be it. But much I admire that you, the host of so fair an inn, should
practise thus. The wine, too, smacketh strongly of spring water.”</p>
<p>“Young sir,” said the landlord, “we cut no travellers' throats at this
inn, as they do at most. However, you know all about that, 'The White
Hart' is no lion, nor bear. Whatever masterful robbery is done here, is
done upon the poor host. How then could he live at all if he dealt not a
little crooked with the few who pay?”</p>
<p>Gerard objected to this system root and branch. Honest trade was small
profits, quick returns; and neither to cheat nor be cheated.</p>
<p>The landlord sighed at this picture. “So might one keep an inn in heaven,
but not in Burgundy. When foot soldiers going to the wars are quartered on
me, how can I but lose by their custom? Two sous per day is their pay, and
they eat two sous' worth, and drink into the bargain. The pardoners are my
good friends, but palmers and pilgrims, what think you I gain by them?
marry, a loss. Minstrels and jongleurs draw custom and so claim to pay no
score, except for liquor. By the secular monks I neither gain nor lose,
but the black and grey friars have made vow of poverty, but not of famine;
eat like wolves and give the poor host nought but their prayers; and
mayhap not them: how can he tell? In my father's day we had the weddings;
but now the great gentry let their houses and their plates, their mugs and
their spoons to any honest couple that want to wed, and thither the very
mechanics go with their brides and bridal train. They come not to us:
indeed we could not find seats and vessels for such a crowd as eat and
drink and dance the week out at the homeliest wedding now. In my father's
day the great gentry sold wine by the barrel only; but now they have leave
to cry it, and sell it by the galopin, in the very market-place. How can
we vie with them? They grow it. We buy it of the grower. The coroner's
quests we have still, and these would bring goodly profit, but the meat is
aye gone ere the mouths be full.”</p>
<p>“You should make better provision,” suggested his hearer.</p>
<p>“The law will not let us. We are forbidden to go into the market for the
first hour. So, when we arrive, the burghers have bought all but the
refuse. Besides, the law forbids us to buy more than three bushels of meal
at a time: yet market day comes but once a week. As for the butchers, they
will not kill for us unless we bribe them.”</p>
<p>“Courage!” said Gerard kindly, “the shoe pinches every trader somewhere.”</p>
<p>“Ay: but not as it pinches us. Our shoe is trode all o' one side as well
as pinches us lame. A savoir, if we pay not the merchants we buy meal,
meat, and wine of, they can cast us into prison and keep us there till we
pay or die. But we cannot cast into prison those who buy those very
victuals of us. A traveller's horse we may keep for his debt; but where,
in Heaven's name? In our own stable, eating his head off at our cost. Nay,
we may keep the traveller himself; but where? In gaol? Nay, in our own
good house, and there must we lodge and feed him gratis. And so fling good
silver after bad? Merci; no: let him go with a wanion. Our honestest
customers are the thieves. Would to Heaven there were more of them. They
look not too close into the shape of the canakin, nor into the host's
reckoning: with them and with their purses 'tis lightly come, and lightly
go. Also they spend freely, not knowing but each carouse may be their
last. But the thief-takers, instead of profiting by this fair example, are
for ever robbing the poor host. When noble or honest travellers descend at
our door, come the Provost's men pretending to suspect them, and demanding
to search them and their papers. To save which offence the host must bleed
wine and meat. Then come the excise to examine all your weights and
measures. You must stop their mouths with meat and wine. Town excise.
Royal excise. Parliament excise. A swarm of them, and all with a wolf in
their stomachs and a sponge in their gullets. Monks, friars, pilgrims,
palmers, soldiers, excisemen, provost-marshals and men, and mere bad
debtors, how can 'The White Hart' butt against all these? Cutting no
throats in self-defence as do your 'Swans' and 'Roses' and 'Boar's Heads'
and 'Red Lions' and 'Eagles,' your 'Moons,' 'Stars,' and 'Moors,' how can
'The White Hart' give a pint of wine for a pint? And everything risen so.
Why, lad, not a pound of bread I sell but cost me three good copper
deniers, twelve to the sou; and each pint of wine, bought by the tun,
costs me four deniers; every sack of charcoal two sous, and gone in a day.
A pair of partridges five sous. What think you of that? Heard one ever the
like? five sous for two little beasts all bone and feather? A pair of
pigeons, thirty deniers. 'Tis ruination!!! For we may not raise our pricen
with the market. Oh, no, I tell thee the shoe is trode all o' one side as
well as pinches the water into our eyn. We may charge nought for mustard,
pepper, salt, or firewood. Think you we get them for nought? Candle it is
a sou the pound. Salt five sous the stone, pepper four sous the pound,
mustard twenty deniers the pint; and raw meat, dwindleth it on the spit
with no cost to me but loss of weight? Why, what think you I pay my cook?
But you shall never guess. A HUNDRED SOUS A YEAR AS I AM A LIVING SINNER.</p>
<p>“And my waiter thirty sous, besides his perquisites. He is a hantle richer
than I am. And then to be insulted as well as pillaged. Last Sunday I went
to church. It is a place I trouble not often. Didn't the cure lash the
hotel-keepers? I grant you he hit all the trades, except the one that is a
byword for looseness, and pride, and sloth, to wit, the clergy. But, mind
you, he stripeit the other lay estates with a feather, but us
hotel-keepers with a neat's pizzle: godless for this, godless for that,
and most godless of all for opening our doors during mass. Why, the law
forces us to open at all hours to travellers from another town, stopping,
halting, or passing: those be the words. They can fine us before the
bailiff if we refuse them, mass or no mass; and say a townsman should
creep in with the true travellers, are we to blame? They all vow they are
tired wayfarers; and can I ken every face in a great town like this? So if
we respect the law our poor souls are to suffer, and if we respect it not,
our poor lank purses must bleed at two holes, fine and loss of custom.”</p>
<p>A man speaking of himself in general, is “a babbling brook;” of his
wrongs, “a shining river.”</p>
<p>“Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.”</p>
<p>So luckily for my readers, though not for all concerned, this injured
orator was arrested in mid career. Another man burst in upon his wrongs
with all the advantage of a recent wrong; a wrong red hot. It was Denys
cursing and swearing and crying that he was robbed.</p>
<p>“Did those hussies pass this way? who are they? where do they bide? They
have ta'en my purse and fifteen golden pieces: raise the hue and cry! ah!
traitresses! vipers! These inns are all guet-apens.”</p>
<p>“There now,” cried the landlord to Gerard.</p>
<p>Gerard implored him to be calm, and say how it had befallen.</p>
<p>“First one went out on some pretence: then after a while the other went to
fetch her back, and neither returning, I clapped hand to purse and found
it empty: the ungrateful creatures, I was letting them win it in a gallop:
but loaded dice were not quick enough; they must claw it all in a lump.”</p>
<p>Gerard was for going at once to the alderman and setting the officers to
find them.</p>
<p>“Not I,” said Denys. “I hate the law. No: as it came so let it go.”</p>
<p>Gerard would not give it up so.</p>
<p>At a hint from the landlord he forced Denys along with him to the
provost-marshal. That dignitary shook his head. “We have no clue to
occasional thieves, that work honestly at their needles, till some gull
comes and tempts them with an easy booty, and then they pluck him.</p>
<p>“Come away,” cried Denys furiously. “I knew what use a bourgeois would be
to me at a pinch:” and he marched off in a rage.</p>
<p>“They are clear of the town ere this,” said Gerard.</p>
<p>“Speak no more on't if you prize my friendship. I have five pieces with
the bailiff, and ten I left with Manon, luckily; or these traitresses had
feathered their nest with my last plume. What dost gape for so? Nay, I do
ill to vent my choler on thee: I'll tell thee all. Art wiser than I. What
saidst thou at the door? No matter. Well, then, I did offer marriage to
that Manon.”</p>
<p>Gerard was dumfounded.</p>
<p>“What? You offered her what?”</p>
<p>“Marriage. Is that such a mighty strange thing to offer a wench?”</p>
<p>“'Tis a strange thing to offer to a strange girl in passing.”</p>
<p>“Nay, I am not such a sot as you opine. I saw the corn in all that chaff.
I knew I could not get her by fair means, so I was fain to try foul.
'Mademoiselle,' said I, 'marriage is not one of my habits, but struck by
your qualities I make an exception; deign to bestow this hand on me.'”</p>
<p>“And she bestowed it on thine ear.'”</p>
<p>“Not so. On the contrary she—Art a disrespectful young monkey. Know
that here, not being Holland or any other barbarous state, courtesy begets
courtesy. Says she, a colouring like a rose, 'Soldier, you are too late.
He is not a patch on you for looks; but then—he has loved me a long
time.'</p>
<p>“'He? who?'</p>
<p>“'T'other.'</p>
<p>“'What other?'</p>
<p>“Why, he that was not too late.' Oh, that is the way they all speak, the
loves; the she-wolves. Their little minds go in leaps. Think you they
marshal their words in order of battle? Their tongues are in too great a
hurry. Says she, 'I love him not; not to say love him; but he does me, and
dearly; and for that reason I'd sooner die than cause him grief, I
would.'”</p>
<p>“Now I believe she did love him.”</p>
<p>“Who doubts that? Why she said so, round about, as they always say these
things, and with 'nay' for 'ay.'</p>
<p>“Well one thing led to another, and at last, as she could not give me her
hand, she gave me a piece of advice, and that was to leave part of my
money with the young mistress. Then, when bad company had cleaned me out,
I should have some to travel back with, said she. I said I would better
her advice, and leave it with her. Her face got red. Says she, 'Think what
you do. Chambermaids have an ill name for honesty.' 'Oh, the devil is not
so black as he is painted,' said I. 'I'll risk it;' and I left fifteen
gold pieces with her.”</p>
<p>Gerard sighed. “I wish you may ever see them again. It is wondrous in what
esteem you do hold this sex, to trust so to the first comer. For my part I
know little about them; I never saw but one I could love as well as I love
thee. But the ancients must surely know; and they held women cheap.
'Levius quid femina,' said they, which is but la Jeanneton's tune in
Latin, 'Le peu que sont les femmes.' Also do but see how the greybeards of
our own day speak of them, being no longer blinded by desire: this
alderman, to wit.”</p>
<p>“Oh, novice of novices,” cried Denys, “not to have seen why that old fool
rails so on the poor things! One day, out of the millions of women he
blackens, one did prefer some other man to him: for which solitary piece
of bad taste, and ten to one 'twas good taste, he doth bespatter
creation's fairer half, thereby proving what? le peu que sont les hommes.”</p>
<p>“I see women have a shrewd champion in thee,” said Gerard, with a smile.
But the next moment inquired gravely why he had not told him all this
before.</p>
<p>Denys grinned. “Had the girl said 'Ay,' why then I had told thee straight.
But 'tis a rule with us soldiers never to publish our defeats: 'tis much
if after each check we claim not a victory.”</p>
<p>“Now that is true,” said Gerard. “Young as I am, I have seen this; that
after every great battle the generals on both sides go to the nearest
church, and sing each a Te Deum for the victory; methinks a Te Martem, or
Te Bellonam, or Te Mercurium, Mercury being the god of lies, were more
fitting.”</p>
<p>“Pas si bete,” said Denys approvingly. “Hast a good eye: canst see a
steeple by daylight. So now tell me how thou hast fared in this town all
day.”</p>
<p>“Come,” said Gerard, “'tis well thou hast asked me: for else I had never
told thee.” He then related in full how he had been arrested, and by what
a providential circumstance he had escaped long imprisonment or speedy
conflagration.</p>
<p>His narrative produced an effect he little expected or desired.</p>
<p>“I am a traitor,” cried Denys. “I left thee in a strange place to fight
thine own battles, while I shook the dice with those jades. Now take thou
this sword and pass it through my body forthwith.”</p>
<p>“What for in Heaven's name?” inquired Gerard.</p>
<p>“For an example,” roared Denys. “For a warning to all false loons that
profess friendship, and disgrace it.”</p>
<p>“Oh, very well,” said Gerard. “Yes. Not a bad notion. Where will you have
it?”</p>
<p>“Here, through my heart; that is, where other men have a heart, but I
none, or a Satanic false one.”</p>
<p>Gerard made a motion to run him through, and flung his arms round his neck
instead. “I know no way to thy heart but this, thou great silly thing.”</p>
<p>Denys uttered an exclamation, then hugged him warmly—and, quite
overcome by this sudden turn of youthful affection and native grace,
gulped out in a broken voice, “Railest on women—and art—like
them—with thy pretty ways. Thy mother's milk is in thee still. Satan
would love thee, or—le bon Dieu would kick him out of hell for
shaming it. Give me thy hand! Give me thy hand! May” (a tremendous oath)
“if I let thee out of my sight till Italy.”</p>
<p>And so the staunch friends were more than reconciled after their short
tiff.</p>
<p>The next day the thieves were tried. The pieces de conviction were reduced
in number, to the great chagrin of the little clerk, by the interment of
the bones. But there was still a pretty show. A thief's hand struck off
flagrante delicto; a murdered woman's hair; the Abbot's axe, and other
tools of crime. The skulls, etc., were sworn to by the constables who had
found them. Evidence was lax in that age and place. They all confessed but
the landlord. And Manon was called to bring the crime home to him. Her
evidence was conclusive. He made a vain attempt to shake her credibility
by drawing from her that her own sweetheart had been one of the gang, and
that she had held her tongue so long as he was alive. The public
prosecutor came to the aid of his witness, and elicited that a knife had
been held to her throat, and her own sweetheart sworn with solemn oaths to
kill her should she betray them, and that this terrible threat, and not
the mere fear of death, had glued her lips.</p>
<p>The other thieves were condemned to be hanged, and the landlord to be
broken on the wheel. He uttered a piercing cry when his sentence was
pronounced.</p>
<p>As for poor Manon, she became the subject of universal criticism. Nor did
opinion any longer run dead in her favour; it divided into two broad
currents. And strange to relate, the majority of her own sex took her
part, and the males were but equally divided; which hardly happens once in
a hundred years. Perhaps some lady will explain the phenomenon. As for me,
I am a little shy of explaining things I don't understand. It has become
so common. Meantime, had she been a lover of notoriety, she would have
been happy, for the town talked of nothing but her. The poor girl,
however, had but one wish to escape the crowd that followed her, and hide
her head somewhere where she could cry over her “pendard,” whom all these
proceedings brought vividly back to her affectionate remembrance. Before
he was hanged he had threatened her life; but she was not one of your
fastidious girls, who love their male divinities any the less for beating
them, kicking them, or killing them, but rather the better, provided these
attentions are interspersed with occasional caresses; so it would have
been odd indeed had she taken offence at a mere threat of that sort. He
had never threatened her with a rival. She sobbed single-mindedly.</p>
<p>Meantime the inn was filled with thirsters for a sight of her, who feasted
and drank, to pass away the time till she should deign to appear. When she
had been sobbing some time, there was a tap at her door, and the landlord
entered with a proposal. “Nay, weep not, good lass, your fortune it is
made an you like. Say the word, and you are chambermaid of 'The White
Hart.'”</p>
<p>“Nay, nay,” said Manon with a fresh burst of grief. “Never more will I be
a servant in an inn. I'll go to my mother.”</p>
<p>The landlord consoled and coaxed her: and she became calmer, but none the
less determined against his proposal.</p>
<p>The landlord left her. But ere long he returned and made her another
proposal. Would she be his wife, and landlady of “The White Hart”?</p>
<p>“You do ill to mock me,” said she sorrowfully.</p>
<p>“Nay, sweetheart. I mock thee not. I am too old for sorry jests. Say you
the word, and you are my partner for better for worse.”</p>
<p>She looked at him, and saw he was in earnest: on this she suddenly rained
hard to the memory of “le pendard”: the tears came in a torrent, being the
last; and she gave her hand to the landlord of “The White Hart,” and broke
a gold crown with him in sign of plighted troth.</p>
<p>“We will keep it dark till the house is quiet,” said the landlord.</p>
<p>“Ay,” said she; “but meantime prithee give me linen to hem, or work to do;
for the time hangs on me like lead.”</p>
<p>Her betrothed's eye brightened at this housewifely request, and he brought
her up two dozen flagons of various sizes to clean and polish.</p>
<p>She gathered complacency as she reflected that by a strange turn of
fortune all this bright pewter was to be hers.</p>
<p>Meantime the landlord went downstairs, and falling in with our friends
drew them aside into the bar.</p>
<p>He then addressed Denys with considerable solemnity. “We are old
acquaintances, and you want not for sagacity: now advise me in a strait.
My custom is somewhat declining: this girl Manon is the talk of the town;
see how full the inn is to-night. She doth refuse to be my chambermaid. I
have half a mind to marry her. What think you? shall I say the word?”</p>
<p>Denys in reply merely open his eyes wide with amazement.</p>
<p>The landlord turned to Gerard with a half-inquiring look,</p>
<p>“Nay, sir,” said Gerard; “I am too young to advise my seniors and
betters.”</p>
<p>“No matter. Let us hear your thought.”</p>
<p>“Well, sir, it was said of a good wife by the ancients, 'bene quae latuit,
bene vixit,' that is, she is the best wife that is least talked of: but
here 'male quae patuit' were as near the mark. Therefore, an you bear the
lass good-will, why not club purses with Denys and me and convey her safe
home with a dowry? Then mayhap some rustical person in her own place may
be brought to wife her.”</p>
<p>“Why so many words?” said Denys. “This old fox is not the ass he affects
to be.”</p>
<p>“Oh! that is your advice, is it?” said the landlord testily. “Well then we
shall soon know who is the fool, you or me, for I have spoken to her as it
happens; and what is more, she has said Ay, and she is polishing the
flagons at this moment.”</p>
<p>“Oho!” said Denys drily, “'twas an ambuscade. Well, in that case, my
advice is, run for the notary, tie the noose, and let us three drink the
bride's health, till we see six sots a-tippling.”</p>
<p>“And shall. Ay, now you utter sense.”</p>
<p>In ten minutes a civil marriage was effected upstairs before a notary and
his clerk and our two friends.</p>
<p>In ten minutes more the white hind, dead sick of seclusion, had taken her
place within the bar, and was serving out liquids, and bustling, and her
colour rising a little.</p>
<p>In six little minutes more she soundly rated a careless servant-girl for
carrying a nipperkin of wine awry and spilling good liquor.</p>
<p>During the evening she received across the bar eight offers of marriage,
some of them from respectable burghers. Now the landlord and our two
friends had in perfect innocence ensconced themselves behind a screen, to
drink at their ease the new couple's health. The above comedy was thrown
in for their entertainment by bounteous fate. They heard the proposals
made one after another, and uninventive Manon's invariable answer—“Serviteur;
you are a day after the fair.” The landlord chuckled and looked
good-natured superiority at both his late advisers, with their traditional
notions that men shun a woman “quae patuit,” i.e. who has become the town
talk.</p>
<p>But Denys scarce noticed the spouse's triumph over him, he was so occupied
with his own over Gerard. At each municipal tender of undying affection,
he turned almost purple with the effort it cost him not to roar with glee;
and driving his elbow into the deep-meditating and much-puzzled pupil of
antiquity, whispered, “Le peu que sont les hommes.”</p>
<p>The next morning Gerard was eager to start, but Denys was under a vow to
see the murderers of the golden-haired girl executed.</p>
<p>Gerard respected his vow, but avoided his example.</p>
<p>He went to bid the cure farewell instead, and sought and received his
blessing. About noon the travellers got clear of the town. Just outside
the south gate they passed the gallows; it had eight tenants: the skeleton
of Manon's late wept, and now being fast forgotten, lover, and the bodies
of those who had so nearly taken our travellers' lives. A hand was nailed
to the beam. And hard by on a huge wheel was clawed the dead landlord,
with every bone in his body broken to pieces.</p>
<p>Gerard averted his head and hurried by. Denys lingered, and crowed over
his dead foes. “Times are changed, my lads, since we two sat shaking in
the cold awaiting you seven to come and cut our throats.”</p>
<p>“Fie, Denys! Death squares all reckonings. Prithee pass on without another
word, if you prize my respect a groat.”</p>
<p>To this earnest remonstrance Denys yielded. He even said thoughtfully,
“You have been better brought up than I.”</p>
<p>About three in the afternoon they reached a little town with the people
buzzing in knots. The wolves, starved by the cold, had entered, and eaten
two grown-up persons overnight, in the main street: so some were blaming
the eaten—“None but fools or knaves are about after nightfall;”
others the law for not protecting the town, and others the corporation for
not enforcing what laws there were.</p>
<p>“Bah! this is nothing to us,” said Denys, and was for resuming their
march.</p>
<p>“Ay, but 'tis,” remonstrated Gerard.</p>
<p>“What, are we the pair they ate?”</p>
<p>“No, but we may be the next pair.”</p>
<p>“Ay, neighbour,” said an ancient man, “'tis the town's fault for not
obeying the ducal ordinance, which bids every shopkeeper light a lamp o'er
his door at sunset, and burn it till sunrise.”</p>
<p>On this Denys asked him somewhat derisively, “What made him fancy rush
dips would scare away empty wolves? Why, mutton fat is all their joy.”</p>
<p>“'Tis not the fat, vain man, but the light. All ill things hate light;
especially wolves and the imps that lurk, I ween, under their fur.
Example; Paris city stands in a wood like, and the wolves do howl around
it all night: yet of late years wolves come but little in the streets. For
why, in that burgh the watchmen do thunder at each door that is dark, and
make the weary wight rise and light. 'Tis my son tells me. He is a great
voyager, my son Nicholas.”</p>
<p>In further explanation he assured them that previously to that ordinance
no city had been worse infested with wolves than Paris; a troop had boldly
assaulted the town in 1420, and in 1438 they had eaten fourteen persons in
a single month between Montmartre and the gate St. Antoine, and that not a
winter month even, but September: and as for the dead, which nightly lay
in the streets slain in midnight brawls, or assassinated, the wolves had
used to devour them, and to grub up the fresh graves in the churchyards
and tear out the bodies.</p>
<p>Here a thoughtful citizen suggested that probably the wolves had been
bridled of late in Paris, not by candle-lights, but owing to the English
having been driven out of the kingdom of France. “For those English be
very wolves themselves for fierceness and greediness. What marvel then
that under their rule our neighbours of France should be wolf-eaten?” This
logic was too suited to the time and place not to be received with
acclamation. But the old man stood his ground. “I grant ye those islanders
are wolves; but two-legged ones, and little apt to favour their
four-footed cousins. One greedy thing loveth it another? I trow not. By
the same token, and this too I have from my boy Nicole, Sir Wolf dare not
show his nose in London city; though 'tis smaller than Paris, and thick
woods hard by the north wall, and therein great store of deer, and wild
boars as rife as flies at midsummer.”</p>
<p>“Sir,” said Gerard, “you seem conversant with wild beasts, prithee advise
my comrade here and me: we would not waste time on the road, an if we may
go forward to the next town with reasonable safety.'</p>
<p>“Young man, I trow 'twere an idle risk. It lacks but an hour of dusk, and
you must pass nigh a wood where lurk some thousands of these half-starved
vermin, rank cowards single; but in great bands bold as lions. Wherefore I
rede you sojourn here the night; and journey on betimes. By the dawn the
vermin will be tired out with roaring and rampaging; and mayhap will have
filled their lank bellies with flesh of my good neighbours here, the
unteachable fools.”</p>
<p>Gerard hoped not; and asked could he recommend them to a good inn.</p>
<p>“Humph! there is the 'Tete d'Or.' My grandaughter keeps it. She is a
mijauree, but not so knavish as most hotel-keepers, and her house
indifferent clean.”</p>
<p>“Hey, for the 'Tete d'Or,'” struck in Denys, decided by his ineradicable
foible.</p>
<p>On the way to it, Gerard inquired of his companion what a “mijauree” was?</p>
<p>Denys laughed at his ignorance. “Not know what a mijauree is? why all the
world knows that. It is neither more nor less than a mijauree.”</p>
<p>As they entered the “Tete d'Or,” they met a young lady richly dressed with
a velvet chaperon on her head, which was confined by law to the nobility.
They unbonneted and louted low, and she curtsied, but fixed her eye on
vacancy the while, which had a curious rather than a genial effect.
However, nobility was not so unassuming in those days as it is now. So
they were little surprised. But the next minute supper was served, and lo!
in came this princess and carved the goose.</p>
<p>“Holy St. Bavon,” cried Gerard. “'Twas the landlady all the while.”</p>
<p>A young woman, cursed with nice white teeth and lovely hands: for these
beauties being misallied to homely features, had turned her head. She was
a feeble carver, carving not for the sake of others but herself, i.e. to
display her hands. When not carving she was eternally either taking a pin
out of her head or her body, or else putting a pin into her head or her
body. To display her teeth, she laughed indifferently at gay or grave and
from ear to ear. And she “sat at ease” with her mouth ajar.</p>
<p>Now there is an animal in creation of no great general merit; but it has
the eye of a hawk for affectation. It is called “a boy.” And Gerard was
but a boy still in some things; swift to see, and to loath, affectation.
So Denys sat casting sheep's eyes, and Gerard daggers, at one comedian.</p>
<p>Presently, in the midst of her minauderies, she gave a loud shriek and
bounded out of her chair like hare from form, and ran backwards out of the
room uttering little screams, and holding her farthingale tight down to
her ankles with both hands. And as she scuttled out of the door a mouse
scuttled back to the wainscot in a state of equal, and perhaps more
reasonable terror. The guests, who had risen in anxiety at the principal
yell, now stood irresolute awhile, then sat down laughing. The tender
Denys, to whom a woman's cowardice, being a sexual trait, seemed to be a
lovely and pleasant thing, said he would go comfort her and bring her
back.</p>
<p>“Nay! nay! nay! for pity's sake let her bide,” cried Gerard earnestly.
“Oh, blessed mouse! sure some saint sent thee to our aid.”</p>
<p>Now at his right hand sat a sturdy middle-aged burgher, whose conduct up
to date had been cynical. He had never budged nor even rested his knife at
all this fracas. He now turned on Gerard and inquired haughtily whether he
really thought that “grimaciere” was afraid of a mouse.</p>
<p>“Ay. She screamed hearty.”</p>
<p>“Where is the coquette that cannot scream to the life? These she
tavern-keepers do still ape the nobles. Some princess or duchess hath lain
here a night, that was honestly afeard of a mouse, having been brought up
to it. And this ape hath seen her, and said, 'I will start at a mouse, and
make a coil,' She has no more right to start at a mouse than to wear that
fur on her bosom, and that velvet on her monkey's head. I am of the town,
young man, and have known the mijauree all her life, and I mind when she
was no more afeard of a mouse than she is of a man.” He added that she was
fast emptying the inn with these “singeries.” “All the world is so sick of
her hands, that her very kinsfolk will not venture themselves anigh them.”
He concluded with something like a sigh, “The 'Tete d'Or' was a thriving
hostelry under my old chum her good father; but she is digging its grave
tooth and nail.'</p>
<p>“Tooth and nail? good! a right merry conceit and a true,” said Gerard. But
the right merry conceit was an inadvertence as pure as snow, and the stout
burgher went to his grave and never knew what he had done: for just then
attention was attracted by Denys returning pompously. He inspected the
apartment minutely, and with a high official air: he also looked solemnly
under the table; and during the whole inquisition a white hand was placed
conspicuously on the edge of the open door, and a tremulous voice inquired
behind it whether the horrid thing was quite gone.</p>
<p>“The enemy has retreated, bag and baggage,” said Denys: and handed in the
trembling fair, who, sitting down, apologized to her guests for her
foolish fears, with so much earnestness, grace, and seeming self-contempt,
that, but for a sour grin on his neighbour's face, Gerard would have been
taken in as all the other strangers were. Dinner ended, the young landlady
begged an Augustine friar at her right hand to say grace. He delivered a
longish one. The moment he began, she clapped her white hands piously
together, and held them up joined for mortals to admire; 'tis an excellent
pose for taper white fingers: and cast her eyes upward towards heaven, and
felt as thankful to it as a magpie does while cutting off with your
thimble.</p>
<p>After supper the two friends went to the street-door and eyed the
market-place. The mistress joined them, and pointed out the town-hall, the
borough gaol, St. Catherine's church, etc. This was courteous, to say the
least. But the true cause soon revealed itself; the fair hand was poked
right under their eyes every time an object was indicated; and Gerard eyed
it like a basilisk, and longed for a bunch of nettles. The sun set, and
the travellers, few in number, drew round the great roaring fire, and
omitting to go on the spit, were frozen behind though roasted in front.
For if the German stoves were oppressively hot, the French salles manger
were bitterly cold, and above all stormy. In Germany men sat bareheaded
round the stove, and took off their upper clothes, but in Burgundy they
kept on their hats, and put on their warmest furs to sit round the great
open chimney places, at which the external air rushed furiously from door
and ill-fitting window. However, it seems their mediaeval backs were broad
enough to bear it: for they made themselves not only comfortable but
merry, and broke harmless jests over each other in turn. For instance,
Denys's new shoes, though not in direct communication, had this day
exploded with twin-like sympathy and unanimity. “Where do you buy your
shoon, soldier?” asked one.</p>
<p>Denys looked askant at Gerard, and not liking the theme, shook it off. “I
gather 'em off the trees by the roadside,” said he surlily.</p>
<p>“Then you gathered these too ripe,” said the hostess, who was only a fool
externally.</p>
<p>“Ay, rotten ripe,” observed another, inspecting them.</p>
<p>Gerard said nothing, but pointed the circular satire by pantomime. He
slily put out both his feet, one after another, under Denys's eye, with
their German shoes, on which a hundred leagues of travel had produced no
effect. They seemed hewn out of a rock.</p>
<p>At this, “I'll twist the smooth varlet's neck that sold me mine,” shouted
Denys, in huge wrath, and confirmed the threat with singular oaths
peculiar to the mediaeval military. The landlady put her fingers in her
ears, thereby exhibiting the hand in a fresh attitude. “Tell me when he
has done his orisons, somebody,” said she mincingly. And after that they
fell to telling stories.</p>
<p>Gerard, when his turn came, told the adventure of Denys and Gerard at the
inn in Domfront, and so well, that the hearers were rapt into sweet
oblivion of the very existence of mijauree and hands. But this made her
very uneasy, and she had recourse to her grand coup. This misdirected
genius had for a twelvemonth past practised yawning, and could do it now
at any moment so naturally as to set all creation gaping, could all
creation have seen her. By this means she got in all her charms. For first
she showed her teeth, then, out of good breeding, you know, closed her
mouth with three taper fingers. So the moment Gerard's story got too
interesting and absorbing, she turned to and made yawns, and “croix sur la
bouche.”</p>
<p>This was all very fine: but Gerard was an artist, and artists are chilled
by gaping auditors. He bore up against the yawns a long time; but finding
they came from a bottomless reservoir, lost both heart and temper, and
suddenly rising in mid narrative, said, “But I weary our hostess, and I am
tired myself: so good night!” whipped a candle off the dresser, whispered
Denys, “I cannot stand her,” and marched to bed in a moment.</p>
<p>The mijauree coloured and bit her lips. She had not intended her byplay
for Gerard's eye: and she saw in a moment she had been rude, and silly,
and publicly rebuked. She sat with cheek on fire, and a little natural
water in her eyes, and looked ten times comelier and more womanly and
interesting than she had done all day. The desertion of the best narrator
broke up the party, and the unassuming Denys approached the meditative
mijauree, and invited her in the most flattering terms to gamble with him.
She started from her reverie, looked him down into the earth's centre with
chilling dignity, and consented, for she remembered all in a moment what a
show of hands gambling admitted.</p>
<p>The soldier and the mijauree rattled the dice. In which sport she was so
taken up with her hands, that she forgot to cheat, and Denys won an “ecu
au soleil” of her. She fumbled slowly with her purse, partly because her
sex do not burn to pay debts of honour, partly to admire the play of her
little knuckles peeping between their soft white cushions. Denys proposed
a compromise.</p>
<p>“Three silver franks I win of you, fair hostess. Give me now three kisses
of this white hand, and we'll e'en cry quits.”</p>
<p>“You are malapert,” said the lady, with a toss of her head; “besides, they
are so dirty. See! they are like ink!” and to convince him she put them
out to him and turned them up and down. They were no dirtier than cream
fresh from the cob and she knew it: she was eternally washing and scenting
them.</p>
<p>Denys read the objection like the observant warrior he was, seized them
and mumbled them.</p>
<p>Finding him so appreciative of her charm, she said timidly, “Will you do
me a kindness, good soldier?”</p>
<p>“A thousand, fair hostess, an you will.”</p>
<p>“Nay, I ask but one. 'Tis to tell thy comrade I was right sorry to lose
his most thrilling story, and I hope he will tell me the rest to-morrow
morning. Meantime I shall not sleep for thinking on't. Wilt tell him that—to
pleasure me?”</p>
<p>“Ay, I'll tell the young savage. But he is not worthy of your
condescension, sweet hostess. He would rather be aside a man than a woman
any day.”</p>
<p>“So would—ahem. He is right: the young women of the day are not
worthy of him, 'un tas des mijaurees' He has a good, honest, and right
comely face. Any way, I would not guest of mine should think me
unmannerly, not for all the world. Wilt keep faith with me and tell him?”</p>
<p>“On this fair hand I swear it; and thus I seal the pledge.”</p>
<p>“There; no need to melt the wax, though. Now go to bed. And tell him ere
you sleep.”</p>
<p>The perverse toad (I thank thee, Manon, for teaching me that word) was
inclined to bestow her slight affections upon Gerard. Not that she was
inflammable: far less so than many that passed for prudes in the town. But
Gerard possessed a triple attraction that has ensnared coquettes in all
ages. 1. He was very handsome. 2. He did not admire her the least. 3. He
had given her a good slap in the face.</p>
<p>Denys woke Gerard and gave the message. Gerard was not enchanted “Dost
wake a tired man to tell him that? Am I to be pestered with 'mijaurees' by
night as well as day?”</p>
<p>“But I tell thee, novice, thou hast conquered her: trust to my experience:
her voice sank to melodious whispers; and the cunning jade did in a manner
bribe me to carry thee her challenge to Love's lists! for so I read her
message.”</p>
<p>Denys then, assuming the senior and the man of the world, told Gerard the
time was come to show him how a soldier understood friendship and
camaraderie. Italy was now out of the question. Fate had provided better;
and the blind jade Fortune had smiled on merit for once. “The Head of
Gold” had been a prosperous inn, would be again with a man at its head. A
good general laid far-sighted plans; but was always ready to abandon them,
should some brilliant advantage offer, and to reap the full harvest of the
unforeseen: 'twas chiefly by this trait great leaders defeated little
ones; for these latter could do nothing not cut and dried beforehand.</p>
<p>“Sorry friendship, that would marry me to a mijauree,” interposed Gerard,
yawning.</p>
<p>“Comrade, be reasonable; 'tis not the friskiest sheep that falls down the
cliff. All creatures must have their fling soon, or late; and why not a
woman? What more frivolous than a kitten? what graver than a cat?”</p>
<p>“Hast a good eye for nature, Denys,” said Gerard, “that I proclaim.</p>
<p>“A better for thine interest, boy. Trust then to me; these little doves
they are my study day and night; happy the man whose wife taketh her fling
before wedlock, and who trippeth up the altar-steps instead of down 'em.
Marriage it always changeth them for better or else for worse. Why,
Gerard, she is honest when all is done; and he is no man, nor half a man,
that cannot mould any honest lass like a bit of warm wax, and she aye
aside him at bed and board. I tell thee in one month thou wilt make of
this coquette the matron the most sober in the town, and of all its wives
the one most docile and submissive. Why, she is half tamed already. Nine
in ten meek and mild ones had gently hated thee like poison all their
lives, for wounding of their hidden pride. But she for an affront proffers
affection. By Joshua his bugle a generous lass, and void of petty malice.
When thou wast gone she sat a-thinking and spoke not. A sure sign of love
in one of her sex: for of all things else they speak ere they think. Also
her voice did sink exceeding low in discoursing of thee, and murmured
sweetly; another infallible sign. The bolt hath struck and rankles in her;
oh, be joyful! Art silent? I see; 'tis settled. I shall go alone to
Remiremont, alone and sad. But, pillage and poleaxes! what care I for
that, since my dear comrade will stay here, landlord of the 'Tete d'Or,'
and safe from all the storms of life? Wilt think of me, Gerard, now and
then by thy warm fire, of me camped on some windy heath, or lying in wet
trenches, or wounded on the field and far from comfort? Nay!” and this he
said in a manner truly noble, “not comfortless or cold, or wet, or
bleeding, 'twill still warm my heart to lie on my back and think that I
have placed my dear friend and comrade true in the 'Tete d'Or,' far from a
soldier's ills.”</p>
<p>“I let you run on, dear Denys,” said Gerard softly, “because at each word
you show me the treasure of a good heart. But now bethink thee, my troth
is plighted there where my heart it clingeth. You so leal, would you make
me disloyal?”</p>
<p>“Perdition seize me, but I forgot that,” said Denys.</p>
<p>“No more then, but hie thee to bed, good Denys. Next to Margaret I love
thee best on earth, and value thy 'coeur d'or' far more than a dozen of
these 'Tetes d'Or.' So prithee call me at the first blush of rosy-fingered
morn, and let's away ere the woman with the hands be stirring.”</p>
<p>They rose with the dawn, and broke their fast by the kitchen fire.</p>
<p>Denys inquired of the girl whether the mistress was about.</p>
<p>“Nay; but she hath risen from her bed: by the same token I am carrying her
this to clean her withal;” and she filled a jug with boiling water, and
took it upstairs.</p>
<p>“Behold,” said Gerard, “the very elements must be warmed to suit her skin;
what had the saints said, which still chose the coldest pool? Away, ere
she come down and catch us.”</p>
<p>They paid the score, and left the “Tete d'Or,” while its mistress was
washing her hands.</p>
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