THE culprits were condemned to stand pinioned in the market-place 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.
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.
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.
Then men and women crowded round her partly to aid her, partly from
curiosity. When she began to recover they fell to conjectures.
"'Twas at him she pointed."
"Nay, 'twas at this one."
"Nay, nay," said another, "'twas at yon hangdog with the hair hung round
his neck."
All further conjecture was 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.
"What sort of vengeance is this? would you be so mad as rob the wheel,
and give the vermin an easy death?"
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.
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.
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.
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. "By the vice-baillie's," said the constable.
"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."
This vague shift disgusted the officer. "Show him the capias, Jacques,"
said he.
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 tenter-hooks lest the prisoner should grab
the document, to which they attached a superstitious importance.
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.
"What say you to that, Jacques?"
"Impossible. We have no orders to take him before his worship. Read the
writ!"
"Nay, but good kind fellows, what harm can it be? I will give ye each an
écu."
"Jacques, what say you to that?"
"Humph? I say we have no orders not to take him to his worship. Read the
writ!"
"Then say we take him to prison round by his worship."
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.
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.
"Nought that I know of," said the alderman.
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."
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."
"Oh, sir, for pity's sake let me have speech with his reverence the
curé."
The alderman advised Gerard against it. "The Church was harder upon
sorcerers than was the corporation."
"But, sir, I am innocent," said Gerard, between snarling and whining.
"Oh; if _you_--_think_--you are _innocent_--officer, go with him to the
curé! but see he 'scape you not. Innocent quotha?"
They found the curé 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."
It was lucky for our magician that he had already told his tale in full
to the curé: 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 curé unlocked his countenance and was himself again.
"Show me the trick on't," said he, all curiosity.
"I cannot, sir, unless the room be darkened."
The curé speedily closed out the light with a wooden shutter. "Now
then."
"But on what shall I put it?" said Gerard. "Here is no dead face. 'Twas
that made it look so dire." The curé groped about the room. "Good: here
is an image: 'tis my patron saint."
"Heaven forbid! That were profanation."
"Pshaw! 'twill rub off, will't not?"
"Ay, but it goes against me to take such liberty with a saint," objected
the sorcerer.
"Fiddlestick!" said the divine.
"To be sure my putting it on his holiness will show your reverence it is
no Satanic art."
"Mayhap 'twas for that I did propose it," said the curé subtly.
Thus encouraged Gerard fired the eyes and nostrils of the image and made
the curé jump. Then lighted up the hair in patches: and set the whole
face shining like a glowworm's.
"By'r Lady," shouted the curé, "'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!"
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.
After saluting the alderman, the curé 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 to 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 to all
churchmen."
"But he is no churchman to dabble in such mysteries," objected the
alderman.
"He is more churchman than layman, being convent bred, and in the lesser
orders," said the ready curé. "Therefore, sorcerer, withdraw thy plaint
without more words!"
"That will I 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."
"Ay, Mangis. And what is the upshot of that famous fire thy tongue did
kindle?"
"Why, their ashes were cast to the wind."
"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 to false knaves like thee, not to blame our
credulous ears, but the false tongue that gulled them. Wherefore 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."
And the curé pointed at Mangis with his staff.
"That is true i'fegs," said the alderman, "for red and black be the foul
fiendys colours."
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."
"Then withdraw thyself," said the vice-bailiff.
The moment he was gone, the curé 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.
"Then 'tis in good hands," was the reply; "young man, you are free. Let
me have your reverence's prayers."
"Doubt it not! Humph? Vice-baillie, the town owes me four silver franks,
this three months and more."
"They shall be paid, curé, ay, ere the week be out."
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.
"Oh, sir! Oh, your reverence. You have saved me from the fiery stake.
What can I say, what do? what--"
"Nought, foolish lad. Bounty rewards itself. Natheless--Humph?--I wish I
had done't without leasing. It ill becomes my function to utter
falsehoods."
"Falsehood, sir?" Gerard was mystified.
"Didst not hear me say thou hadst given me that same phosphorus? 'Twill
cost me a fortnight's penance, that light word." The curé sighed, and
his eye twinkled cunningly.
"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 curé'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.
"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 abruptly with his hands behind him.
They itched.
But they itched in vain.
Where there's a heart there's a Rubicon.
* * * * *
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.
Gerard was hurt. "N'oubliez point la Jeanneton!" said he, colouring up.
"What of her?" said Denys gaily rattling the dice.
"She said 'le peu que sont les femmes.'"
"Oh did she? and what say you to that, mesdemoiselles?"
"We say that none run women down, but such as are too old or too
ill-favoured, or too witless, to please them."
"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."
"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."
"Be thy friendship a byword!" retorted Gerard. "The friendship that
melts to nought at sight of a farthingale."
"Malheureux!" cried Denys, "I speak but pellets, and thou answerest
daggers."
"Would I could," was the reply. "Adieu."
"What a little savage!" said one of the girls.
Gerard opened the door and put in his head. "I have thought of a
byword," said he spitefully,
"'Qui hante femmes et dez
Il mourra en pauvretez.'
There." And having delivered this thunderbolt of antique wisdom he
slammed the door viciously ere any of them could retort.
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.
The landlord answered superciliously that he did not make bottles: and
was nowise accountable for their shape.
"That we will see presently," said Gerard. "I will take this thy pint to
the vice-bailiff."
"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, instead of two sous each."
"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."
"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?"
Gerard objected to this system root and branch. Honest trade was small
profits, quick returns; and neither to cheat nor be cheated.
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."
"You should make better provision," suggested his hearer.
"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."
"Courage!" said Gerard kindly, "the shoe pinches every trader
somewhere."
"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 costs 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 trod 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.
"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
curé 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."
A man speaking of himself in general, is "a babbling brook;" of his
wrongs, "a shining river."
"Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum."
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.
"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 guetapens."
"There now," cried the landlord to Gerard.
Gerard implored him to be calm and say how it had befallen.
"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."
Gerard was for going at once to the alderman and setting the officers to
find them.
"Not I," said Denys. "I hate the law. No: as it came so let it go."
Gerard would not give if up so.
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."
"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.
"They are clear of the town ere this," said Gerard.
"Speak no more on't if you prize my friendship. I have five pieces with
the bailiff, and ten I left with Marion, 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 Marion."
Gerard was dumbfoundered.
"What? you offered her what?"
"Marriage. Is that such a mighty strange thing to offer a wench?"
"'Tis a strange thing to offer to a strange girl in passing."
"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.'"
"And she bestowed it on thine ear."
"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.'
"'He? who?'
"'T'other.'
"'What other?'
"'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.'"
"Now I believe she did love him."
"Who doubts that? Why she said so, round about, as they always say these
things, and with 'nay' for 'ay'. 'I hope you will be happy together,'
said I.
"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."
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 foeminâ,' 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."
"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."
"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.
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."
"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."
"Pas si bête," 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."
"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.
His narrative produced an effect he had little expected or desired. "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."
"What for in Heaven's name?" inquired Gerard.
"For an example," roared Denys. "For a warning to all false loons that
profess friendship, and disgrace it."
"Oh, very well," said Gerard. "Yes. Not a bad notion. Where will you
have it?"
"Here, through my heart; that is, where other men have a heart, but I
none, or a satanic false one."
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."
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."
And so the stanch friends were more than reconciled after their short
tiff.
The next day the thieves were tried. The pièces 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 &c. 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 had 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.
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.
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.
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.'"
"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."
The landlord consoled and coaxed her: and she became calmer, but none
the less determined against his proposal.
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?"
"You do ill to mock me," said she sorrowfully.
"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."
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.
"We will keep it dark till the house is quiet," said the landlord.
"Ay," said she: "but meantime prithee give me linen to hem, or work to
do: for the time hangs on me like lead."
Her betrothed's eye brightened at this house-wifely request, and he
brought her up two dozen flagons of various sizes to clean and polish.
She gathered complacency as she reflected that by a strange turn of
fortune all this bright pewter was to be hers.
And this mighty furbishing up of pewter reminds me that justice requires
me to do a stroke of the same work.
Well then, the deposition, read out in the alderman's room as Manon's,
was not so exact as such things ought to be. The alderman had condensed
her evidence. Now there are in every great nation about three persons
capable of condensing evidence without falsifying it: but this alderman
was not one of that small band. In the first part of the deposition he
left out as unimportant these words "my mother advised me to keep out of
his way till his wrath should cool."
Between the words "jealous of me" and "the reason" Manon had said "My
master was aye at my heels: so I told my mistress, and said I would
rather go than be cause of mischief." This the alderman suppressed as
mere babel: whereas it was a worthy trait. He also let slip the word
"afterwards" in the next sentence. Manon had said the reason they gave
_afterwards_, _i. e._, "when I was no longer there to contradict them."
And so on all through the deposition.
Sometimes the deponent suffered as many a one does now-a-days, in the
newspaper and other reports, by the mere suppression of the question.
For instance this is what actually was said:--
_The Alderman._ "Come now, should you have interfered if this soldier
had had no beard?"
_Manon._ "How can I tell what I _should_ have done?"
Now this was merely a sensible answer to a monstrous question no
magistrate had a right to put. But, under the condensing process, behold
her saddled with a volunteer statement of a very damaging character.
Finally she had said, "I am sorry I told, if I am to be hanged for it."
This the old boy condensed ut supra, p. 136, anticipating as far as
possible the tuneful Sinclair.[A]
Whilst Manon and I were cleaning, she her coming, I my parting, pewter,
the landlord went down stairs and falling in with our friends drew them
aside into the bar.
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?"
Denys in reply merely opened his eyes wide with amazement.
The landlord turned to Gerard with a half-inquiring look.
"Nay, sir," said Gerard. "I am too young to advise my seniors and
betters."
"No matter. Let us hear your thought."
"Well, sir, it was said of a good wife by the ancients 'bene quæ latuit,
bene vixit,' that is, she is the best wife that is least talked of: but
here 'male quæ 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 wive her."
"Why so many words?" said Denys. "This old fox is not the ass he affects
to be."
"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."
"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."
"And shall. Ay, now you utter sense."
In ten minutes a civil marriage was effected upstairs before a notary
and his clerk and our two friends.
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 color rising a little.
In six minutes more she soundly rated a careless servant-girl for
carrying a nipperkin of wine awry and spilling good liquor.
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 "quæ patuit," _i. e._,
who has become the town talk.
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."
The next morning Gerard was eager to start, but Denys was under a vow to
see the murderers of the golden-haired girl executed.
Gerard respected his vow, but avoided his example.
He went to bid the curé 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.
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."
"Fie, Denys! Death squares all reckonings. Prithee pass on without
another word, if you prize my respect a groat."
To this earnest remonstrance Denys yielded. He even said thoughtfully
"you have been better brought up than I."
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 over-night, 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.
"Bah! this is nothing to us," said Denys, and was for resuming their
march.
"Ay, but 'tis," remonstrated Gerard.
"What, are we the pair they ate?"
"No, but we may be the next pair."
"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."
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."
"'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."
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.
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 rife as flies at midsummer."
[Illustration: THEY UNBONNETED AND LOUTED LOW, AND SHE CURTSIED]
"Sir," said Gerard, "you seem conversant with wild beasts, prithee
advise my comrade here and me: we would not waste time on the road, and
if we may go forward to the next town with reasonable safety."
"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."
Gerard hoped not; and asked could he recommend them to a good inn?
"Humph? there is the 'Tête d'Or.' My granddaughter keeps it. She is a
mijaurée, but not so knavish as most hotel-keepers, and her house
indifferent clean."
"Hey, for the 'Tête d'Or,'" struck in Denys, decided by his ineradicable
foible.
On the way to it, Gerard inquired of his companion what "a mijaurée"
was?
Denys laughed at his ignorance. "Not know what a mijaurée is? why all
the world knows that. It is neither more nor less than a mijaurée."
As they entered the "Tête d'Or" they met a young lady richly dressed,
with the 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.
"Holy St. Bavon," cried Gerard. "'Twas the landlady all the while."
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.
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 loathe,
affectation. So Denys sat casting sheep's eyes, and Gerard, daggers, at
one comedian.
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
a lovely and pleasant thing, said he would go comfort her and bring her
back.
"Nay! nay! nay! for pity's sake let her bide," cried Gerard earnestly.
"Oh blessed mouse! sure some saint sent thee to our aid."
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 "grimacière" was afraid of a
mouse.
"Ay. She screamed hearty."
"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 afeared 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 mijaurée 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 'Tête d'Or' was a thriving hostelry under my
old chum her good father; but she is digging its grave tooth and nail."
"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.
"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.
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 jail, St. Catherine's church, &c. 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 à 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
mediæval 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.
Denys looked askant at Gerard, and not liking the theme, shook it off.
"I gather 'em off the trees by the road-side," said he surlily.
"Then you gathered these too ripe," said the hostess, who was only a
fool externally.
"Ay, rotten ripe," observed another, inspecting them.
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.
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 mediæval 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.
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 mijaurée 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."
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.
The mijaurée coloured and bit her lips. She had not intended her by-play
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
meditating mijaurée, 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.
The soldier and the mijaurée rattled the dice. In which sport she was so
taken up with her hands, that she forgot to cheat, and Denys won "écu 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. "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."
"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 cow. And she knew it: she was eternally washing and
scenting them.
Denys read the objection like the observant warrior he was, seized them
and mumbled them.
Finding him so appreciative of her charm, she said timidly, "Will you do
me a kindness, good soldier?"
"A thousand, fair hostess an you will."
"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?"
"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."
"So would--ahem. He is right: the young women of the day are not worthy
of _him_, 'un tas des mijaurées.' 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?"
"On this fair hand I swear it: and thus I seal the pledge."
"There; no need to melt the wax, though. Now go to bed. And tell him ere
you sleep."
The perverse toad (I thank thee, Marion, 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.
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 'mijaurées'
by night as well as day?"
"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."
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.
"Sorry friendship, that would marry me to a mijaurée," interposed Gerard
yawning.
"Comrade, be reasonable; 'tis not the friskiest sheep that falls down
the cliff. All creatures must have their flings soon, or late; and why
not a woman? What more frivolous than a kitten? what graver than a
cat?"
"Hast a good eye for nature, Denys," said Gerard, "that I proclaim."
"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 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 exceedingly low in
discoursing of thee, and murmured sweetly; another infallible sign. The
bolt hath struck and wrankles 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 'Tête d'Or,' and safe from all 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. For 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 'Tête d'Or,' far from a soldier's
ills."
"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?"
"Perdition seize me, but I forgot that," said Denys.
"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 'Têtes 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."
They rose with the dawn, and broke their fast by the kitchen fire.
Denys inquired of the girl whether the mistress was about.
"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 mug with boiling water
and took it upstairs.
"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."
They paid the score, and left the "Tête d'Or," while its mistress was
washing her hands.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] Sinclair was a singer; and complained to the manager that in the
operatic play of Rob Roy he had a multitude of mere words to utter
between the songs. 'Cut, my boy, cut!' said the manager. On this vox et
p. n. cut Scott, and doubtless many of his cuts would not have
discredited the condensers of evidence. But only one of his
master-strokes has reached posterity. His melodious organs had been
taxed with this sentence: "Rashleigh is my cousin; but, for what reason
I cannot divine, he is my bitterest enemy." This he condensed and
delivered thus:--"Rashleigh is my cousin, but for what reason I cannot
divine."