IT happened, two days after the scene I have endeavoured to describe,
that Gerard, wandering through one of the meanest streets of Rome, was
overtaken by a thunderstorm, and entered a low hostelry. He called for
wine, and, the rain continuing, soon drank himself into a half-stupid
condition, and dozed with his head on his hands and his hands upon the
table.
In course of time the room began to fill and the noise of the rude
guests to wake him.
Then it was he became conscious of two figures near him conversing in a
low voice.
One was a pardoner. The other by his dress, clean but modest, might have
passed for a decent tradesman: but the way he had slouched his hat over
his brows so as to hide all his face except his beard, showed he was one
of those who shun the eye of honest men, and of the law. The pair were
driving a bargain in the sin market. And by an arrangement not uncommon
at that date, the crime to be forgiven was yet to be committed--under
the celestial contract.
He of the slouched hat was complaining of the price pardons had reached.
"If they go up any higher we poor fellows shall be shut out of heaven
altogether."
The pardoner denied the charge flatly. "Indulgences were never cheaper
to good husbandmen."
The other inquired "Who were they?"
"Why such as sin by the market, like reasonable creatures. But if your
will be so perverse as go and pick out a crime the Pope hath set his
face against, blame yourself, not me?"
Then, to prove that crime of one sort or another was within the means of
all, but the very scum of society, he read out the scale from a written
parchment.
It was a curious list: but not one that could be printed in this book.
And to mutilate it would be to misrepresent it. It is to be found in any
great library. Suffice it to say, that murder of a layman was much
cheaper than many crimes my lay readers would deem light by comparison.
This told; and by a little trifling concession on each side, the bargain
was closed, the money handed over, and the aspirant to heaven's favour
forgiven beforehand for removing 1 layman. The price for disposing of a
clerk bore no proportion.
The word assassination was never once uttered by either merchant.
All this buzzed in Gerard's ear. But he never lifted his head from the
table; only listened stupidly.
However, when the parties rose and separated, he half raised his head
and eyed with a scowl the retiring figure of the purchaser.
"If Margaret was alive," muttered he, "I'd take thee by the throat and
throttle thee, thou cowardly stabber. But she is dead; dead; dead. Die
all the world; 'tis nought to me: so that I die among the first."
When he got home there was a man in a slouched hat walking briskly to
and fro on the opposite side of the way.
"Why there is that cur again," thought Gerard.
But in his state of mind, the circumstance made no impression whatever
on him.