[Illustration: 056]
MEANWHILE Florent Guillaume had settled himself for the night in the
steeple. It was bitter cold. The wind came blowing in through the
luffer-boards and fluted and organed among the bells to rejoice the
heart of the cats and owls. And this was not the only objection to
the lodging. Since the earthquake of 1427, which had shaken the whole
church, the spire was dropping to pieces stone by stone and threatened
to collapse altogether in the first storm. Our Lady suffered this
dilapidation because of the people’s sins.
Presently Florent Guillaume fell asleep, which is a token of his
innocency of heart. What dreams he dreamt is clean forgot, except that
he had a vision in his sleep of a lady of consummate beauty who came and
kissed him on the mouth. But when his lips opened to return her salute,
he swallowed two or three woodlice that were walking over his face and
by their tickling had deluded his sleeping senses into the agreeable
fancy. He awoke, and hearing a noise of wings beating above his head, he
thought it was a devil, as was very natural for him to opine, seeing how
the evil spirits flock in countless swarms to torment mankind, and above
all at night time. But the moon just then breaking through the clouds,
he recognised Madame Ysabeau and saw she was busy with her beak pushing
into a crack in the wall that served her for storehouse a blue purse
broidered with silver. He let her do as she list; but when she had left
her hoard, he clambered onto a beam, took the purse, opened it, and saw
it contained twelve good gold deniers, which he clapped in his belt,
giving thanks to the incomparable Black Virgin of Le Puy. For he was a
clerk and versed in the Scriptures, and he remembered how the Lord fed
his prophet Elias by a raven; whence he inferred that the Holy Mother
of God had sent by a magpie twelve deniers to her poor penman, Florent
Guillaume.
On the morrow Florent and Marguerite the lace-maker ate a dish of
tripe,--a treat they had craved for many a long year.
So ends the Miracle of the Magpie. May he who tells the tale live, as he
would fain live, in good and gentle peace, and all good hap befall such
folk as shall read the same.