 Chapter 24 Part 1 of The Cloyster and the Hearth by Charles Reid This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Denham Not far on this road he came upon a little group. Two men in sober suits stood leaning lazily on each side of a horse talking to one another. The rider, in a silk doublet and bright green jerkin and hoes, both of English cloth, glossy as a mole, lay flat on his stomach in the afternoon sun and looked an enormous lizard. His velvet cloak, flaming yellow, was carefully spread over the horse's loins. His auto-miss, inquired Gerard. Not that I won't arm, replied one of the servants. But your master, he lies like a corpse. Are you not ashamed to let him grovel on the ground? Go to! the bare ground is the best cure for his disorder. If you get sober in bed it gives you a headache, but you leap up from the hard ground like a lark in spring. Hey, Ulrich! He speaks sooth young man, said Ulrich warmly. What is the gentleman drunk? The servants burst into a horse laugh at the simplicity of Gerard's question. But suddenly Ulrich stopped, and eyeing him all over said very gravely, Who are you, and were born, that know not the count is ever drunk at this hour? And Gerard found himself a suspected character. I am a stranger, said he, but a true man and one that loves knowledge, therefore I ask questions, and not for the love of prying. If you be a true man, said Ulrich shrewdly, then give us drink-gelt for the knowledge we have given you. Gerard looked blank, but putting a good face on it said, Drink-gelt you shall have, such as my lean purse can spare, and if you will tell me why you've tain his cloak from the man and laid it on the beast. Under the inspiring influence of coming drink-gelt, two solutions were instantly offered Gerard at once. The one was that should the count come to himself, which being a seasoned topper he was apt to do all in a minute, and find his horse standing sweating in the cold while a cloak lay idle at hand, he would fall to cursing and peradventure to laying on. The other, more pretentious, was that a horse is a poor milk-soap, which drinking nothing but water has to be cockered up and warmed outside, but a master, being a creature ever filled with good beer, has a store of inward heat that warms him to the skin and renders a cloak a mere shred of idle vanity. Each of the speakers fell in love with his theory, and to tell the truth both had taken a hair or two of the dog that had bitten their master to the brain, so their voices presently rose so high that the green sot began to growl instead of snoring. In their heat they did not notice this. Air long the argument took a turn that sooner or later was pretty sure to enliven a discussion in that age. Hans, holding the bridle with his right hand, gave Ulrich a sound cuff with his left. Ulrich returned it with interest, his right hand being free, and at it they went ding-dong over the horse's mane, pommelling one another and jagging the poor beast till he ran backward and trod with iron heel upon a promontory of the green lord. He, like the toad stung by ethereal spear, started up howling with one hand clapped to the smart, and the other tugging at his hilt. The servants, amazed with terror, let the horse go. He galloped off whinnying, the men in pursuit of him crying out with fear, and the green noble after them volleying curses his naked sword in his hand and his body rebounding from hedge to hedge in his headlong but zigzag career down the narrow lane. In which hurtling, Gerard turned his back on them all and went calmly south, glad to have saved the four tin farthings he had got ready for trinkgelt, but far too heavy-hearted, even to smile at their drunken extravagance. The sun was nearly setting, and Gerard, who had now for some time been hoping in vain to find an inn by the way, was very ill at ease. To make matters worse, black clouds gathered over the sky. Gerard quickened his pace almost to a run. It was in vain. Down came the rain in torrents, drenched the bewildered traveller and seemed to extinguish the very sun for his rays already fading could not cope with this new assailant. Gerard trudged on, dark and wet, and in an unknown region. Full to leave Margaret said he. Presently the darkness thickened. He was entering a great wood. Huge branches shot across the narrow road, and the benighted stranger groped his way in what seemed an interminable and inky cave with a rugged floor on which he stumbled and stumbled as he went. On and on and on with shivering limbs and empty stomach and fainting heart till the wolves rose from their lairs and bade all round the wood. His hair bristled, but he grasped his cudgel and prepared to sell his life-dear. There was no wind, and his excited ear heard light feet patter at times over the newly fallen leaves, and low branches rustle with creatures gliding swiftly past them. Presently in the sea of ink there was a great fiery star close to the ground. He hailed it as he would his patron saint. Candle! A candle! he shouted and tried to run. But the dark and rugged way soon stopped that. The light was more distant than he had thought, but at last in the very heart of the forest he found a house with lighted candles and loud voices inside it. He looked up to see if there was a signboard. There was none. Not an inn, after all, said he sadly. No matter what Christian would turn a dog out into this wood to-night. And with this he made for the door that led to the voices. He opened it slowly and put his head in timidly. He drew it out abruptly as if slapped in the face and recoiled into the rain and darkness. He had peeped into a large but low room, the middle of which was filled by a huge round stove or clay oven that reached to the ceiling. Round this wet clothes were drying, some on lines, some more compendiously on rustics. These latter habiliments impregnated with the wet of the day but the dirt of a life and lined with what another foot traveller in these parts called rammish clowns evolved rank vapours and compound odours inexpressible in steaming clouds. In one corner was a travelling family, a large one, thence flowed into the common stock the peculiar sickly smell of neglected brats. Garlic filled up the interstices of the air and all this with closed window and intense heat of the central furnace and the breath of at least forty persons. They had just supped. Now Gerard, like most artists, had sensitive organs and the potent effluvia struck dismay into him but the rain lashed him outside and the light and fire tempted him in. He could not force his way all at once through the palpable perfumes but he returned to the light again and again like the singed moth. At last he discovered that the various smells did not entirely mix no fiend being there to stir them round. Odour of family predominated in two corners stewed rustic rain supreme in the centre and garlic in the noisy group by the window. He found too by hasty analysis that of these the garlic described the smallest aerial orbit and the scent of reeking rustic darted farthest a flavour as if ancient goats or the fathers of all foxes had been drawn through a river and were here dried by Nebuchadnezzar. So Gerard crept into a corner close to the door but though the solidity of the main fetters isolated them somewhat the heat and reeking vapours circulated and made the walls drip and the home-nurtured novice found something like a cold snake wind about his legs and his head turned to a great lump of lead and next he felt like choking sweetly slumbering and dying all in one. He was within an ace of swooning but recovered to a deep sense of disgust and discouragement and settled to go back to Holland at peep of day. This resolution formed he plucked up a little heart and being faint with hunger asked one of the men of garlic whether this was not an inn after all. Whence come you who know not the star of the forest was the reply I am a stranger and in my country inns have I a sign Droll country yours what need of a sign to a public house a place that every soul knows. Gerard was too tired and faint for the labour of argument so he turned the conversation and asked where he could find the landlord. At this fresh display of ignorance the natives contempt rose too high for words he pointed to a middle aged woman seated on the other side of the oven and turning to his mates let them know what an outlandish animal was in the room. There at the loud voices stopped one by one as the information penetrated the mass and each eye turned as on a pivot following Gerard and his every movement silently and zoologically. The landlady sat on a chair an inch or two higher than the rest between two bundles. From the first a huge heap of feathers and wings she was taking the downy plumes and pulling the others from the quills and so filling bundle two littering the floor ankle deep and contributing to the general stock a stuffy little malaria which might have played as distinguished part in a sweet room but went for nothing here. Gerard asked her if he could have something to eat. She opened her eyes with astonishment supper is over this hour and more but I had none of it good dame is that my fault you were welcome to your share for me but I was benighted and a stranger and belated sore against my will what have I to do with that all the world knows the star of the forest sups from six to eight come before six you sup well come before eight you sup as you please as heaven come after eight you get a clean bed and a stirrup cup or a horn of kind's milk at the dawning Gerard looked blank may I go to bed then dame said he sulkily for it is ill sitting up wet and fasting and the by word said he sups who sleeps the beds are not come yet replied the landlady you will sleep when the rest do inns are not built for one it was Gerard's turn to be astonished the beds were not come what in heaven's name did she mean but he was afraid to ask for every word he had spoken hitherto had amazed the assembly and zoological eyes were upon him he felt them he leaned against the wall and sighed audibly at this fresh zoological trait a titter went round the watchful company so this is Germany thought Gerard and Germany is a great country by Holland small nations for me he consoled himself by reflecting it was to be his last as well as his first night in the land his reverie was interrupted by an elbow driven into his ribs he turned sharp on his assailant who pointed across the room Gerard looked and a woman in the corner was beckoning him he went towards her gingerly being surprised and irresolute so that to a spectator his finger seemed to be pulling him across the floor with a gut line when he had got up to her hold the child said she in a fine hearty voice and in a moment she plumped the bear into Gerard's arms he stood transfixed jelly of lead in his hands and sudden horror in his elongated countenance at this ruefully expressive face the linkside conclave laughed loud and long never heed them said the woman cheerfully they know no better how should they bred and born in a wood she was rummaging among her clothes with two penetrating hands one of which Gerard had set free presently she fished out a small tin plate and a dried pudding and resuming her child with one arm held them forth to Gerard with the other keeping a thumb on the pudding to prevent it from slipping off put it in the stove said she you are too young to lie down fasting Gerard thanked her warmly but on his way to the stove his eye fell on the landlady may I dame said he beseeching me why not said she the question was evidently another surprise though less startling than its predecessors coming to the stove Gerard found the oven door obstructed by the ramish clowns they did not budge he hesitated a moment the landlady saw calmly put down her work and coming up pulled a her-sine man or two hither and pushed a her-sine man or two hither with the impassive countenance of a housewife moving her furniture turn about is fair play, she said you've been dry this ten minutes and better her experienced eye was not deceived Gorgoniae had done stewing and begun baking debarred the stove they'd trundled home all but one who stood like a table where the landlady had moved him to like a table and Gerard baked his pudding and getting to the stove burst into steam the door opened and in flew a bundle of straw it was hurled by a hind with a pitchfork another and another came flying after it till the room was like a clean farmyard these were then dispersed round the stove in layers like the seats in an arena and in a moment the company was all on its back the beds had come Gerard took out his pudding and found it delicious while he was relishing it the woman who had given it him and who was now a bed beckoned him again he went to her bundle side she is waiting for you whispered the woman Gerard returned to the stove and gobbled the rest of his sausage casting uneasy glances at the landlady seated silent as fate amid the prostrate multitude the food bolted he went to her and said thank you kindly dame for waiting for me you are welcome said she calmly making neither much nor little of the favour and with that began to gather up the feathers but Gerard stopped her nay, that is my task and he went down on his knees and collected them with ardour she watched him demurely I won't not when she come did she with a relic of distrust adding more cordially but ye have been well brought up ye have had a good mother I'll go bail at the door she committed the whole company to heaven in a formula and disappeared Gerard to his straw in the very corner for the guests lay round the sacred stove by seniority i.e. priority of arrival this punishment was a boon to Gerard for thus he lay on the shore of odour and stifling heat instead of in mid-ocean he was just dropping off when he was awakened by a noise and lo! there was the hind remorselessly shaking and waking guest after guest to ask him whether it was he who had picked up the mistress' feathers it was I cried Gerard oh! it was you was it said the other and came striding rapidly over the intermediate sleepers she bad me say one good turn deserves another and so here's your nightcap and he thrust a great oaken mug under Gerard's nose I thank her and bless her here goes and his gratitude ended in a rye face for the beer was muddy and had a strange medicinal twang new to the Hollander drink a house shouted the hind reproachfully you know is as good as a feast said the youth Jesuitically the hind cast a look of pity on this stranger who left liquor in his mug I brings I said he and drained it to the bottom and now Gerard turned his face to the wall and pulled up two handfuls of the nice clean straw and bored in them with his finger and so made a scabbard and sheathed his nose in it and soon they were all asleep men, maids, wives and children all lying higgledy-piggledy and snoring in a dozen keys like an orchestra slowly tuning and Gerard's body lay on straw in Germany and his spirit was a way to Sevenburgen when he woke in the morning he found nearly all his fellow passengers gone one or two were waiting for dinner nine o'clock it was now six he paid the landlady her demand two fennec or about in English hapny and he of the pitchfork demanded trink-gelt and getting a trifle more than usual and seeing Gerard eye a foaming milk-pail he had just brought from the cow hoisted it bodily to his lips drink your fill, man, said he and on Gerard offering to pay for the delicious draught told him in broad patois that a man might swallow a skinful of milk or a breakfast of air without putting hand to pouch at the door Gerard found his benefactress of last night and a huge chested artisan her husband Gerard thanked her and in the spirit of the age offered her a kreuzer for her pudding but she repulsed his hand quietly for what do you take me she said colouring faintly we are travellers and strangers the same as you and bound to feel for those in like plight then Gerard blushed in his turn and stammered excuses the hulking husband grinned superior to them both give the vixen a kiss for a pudding and cry quits, he said with an air impartial judge-like and jove-like Gerard obeyed the lofty behest and kissed the wife's cheek a blessing go with you both good people said he and God speed you young man replied the honest couple and with that they parted and never met again in this world the sun had just risen the raindrops on the leaves glittered like diamonds the air was fresh and bracing and Gerard steered south and did not even remember his resolve of overnight eight leagues he walked that day and in the afternoon came upon a huge building with an enormous arched gateway and a poston by its side her monastery, cried he joyfully I go no further lest I fare worse he applied at the poston and on stating whence he came and witherbound was instantly admitted and directed to the guest chamber a large and lofty room where travelers were fed and lodged grudges by the charity of the monastic orders soon the bell tinkled for vespers and Gerard entered the church of the convent and from his place heard a service sung so exquisitely it seemed the choir of heaven but one thing was wanting Margaret was not there to hear it with him and this made him sigh bitterly in mid-rapture at supper plain but wholesome and abundant food and good beer brewed in the convent were set before him and his fellows and at an early hour they were ushered into a large dormitory and the number being moderate had each a truckle bed and for covering sheepskins dressed with the fleece on but previously to this a monk struck by his youth and beauty questioned him and soon drew out his projects and his heart when he was found to be convent bred and going alone to Rome he became a personage and in the morning they showed him over the convent and made him stay and dine in the refectory they also pricked him a root on a slip of parchment and gave him a silver gilden to help him on the road and advised him to join the first honest company he should fall in with and not face alone the manifold perils of the way perils? said Gerard to himself that evening he came to a small straggling town where was one in it had no sign but being now better versed in the customs of the country and the coats of arms on its walls these belonged to the distinguished visitors who had slept in it at different epochs since its foundation and left these customary tokens of their patronage at present it looked more like a mausoleum than a hotel nothing moved nor sounded either in it or about it Gerard hammered on the great oak door no answer he hallowed no reply after a while he hallowed louder and at last a little round window or rather hole in the wall opened a man's head protruded cautiously like a tortoises from its shell and eyed Gerard stolidly but never uttered a syllable is this an inn? asked Gerard with a covert sneer the head seemed to fall into a brown study eventually it nodded but lazily can I have entertainment here again the head pondered and ended by nodding but sullenly and seemed a skull overburdened with catch-penny interrogatories how am I to get within and please you at this the head popped in as if the last question had shot it and a hand popped out pointed round the corner of the building and slammed the window Gerard followed the indication and after some research discovered that the fortification had one vulnerable part a small low door on its flank as for the main entrance that was used to keep out thieves and customers except once or twice in a year when they entered together i.e. when some duke or count arrived in pomp with his train of gaudy ruffians Gerard having penetrated the outer fort soon found his way to the stove as the public room was called from the principal article in it and sat down near the oven in which there were only a few live embers that diffused a mild and grateful heat after waiting patiently a long time he asked a grim old fellow with a long white beard who stalked solemnly in and turned the hourglass and then was stalking out when supper would be the grizzly gunny mead counted the guests on his fingers when I see thrice as many here as now Gerard groaned the grizzly tyrant resented the rebellious sound inns are not built for one said he if you can't wait for the rest look out for another lodging Gerard sighed at this the grey beard frowned after a while company trickled steadily in till full eighty persons of various conditions were congregated and to our novice the place became a chamber of horrors for here the mothers got together and compared ringworms and the men scraped the mud off their shoes with their knives and left it on the floor and combed their long hair out inmates included and made their toilet consisting generally of a dry rub water however was brought in yours hounced on one of these but at sight of the liquid contents lost his temper and said to the waiter wash you first your water and then a man may wash his hands with all and it likes you not seek another in Gerard said nothing but went quietly and courteously besought an old traveller to tell him how far it was to the next in out four leagues then Gerard appreciated the grim pleasantry of the unbending sire that worthy now returned with an arm full of wood and counting the travellers put on a log for every six by which act of raw justice the hotter the room the more heat he added poor Gerard noticed this little floor in the ancient man's logic but carefully suppressed every symptom of intelligence lest his feet should have to carry his brain's four leagues farther that night when perspiration and suffocation were far advanced they brought in the tablecloths but oh so brown so dirty and so coarse they seemed like sacks that had been worn out in agriculture and come down to this like shreds from the mainsail of some worn out ship the hollander who had never seen such linen even in nightmare uttered a faint cry what is to do inquired a traveller Gerard pointed ruefully to the dirty sack cloth the other looked at it with lackluster eye and comprehended nought a burgundian soldier the arbalest at his back came peeping over Gerard's shoulder and seeing what was amiss laughed so loud that the room rang again then slapped him on the back and cried Courage! the devil is dead Gerard stared he doubted alike the good tidings and their relevancy but the tones were so hearty and the arbalestria's face notwithstanding a formidable beard was so gay and genial that he smiled and after a pause said dryly Tiens tiens! cried the soldier and he seated himself by Gerard and in a moment was talking voluably of war, women and pillage interlading his discourse with curious oaths at which Gerard drew away from him more or less presently in came the grizzly servant and counted them all on his fingers superciliously like Abraham telling sheep then went out again and returned with a deal trencher and deal spoon to each then there was an interval then he brought them a long mug a piece made of glass and frowned by and by he stalked gloomily in with a hunch of bread a piece and exit with an injured air expectations thus raised the guests sat for nearly an hour balancing the wooden spoons and with their own knives whittling the bread eventually when hope was extinct patients went out and hunger exhausted a huge vessel was brought in with pomp the lid was removed a cloud of steam rolled forth and behold some thin broth with square pieces of bread floating this though not agreeable to the mind served to distend the body slices of Strasbourg ham followed and pieces of salt fish both so highly salted that Gerard could hardly swallow a mouthful then came a kind of gruel and when the repast had lasted an hour and more some hashed meat highly peppered and the French and Dutch being now full to the brim with the above dainties and the draughts of beer the salt and spiced meats had provoked in came roasted kids most excellent and carp and trout fresh from the stream Gerard made an effort and looked angrily at them but could know more as the poets say the Burgundian swore by the liver and spike staff of the Good Centurion the natives had outwitted him then turning to Gerard he said Courage l'ami! le diable est mort as loudly as before but not with the same tone of conviction the canny natives had kept an internal corner for contingencies and polished the kids very bones the feast ended with a dish of raw animal killer in a wicker cage a cheese had been surrounded with little twigs and strings then a hole made in it and a little sour wine poured in this speedily bred a small rumourous vermin when the cheese was so rotten with them that only the twigs and string kept it from tumbling to pieces and walking off quadrivious it came to table by a malicious caprice of fate cage and menagerie were put down right under the Dutchman's organ of self-torture he recoiled with a loud ejaculation and hung to the bench with the handles of his legs what is the matter said a traveller disdainfully does the good cheese scare you then put it hither in the name of all saints cheese cried Gerard, I see none these nauseous reptiles have made away with every bit of it well, replied another it has not gone far by eating of the mites we eat the cheese to boot nay, not so said Gerard these reptiles are made like us and digest their food and turn it into foul flesh even as we do ours to sweet as well might you think to chew grass by eating of grass-fed beaves as to eat cheese by swallowing these uncleanly insects Gerard raised his voice in uttering this and the company received the paradox and with a distrustful air like any other stranger during which the Burgundian who understood German but imperfectly made Gerard galasize the discussion he patted his interpreter on the back c'est bien mon gars plus fort que toi n'est pas bête and administered his formula of encouragement and Gerard edged away from him for next to ugly sights and ill odours the poor wretch disliked profaneness meanwhile, though shaken in argument the raw reptiles were duly eaten and relished by the company and served to provoke thirst a principal aim of all the solids in that part of Germany so now the company drank a garos all round and their tongues were unloosed and oh the babel but above the fierce clamour rose at intervals like some hero's war cry in battle the trumpet-like voice of the Burgundian soldier shouting lustily courage camarade le diable est mort entered grizzly Ganymede holding in his hand a wooden dish with circles and semicircles marked on it in chalk he put it down on the table and stood silent sad and somber as Charon by sticks waiting for his boatload of souls then pouches and purses were rummaged and each threw a coin into the dish Gerard timidly observed that he had drunk next to no beer and inquired how much less he was to pay than the others what mean you said Ganymede roughly whose fault is it you have not drunken or all to suffer because one chooses to be a milk-soap you will pay no more than the rest and no less Gerard was abashed courage petit le diable est mort hiccup the soldier and flung Ganymede a coin you are bad as he is said the old man peevishly you are paying too much and the tyrannical old Aristides returned him some coin out of the trencher with a most reproachful countenance and now the man whom Gerard had confuted an hour and a half ago awoke from a brown study in which he had been ever since and came to him and said yes but the honey is none the worse for passing through the bee's bellies Gerard stared the answer had been so long on the road he hadn't an idea what it was an answer to seeing him dumbfounded the other concluded him confuted and withdrew calmed the bedrooms were upstairs dungeons with not a scrap of furniture except a bed and a male servant settled inexorably who should sleep with whom neither money nor prayers would get a man a bed to himself here custom forbadded sternly you might as well have asked to monopolise a seesaw they assigned to Gerard a man with a great black beard he was an honest fellow enough in fact he would not go to bed and would sit on the edge of it telling the wretched Gerard by force and at length the events of the day and alternately laughing and crying at the same circumstances which were not in the smallest degree pathetic or humorous but only dead trivial at last Gerard put his fingers in his ears and lying down in his clothes while the sheets were too dirty for him to undress contrived to sleep but in an hour or two he awoke cold and found that his drunken companion had got all the feather bed so mighty his instinct they lay between two beds the lower one hard and made of straw the upper soft and filled with feathers light as down Gerard pulled at it his experience drunkard held it fast mechanically Gerard tried to twitch it away by surprise but instinct was too many for him on this he got out of bed and kneeling down on his bedfellow's unguarded side easily whipped the prize away and rolled with it under the bed and there lay on one edge of it and curled the rest round his shoulders but he often heard something grumbling and growling above him which was some little satisfaction thus instinct was outwitted and victorious reason laid chuckling on feathers and not quite choked with dust End of chapter 24 part 1 Reading by Tom Denham Chapter 24 part 2 of The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reid This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Tom Denham At peep of day Gerard rose flung the feather bed upon his snoring companion and went in search of milk and air A cheerful voice hailed him in French What ho! You are up with the sun comrade He rises be times that lies in a dog's lair Answered Gerard crossly Courage la mie Le diable est mort was the instant reply The soldier then told him his name was Denis and he was passing from flushing in Zeeland to the Duke's French dominions a change the more agreeable to him as he should revisit his native place and a host of pretty girls who had wept at his departure and should hear French spoken again and who are you and with a bound My name is Gerard and I am going to Rome said the more reserved Hollander and in a way that invited no further confidences All the better we will go together as far as Burgundy That is not my road All roads take to Rome I, but the shortest road thither is my way Well then it is I who must go out of my way a step for the sake of good company for thy face likes me and thou speakest French or nearly There go two words to that bargain said Gerard coldly I steer by proverbs too They do put old heads on young men's shoulders Bon loup mauvais compagnon de le brebi and a soldier they say is near akin to a wolf They lie said Denis Besides, if he is les loups ne se mangent pas entre eux I, but the soldier I am not a wolf and thou knowest a bien petite occasion Let us drop wolves and sheep being men My meaning is that a good soldier never pillages a comrade Come, young man too much suspicion becomes not your years They who travel should learn to read faces me thinks you might see lealty in mine sith I have not seen it in your Is it your fat purse at your girdle you fear for? Gerard turned pale Look hither and he undid his belt and poured out of it a double-handful of gold pieces then returned them to their hiding place There is a hostage for you, said he Carry you that and let us be comrades and handed him his belt gold and all Gerard stared If I am over prudent you have not inno But he flushed and looked pleased at the others trust in him Bah I can read faces and so must you or you'll never take your forebones safe to roam Soldier you would find me a dull companion for my heart is very heavy said Gerard yielding I'll cheer you, mon gar I think you would said Gerard sweetly and so need have I have a kindly voice in my ear this day Oh, no soul is sad alongside me I lift up their poor little hearts with my consigne Courage to le monde Le diable est mort So be it then said Gerard But take back your belt for I could never trust by halves We will go together as far as Rhine and God go with us both Amen said Denis and lifted his cap Honour The pair trudged manfully on and Denis enlivened the weary way He chattered about battles and sieges and things which were new to Gerard and he was one of those who make little incidents wherever they go He passed nobody without addressing him I understand it but it wakes them up said he But whenever they fell in with a monk or priest he pulled a long face and sought the reverent father's blessing and fearlessly poured out on him floods of German words in such order as not to produce a single German sentence He doffed his cap to every woman high or low He caught sight of and with eagle eye discerned and complimented her on it in his native tongue well adapted to such matters and at each carrion crow or magpie down came his crossbow and he would go a furlong off the road to circumvent it and indeed he did shoot one old crow with laudable neatness and despatch and carried it to the nearest hen roost and there slipped in and set it upon a nest The good wife will say Alak, here is Beelzebub a hatching of my eggs No, you forget he is dead, objected Gerard So he is, so he is but she doesn't know that not having the luck to be acquainted with me who carry the good news from city to city uplifting men's hearts Such was Denis in time of peace Our travellers towards nightfall reached a village It was a very small one but contained a place of entertainment They searched for it and found a small house with barn and stables In the former was the everlasting stove and the clothes drying round it on lines and a traveller or two sitting morose Gerard asked for supper Supper, we have no time to cook for travellers We only provide lodging Good lodging for man and beast You can have some beer Madman, who born in Holland sought other lands snorted Gerard in Dutch The landlady started What gibberish is that, asked she and crossed herself with looks of superstitious alarm You can buy what you like in the village and cook it in our oven But privy, mutter, no charms nor sorceries here, good man Don't you now, it do make my flesh creep so This scoured the village for food and ended by supping on roasted eggs and brown bread At a very early hour their chambermaid came for them It was a rosy cheeked old fellow with a lanthorn They followed him He led them across a dirty farmyard where they had much ado to pick their steps and brought them into a cowhouse There on each side of every cow was laid a little clean straw and a tied bundle of ditto for a pillow The old man looked down on this his work with paternal pride Not so Gerard What, do you set Christian men to lie among cattle Well, it is hard upon the poor beasts They have scarce room to turn Oh, what, is it not hard on us then? Where is the hardship I have lain among them all my life, look at me I am forescore and never had a headache in all my born days all along of lying among the chai Bless your silly head kind's breath is ten times better to drink nor Christians You try it and he slammed the bedroom door Dini, where are you wind Gerard Here, on her other side What are you doing I know not but as near as I can guess I think I must be going to sleep What are you at I am saying my prayers Forget me not in them Is it likely Dini, I shall soon have done Do not go to sleep I want to talk Dispatch then for I feel like floating in the sky on a warm cloud Dini Oh, hey, hello Is it time to get up Alack, no There I hurried my horizons to talk and look at you going to sleep We shall be starved before morning having no coverlets Well, you know what to do Not I in sooth Cuddle, look out Thank you Borrow in the straw then You must be very new to the world to grumble at this How would you bear to lie on the field of battle on a frosty night as I did to the day stark naked with nothing to keep me warm but the carcass of a fellow who had been in help kill Horrible, horrible Tell me all about it Oh, but this is sweet Well, we had a little battle in Brabant and won a little victory but it cost us dear Several Arbalestrias turned their toes up and I among them Killed Dini, come now Dead as mutton Stuck full of picole till the blood run out of me like the good wine of Mackon from the trodden grapes It is right bounteous in me to pour the tale in minstrel phrase for oh, I am sleepy Oh, now where was I Left dead on the field of battle bleeding like a pig that is to say like grapes or something Go on, pretty go on Tis a sin to sleep in the midst of a good story Granted, well, some of those vagabonds that stripped the dead soldier on the field of glory came and took every rag off me they wrought me no further ill because there was no need No, you were dead C'est convenu This must have been at sundown and with the night came a shrewd frost that barkened the blood on my wounds and stopped all the rivulets that were running from my heart and about midnight I awoke as from a trance and thought you were in heaven Gerard eagerly being a youth inoculated with monkish tales too frostbitten for that mongar Besides, I heard the wounded groaning on all sides so I knew I was in the old place I saw I could not live the night through without cover I groped about shivering and shivering at last one did suddenly leave groaning You are sped, said I and so I made up to him and true enough he was dead but warm, you know I took my lord in my arms but was too weak to carry him so rolled with him into a ditch hard by and there my comrades found me in the morning properly stung with nettles and hugging a dead Fleming for the bare life Gerard shuddered and this is war this is the chosen theme of poets and troubadours Raiden Rikers truly was it said by the men of old Dolce Bellum in expertise 2D? I say of what stout heart some men have Nessapapiti so after that sort thing this sort thing is heaven soft, warm good company comrade and cow cry diable tongue and the glib tongue was still for some hours in the morning Gerard was wakened by a liquid hitting his eye and it was Denis employing the cow's udder as a squirt oh, fi! cried Gerard to waste the good milk and he took a horn out of his wallet fill this but indeed I see not what right we have to meddle with make your mind easy last night la camarade was not nice but what then true friendship dispenses with ceremony today we make us free with her why what did she do poor thing ate my pillow ho ho on waking I had to hunt for my head and found it down in the stable gutter she ate our pillow from us we drink our pillow from her sante madame et sans racune and the dog drank her milk to her own health the ancient was right though said Gerard never have I risen so refreshed since I left my native land henceforth let us shun great towns and still lie in a convent or a cowhouse for I'd leave a sleep on fresh straw than on linen well washed six months ago and the breath of kind it is sweeter than that of Christians let alone the garlic which men and women folk affect but cow and a bore from and so do I Saint Bavon be my witness the soldier eyed him from head to foot now but for that little tuft on your chin I should take you for a girl and by the fingernails of Saint Luke no ill favoured one neither these three towns proved types and repeated themselves with slight variations for many a weary league but even when he could get neither a convent nor a cowhouse Gerard learned in time to steal himself to the inevitable and to emulate his comrade whom he looked on as almost superhuman for hardy hood of body and spirit there was however a balance to all this veneration Denny like his predecessor Achilles had his weak part his very weak part thought Gerard his foible was woman whatever he was saying or doing he stopped short at the sight of a farthing gale and his whole soul became occupied with that garment and its inmate till they had disappeared and sometimes for a good while after he often put Gerard to the blush by talking his amazing German to such females as he caught standing or sitting indoors or out at which they stared and when he met a peasant girl on the road he took off his cap to her and saluted her as if she was a queen the invariable effect of which was that she suddenly drew herself up quite stiff like a soldier on parade and wore a forbidding countenance they drive me to despair said Denny is that a just return to a civil-born tad they are large, they are fair but stupid as swans what breeding can you expect from women that wear no hose inquired Gerard and some of them know soon they seem to me reserved and modest as becomes their sex and sober whereas the men are little better than beer barrels would you have them brazen as well as houseless a little affability adorns even beauty side Denny then let these alone sith they are not to your taste retorted Gerard what is there no sweet face in Burgundy that would pale to see you so wrapped up in strange women half a dozen that would cry their eyes out well then in Burgundy eye to the foot but not to the heart I am there sleeping and waking and almost every minute of the day in Burgundy why I thought you would never in Burgundy cried Gerard contemptuously no in sweet seven Bergen well a day well a day many such dialogues as this a pair on the long and weary road and neither could change the other one day about noon they reached a town of some pretensions and Gerard was glad for he wanted to buy a pair of shoes his own were quite worn out they soon found a shop that displayed a goodly array and made up to it and would have entered it but the shopkeeper sat on the doorstep taking a nap and was so fat as to block up the narrow doorway the very light could hardly struggle past his too too solid flesh much less a carnal customer my fair readers are accustomed when they go shopping to be met halfway with nods and becks and wreathed smiles and waved into a seat while almost at the same instant an eager shopman flings himself half across the counter in a semi-circle to learn their commands can best appreciate this evil Teuton who kept a shop as a dog keeps a kennel and sat at the exclusion of custom snoring like a pig Denis and Gerard stood and contemplated this curiosity emblem permit me to remark of the lets and hindrances to commerce that characterised his epoch jump over him the door is too low march through him the man is too thick what is the coil inquired a mumbling voice from the interior apprentice with his mouth full we want to get into your shop what for in heaven's name shoon lazy bones the ire of the apprentice began to rise at such an explanation and could you find no hour out of all the twelve to come testering us for shoon but the one little little hour my master takes his nap and I sit down to my dinner when all the rest of the world is full long ago Denis heard but could not follow the sense waste no more time talking their German gibberish said he take out thy knife and tickle his fat ribs that I will not said Gerard Gerard seized the mad fellow's arm in dismay for he had been long enough in the country to guess that the whole town would take part in any brawl with the native against the stranger but Denis twisted away from him and the crossbow bolt in his hand was actually on the road to the sleeper's ribs but at that very moment two females crossed the road towards him he saw the blissful vision instantly forgot what he was about and awaited their approach with unreasonable joy though companions they were not equals except in attractiveness to a Burgundian crossbowman for one was very tall the other short and by one of those anomalies which society however primitive speedily establishes the long one held up the little one's tail the tall one wore a plain linen coiff on her head a little grow-gram cloak over her shoulders a gray curtain and a short farling-gale or petticoat of bright red cloth and feet and legs quite bare though her arms were veiled in tight linen sleeves the other a curtain broadly trimmed with fur her arms in double sleeves whereof the inner of yellow satin clung to the skin the outer all beferred were open at the inside of the elbow and so the arm passed through and left them dangling velvet headdress huge purse at girdle gorgeous train bare legs and thus they came on the citizen's wife strutting and the maid gliding after holding her mistress's train devoutly in both hands and bending and winding easily enough to do it imagine, if not pressed for time a bantam with a guinea-hen stepping obsequious at its stately heel this pageant made straight for the shoemaker's shop the knee lauded low the worshipful lady nodded graciously but rapidly having business on hand or rather on foot for in a moment she poked the point of her little shoe into the sleeper and worked it round in him like a gimlet till with a long snarl he woke the incarnate shudder rising and grumbling vaguely the lady swept in and deigned him no further notice he retreated to his neighbor's shop the tailor's and sitting on the step protected it from the impertinence of morning calls neighbors should be neighborly he and Gerard followed the dignity into the shop where sat the apprentice at dinner the maid stood outside with her in-steps crossed leaning against the wall and tapping it with her nails those yonder said the dignity briefly pointing with an imperious little white hand to some yellow shoes gilded at the toe while the apprentice stood stock still neutralized by his dinner the beauty Denise sprang at the shoes and brought them to her she smiled and calmly seated herself protruded her foot shod but houseless and centered down went Denise on his knees and drew off her shoe and tried the new ones on the white skin devoutly finding she had a willing victim she abused the opportunity tried first one pair another then the first again and so on balancing and hesitating for about half an hour to Gerard's disgust and Denise's weak delight at last she was fitted and handed two pair of yellow and one pair of red shoes out to her servant then was heard a sigh it burst from the owner of the shop he had risen from slumber and was now hovering about a partridge near her brood in danger there go all my colored shoes said he as they disappeared in the girl's apron the lady departed Gerard fitted himself with a stout pair asked the price paded without a word and gave his old ones to a beggar in the street who blessed him in the marketplace and threw them furiously down a well in the suburbs the comrades left the shop and in it two melancholy men that looked and even talked as if they had been robbed wholesale my shoe not so worn said Denise grinding his teeth but I'll go barefoot till I reach France ere I'll leave my money with such churls as these the Dutchman replied calmly they seem indifferent well so as they drew near the Rhine they passed through forest after forest and now for the first time ugly words sounded in travellers mouths seated around stoves thieves black gangs cutthroats etc the very rustics were said to have a custom hereabouts of murdering the unwary traveller in these gloomy woods whose dark and devious winding enabled those who were familiar with them to do deeds of rapine and blood undetected or if detected easily to baffle pursuit certain it was that every clown they met carried whether for offence or defence a most formidable weapon a light axe with a short pike at the head and a long slender handle of you or ash well seasoned these the natives could all throw with singular precision so as to make the point strike an object at several yards distance or could slay a bullet at hand with a stroke of the blade Gerard bought one and practised with it Denis quietly filed and ground his bolt sharp whistling the whilst and when they entered a gloomy wood he would unsling his crossbow and carry it ready for action but not so much like a traveller fearing an attack as a sportsman watchful not to miss a snapshot one day being in a forest a few leagues from Dusseldorf as Gerard was walking like one in a dream thinking of Margaret and scarce seeing the road he trod his companion laid a hand on his shoulder and strung his crossbow with glittering eye HUSH! said he in a low whisper that startled Gerard more than thunder Gerard grasped his axe tight and shook a little he heard a rustling in the wood hard by and at the same moment Denis sprang into the wood and his crossbow went to his shoulder even as he jumped twang went the metal string and after an instant suspense he roared run forward guard the road he is hit he is hit Gerard darted forward and as he ran a young bear burst out of the wood right upon him finding itself intercepted it went upon its hind legs with a snarl and though not half grown opened formidable jaws and long claws Gerard in a fury of excitement and agitation flung himself on it and delivered a tremendous blow with his nose with its axe and the creature staggered another and it lay groveling with Gerard hacking it Hello! Stop! You are mad to spoil the meat I took it for a robber said Gerard panting I mean I had made ready for a robber so I could not hold my hand Aye, these chattering travelers have stuffed your head full of thieves and assassins they have not got a real live robber in their own nation nay I'll carry the beast bear thou my crossbow we will carry it by turns then said Gerard for it is a heavy load poor thing how its blood drips why did we slay it for supper and the reward the Bailey of the next town shall give us and for that it must die when it had just begun to live and perchance it hath a mother that will miss it soar this night and loves it as ours love us more than mine does me what know you not that his mother was caught in a pitfall last month and her skin is now at the tanners and his father was stuck full of cloth-yard shafts to the day and died like Julius Caesar with his hands folded on his bosom and a dead dog in each of them but Gerard would not do it jestingly why then said he have we killed one of God's creatures that was all alone in the world as I am this day in this strange land you young milk-sob roddeny these things must not be looked at so or not another bow would be drawn or quarrel fly in forest nor battlefield why one of your kidney consorting with a troop of pikemen turn them to a row of milk-pales it is ended to roam thou goest not alone for never wouldst thou reach the alps in a whole skin I take thee to Remirement my native place and there I marry thee to my young sister she is blooming as a peach thou shakes thy head ah I forgot thou lovest elsewhere and art a one woman man to me scarce conceivable well then I shall find thee not a wife not a Lehman but a friend some honest Burgundian who shall go with thee as far as Leon and much I doubt that honest fellow would be myself into whose liquor thou has dropped sundry powders to make me love thee for erst I endured not doves in doublet and hoes from Leon I say I can trust thee my ship to Italy which being by all accounts the very stronghold of milk-soaps thou will there be safe they will hear thy words and make thee their duke in a twinkling Gerard sighed in sooth I love not to think of this Dusseldorf where we ought to part company good friend they walked silently each thinking of the separation at hand the thought checked trifling conversation that at these moments it is a relief to do something however insignificant Gerard asked Denis to lend him a bolt I have often shot with a longbow but never with one of these draw thy knife and cut this one out of the cub said Denis slyly nay nay I want a clean one Denis gave him three out of his quiver Gerard strung the bow and leveled it at a bow that had fallen into the road at some distance the power of the instrument surprised him the short but thick steel bow jarred him to the very heel as it went off and the swift steel shaft was invisible in its passage only the dead leaves with which November had carpeted the narrow road flew about on the other side of the bow he aimed a thought too high said Denis what a deadly thing no wonder it is driving out the longbow to Martin's much discontent hi lad said Denis triumphantly it gains ground every day in spite of their laws and their proclamations to keep up the ewanbow because for sooth their grandsire shot with it knowing no better you see Gerard war is not past time men will shoot at their enemies with the hittingest arm and the killingest not with the longest and the missingest then these new engines I hear of will put both bows down for these with a pinch of black dust and a leaden ball and a child's finger shall slay you Mars and Goliath and the seven champions poo poo said Denis warmly Petrone no Harkibus will ever put down Sir Arbalest why we can shoot ten times while they are putting their charcoal and their lead into their leaven smoke belches and then kindling their matches all that is too fumbling for the field of battle there a soldier's weapon needs to be eye ready like his heart Gerard did not answer for his ear was attracted by a sound behind them a peculiar sound too like something heavy but not hard rushing softly over the dead leaves he turned round with some little curiosity a colossal creature was coming down the road at about sixty paces distance he looked at it in a sort of calm stupor at first but the next moment he turned ashy pale Denis he cried Denis Denis world round it was a bear as big as a cart horse it was tearing along with its huge head down running on a hot scent the very moment he saw it Denis said in a sickening whisper the cub oh the concentrated horror of that one word whispered hoarsely with dilating eyes for in that syllable it all flashed upon them both like a sudden stroke of lightning in the dark the bloody trail the murdered cub the mother upon them and it death all this in a moment of time the next she saw them huge as she was she seemed to double herself it was her long hair bristling with rage she raised her head big as her hulls her swine-shaped jaws open wide at them her eyes turned to blood and flame and she rushed upon them scattering the leaves about her like a whirlwind as she came shoot screamed Denis but Gerard stood shaking from head to foot useless shoot man ten thousand devils shoot too late tree tree and he dropped the cub Gerard crossed the road and flew to the first tree and climbed it Gerard the same on his side and as they fled both men uttered inhuman howls like savage creatures grazed by death with all their speed one or other would have been taunt of fragments at the foot of his tree but the bear stopped a moment at the cub without taking her bloodshot eyes or those she was hunting she smelt it all around and found how her creator only knows that it was dead quite dead she gave a yell such as neither of the hunted ones had ever heard nor dreamed to be in nature and flew after Denis she reared and struck at him as he climbed he was just out of reach instantly she seized the tree and with her huge teeth tore a great piece out of it with a crash then she reared again dug her claws deep into the bark and began to mount it slowly but as surely as a monkey Denis evil star had led him to a dead tree a mere shaft and of no very great height he climbed faster than his pursuer and was soon at the top he looked this way and that for some bow of another tree to spring to there was none and if he jumped down he knew the bear would be upon him ere he could recover the fall and make short work of him moreover Denis was little used to turning his back on danger and his blood was rising at being hunted he turned to bay my hour is come thought he let me meet death like a man he kneeled down and grasped a small chute to steady himself drew his long knife and clenching his teeth prepared to jab the huge brute as soon as it should mount within reach of this combat the result was not doubtful the monster's head and neck were scarce vulnerable for bone and masses of air the man was going to sting the bear and the bear to crack the man like a nut Gerard's heart was better than his nerves he saw his friend's mortal danger and passed at once from fear to blindish rage he slipped down his tree in a moment caught up the crossbow which he had dropped in the road and running furiously up sent a bolt into the bear's body with a loud shout the bear gave a snarl of rage and pain and turned its head irresolutely keep aloof! cried Denis or you are a dead man I care not and in a moment he had another bolt ready and shot it fiercely into the bear screaming take that, take that Denis poured a volley of oaths down at him play, idiot! he was right the bear finding so formidable and noisier foe behind her slipped growling down the tree rending deep furrows in it as she slipped Gerard ran back to his tree and climbed it swiftly but while his legs were dangling some eight feet from the ground the bear came rearing and struck with her forepaw and out flew a piece of bloody cloth Gerard's hose he climbed and climbed and presently he heard as it were in the air a voice say go out on the bow! he looked and there was a long massive branch before him shooting upwards at a slight angle he threw his body across it and by a series of convulsive efforts worked up it to the end then he looked round panting the bear was mounting the tree on the other side he heard her claws scrape and he saw her bulge on both sides of the massive tree her eye not being very quick she reached the fork and passed it mounting the main stem Gerard drew breath more freely the bear either heard him or found by scent she was wrong she paused presently she caught sight of him she eyed him steadily then quietly descended to the fork slowly and cautiously she stretched out a paw and tried the bow it was a stiff oak branch sound as iron instinct taught the creature this it crawled carefully out on the bow growling savagely as it came Gerard looked wildly down he was forty feet from the ground death below death moving slow but sure on him in a still more horrible form his hair bristled the sweat poured from him he sat helpless fascinated tongue-tied as the fearful monster crawled growling towards him in congruous thoughts through his mind Margaret the vulgate where it speaks of the rage of a she-bear robbed of her welps Rome eternity the bear crawled on and now the stupor of death fell on the doomed man he saw the open jaws and bloodshot eyes coming but in a mist as in a mist he heard a twang Denis white and silent as death was shooting up at the bear the bear snarled at the twang but crawled on again the crossbow twanged and the bear snarled and came nearer again the crossbow twanged and the next moment the bear was close upon Gerard where he sat with hair standing stiff on end and eyes starting from their sockets palsied the bear opened her jaws like a grave and hot blood spouted from them upon Gerard as from a pump the bow rocked the wounded monster was reeling it clung, it stuck its sickles of claws deep into the wood it toppled its claws held firm but its body rolled off and the sudden shock to the branch with his face upon one of the bear's straining paws at this by a convulsive effort she raised her head up up till he felt her hot fetid breath then huge teeth snapped together loudly close below him in the air with a last effort of baffled hate the ponderous carcass rent the claws out of the bow then pounded the earth with a tremendous thump there was a shout of triumph below and the very next instant a cry of dismay for Gerard had swooned and without an attempt to save himself rolled headlong from a perilous height End of chapter 24 part 2 Recording by Tom Denham