 Chapter 25 of The Cloyster and the Half by Charles Reade Denis caught at Gerard and somehow checked his fall, but it may be doubted whether this alone would have saved him from breaking his neck or a limb. His best friend now was the dying bear on whose hairy carcass his head and shoulders descended. Denis tore him off her. It was needless. She panted still, and her limbs quivered, but her hair was not so harmless, and soon she breathed her last, and the judicious Denis propped Gerard up against her, being soft, and fanned him. He came to by degrees, but confused, and feeling the bear around him, rolled away, yelling, Courage! cried Denis, le diable est mort! Is it dead? Quite dead! inquired Gerard from behind a tree, for his courage was feverish, and the cold fit was on him just now, and had been for some time. Behold! said Denis, and pulled the brute's ear playfully, and opened her jaws, and put in his head, with other insulting antics, in the midst of which Gerard was violently sick. Denis laughed at him. What is the matter now? said he. Also, why tumble off your perch, just when we had won the day? I swooned, I trow. But why? Not receiving an answer, he continued. Green girls faint as soon as look at you, but then they choose time and place. What woman ever fainted up a tree? She sent her nasty blood all over me. I think the smell must have overpowered me. For I hate blood. I do believe it potently. See what a mess she has made me! But with her blood not yours, I pity the enemy that strives to satisfy you. You need not to brag, Maitre Denis. I saw you, under the tree, the color of your shirt. Let us distinguish, said Denis, coloring. It is permitted to tremble for a friend. Gerard for answer flung his arms round Denis' neck in silence. Look here, wind-the-stout soldier, affected by this little gush of nature and youth, was ever aught so like a woman. I love thee, little milk-sob. Go to! Good! behold him on his knees now! What new caprice is this? O Denis, ought we not to return thanks to him who has saved both our lives against such fearful odds? And Gerard kneeled and prayed aloud, and presently he found Denis kneeling quiet beside him, with his hands across his bosom after the custom of his nation, and a face as long as his arm. When they rose, Gerard's countenance was beaming. Good Denis, said he, heaven will reward thy piety. Ah! Bah! I did it out of politeness, said the Frenchman. It was to please thee, little one. C'est égal, to us well and orderly prayed and edified me to the core while it lasted. A bishop had scarce handled the matter better, so now our even song being sung, and the saints enlisted with us, Marchand. There they had taken two steps. He stopped. By the bay, the cub! Oh, no, no! cried Gerard. You are right. It is late. We have lost time climbing trees and tumbling off them and swanning and vomiting and praying, but the brute is heavy to carry, and now I think on't. We shall have papa after it next. These bears make such a coil about an odd cub. What is this? You are wounded. You are wounded. Not I. He is wounded, miserable that I am. Be calm, Denis. I am not touched. I feel no pain anywhere. You? You only feel when another is hurt, cried Denis, with great emotion, and throwing himself on his knees, he examined Gerard's leg with glistening eyes. Quick, quick, before it stiffens, he cried, and hurried him on. Who makes the coil about nothing now? inquired Gerard composedly. Denis' reply was a very indirect one. Be pleased to note, said he, that I have a bad heart. You were man enough to save my life, yet I must sneer at you a novice in war. Was not I a novice once myself? Then you fainted from a wound, and I thought you swooned for fear, and called you a milk-soap. Briefly, I have a bad tongue and a bad heart. Denis, pletil, you lie. You are very good to say so, little one, and I am eternally obliged to you, mumbled the remorseful Denis. Air they had walked many furlongs, the muscles of the wounded leg contracted and stiffened, till presently Gerard could only just put his toe to the ground, and that with great pain. At last he could bear it no longer. Let me lie down and die, he groaned, for this is intolerable. Denis represented that it was afternoon, and the nights were now frosty, and cold and hunger ill companions, and that it would be unreasonable to lose heart, a certain great personage being notoriously defunct. So Gerard leaned upon his axe, and hobbled on, but presently he gave in, all of a sudden, and sank helpless in the road. Denis drew him aside into the wood, and to his surprise gave him his crossbow and bolts, and joining him strictly to lie quiet, and if any ill-looking fellows should find him out and come to him to bid them keep aloof. And should they refuse to shoot them dead at twenty paces. Honest men keep the path, and knaves in a wood, none but fools do parley with them. With this he snatched up Gerard's axe and set off running, not as Gerard expected towards Dusseldorf, but on the road they had come. Gerard lay aching and smarting, and to him Rome that seemed so near at starting looked far, far off, now that he was two hundred miles nearer it. But soon all his thoughts turned seven-bergen wads. How sweet it would be one day to hold Margaret's hand and tell her all he had gone through for her. The very thought of it and her soothed him, and in the midst of pain and irritation of the nerves he lay resigned and sweetly, though faintly smiling. He had lain thus more than two hours when suddenly there were shouts, and the next moment something struck a tree hard by and quivered in it. He looked. It was an arrow. He started to his feet. Several missiles rattled among the boughs, and the wood echoed with battle cries. Whence they came he could not tell, for noises in these huge woods are so reverberated that a stranger is always at fault as to their whereabouts. But they seemed to fill the whole air. Presently there was a lull. Then he heard the fierce galloping of hoofs, and still louder shouts and cries arose, mingled with shrieks and groans, and above all strange and terrible sounds like fierce claps of thunder, bellowing loud, and then dying off in cracking echoes, and red tongues of flames shot out ever and anon among the trees, and clouds of sulfurous smoke came drifting over his head. And all was still. Gerard was struck with awe. What will become of Denny? he cried. Oh, why did you leave me? Oh, Denny, my friend, my friend! Just before sunset Denny returned, almost sinking under a hairy bundle. It was the bear's skin. Gerard welcomed him with a burst of joy that astonished him, I thought never to see you again, dear Denny, were you in the battle? No, what battle? The bloody battle of men or fiends that raged in the wood a while gone, and with this he described it to the life and more fully than I have done. Denny patted him indulgently on the back. It is well, said he, thou art a good limner, and fever is a great spur to the imagination. One day I lain a cart shed with a cracked skull, and saw two hosts maneuver and fight a good hour on eight feet square, for which I did fairly describe to my comrade in due order, only not so gorgeously as thou, for want of book-learning. What, then, you believe me not? When I tell you the arrows whizzed over my head, and the competent shouted, and may the foul fiends fly away with me if I believe a word of it. Gerard took his arm, and quietly pointed to a tree close by. Why it looks like it is a broad arrow as I live, and he went close and looked up at it. It came out of the battle, I heard it, and saw it. An English arrow. How know thou that? Marry by its length. The English bowman draw the bow to the ear, others only to the right breast. Hence the English looser three-foot shaft, and this is one of them, perdition sees them. Well, if this is not glamour, there has been a trifle of a battle. And if there's been a battle in so ridiculous a place for a battle as this, why, then, tis no business of mine, for my duke hath no quarrel hereabouts. So let's to bed, said the professional. And with this he scraped together a heap of leaves, and made Gerard lie on it, his axe by his side. He then lay down beside him, with one hand on his arbalest, and drew the bears gain over them, hair inward. They were soon as warm as toast and fast asleep. But long before the dawn Gerard woke his comrade. What shall I do, Denny? I die of famine. Do? Why, go to sleep again incontinent. Qui d'ordine. But I tell you, I'm too hungry to sleep, snapped Gerard. Let us march, then, replied Denny, with paternal indulgence. He had a brief paroxysm of yawns, then made a small bundle of bears' ears, rolling them up in a strip of the skin, cut for the purpose, and it took to the road. Gerard leaned on his axe, and propped by Denny on the other side, hobbled along, not without size. I hate pain, said Gerard viciously. Therein you show judgment, replied Papa smoothly. It was a clear starlight night, and soon the moon rising revealed the end of the wood at no great distance. A pleasant sight, since Dusseldorf they knew, was but a short league further. At the edge of the wood they came upon something so mysterious that they stopped to gaze at it before going up to it. Two white pillars rose in the air, distant a few paces from each other, and between them stood many figures that looked like human forms. I go no farther till I know what this is, said Gerard in an agitated whisper. Are they effigies of the saints, for men to pray to on the road, or live robbers waiting to shoot down honest travellers? Nay, living men they cannot be, for they stand on nothing that I see. Oh, Denny, let us turn back till daybreak. This is no mortal sight. Denny halted, and peered long and keenly. They are men, said he at last. Gerard was for turning back all the more, but men that will never hurt us nor we them look not to their feet, for that they stand on. Where, then, is the name of all the saints? Look over their heads, said Denny gravely. Following this direction, Gerard presently discerned the outline of a dark wooden beam passing from pillar to pillar, and as the pair got nearer, walking now on tiptoe, one by one, dark snake-like cords came out in the moonlight, each pendant from the beam to a dead man, and tight as wire. Now as they came under this awful monument of crime and wholesale vengeance, a light air swept by, and several of the corpses swung or gently gyrated, and every rope creaked. Gerard shuddered at this ghastly salute, so thoroughly had the gibbet with its sickening load seized and held their eyes, that it was but now they perceived a fire right underneath, and a living figure sitting huddled over it. His axe lay beside him, the bright blade shining red in the glow. He was asleep. Gerard started, but Denny only whispered, Courage, comrade, here is a fire. Aye, but there's a man at it. There will soon be three, and he began to heap some wood on it that the watcher had prepared, during which the prudent Gerard seized the man's axe, and sat down tight on it, grasping his own, and examining the sleeper. There was nothing outwardly distinctive in the man. He wore the dress of the country folk, and the heart of the district, a three-cornered heart, called a Brunswicker, stiff enough to turn a sword cut, and with a thick brass hat bound. The weight of the whole thing had turned his ears entirely down like a fancy rabbit's in our century, but even this, though it spoiled him as a man, was nothing remarkable. They had of late met scores of these dog's-ear rustics. The peculiarity was this clown watching under a laden gallows. What for? Denny, if he felt curious, would not show it. He took out two bears' ears from his bundle, and running sticks through them began to toast them. Twill be eating coined money, said he, for the burger master of Düsseldorf had given us a rick's-dollar for these ears, as proving the death of their owners. But better a lean purse than a lear stomach. On happy man, cried Gerard, could you eat food here? Where the fire is lighted there must the meat roast, and where it roasts there must it be eaten, for naught travels worse than your roasted meat. Well, eat thou, Denny, and thou canst, but I am cold and sick. There is no room for hunger in my heart after what mine eyes have seen. That he shuddered over the fire. Oh, how they creak! And who is this man, I wonder? What an ill-favoured churl! Denny examined him like a connoisseur looking at a picture, and in due course delivered judgment. I take him to be of the refuse of that company, whereof these, pointing carelessly upward, were the cream, and so ran their heads into danger. At that rate, why not stun him before he wakes? And Gerard fidgeted where he sat. Denny opened his eyes with humorous surprise. For one who sets up for a milk-soap, you have the readiest hand. Why should two stun one? Tush! He wakes, note now what he says at waking, and tell me. These last words were hardly whispered when the watcher opened his eyes. At the sight of the fire made up and two strangers eyeing him keenly, he stared, and there was a severe and pretty successful effort to be calm. Still a perceptible tremor ran all over him. Soon he manned himself and said gruffly, Good Morrow! But at the very moment of saying it, he missed his axe, and saw how Gerard was sitting upon it, with his own, laid ready to his hand. He lost countenance again directly. Denny smiled grimly at this bit of bi-play. Good Morrow! said Gerard quietly, keeping his eye on him. The watcher was now too ill at ease to be silent. You make free with by fire, said he, but he added in a somewhat faltering voice. You are welcome. Denny whispered Gerard. The watcher eyed them ascant. A comrade says, Sith we share your fire, you shall share his meat. So be it, said the man warmly, I have half a kid hanging on a bush hard by, I'll go fetch it. And he arose with a cheerful and obliged countenance, and was retiring. Denny caught up his crossbow and levelled it at his head. The man fell on his knees. Denny lowered his weapon and pointed him back to his place. He rose and went back slowly and unsteadily, like one disjointed, and sick at heart as the mouse that the cat lets go a little way, and then darts and replaces. Sit down, friend, said Denny grimly in French. The man obeyed finger and tone, though he knew not a word of French. Tell him the fire is not big enough for more than thee, he will take my meaning. This being communicated by Gerard, the man grinned. Ever since Denny spoke he had seemed greatly relieved. I wished not you were strangers, said he to Gerard. Denny cut a piece of bear's ear, and offered it with grace to him he had just levelled crossbow out. He took it calmly, and drew a piece of bread from his wallet, and divided it with the pear. Nay more he winked, and thrust his hand into the heap of leaves he sat on. Gerard grasped his axe, ready to brain him, and produced a leaven bottle holding two full gallons. He put it to his mouth and drank their healths, then handed it to Gerard. He passed it untouched to Denny. More de ma vie, cried the soldier, it is rainish wine, and fit for the gullet of an archbishop. Here's to thee, thou prince of good fellows, wishing thee a short life and a merry one. Come, Gerard, s'up, s'up, sure, never heed the man. They heed not thee? Nevertheless did I hang over such a skin of rainish as this, and three churls sat beneath the drinking-it, and offered me not a drop. I'd soon be down among them. Denny, Denny! My spirit would cut the cold, and wump would come my body amongst ye, with a hand on the bottle, and one eye winking tother. Gerard started up with a cry of horror, and his fingers to his ears, and was running from the place when his eye fell on the watcher's axe. The tangible danger brought him back. He sat down again on the axe with his fingers in his ears. Courage, l'ami, le diable est mort, shouted Denny Gaely, and offered him a piece of bear's ear, put it right under his nose as he stopped his ears. Gerard turned his head away with loathing. Wine, he gasped, heaven knows I have much need of it, with such companions as thee, and— he took a long draught of the rainish wine. It ran glowing through his veins, and warmed and strengthened his heart, but could not check his tremors whenever a gust of wind came. As for Denny and the other, they feasted recklessly, and plied the bottle unceasingly, and drank healths, and caroused beneath that creaking sepulchre, and its ghastly tenants. Ask him how they came here, said Denny, with his mouth full, and pointing up without looking. On this question being interpreted to the watcher, he replied that treason had been their end, diabolical treason and priestcraft. He then, being rendered communicative by drink, delivered a long, prosy narrative, the purport of which was as follows. These honest gentlemen, who now dangled here so miserably, were all stout men and true, and lived in the forest by their way. Their independence and thriving state excited the jealousy and hatred of a large portion of mankind, and many attempts were made on their lives and liberties. These the Virgin and their patron saints, coupled with their individual skill and courage, constantly baffled. But yes to Eve a party of merchants came slowly on their mules from Dusseldorf. The honest men saw them crawling, and let them penetrate near a league into the forest, then set upon them to make them discourage a portion of their ill-gotten gains. But alas the merchants were no merchants at all, but soldiers of more than one nation in the pay of the Archbishop of Cologne. Hobbeshons had they beneath their gowns, and weapons of all sorts at hand. Nonetheless the honest men fought stoutly, and pressed the traitors hard, when low horsemen that had been planted in ambush many hours before, galloped up, and with these new diabolical engines of war, shot leaden bullets, and laid many an honest fellow low, and so quelled the courage of others that they yielded their lives. These being taken red-handed, the victors, who with malice inconceivable had brought cords knotted round their waists, did speedily hang, and by their side the dead ones, to make the gallanter show. That one at the end was the captain. He never felt the cord. He was riddled with broad arrows and leaden balls, or ever they could take him. A worthy man as ever was the captain. A worthy man as ever cried standard deliver. But a little hasty, not much. Stay, I forgot, he is dead. Very hasty, and obstinate as a pig. That one in the buff jerkin is the lieutenant. As good a soul as ever lived. He was hanged alive. This one here, I could never abide. No, not that one. That is Conrad, my bosom friend. I mean, this one right overhead in the chicken-toed schoon. You were always carrying tails, your thief, and making mischief. You know you were. And, sirs, I am a man that would rather live united in a coppice than in a forest with back-biters and tail-bearers. Strangers, I drink to you. And so he went down the whole string, indicating with the neck of the bottle, like a showman with his pole, and giving a neat description of each. Which, though pithy, was invariably false, for the showman had no real eye for character, and had misunderstood every one of these people. Enough, beloved, cried Denis, Marchand, give me his axe. Now tell him he must help you along. The man's countenance fell, but he saw in Denis's eye that resistance would be dangerous. He submitted. Gerard it was who objected. He said, y pensez-vous? To put my hand on a thief it maketh my flesh creep. Childishness, all trades must live, besides I have my reasons. Be not you wiser than your elder. No, only if I am to lean on him I must have my hand in my bosom still grasping the haft of my knife. It is a new attitude to walk in, but please thyself. And in that strange and mixed attitude of tender officers and deadly suspicion, the trio did walk. I wish I could draw them. I would not trust to the pen. The light of the watchtower at Dusseldorf was visible as soon as they cleared the wood, and cheered Gerard. When, after an hour's march, the black outline of the tower itself and other buildings stood out clear to the eye, their companion halted and said gloomily, You may as well slay me out of hand as take me any nearer the gates of Dusseldorf town. On this being communicated to Denis, he said at once, Let him go then, for in sooth his neck will be in jeopardy if he wends much further with us. Gerard acquiesced as a matter of course. His horror of a criminal did not in the least dispose him to active cooperation with the law, but the fact is that at this epoch no private citizen in any part of Europe ever meddled with criminals but in self-defense, except by the by in England which, behind other nations in some things, was centuries before them all in this. The man's personal liberty being restored, he asked for his axe. It was given him. To the friend's surprise, he still lingered. Was he to have nothing for coming so far out of his way with them? Here are two bats and friend. Add the wine. The good rainish. Did you give out for it? Aye, the peril of my life! Hmm, what say you, Denis? I say it was worth its weight in gold. Here, lad, here be silver-grotion, one for every acorn on that gallows tree, and here is one more for thee who will doubtless be there in due season. The man took the coins, but still lingered. Well, what now? cried Gerard, who thought him shamefully overpaid already. Does't seek the height of our bones? Nay, good sirs, but you have seen tonight how parlous a life is mine. Ye be true men, and your prayers avail. Give me, then, a small trifle of a prayer, and please you, for I know not one. Gerard's collar began to rise at the egotistical rogue. Moreover, ever since his wound, he had felt gusts of irritability. However, he bit his lip and said, There go two words to that bargain. Tell me first, is it true what men say of you rainish thieves, that ye do murder innocent and unresisting travellers, as well as rob them? The other answered sulkily. There you call thieves are not to blame for that. The fault lies with the law. Grammercy! So it is the law's fault that ill men break it. I mean not so, but the law in this land slays an honest man, and if he do but steal, what follows? He would be pitiful, but is discouraged here from. Pity gains him no pity. And doubles his peril. And he but cut a purse, his life is four feet. Therefore cuteth he the throat to boot, to save his own neck. Dead man tell no tales. Pray then for the poor soul, who by bloody laws is driven to kill, or else be slaughtered. Were there less of this unreasonable gibbeting on the high road, there should be less enforced cutting of throats in dark woods, my masters. Fewer words had served, replied Gerard coldly. I asked a question, I am answered. And suddenly doffing his bonnet. Propublica salute in honorem justi dei qui sit gloria, in eternum. Amen. And so good day. The greedy outlaw was satisfied at last. That is Latin, he muttered, and more than I bargained for. So indeed it was. And he returned to his business with a mind at ease. The friends pondered in silence the many events of the last few hours. At last Gerard said thoughtfully, That she bear saved both our lives by God's will. Like enough, replied Denis, and talking of that, it was lucky we did not dawdle over our supper. What mean you? I mean, they are not all hanged. I saw a refuse of seven or eight as black as ink around our fire. When? When? There we had left it five minutes. Good heavens, and you said not a word. It would but have worried you, and had set our friend a looking back, and mayhub tempted him to get his skull split. All other danger was over. They could not see us. We were out of the moonshine, and indeed we were out of the moon-shine. Just turning a corner. Ah, there is the sun, and here are the gates of Dusseldorf. Courage, la mie, le diable est mort. My head, my head, was all poor Gerard could reply. So many shocks, emotions, perils, horrors, added to the wound, his first had tried his youthful body and sensitive nature too severely. It was noon of the same day. In the bedroom of the silver lion, the rugged dinny sat anxious, watching his young friend, and he lay raging with fever, delirious at intervals, and one word forever on his lips. Margaret! Margaret! Margaret! End of Chapter 25. Recording by Tom Denham Chapter 26. Of The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reed This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Denham It was the afternoon of the next day. Gerard was no longer light-headed, but very irritable and full of fancies, and in one of these he begged Denny to get him a lemon to suck. Denny, who from a rough soldier had been turned by tender friendship into a kind of grandfather, got up hastily and bidding him set his mind at ease. Lemons he should have in the twinkling of a quart pot went and ransacked the shops for them. They were not so common in the north as they are now, and he was absent a long while, and Gerard getting very impatient when at last the door opened. But it was not Denny. Entered softly, an imposing figure, an old gentleman in a long sober gown trimmed with rich fur, cherry-coloured hose, and pointed shoes, with a sword by his side in a Morocco scabbard, a rough around his neck not only starched severely but treacherously stiffened in furrows by robatos, or a little hidden framework of wood, and on his head a four-cornered cap with a fur border, on his chin and bosom a majestic white beard. Gerard was in no doubt as the vocation of his visitor, for the sword accepted this was familiar to him as the full dress of a physician. Moreover, a boy followed at his heels with a basket, where files, lint, and surgical tools rather courted than shunned observation. The old gentleman came softly to the bedside and said mildly, and sotto voce, How is it with thee, my son? Gerard answered gratefully that his wound gave him little pain now, but his throat was parched and his head heavy. A wound, they told me not of that. Let me see it. I eye a good clean bite, the mastiff had sound teeth that took this out, I warrant me, and the good doctor's sympathy seemed to run off to the quadruped he had conjured, his jackal. This must be quarterised forthwith, or we shall have you starting back from water and turning somersaults in bed under your hands. Tis the year for raving curse, and one hath done your business, but we will baffle him yet. Urchin, go heat up thine iron. But sir, edged in Gerard, to us no dog, but a bear. A bear, young man, remonstrated the senior severely, think what you say. Tis ill-gesting with the man of art who brings his grey hairs and long study to heal you. A bear, quother? Had you dissected as many bears as I or the tithe and drawn their teeth to keep your hand in, you would know that no bear's jaw ever made this foolish trifling wound. I tell you, it was a dog, and since you put me to it, I even deny that it was a dog of magnitude, but neither more nor less than one of these little furious curves that are so rife and run devious, biting each manly leg, and laying its wearer low, but for me and my learned brethren who still stay the mischief with knife and coterie. Alas, sir, when said I, it was a bear's jaw. I said a bear. It was his paw now. And why did not tell me that at once? Because you kept telling me instead. Never conceal ought from your leech, young man, continued the senior, who was a good talker, but one of the worst listeners in Europe. Well, it is an ill business, all the horny excrescences of animals, to wit claws of tigers, panthers, budgers, cats, bears, and the like, and horn of deer, and nails of humans, especially children, or imbued with direst poison. It had better have been bitten by a kerb, whatever you may say, than gored by bull or stag, or scratched by bear. However, shall have a good biting cataplasm for thy leg. Meantime, keep we the body cool. Put out thy tongue. Good, fever! Let me feel thy pulse. Good, fever! I ordain flabotomy, and on the instant. Flabotomy? That is bloodletting. Well, no matter. If it is sure to cure me, for I will not lie idle here. The doctor let him know that flabotomy was infallible, especially in this case. Huts, go fetch the things needful, and I will entertain the patient, meantime, with reasons. The man of art then explained to Gerard that in disease the blood becomes hot and distempered, and more or less poisonous, but a portion of this unhealthy liquid removed, nature is feigned to create a purer fluid to fill its place. Bleeding, therefore, being both a cooler and a purifier, was a specific in all diseases. For all diseases were febrile whatever empirics might say. But think not, said he warmly, that it suffices to bleed. Any paltry barber can open a vein, though not all can close it again. The art is to know what vein to empty for what disease. To the day they brought me one tormented with ear-rick, I let him blood in the right thigh, and away flew his ear-rick. By the by he has died since then. Another came with the toothache. I bled him behind the ear, and relieved him in a jiff. He is also since dead as it happens. I bled our bailiff between the thumb and forefinger for rheumatism. Presently he comes to me with a headache and drumming in the ears, and holds out his hand over the basin, but I smiled at his folly, and bled him in the left ankle sore against his will, and made his head as light as a nut. Diverging, then, from the immediate theme after the manner of enthusiasts, the reverent teacher proceeded thus. No young man, that two schools of art contended this moment throughout Europe. The Arabian, whose ancient oracles are Avicenna, Rasees, Albuchasis, and its revivers are Koliak and Lanfrank, and the Greek school, whose modern champions are Bessarion, Platinus, and Marsilius Ficinus, but whose pristine doctors were medicines very oracles, Fibus, Chiron, Esculapius, and his sons Podelinus and Machaeon, Pythagoras, Democritus, Praxagoras, who invented the arteries, and Dioctes, Cheprimus, Uranii, Animum, Dedit. All these taught orally. Then came Hippocrates, the eighteenth from Esculapius, and of him we have manuscripts. To him we owe the vital principle. He also invented the bandage, and tapped for water on the chest, and above all he dissected. Yet only quadrupeds, for the brutal prejudices of the pagan vulgar, withheld the human body from the knife of science. Him followed Aristotle, who gave us the aorta, the largest blood vessel in the human body. Surely, sir, the Almighty gave us all that is in our bodies, and not Aristotle, nor any Grecian man, objected Gerard Humbly. Child, of course he gave us the thing, but Aristotle did more. He gave us the name of the thing, but young men will still be talking. The next great light was Galen. He studied at Alexandria, then the home of science. He justly malcontent with quadrupeds, dissected apes, as coming nearer to man, and bled like a Trojan. Then came Theophilus, who gave us the nerves, the lactial vessels, and the pier-mata. This worried Gerard. I cannot lie still, and here it said that mortal man bestowed the parts which Adam our father took from him, who made him of the clay, and us his sons. Was ever such perversity, said the doctor, his color rising, who is the real donor of a thing to man? He who plants it secretly in the dark recesses of man's body, or the learned white, who reveals it to his intelligence, and so enriches his mind with the knowledge of it. Comprehension is your only true possession. Are you answered? I am put to silence, sir. And that is better still, for guerrillas patients are ill to cure, especially in fever. I say, then, that Aristratus gave us the cerebral nerves and the milk vessels. Nay more, he was the inventor of lithotomy, whatever you may say. Then came another whom I forget. You do somewhat perturb me with your petty exceptions. Then came Amonius, the author of lithotrity. And here comes Hans, with the basin, to stay your volubility. Blow thy chaffer, boy, and hand me the basin. Tis well. Arabians quother! What are they but a sect of yesterday, who, about the year 1000, did fall in with the writings of those very Greeks, and read them awry, having no concurrent light of their own? For their demigod and camel-driver mahund, imposter in science as in religion, had strictly forbidden them anatomy, even of the lower animals, for which he who severeth from medicine. Tolit solemn emundo, as toly quoth. Nay, wonder not at my fervour, good youth, where the general wheel stands in jeopardy, a little warmth is civic, humane, and honourable. Now there is settled of late in this town a pestilent arabist, a mere empiric, who, despising anatomy and scarce knowing Greek from Hebrew, hath yet spirited away half my patience, and I tremble for the rest. Put forth, thine uncle, than thou, Hans, breathe on the chaffer. Whilst matters were in this posture, in came Denis with the lemons, and stood surprised. What sport is toward? he said, raising his brows. Gerard coloured a little, and told him the learned doctor was going to phlebotomise him, and cauterise him. That was all. I indeed, and yawn him, what bloweth he hot coals for? What should it be for? said the doctor to Gerard, but to cauterise the vein when opened, and the poisonous blood let free? It is the only safe way. Avicenna indeed recommends a ligature of the vein. But howt is to be done, he saith not, nor knew he himself, I won't, nor any of the spawn of Ishmael. For me I have no faith in such tricksy expedience, and take this with you for a safe principle. Whatever an Arab or Arabist says is right, must be wrong. Oh, I see now what is for, said Denis, and art thou so simple as to let him put hot iron to thy living flesh? Didst ever keep thy little finger but ten moments in a candle? And this will be as many minutes. Art not content to burn in purgatory after thy death must have needs by a foretaste, aren't ye? I never thought of that, said Gerard gravely. The good doctor spake not of burning, but of quartery. To be sure it is all one, but quartery sounds not so fearful as burning. Imbasil, that is their art, to confound a plain man with dark words, till his hissing flesh lets him know their meaning. Now listen to what I have seen. When a soldier bleeds from a wound in battle, these leeches say, fever, blood him! And so they burn the wick at Totheren, too. They bleed the bled. Now at fever's heels comes desperate weakness. Then the man needs all his blood to live, but these prickers and burners, having no forethought, wrecking nought of what is sure to come in a few hours, and seeing like brute-beasts only what is under their noses, having meantime robbed him of the very blood his hurt had spared him, to battle that weakness with all, and so he dies exhausted. Hundreds I have seen so scratched and pricked out of the world, Gerard, and tall fellows, too, but lo! if they have the luck to be wounded where no doctor can be had, then they live! This too I have seen. Had I ever outlived that field in Brabant, but for my most lucky mischance, lack of chirurgery, the frost choked all my bleeding wounds, and so I lived. The chirurgian had pricked yet one more hole in this my body with his lance, and drained my last drop-out and my spirit with it. Seeing them thus distraught in bleeding of the bleeding soldier, I place no trust in them, for what sleighs of veteran may well lay a milk and water bourgeois lo! This sounds like common sense, sighed Gerard languidly, but no need to raise your voice so. I was not born deaf, and just now I hear acutely. Common sense? Very common sense indeed, shouted the bad listener. Why, this is a soldier, a brute whose business is to kill men, not cure them. He added in very tolerable French, woe be to you, unlearned man, if you come between a physician and his patient, and woe be to you, misguided youth, if you listen to that man of blood. Much obliged, said Denis, with mock politeness, but I am a true man, and would rob no man of his name. I do somewhat in the way of blood, but not worth mentioning this presence. For one I slay, you slay a score, and for one spoonful of blood I draw, you spill a tubful. The world is still gull'd by shows. We soldiers vapor with long swords, and even in war beget two foes for every one we kill, but you smooth gownsmen, with soft phrases and bare bodkins, tis you that thin man kind. A sick chamber is no place for jesting, cried the physician. No doctor, nor for bawling, said the patient, peevishly. Come, young man, said the senior kindly, be reasonable. Quilibet insuarte credendum est. My whole life has been given to this art. I studied at Montpellier, the first school in France and by consequence in Europe. There learned I Dreremansi, Scatomansi, Pathology, Therapeutes, and greater than them all, Anatomy. For there we disciples of Hippocrates and Galen had opportunities those great ancients never knew. Good-bye quadrupeds and apes, and paganism, and mohammedanism. We bought of the church wardens, we shook the gallows, we undid the sexton's work or dark nights, penetrated with love of science and our kind. All the authorities had their orders from Paris to wink, and they winked. God's of Olympus, how they winked! The gracious king assisted us. He sent us twice a year, a living criminal, condemned to die, and said, Deal you with him, as science asks. Dissect him alive, if you think fit. By the liver of Herod and Nero's bowels, he'll make me blush for the land that bore me, and if he praises it any more, shouted Denis at the top of his voice. Gerard gave a little squawk, and put his fingers in his ears, but speedily drew them out, and shouted angrily and as loudly, You great roaring, blaspheming, bull of besan, hold your noisy tongue! Denis summoned a contrite look. Tosh, slight man, said the doctor with calm contempt, and vibrated a hand over him as in this age men make a pointer dog down charge, then flowed majestic on. We seldom or never dissected the living criminal, except in part. We mostly inoculated them with such diseases as the barren time afforded, selecting, of course, the more interesting ones. That means the foulest, whispered Denis Meakly. These we watched through all their stages to maturity, meaning the death of the poor rogue, whispered Denis Meakly. And now, my poor sufferer, who best merits your confidence, this honest soldier with his youth, his ignorance, and his prejudices, or a grey beard laden with the gathered wisdom of ages. That is, cried Denis impatiently, will you believe what a jack-doe in a long gown has heard from a starling in a long gown? Who heard it from a jay-pipe? Who heard it from a magpie? Who heard it from a pop-in-jay? Or will you believe what I, a man with naught to gain by looking all right, nor speaking false, have seen? Not heard with the ears which are given to gullas, but seen with these sentinels, mine I, seen, seen, to wit, that fevered and blooded men die, that fevered men not blooded live? Stay, who sent for this sans-sues, did you? Not I, I thought you had. No, explained the doctor. The good landlord told me one was down in this house, so I teched to myself, a stranger, and in need of my art, and came incontinently. It was the act of a good Christian, sir. Of a good bloodhound, cried Denis contemptuously, What art thou so green as not to know that all these landlords are in league with certain of their fellow-citizens who pay them toll on each booty? Whatever you pay this ancient for stealing your life-blood, of that the landlord takes his third for betraying you to him. Nay, more? As soon as ever your blood goes down the stair in that basin there, the landlord will see it, or smell it, and send swiftly to his undertaker, and get his third out of that job. For if he waited till the doctor got downstairs, the doctor would be beforehand, and bespeak his undertaker, and then he would get the black thirds. Say, I sooth, old rouge et noir, git! Denis, Denis, who taught you to think so ill of man? Mine eyes that are not to be gulled by what men say, seeing this many a year what they do in all the lands I travel. The doctor with some address made use of these last words to escape the personal question. I too have eyes as well as thou, and go not by tradition only, but by what I have seen, but not only seen, but done. I have healed as many men by bleeding as that interloping arabist has killed for want of it. To us but to the day I healed one threatened with leprosy. I but bled him at the tip of the nose. I cured last year a quart and ague, how? Bled its forefinger. Our curel lost his memory. I brought it him back on the point of my lance. I bled him behind the ear. I bled a dolt of a boy, and now he is the only one who can tell his right hand from his left in a whole family of idiots. When the plague was here years ago, no shamplagues such as empirics proclaim every six years or so, but the good honest Byzantine pest. I bled an alderman freely, and quarterized the symptomatic boobos, and so pulled him out of the grave. Whereas our then Chirujian, a most pernicious arabist, caught it himself, and died of it, calling on Razi's Avicenna and Mahound, who could they have come had all perished as miserably as himself? Oh, my poor ear, sighed Gerard, and am I fallen so low that one of your presence and speech rejects my art, and listens to a rude soldier so far behind even his own miserable trade as to bear an arbalest, a worn-out invention that German children shoot at pigeons with? But German soldiers mock at since ever archibuses came and put them down. You foul mouth old charlatan! cried Denis. The arbalest is shouldered by taller men than ever stood in rainish hose, and even now it kills as many more than your noisy stinking archibus, as the Lancet does than all our toys together. Go to! He was no fool who first called you leeches. Sans sou, va! Gerard groaned. By the holy virgin I wish you were both at Jericho bellowing. Thank you, comrade, and I'll bark no more, but at need I'll bite. If he has a lance, I have a sword. If he bleeds you, I'll bleed him. The moment his lance pricks your skin, little one, my sword-hilt knocks against his ribs. I have said it. And Denis turned pale, folded his arms, and looked gloomy and dangerous. Gerard sighed wearily. Now, as all this is about me, give me leave to say a word. I let the young man choose life or death for himself. Gerard then indirectly rebuked his noisy counsellors by contrast and example. He spoke with unparalleled calmness, sweetness, and gentleness. And these were the words of Gerard, the son of Eli. I doubt not you both mean me well, but you assassinate me between you. Calmness and quiet are everything to me, but you are like two dogs growling over a bone. And in sooth bone I should be did this uproar last long. There was a dead silence, broken only by the silvery voice of Gerard, as he lay tranquil, and gazed calmly at the ceiling, and trickled into words. First venerable sir, I thank you for coming to see me, whether from humanity or in the way of honest gain, all trades must live. Your learning reverence, sir, seems great, to me at least, and for your experience your age voucheth it. You say you have bled many, and of these many many have not died thereafter but lived and done well. I must needs believe you." The physician bowed. Denis grunted. Others, you say, you have bled, and they are dead. I must needs believe you. Denis knows few things compared with you, but he knows them well. He is a man not given to conjecture. This I myself have noted. He says he has seen the fevered and blooded for the most part die. The fevered and not blooded live. I must needs believe him. Here, then, all is doubt. But this much is certain. If I be bled, I must pay you a fee, and be burnt and excruciated with a hot iron, who am no felon. Pay a certain price, in money and anguish, for a doubtful remedy, that I will never. Next to money and ease, peace and quiet are certain goods, above all in a sick room. But to see men cannot argue medicine without heat and raised voices. Therefore, sir, I will essay a little sleep, and Denis will go forth and gaze on the females of the place, and I will keep you no longer from those who can afford to lay out blood and money in phlebotomy and cortery. The old physician had naturally a hot temper. He had often, during this battle of words, mastered it with difficulty, and now it mastered him. The most dignified course was silence. He saw this, and drew himself up, and made loftily for the door closely followed by his little boy and big basket. But at the door he choked, he swelled, he burst. He whirled and came back open mouth, and the little boy and big basket had to whisk semicircularly, not to be run down, for de minimis non curate medicina, even when not in a rage. Ah, you reject my skill, you scorn my art, my revenge shall be to leave you to yourself. Lost idiot, take your last look at me, and at the sun, your blood be on your head, and away he stamped. But on reaching the door he whirled and came back, his wicker tail whirling round after him like a cat. In twelve hours at furthest you will be in the secondary stage of fever. Your head will split, your crottids will thump, aha, and let but a pinfall you will jump to the ceiling. Then sent for me, and I'll not come. He departed. But at the door handle, gathered fury, whirled and came flying with pale, terror-stricken boy, and wicker tail whisking after him. Next will come crumps of the stomach, aha. Then bilious vomit, aha. Then cold sweat, and deadly stupor. Then confusion of all the senses, then bloody vomit. And after that nothing can save you, not even I, and if I could I would not, and so farewell. Even Denis changed colour at threat so fervent and precise. But Gerard only gnashed his teeth with rage at the noise, and seized his hard bolster with kindling eye. This added fuel to the fire and brought the insulted ancient back from the impassable door with his whisking-train. And after that madness, and after that black vomit. And then convulsions, and then that cessation of all vital functions, the vulgar call death, for which thank your own satanic folly and insolence. Farewell. He went. He came. He roared. And think not to be buried in any Christian churchyard, for the bailiff is my good friend. And I shall tell him how and why you died. Farewell. Gerard sprang to his feet on the bed by some supernatural gymnastic power, excitement lent him. And seeing him so moved, the vindictive orator came back at him, fiercer than ever, to launch some master threat the world has unhappily lost. For as he came, with his whisking-train, and shaking his fist, Gerard hurled the bolster furiously in his face, and knocked him down like a shot. The boy's head cracked under his falling masters, and crush went the dumb-stricken orator into the basket, and there sat wedged in an inverted angle, crushing file after file. The boy, being light, was strewed afar, but in a squatting posture, so that they sat in a sequence, like graduated specimens, the smaller howling. But soon the doctor's face filled with horror, and he uttered a far louder and unearthly screech, and kicked and struggled with wonderful agility for one of his age. He was sitting on the hot coals. They had singed the cloth, and were now biting the man. Struggling wildly but vainly to get out of the basket, he rolled, yelling over with it, sideways, and low, a great hissing. Then the humane Gerard ran and wrenched off the tight basket, not without a struggle. The doctor lay on his face groaning, handsomely singed with his own chaffer, and slaked a moment too late by his own villainous compounds, which, however, being as various and even beautiful in colour as they were odious in taste, had strangely diversified his grey robe, and painted it more gaudy than neat. Gerard and Denis raised him up and consoled him. Courage, man, tis but quartery, balm of Gilead, why you recommended it, but now to my comrade here. The physician replied only by a look of concentrated spite, and went out in dead silence, thrusting his stomach forth before him in the drolest way. The boy followed him next moment, but in that slight interval he left off whining, burst into a grin, and conveyed to the culprits by an unrefined gesture his accurate comprehension of, and rapturous though compressed joy at his master's disaster. End of Chapter 26. Recording by Tom Denham. Chapter 27 of The Cloister and the Half by Charles Reed. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Denham. The worthy physician went home and told his housekeeper he was in agony from a bad burn. Those were the words. For in flogistic as in other things we quarterize our neighbor's digits, but burn our own fingers. His housekeeper replied some old woman's remedy mild as milk. He submitted like a lamb to her experience, his sole object in the case of this patient being cure. Meantime he made out his bill for broken files, and took measures to have the travellers imprisoned at once. He made oath before a magistrate that they, being strangers and indebted to him, meditated instant flight from the township. Alas! it was his unlucky day. His sincere desire and honest endeavour to purger himself were baffled by a circumstance he had never foreseen nor indeed thought possible. He had spoken the truth, and in an affidavit. The officers on reaching the Silver Lion found the birds were flown. They went down to the river, and from intelligence they received there started up the bank in hot pursuit. This temporary escape the friends owed to Denise's good sense and observation. After a peel of laughter, that it was cordial to hear, and after venting his watchword three times, he turned short grave, and told Gerard Düsseldorf was no place for them. That old fellow said he went off unnaturally silent for such a babbler. We are strangers here. The bailiff is his friend. In five minutes we shall lie in a dungeon for assaulting a Düsseldorf dignity. Are you strong enough to hobble to the water's edge? It is hard by. Once there you have but to lie down in a boat instead of a bed. And what is the odds? The odds, Denis, untold, and all in favour of the boat. I pine for Rome, for Rome is my road to Sevenbergen. And then we shall lie in the boat to put on the Rhine, the famous Rhine, the cool refreshing Rhine. I feel its breezes coming. The very sight will cure a little hop of my thumb fever like mine. Away! Away! Finding his excitable friend in this mood, Denis settled hastily with the landlord, and they hurried to the river. On inquiry they found to their dismay that the public boat was gone this half hour, and no other would start that day, being afternoon. By dint, however, of asking a great many questions and collecting a crowd, they obtained an offer of a private boat from an old man and his two sons. This was duly ridiculed by a bystander. The current is too strong for three oars. Then my comrade and I will help row, said the invalid. No need, said the old man. Bless your silly heart. He owns Totherboat. There was a powerful breeze right astern. The boatmen set a broad stale, and rowing also went off at a spanking rate. Are you better, lad, for the river breeze? Much better. But indeed the doctor did me good. The doctor? Why, you would none of his cures. No, but I mean you will say I am not, but knocking the old fool down, but somehow it soothed me. Amiable dove, how thy little character opens more and more every day like a rolls-bud! I read thee all wrong at first. Nay, to thee mistake me not, neither. I trust I had borne with his idle threats, though in sooth his voice went through my poor ears. But he was an infertile or next-door to one, and such I have been taught to abhor. Did he not as good as say we owed our inward parts to men with long Greek names, and not to him whose name is but a syllable, but whose hand is over all the earth? Pagan. So you knocked him down forthwith, like a good Christian. Now, Denis, you will still be jesting. Take not an ill man's part. Had it been a thunderbolt from heaven he had met but his due? Yet he took but a sorry bolster from this weak arm. What weak arm! inquired Denis with twinkling eyes. I have lived among arms, and by Samson's hairy pow never saw one more like a catapult. The bolster wrapped round his nose and the two ends kissed behind his head, and his forehead resounded, and had he been Goliath or Julius Caesar, instead of an old quacksalver down he had gone. Saint Denis guard me from such feeble opposites as thou, and above all from their weak arms thou diabolical young hypocrite. The river took many turns, and this sometimes brought the wind on their side, instead of right a stern. Then they all moved to the weather-side to prevent the boat healing over too much. All but a child of about five years old, the grandson of the boatman, and his darling. This urchin had slipped on board at the moment of starting, and being too light to affect the boat's trim was above, or rather below, the laws of navigation. They sailed merrily on, little conscious that they were pursued by a whole posse of constables armed with the bailiff's writ, and that their pursuers were coming up with them, for if the wind was strong, so was the current. And now Gerard suddenly remembered that this was a very good way to roam, but not to burgundy. Oh Denis! said he, with an almost alarmed look. This is not your road. I know it, said Denis quietly, but what can I do? I cannot leave thee till the fever leaves thee, and it is on thee still for thou art both red and white by turns. I have watched thee. I must ene go on to Cologne, I doubt, and then strike across. Thank heaven, said Gerard joyfully. He added eagerly, with a little touch of self-deception, toer a sin to be so near Cologne and not see it. Oh man, it is a vast and ancient city, such as I have often dreamed of, but ne had the good luck to see. Me miserable? By what hard fortune do I come to it now? Well then, Denis, continued the young man less warmly, it is old enough to have been founded by a Roman lady in the first century of grace, and sacked by a tiller, the barbarous, and afterwards so defaced by the Norman Lothair, and it has a church for every week in the year, for by chapels and churches innumerable of convents and nunneries, and above all the stupendous minster yet unfinished, and therein, but in their own chapel lie the three kings that brought gifts to our lord, Melchior gold, and Gaspar frankincense, and Balthasar the black king, he brought meur, and over their bones stands the shrine, the wonder of the world, it is of ever shining brass brighter than gold, studded with images fairly wrought, and inlaid with exquisite devices, and brave with colours, and two broad stripes run to and fro of jewels so great, so rare, each might adorn a crown or ransom its wearer at need, and upon it stand the three kings, curiously counterfeited, two in solid silver, richly gilt, these be bareheaded, but he of Ethiop Ebony, and beareth a golden crown, and in the midst our blessed lady in virgin silver, with Christ in her arms, and at the corners in golden branches, four goodly wax and tapers do burn night and day, holy eyes have watched and renewed that like unceasingly for ages, and holy eyes shall watch them in secular, I tell thee, Deni, the oldest song, the oldest Flemish or German legend found them burning, and they shall light the earth to its grave, and there is St. Ursus church, a British saint, where lie her bones, and all the other virgins her fellows, eleven thousand were there who died for the faith, being put to the sword by barbarous moors on the 23rd day of October 238, their bones are piled in the vaults, and many of their skulls are in the church, St. Ursus is in a thin golden case, and stands on the high altar, but shown to humble Christians only on solemn days. Eleven thousand virgins, cried Deni, what babies German men must have been in days of yore. Well, would all their bones might turn flesh again, and their skulls sweetfaces, as we pass through the gates? Tis odds, but some of them are wearied of their estate by this time. Tosh Deni, said Gerard, why wilt thou, being good, still make thyself seem evil? If thy wishing cap be on, pray that we may meet the meanest shee of all those wise virgins in the next world, and to that end let us reverence their holy dust in this one. And then there is the church of the Maccabees, and the cauldron, in which they and their mother Solomonah were boiled by a wicked king for refusing to eat swine's flesh. O peremptory king, and pig-headed Maccabees, I had eaten bacon with my pork lever than changed places at the fire with my meat. What scurvy words are these? It was their faith. Nay, bridle thy collar, and tell me, are there not but churches in this thyself-vaunted city, for I affect rather Sir Knight rather than Sir Priest? Aye, Murray, there is a university near a hundred years old, and there is a marketplace no fairer in the world, and at the foresight of it houses greatest palaces, and there is a stupendous senate house all covered with images, and at the head of them stands one of stout Herman Grinn, a soldier like thyself lad. I tell me of him what feet of arms earned him his niche. A rare one, he slew a lion in fair combat with naught but his cloak and a short sword. He thrust the cloak in the brute's mouth, and cut his spine in twain, and there is the man's effigy and eek the lions to prove it. The like was never done but by three more, I wean. Samson was one, and Lycemicus of Macedon another, and Ben-Ire, a captain of David's host. Murray, three tall fellows, I would like well to sub with them all to-night. So would not I, said Gerard Dryly. But tell me, said Denis, with some surprise, when was thou in Cologne? Never, but in the spirit. I prattle with the good monks, by the way, and they tell me all the notable things both old and new. Aye, aye, have not I seen your nose under their very cowls? But when I speak of matters that are out of sight, my words they are small and the thing it was big. Now thy words be as big or bigger than the things. Aren't a good limner with thy dung, I have said it, and for a saint as ready with hand or steel or bolster as any poor sinner living. And so shall I tell thee which of all these things thou has described draws me to Cologne? Aye, Denis, thou and thou only, no dead saint, but my living friend and comrade true, till thou alone draws Denis of Burgundy to Cologne. Gerard hung his head. At this juncture one of the younger boatmen suddenly inquired what was amiss with little turnip face. His young nephew, thus described, had just come aft grave as a judge and burst out crying in the midst without more ado. On this phenomenon, so sharply defined, he was subjected to many interrogatories, some coaxingly uttered, some not. Had he hurt himself? Had he overate himself? Was he frightened? Was he cold? Was he sick? Was he an idiot? To all adeach he uttered the same reply, which English writers render thus, Oh, oh, oh, and French writers thus, High, high, high, so fixed are fictions, phonetics. Who can tell what ails the peevish brat, snarled the young boatmen impatiently, rather look this way and tell me whom these be after? The old man and his other son looked, and saw four men walking along the east bank of the river. At the sight they left rowing awhile, and gathered mysteriously in the stern, whispering and casting glances alternately at their passengers and the pedestrians. The sequel may show they would have employed speculation better in trying to fathom the turnip face mystery. I beg pardon of my age, I mean the deep mind of dauntless infancy. If tizzers I doubt, whispered one of the young men, why not give them a squeak for their lives? Let us make for the west bank. The old man objected stoutly. What, setty, run our heads into trouble for strangers, are ye mad? Nay, let us rather cross to the east side. Still side with the strong arm, that is my read. What say you, verter? I say please yourselves. What age and youth could not decide upon? A puff of wind settled most impartially. Came a squaw, and the little vessel healed over. The men jumped to windward to trim her, but to their horror they saw in the very boat from stern to stern a ditch of water rushing to leeward, and the next moment they saw nothing, but felt the rine, the cold and rushing rine. Turnip face had drawn the plug. The officers unwound the cords from their wastes. Gerard could swim like a duck, but the best swimmer canted out of a boat capsized must sink ere he can swim. The dark water bubbled loudly over his head, and then he came up almost blind and deaf for a moment. The next he saw the black boat, bottom uppermost, and figures clinging to it. He shook his head like a water dog, and made for it by a sort of unthinking imitation. But ere he reached it, he heard a voice behind him cry not loud, but with deep manly distress. He looked, and there was poor Denis, sinking, sinking, weighed down by his wretched arbalest. His face was pale, and his eyes staring wide, and turned despairingly on his dear friend. Gerard uttered a wild cry of love and terror, and made for him, cleaving the water madly. But the next moment Denis was under water. The next Gerard was after him. The officers knotted a rope, and threw the end in. End of Chapter 27 Recording by Tom Denham Things good and evil balance themselves in a remarkable manner, and almost universally. The steel bow attached to the arbalestria's back, and carried above his head, had sunk him. That very steel bow, owing to that very position, could not escape Gerard's hands, one of which grasped it, and the other went between the bow and the cord, which was as good. The next moment Denis, by means of his crossbow, was hoisted with so eager a jerk that half his body bobbed up out of water. Now, grip me not, grip me not! cried Gerard in mortal terror of that fatal mistake. Pasi bet! gurgled Denis. Seeing the sort of stuff he had to deal with, Gerard was hopeful and calm directly. On thy back, he said sharply, and seizing the arbalest, and taking a stroke forward, he aided the desired movement. Hand on my shoulder, slap the water with the other hand, no, with a downward motion, so do nothing more than I bid thee. Gerard had got hold of Denis' long hair, and twisting it hard, caught the end between his side teeth, and with the strong muscles of his youthful neck easily kept up the soldier's head, and struck out lustily across the current. A moment he had hesitated which side to make for, little knowing the awful importance of that simple decision. Then, seeing the west bank a trifle nearest, he made towards it, instead of swimming to jail like a good boy, and so furnishing one a novel incident. Owing to the force of the current, they slanted considerably, and when they had covered near a hundred yards, Denis murmured uneasily, how much more of it! Courage, mumbled Gerard, whatever a duck knows a Dutchman knows, aren't safe as in bed. The next moment, to their surprise, they found themselves in shallow water, and so waded ashore. Once on terra firma, they looked at one another from head to foot as if eyes could devour, then by one impulse flung each an arm round the other's neck, and panted there, with hearts too full to speak. And at this sacred moment life was sweet as heaven to both, sweetest perhaps to the poor exiled lover who had just saved his friend. O joy to whose height what poet has yet soared or ever tried to soar! To save a human life, and that life a loved one, such moments are worth living for, aye, three score years and ten. And then, calmer, they took hands, and so walked along the bank hand in hand like a pair of sweet darts, scarce knowing or caring whither they went. The boat-people were all safe on the late concave now convex craft, her turnip face the inverter of things being in the middle. All this fracker seemed not to have essentially deranged his habits. At least he was greeting when he shot our friends into the Rhine, and greeting when they got out again. Shall we wait till they write the boat? No, Denis, our fare is paid, we owe them not, let us on and briskly. Denis assented observing that they could walk all the way to Cologne on this bank. I fear not to Cologne, was the calm reply. I fear not to Cologne, was the calm reply. Why wither, then? To Burgundy. To Burgundy? Ah, no, that is too good to be soothed. Soothed is, and sense into the bargain. What matters it to me how I go to Rome? Nay, nay, you but say so to pleasure me. The change is too sudden, and think me not so ill-hearted as take you at your word. Also, did I not see your eyes sparkle at the wonders of Cologne, the churches, the images, the relics, how dull art thou, Denis, that was when we were to enjoy them together. Churches, I shall see plenty, go Romeward how I will. The bones of saints and martyrs alas, the world is full of them. But a friend like thee, where on earth's face shall I find another? No, I will not turn the father from the road that leads to thy dear home, and her that pines for thee. Neither will I rob myself of thee by leaving thee. Since I drew thee out of Rhine, I love thee better than I did. Thou art my pearl, I've fished thee, and must keep thee. So gain say me not, or thou will bring back my fever, but cry courage and lead on, and hay for burgundy. Denis gave a joyful caper courage, and they turned their backs on the Rhine. On this decision making itself clear, across the Rhine, there was a commotion in the little party that had been watching the discussion, and the friends had not taken many steps ere a voice came to them over the water. Halt! Gerard turned, and saw one of those four holding out a badge of office, and a parchment slip. His heart sank, for he was a good citizen, and used to obey the voice that now bad him. Turn again to Dusseldorf. The Laws. Denis did not share his scruples. He was a Frenchman, and despised every other nation, laws, inmates, and customs included. He was a soldier, and took a military view of the situation. Superior force opposed. River between. Rear open. Why? It was retreat made easy. He saw at a glance that the boat still drifted in mid-stream, and there was no ferry nearer than Dusseldorf. I shall beat a quick retreat to that hill, said he, and then, being out of sight, quick step. They sauntered off. Halt! In the bailiff's name! cried a voice from the shore. Denis turned round, and ostentatiously snapped his fingers at the bailiff, and proceeded. Halt! In the archbishop's name! Denis snapped his fingers at his grace, and proceeded. Halt! In the emperor's name! Denis snapped his fingers at his majesty, and proceeded. Gerard saw this needless pantomime with regret, and as soon as they had passed the brow of the hill said, There is now but one course we must run to Burgundy instead of walking, and he set off and ran the best part of a league without stopping. Denis was fairly blown, and inquired what on earth had become of Gerard's fever. I begin to miss it, sadly, said he dryly. I dropped it in the Rhine, I trow, was the reply. Presently they came to a little village, and here Denis purchased a loaf and a huge bottle of rainish wine. For, he said, we must sleep in some hole or corner, if we lie at an inn we shall be taken in our beds. This was no more than common prudence on the old soldier's part. The official network for catching lawbreakers, especially plebeian ones, was very close in that age, though the cooperation of the public was almost null at all events upon the continent. The innkeepers were everywhere under close surveillance as to their travellers, for whose acts they were even in some degree responsible, more so it would seem than for their sufferings. The friends were both glad when the sun set, and delighted when after a long trudge under the stars, for the moon, if I remember right, did not rise till about three in the morning, they came to a large barn belonging to a house at some distance. A quantity of barley had been lately thrashed, for the heap of straw on one side the thrashing floor was almost as high as the unthrashed corn on the other. Here be two royal beds, said Denis, which shall we lie on, the mow or the straw? The straw for me, said Geron. They sat on the heap, and ate their brown bread, and drank their wine, and then Denis covered his friend up in straw, and heaped it high above him, leaving him only a breathing hole. Water they say is death to fevered men, I'll make warm water on to anyhow. Geron, about him make his mind easy. These few drops from rind cannot chill me, I feel heat enough in my body now to parch a kennel, or boil a cloud if I was in one, and with this epigram his consciousness went so rapidly, he might really be said to fall asleep. Denis, who lay awake a while, heard that which made him nestle closer. Horses hoofs came ringing up from Düsseldorf, and the wooden barn vibrated as they rattled past, howling in a manner too well known and understood in the 15th century, but as unfamiliar in Europe now as a red Indian's war-whoop. Denis shook where he lay. Geron slept like a top. It all swept by, and troop and howls died away. The stout soldier drew a long breath, whistled in a whisper, closed his eyes, and slept like a top too. In the morning he sat up and put out his hand to wake Geron. It lighted on the young man's forehead, and found it quite wet. Denis then, in his quality of nurse, forbore to wake him. It is ill to check sleep or sweat in a sick man, said he. I know that far, though I ne'er minced ape or gallows bird. After waiting a good hour, he felt desperately hungry, so he turned and in self-defense went to sleep again. Poor fellow in his hard life he had been often driven to this manoeuvre. At high noon he was waked by Geron moving, and found him sitting up with the straw smoking round him like a dung-hill, animal heat versus moisture. Geron called him a lazy loon. He quietly grinned. They set out, and the first thing Denis did was to give Geron his arbalest, et cetera, and mount a high-trick to the road. Coast clear to the next village, said he, and on they went. On drawing near the village, Denis halted and suddenly inquired of Geron how he felt. What! Can you not see? I feel as if Rome was no farther than Yon Hamlet. But thy body lad, thy skin, neither hot nor cold, and yesterday was hot one while and cold another. But what I cannot get rid of is this tiresome leg. Le grand malheur! Many of my comrades have found no such difficulty. Ah, there it goes again, itches consumedly. Unhappy youth, said Denis solemnly. The sum of thy troubles is this. Thy fever is gone, and thy wound is healing. Sith so it is! added he indulgently. I shall tell thee a little piece of news I had otherwise withheld. What is it? cried Gerard, sparkling with curiosity. The hue and cry is out after us, and on fleet horses. Oh! End of Chapter 28, Recording by Tom Denham, Chapter 29 of The Cloister and the Half by Charles Reed. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Denham. Gerard was staggered by this sudden communication, and his colour came and went. Then he clenched his teeth with ire. For men of any spirit at all are like the wild boar. He will run from a superior force, owing perhaps to his not being an ass, but if you stick to his heels too long and too close, and in short bore him, he will whirl and come tearing at a multitude of hunters, and perhaps bore you. Gerard then set his teeth and looked battle. But the next moment his countenance fell, and he said plaintively, and my axe is in the Rhine. They consulted together. Prudence bad them avoid that village, hunger said by food. Hunger spoke loudest. Prudence most convincingly. They settled to strike across the fields. They halted at a haystack, and borrowed two bundles of hay, and lay on them in a dry ditch out of sight, but in nettles. They sallied out in turn and came back with turnips. These they munched at intervals in their retreat until sunset. Presently they crept out shivering into the rain and darkness, and got into the road on the other side of the village. It was a dismal night, dark as pitch, and blowing hard. They could neither see nor hear nor be seen nor heard, and for ought I know passed like ghosts close to their foes. These they almost forgot in the natural horrors of the black, tempestuous night, in which they seemed to grope and hue their way as in black marble. When the moon rose, they were many a league from Dusseldorf, but they still trudged on. Presently they came to a huge building. Courage! cried Denis. I think I know this convent. Ah, it is! We are in the sea of Jullier. Cologne has no power here. The next moment, the next moment, they were safe within the walls.