 CHAPTER XXXV of THE CLOISTER AND THE HAARTH by Charles Reed. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Denham. Here Gerard made acquaintance with a monk who had constructed the great dial in the priors' garden, and a wheel for drawing water, and a winnowing machine for the grain, etc., and had ever some ingenious mechanism on hand. He had made several salteries and two dulcimers and was now attempting a set of regals or little organ for the choir. Now Gerard played the humble saltery a little, but the monk touched that instrument divinely, and showed him most agreeably what a novice he was in music. He also illuminated finely, but could not write so beautifully as Gerard. During their acquirements, with the earnestness and simplicity of an age in which accomplishments implied a true natural bent, youth and age soon became like brothers, and Gerard was pressed hard to stay that night. He consulted Denis, who assented with a rueful shrug. Gerard told his old new friend whither he was going, and described their late adventures softening down the bolster. "'A lark!' said the good old man, "'I have been a great traveller in my day, but none molested me.' He then told him, to avoid inns, they were always haunted by rogues and roisterers, whence his soul might take harm even did his body escape, and to manage each day's journey so as to lie at some peaceful monastery. Then suddenly breaking off and looking as sharp as a needle at Gerard, he asked him how long since he had been shriven. Gerard collared up and replied feebly, "'Better than a fortnight! And thou an exorcist? No wonder perils have overtaken thee! Come! Thou must be assoiled out of hand!' "'Yes, father,' said Gerard, and with all mine heart, and was sinking down to his knees, with his hands joined, but the monk stopped him half fretfully. Not to me! Not to me! Not to me! I am as full of the world as thou, or any bee that lives in't. My whole soul it is in knees wooden pipes, and sorry leaven stops which shall perish with them whose minds are fixed on such like vanities. "'Dear father,' said Gerard, they are for the use of the church, and surely that sanctifies the pains and labour spent on them?' "'That is just what the devil has been whispering in my ear this while,' said the monk, putting one hand behind his back, and shaking his finger half threateningly, half playfully, and Gerard. He was even so kind and thoughtful as to mind me that Solomon built the Lord a house with rare hangings, and that this in him was counted gracious and no sin. "'Oh! He can quote scripture rarely, but I am not so simple a monk as you think, my lad,' cried the good father, with sudden defiance, addressing not Gerard, but vacancy. This one toy finished, vigils, fasts, and prayers for me, prayers standing, prayers lying on the chapel floor, and prayers in a right good tub of cold water. He nudged Gerard and winked his eye knowingly, nothing he hates and dreads like seeing us monks at our horizons, up to our chins in cold water, for corpus domat aqua. So now go confess thy little trumpery sins, pardonable in youth and secularity, and leave me to mine, sweet to me as honey, and to be expiated in proportion,' Gerard bowed his head, but could not help saying, "'Where shall I find a confessor more holy and clement?' "'In each of these cells,' replied the monk simply. They were now in the corridor. There go to brother Anselm, yonder. Gerard followed the monk's direction, and made for a cell, but the doors were pretty close to one another, and it seems he mistook, for just as he was about to tap. He heard his old friend crying to him in an agitated whisper, "'Nay, nay, nay!' he turned, and there was the monk at his cell door in a strange state of anxiety, going up and down and beating the air double-handed, like a bottom Sawyer. Gerard really thought the cell he was at must be inhabited by some dangerous wild beast, if not by that personage whose presence in the convent had been so distinctly proclaimed. He looked back inquiringly, and went on to the next door. Then his old friend nodded his head rapidly, bursting in a moment into a comparatively blissful expression of face, and shot back into his den. He took his hourglass, turned it, and went to work on his regals. And often he looked up, and said to himself, "'Well-a-day, the sands how swift they run when the man is bent over earthly toys!' Father Anselm was a venerable monk, with an ample head, and a face all dignity and love. Therefore Gerard, in confessing to him, and replying to his gentle, though searching questions, could not help thinking, Here is a head! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I wonder whether you will let me draw it when I have done confessing!' And so his own head got confused, and he forgot a crime or two. However, he did not lower the bolstering this time, nor was he so uncanded as to detract from the pagan character of the bolstered. The penance inflicted was this. He was to enter the convent church, and prostrating himself, kiss the lowest step of the altar three times, then kneeling on the floor to say three patanostas and a credo. This done! Come back to me on the instant!" Accordingly his short mortification performed. Gerard returned, and found Father Anselm spreading plaster. After the soul the body, said he, Know that I am the shirogian here for want of a better. This is going on thy leg. To cool it not to burn it, the saints forbid. During the operation the monastic leech, who had naturally been interested by the Dusseldorf branch of Gerard's confession, rather sided with Denis upon bleeding, we Dominicans seldom let blood nowadays. The lay leeches satis from timidity and want of skill, but in sooth we have long found that simples will cure most of the ills that can be cured at all. Besides, they never kill incapable hands, and other remedies slay like thunderbolts. As for the blood, the vulgate seeth expressly it is the life of a man, and in medicine all or, as in divinity, to be wiser than the all wise is to be a fool. Moreover, simples are mighty. The little four-footed creature that kills the poisonous snake, if bitten herself, finds an herb powerful enough to quell that poison, though stronger and of swift operation than any mortal malady. And we, taught by her wisdom and our own traditions, still search and try the virtues of those plants the good God hath strewed this earth with. Some to feed men's bodies, some to heal them. Only in desperate ills we mixed heavenly with earthly virtue, we steep the hair or the bones of some dead saint in the medicine, and thus work marvel as cures. Think you, Father, it is a long of the relics. For Peter a floris, a learned leech, and no pagan denies it stoutly. What knows Peter a floris, and what know I, I take not on me to say we can command the saints, and will they nil they can draw corporal virtue from their blessed remains. But I see that the patient drinking thus in faith is often bettered as by a charm. Doubtless faith in the recipient is for much in all these cures. But so it was ever. A sick woman, that all the Jewish leeches failed to cure, did but touched Christ's garment, and was healed in a moment. Had she not touched that sacred piece of cloth, she had never been healed. Had she without faith not touched it only, but worn it to her grave, I trough she had been none the better for it. But we do ill to search these things too curiously. All we see around us calls for faith. Have then a little patience. We shall soon know all. Any time I, thy confessor for the nonce, do strictly forbid thee, on thy soul's health, to hearken learned layfolk on things religious. Arrogance is their bane. With it they shut heaven's open door in their own faces. Mind, I say, learned lakes. Unlearned ones have often been my masters in humility and may be thine. Thy wound is cared for. In three days twill be but a scar. And now God speed thee, and the saints make thee as good, and as happy as thou art thoughtful and gracious. Gerard hoped there was no need to part yet, for he was to dine in the refectory. But Father Anselm told him, with a shade of regret, just perceptible and no more, that he did not leave his cell this week, being himself in penitence. And with this he took Gerard's head delicately in both hands, and kissed him on the brow, and almost before the cell door had closed on him, was back to his pyre's offices. Gerard went away, chilled to the heart, by the isolation of the monastic life, and saddened too. Alas, he thought, here is a kind face I must never look to see again on earth, a kind voice gone from my ear and my heart for ever. There is nothing but meeting and parting in this sorrowful world. Weller day, weller day! This pensive mood was interrupted by a young monk who came for him and took him to the refectory. There he found several monks seated at a table, and Dene, standing like a poker, being examined as to the towns he should pass through. The friars then clubbed their knowledge and marked out the route, noting all the religious houses on or near that road, and this they gave Gerard. Then supper, and after it the old monk carried Gerard to his cell, and they had an eager chat, and the friar incidentally revealed the cause of his pantomime in the corridor. He had well-knife fallen into Brother Jerome's clutches, John was his cell. His father Jerome, an ill man, then, an ill man, and the friar crossed himself, a saint, an anchorite, the very pillar of this house. He had sent the barefoot to Loretto. Nay, I forgot, you're bound for Italy. The spiteful old saint upon earth had sent ye to Canterbury or Compostella, but Jerome was born old and with a cowl. Anselm and I were boys once, and wicked beyond anything you can imagine. Gerard wore a somewhat incredulous look. This keeps us humble more or less, and makes us reasonably lenient to youth and hot blood. Then, at Gerard's earnest request, one more heavenly strain upon the Salterian, and so to bed, the troubled spirit calmed, and the sore heart soothed. I have described in full this day, marked only by contrast, a day that came like oil on waves after so many passions and perils, because it must stand in this narrative as the representative of many such days which now succeeded it. For our travellers on their weary way experienced that which most of my readers will find in the longer journey of life, vis, that stirring events are not evenly distributed over the whole road, but come by fits and starts, and as it were, in clusters. To some extent this may be because they draw one another by links more or less subtle, but there is more in it than that. It happens so. Life is an intermittent fever. Now all narrators, whether of history or fiction, are compelled to slur these barren portions of time or else line trunks. The practice, however, tends to give the unguarded reader a wrong arithmetical impression, which there is a particular reason for avoiding in these pages as far as possible. I invite, therefore, your intelligence to my aid, and ask you to try and realise that, although there were no more vivid adventures for a long while, one day's march succeeded another, one monastery after another fed and lodged them, gratis with a welcome always charitable, sometimes genial, and though they met no enemy but winter and rough weather, antagonists not always contemptible, yet they trudged over a much larger tract of territory than that, their passage through which I have described so minutely. And so the pair, Gerard bronzed in the face and travel-stained from head to foot, and Denis with his shoes and tatters, stiff and foot sore both of them, drew near the Burgundian frontier. CHAPTER 31 of the Cloyster and the Hearth by Charles Reed Gerard was almost as eager for this promised land as Denis. For the latter constantly chanted its praises, and at every little annoyance showed him they did things better in Burgundy, and above all played on his foible by guaranteeing clean bed-clothes at the ends of that polished nation. I ask no more, the Hollander would say, to think that I have not lain once in a naked bed since I left home. When I look at their linen instead of doffing habit and hoes, it is my eyes and nose I would feign be shut off. Denis carried his love of country so far as to walk twenty leagues in shoes that had exploded rather than by of a German churl who would throw all manner of obstacles in a customer's way, his incivility, his dinner, his body. Towards sunset they found themselves at equal distances from a little town and a monastery, only the latter was off the road. Denis was for the inn, Gerard for the convent. Denis gave way but on condition that once in Burgundy they should always stop at an inn. Gerard consented to this the more readily that his chart with its list of convents ended here. So they turned off the road. And now Gerard asked with surprise whence this sudden aversion to places that had fed and lodged them gratis so often. The soldier hemmed and hoared at first, but at last his wrongs burst forth. It came out that this was no sudden aversion but an ancient and abiding horror which he had suppressed till now but with infinite difficulty and out of politeness. I saw they had put powder in your drink, said he, so I forbore them. However, being the last, why not ease my mind? No, then, I have been like a fish out of water in all those great dungeons. You straightway leavened with some old shavling, so you see not my purgatory. Forgive me, I have been selfish. I forgive thee, little one, it is not thy fault, art not the first fool that has been priest-red and monk-bit, but I'll not forgive them, my misery. Then, about a century before Henry VIII's he delivered his indictment. These gloomy piles were all built alike. Inns differed, but here was all monotony. Great gate, little gate, so many steps, and then a gloomy cloister. Here the door-tour, there the great cold refactory, where you must sit mum-chance, or at least inaudible, he who liked to speak his mind out, and then said he, nobody is a man here, but all are slaves, and of what? Of a peevish, tinkling bell that never sleeps. And to a trumpet now, eye-sounding alarm's, twid'n't freeze a man's heart, so tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, and you must sit to meet with maybe no stomach for food. Here you meet settles in your stomach, tinkle, tinkle, and you must to church, with maybe no stomach for devotion. I am not a hog for prayers for one. Tinkle, tinkle, and now you must to bed with your eyes open. Well, by then you have contrived to shut them some uneasy imp of darkness has got to the bell-rope, and tinkle, tinkle, it behoves you, say a prayer in the dark whether you know one or not. If they heard the sort of prayers I mutter when they break my rest with their tinkle, well you drop off again and get about an eye full of sleep. Lo, it is tinkle, tinkle for matins, and the only clapper you love is a woman's, put in Gerard Hough contemptuously. Because there is some music in that, even when it scolds, was the stout reply. And then to be always checked, if I do but put my finger in the salt cellar straight, where I hear, have you no knife that you finger the salt? And if I but wipe my knife on the cloth to save time, then tis, wipe thy knife dirty on the bread and clean upon the cloth. Oh, small of so these little peevish pedantries fall chill upon good fellowship, like wee icicles are melting down from straw and eaves. I hold cleanliness no pedantry, said Gerard, should's learn better manners once for all. Nay, tis they who lack manners, they stop a fellow's mouth at every word. At every other word you mean, every obscene or blasphemous one, exaggerate a go-to. Quiet at the very last of these dungeons I found the poor travellers sitting all chilled and mute round one shavling, like rogues awaiting their turn to be hanged. So to cheer them up I did but cry out, Courage, tout le monde, le diable, connu, what befell? Marry this, blaspheme not, quo the borough. Plétille, say I, doesn't he wheel and whiten me in a sort of Alsatian French, turning all the peas into bees? I had much ado not to laugh in his face. Being thyself unable to speak ten words of his language without a fault, well, all the world ought to speak French. What avails so many jargons except to put a frontier at twixt men's hearts? But what said he? What signifies it what a fool says? Oh, not all the words of a fool are folly, or I should not listen to you. Well, then, he said, such as begin by making free with the devil's name, I end by doing it with all the names in heaven. Father said I, I am a soldier, and this is but my consignor or watch word. Oh, then, it is just a custom, said he. I, not divining the old fox, and thinking to clear myself, said I it was. Then that is ten times worse, said he, to bring him about your ears one of these days. He still comes where he hears his name often called. Observe, no gratitude for the tidings which neither his missiles nor his breviary had ever let him know. Then he was so good as to tell me, soldiers do commonly the crimes for which all other men are broke on the wheel. A savoir, murder, rape, and pillage. And is not true? True or not it was ill manners, replied Denis, guardedly, and so says this courteous host of mine, being the foes of mankind, why make enemies of good spirits into the bargain by still shouting the names of evil ones, and a lot more stuff. Well, but, Denis, whether you harken his reed or slight it, wherefore blame a man for raising his voice to save your soul. How can his voice save my soul when it keeps turning off his peas into bees? Gerard was staggered. Air he could recover at this thunderbolt of gallusism. Denis went triumphant off at a tangent, and stigmatised all monks as hypocrites. Do but look at them, how they creep about, and cannot are you like honest men. Nay, said Gerard eagerly, that modest downcast gaze is part of their discipline, tis custodia ocularum. Cussed toads eating hock-hack-horum, no such thing, just so looks a cut purse, can't meet a true man's eye. Doff cow, monk, and behold, a thief. Don cow, thief, and lo, a monk. Tell me not they will ever be able to look God almighty in the face, when they can't even look a true man in the face down here. Ah, here it is, black as ink, into the well we go, comrade. Misericord, there goes the tinkle already. Tis the best of tinkles, though, tis for dinner. Stay, listen. I thought so. The wolf in my stomach cried, Amen. This last statement he confirmed with two oaths, and marched like a victorious game-cock into the convent, thinking by Gerard's silence he had convinced him, and not dreaming how profoundly he had disgusted him. End of Chapter 31 Recording by Tom Denham Chapter 32 of The Cloyster and the Hearth by Charles Reid This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Denham In the refectory allusion was made at the table where Gerard sat, to the sudden death of the monk who had undertaken to write out fresh copies of the charter of the monastery and the rule, etc. Gerard caught this and timidly offered his services. There was a hesitation which he mistook. Nay, not for hire, my lords, but for love, and as a trifling return for many a good night's lodging, the brethren of your order have bestowed on me a poor wayfarer. A monk smiled approvingly, but hinted that the late brother was an excellent penman, and his work could not be continued but by a master. Gerard on this drew from his wallet, with some trepidation, a vellum deed, the back of which he had cleaned and written upon by way of specimen. The monk gave quite a start at sight of it, and very hastily went up the hall to the high table, and, bending his knee, so as just to touch in passing the fifth step, and the tenth, or last, presented it to the prier with comments. Instantly a dozen knowing eyes were fixed on it, and a buzz of voices was heard, and soon Gerard saw the prier point more than once, and the monk came back, looking as proud as punch with a savoury, crusted rile, or game pie graveyed and spiced for Gerard, and a silver-grace cup full of rich pimentum. This latter Gerard took, and bowing low first to the distant prier, then to his own company, quaffed and circulated the cup. Instantly, to his surprise, the whole table hailed him as a brother. Art Convent Bread Denired Not He acknowledged it and gave heaven thanks for it, for otherwise he had been as rude and ignorant as his brothers, Cybrand and Cornelis. But his passing strange how you could know, said he. You drank with the cup in both hands, said two monks, speaking together. The voices had for some time been loudish round a table at the bottom of the hall, but presently came a burst of mirth so obstreperous and prolonged, that the prier sent the very sub-prior all down the hall to check it, and inflict penance on every monk at the table. And Gerard's cheek burned with shame for in the heart of the unruly merriment his ear had caught the word couvage, and the trumpet tones of Denis of Burgundy. Soon Gerard was installed in few verter cell, with wax lights and a little frame that could be set at any angle, and all the materials of calligraphy. The work, however, was too much for one evening. Then came the question, how could he ask Denis the monk-hater to stay longer? However, he told him and offered to abide by his decision. He was agreeably surprised when Denis said graciously, a day's rest will do neither of us harm. Right, though, and I'll pass the time as I may. Gerard's work was vastly admired. They agreed that the records of the monastery had gained by poor verter's death. The sub-prior forced a rick's dollar on Gerard, and several brushes and colors out of the convent's stock, which was very large. He resumed his march warm at heart, for this was of good omen, since it was on the pen he relied to make his fortune and recover his well-beloved. Come, Denis, he said good-humidly, see what the good monks have given me. Now do try to be fairer to them, for to be round with you it chilled my friendship for a moment to hear even you call my benefactors hypocrites. I recant, said Denis, thank you, thank you, good Denis. I was a scurrilous vagabond. Nay, nay, say not so neither. But we soldiers are rude and hasty. I give myself the lie, and I offer those I misunderstood all my esteem. Tis unjust that thousands should be defamed for the hypocrisy of a few. Now are you reasonable. You have pondered what I said. Nay, it is their own doing. Gerard crowed a little. We all liked to be proved in the right, and was all attention when Denis offered to relate how his conversion was affected. Well then, at dinner the first day a young monk beside me did open his jaws and laugh right out and most musically. Good, I said, at last I have fallen on a man and not a shorn ape. So, to sound him further, I slapped his broad back and administered my consignure. Heaven forbid, says he, I stared. For the dog looked as sad as Solomon. A better mime saw you never, even at a mystery. I see war is no sharpener of the wits, said he. What are the clergy for, but to fight the foul fiend? And what else are the monks for? The fiend being dead, the friars are sped. You may plow up the convent, and we poor monks shall have nought to do, but turn soldiers, and so bring him to life again. Then there was a great laugh at my expense. Well, you are the monk for me, said I, and you are the cross-bowman for me, quohi, and I'll be bound you could tell us tales of the war should make our hair stand on end. Excusee! the barber has put that out of the question, quoth I. And then I had the laugh. What wretched ribaldry! observed Gerard pensively. The candid Denis, at once admitted, he had seen merrier jests hatched with less cackle. It was a great matter to have got rid of hypocrisy. So, said I, I can give you the share de poule, if that may content you. That, we will see, was the cry, and a signal went round. Denis, then related, bursting with glee, how at bedtime he had taken to a cell instead of the great door-tour, and strictly forbidden to sleep, and to aid his vigil. A book had been lent him of pictures representing a hundred merry adventures of monks in pursuit of the female laity, and how in due course he had been taken out barefooted and down to the parlour, where there was a supper fit for the duke, and at it twelve jolly friars, the roaringest boys he had ever met in peace or war, how the story, the toast, the jest, the wine-cup had gone round, and some had played cards with a gorgeous pack, where St. Teresa and St. Catherine, etc., bedisoned with gold, stood for the four queens, and black, white, gray, and crouched friars for the four knaves, and had staked their very rosaries, swearing like troopers when they lost, and how about midnight, a sly monk had stolen out but had by him and others been as cannelly followed into the garden, and seen to thrust his hand into the ivy, and out with a rope ladder. With this he had run up to the wall, which was ten feet broad, yet not so nimbly, but what a russet kirtle had popped up from the outer world as quick as he, and so to billing and cooing that this situation had struck him as rather feline than ecclesiastical, and drawn from him the appropriate comment of a mew. The monks had joined the musical chorus, and the lay visitor shrieked and been so discomfited, but Abelard only cried, What are ye there ye jealous meowing knaves? ye shall cut a wall to some tune to moronite. I'll fit every man jack of ye with a farding gale, that this brutal threat had reconciled him to stay another day at Gerard's request. Gerard groaned. Meantime, unable to disconcert so brazen a monk, and the Dumoiselle beginning to whimper, they had danced catawalling in a circle, then bestowed a solemn benediction on the two wall-flowers, and off to the parlour, where they found a pair lying dead drunk, and other two affectionate to tears. That they had straightway carried off the inanimate, and dragged off the loving and lacrimose, kicked them all merrily, each into his cell. And so, shut up in measureless content! Gerard was disgusted and said so. Dany chuckled and proceeded to tell him how the next day he and the young monks had drawn the fish-ponds, and secreted much pike, carp, tensioned eel for their own use, and how, in the dead of night, he had been taken shoeless by crooked ways into the chapel, a ghost-like place, being dark, and then down some steps into a crypt below the chapel floor, where suddenly paradise had burst on him. I said burst on him. "'Tis there the holy fathers retire to pray,' put in Gerard. "'Not always,' said Dany, wax-candles by the dozen were lighted, and princely cheer, fifteen soups mègres, with marvellous twangs of venison, grouse, and hair in them, and twenty different fishes, being Friday, cooked with wondrous art, and each he between two buxom lasses, and each lass between two lads with a cowl, all but me, and to think I had to woo by interpreter. I doubt the nave put in three words for himself and one for me, if he didn't hang him for a fool, and some of the weaker vessels were novices, and not want to hold good wine, had to be coaxed ere they would put it to their white teeth. But el sifese,' here Gerard exploded, miserable, wretched, corrupt as of youth, pervert as of innocence, but for your being there, Dany, who would have been taught no better, or would God the church had fallen on the whole gang, impious, abominable hypocrites? Hippocrates cried Dany with unfaithful surprise. Why, that is what I klept them ere I knew them, and you withstood me. Nay, they are sinners, all good fellows are that. But by St. Dany, his helmeted skull, no hypocrites, but right, jolly, roaring blades. Dany, said Gerard solemnly, you little know the peril you ran that night. That church you defiled amongst you is haunted. I had it from one of the elder monks. The dead walk there. Their light feet have been heard to patter all the stones. Misericorde! whispered Dany. I more, said Gerard, lowering his voice almost to a whisper. Celestial sounds have issued from the pearl use of that very crypt you turned into a tavern. Voices of the dead holding unearthly communion have chilled the ear of midnight. And at times, Dany, the faithful in their nightly watches have even heard music from dead lips, and chords made by no mortal finger, swept by no mortal hand, have rung faintly like echoes deep among the dead in those sacred vaults. Dany wore a look of dismay. If I had known, mules and wane-ropes had not hauled me thither, and so, with a sigh, I had lost a merry time. Where the further discussion might have thrown any more light upon these ghostly sounds who can tell, for up came a bearded brother from the monastery, spurring his mule, and waving a piece of vellum in his hand. It was the deed between Gisbrecht and Floris Brandt. Gerard valued it deeply as a remembrance of home. He turned pale at first, but to think he had so nearly lost it, and to Dany's infinite amusement, not only gave a piece of money to the lay brother, but kissed the mules nose. I'll read you now, said Gerard, were you twice as ill-written. And to make sure of never losing you, here he sat down, and taking out needle and thread, sewed it with feminine dexterity to his doublet, and his mind and heart and soul wore away to Sevenburgen. They reached the promised land, and Dany, who was in high spirits, doffed his bonnet to all the females who curtsied and smiled in return, fired his consignor at most of the men, at which some stared, some grinned, some both, and finally landed his friend at one of the long-promised Burgundian inns. It is a little one, said he, but I know it of old for a good one, les trois poissons. But what is this writ up? I mind not this. And he pointed to an inscription that ran across the whole building in a single line of huge letters. Oh, I see! Ici on loge à pied et à cheval, said Dany, going minutely through the inscription, and looking bumptious when he had affected it. Gerard did look, and the sentence in question ran thus. On ne loge si on accrédit, ce bonhomme est mort, les mauvais payeurs l'ont tué. End of Chapter 32. Recording by Tom Denham. Chapter 33 Part 1 of The Cloister in the Hearth by Charles Reid. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Denham. They met the landlord in the passage. Welcome, messier, said he, taking off his cap with a low bow. Come, we are not in Germany, said Gerard. In the public room they found the mistress, a buxom woman of forty. She curtsied to them and smiled right cordially. Give yourself the trouble of sitting ye down, fair sir, said she to Gerard, and dusted two chairs with her apron. Not that they needed it. Thank you, damn, said Gerard. Well, thought ye, this is a polite nation, the trouble of sitting down? That will I with singular patience, and presently the labour of eating, also the toil of digestion, and finally by Hercules his aid the strain of going to bed and the struggle of sinking fast asleep. Why, Denis, what are you doing? Ordering supper for only two? Why not? What! We can supper without waiting for forty more. Burgundy forever. Ah ha! Courage, camarade, le diable, c'est convenu. The salic law seemed not to have penetrated to French ins. In this one at least, Wimple and Kirtle reigned supreme. Doublets and hoes were few in number and feeble in act. The landlord himself wandered objectless, eternally taking off his cap to folk for want of thought, and the women, as they passed him in turn, thrust him quietly aside without looking at him, as we remove a live twig in bustling through a wood. A maid brought in supper, and the mistress followed her empty-handed. Fall to, my masters, she said cheerily. You have but one enemy here, and he lies under your knife. I shrewdly suspect this of formula. They fell to. The mistress drew her chair a little toward the table, and provided company as well as meat. Gossiped genially with them like old acquaintances. But this form gone through, the busy dam, was soon off, and sent in her daughter, a beautiful young woman of about twenty, who took the vacant seat. She was not quite so broad and genial as the elder, but gentle and cheerful, and showed a womanly tenderness for Gerard on learning the distance the poor boy had come and had to go. She stayed nearly half an hour, and when she left them Gerard said, This is an inn? Why, it is like home. Qui fie François, il fie Courtois, said Denis, bursting with gratified pride. Courtois, nay, Christian, to welcome us, like home guests and old friends, us vagrants, here to-day and gone to-morrow. But indeed who better merits pity and kindness than the worn traveller far from his folk. Hola, here's another! The newcomer was the chambermaid, a woman of about twenty-five, with a cocked nose, a large laughing mouth, and a sparkling black eye and a bare arm, very stout, but not very shapely. The moment she came in, one of the travellers passed a somewhat free jest on her. The next the whole company were roaring at his expense, so swiftly had her practice stung done his business. Even as in a passage of arms between a novice and a master of fence, foils clash, novice-pinked. On this another, and then another must break a lance with her. But Marion stuck her great arms upon her haunches, and held the whole room in play. This country girl possessed in perfection that rude and ready humour, which looked mean and vulgar on paper, but carries all before it spoken. Not wit's rapier, it's bludgeon. Nature had done much for her in this way, and daily practice in an inn the rest. Yet shall she not be photographed by me, but feebly indicated? For it was just four hundred years ago the railery was coarse. She returned every stroke in kind, and though a virtuous woman said things without winking, which no decent man of our day would say even among men. Gerard sat gaping with astonishment. This was to him almost a new variety of that interesting species, Homo. He whispered, Denis, now I see why you Frenchmen say a woman's tongue is her sword. Just then she leveled another assailant, and the chivalrous Denis to console and support the weaker vessel, the iron kettle among the clay pots, administered his consigne, et cetera. She turned on him directly. How can he be dead as long as there is an archer left alive? General laughter at her ally's expense. It is washing day, my master said she, with sudden gravity. Après, we travelers cannot strip and go bare while you wash our clothes, objected a peevish old fellow by the fireside, who had kept mum chance during the railery, but crept out into the sunshine of common places. I aimed not your way, ancient man, replied Marian superciliously, but since you ask me. Here she scanned him slowly, from head to foot. I throw you might take a turn in the tub, close it all, and no harm done. Laughter. But what I spoke for, I thought this young sire might like his beard starched. Poor Gerard's turn had come. His chin-crop was thin and silky. The loudest of all the laughers this time was the traitor Denis, whose beard was of a good length, and singularly stiffened bristly, so that Shakespeare, though he never saw him, hit him in the bull's eye, full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard. As you like it. Gerard bore the Amazonian satire mighty calmly. He had little personal vanity. Nay, chomprier, said he, with a smile, Mine is all unworthy, your pains. Take you this fair growth in hand, and he pointed to Denis, vegetable. Oh, time for that, when I starched the bisms. Whilst they were all shouting over this palpable hit, the Mistress returned, and in no more time than it took her to cross the threshold, did our Amazon turn to a seeming Madonna, meek and mild. Mistresses are wonderful subjugators. They're like, I think, breathes not on the globe. Housemaids decide. It was a waste of histrionic ability, though, for the landlady had heard, and did not at heart disapprove the peals of laughter. Ah, Marian lass, she said good-humidly, if you laid me an egg every time you cackle, les trois passants would never lack anomalot. Now, Dame, said Gerard, what is to pay? What for? Our supper. Where is the hurry? Cannot you be content to pay when you go? Lose the guest, find the money, is the rule of the three fish. But, Dame, outside the three fish, it is thus written, ici en le loge, bah, let that flea stick on the wall, look hither! And she pointed to the smoky ceiling, which was covered with hieroglyphics. These were accounts, vulgo scores, intelligible to this Dame and her daughter, who wrote them at need by simply mounting a low stool, and scratching with a knife, so as to show lines of ceiling through the deposit of smoke. The dam explained that the writing on the wall was put there to frighten moneyless folk from the inn altogether, or to be acted on at odd times when a non-paying face should come in and insist on being served. We can't refuse them plump, you know, the law forbids us. And how know you mine is not such a face? Out, Fi, it is the best face that has entered the three fish this autumn. And, mine, Dame, said to me, does she know navery here? She eyed him calmly. Not such a good one as the lads, nor ever will be, but is the face of a true man. For all that, added she, dryly, and I were ten years younger, I doth leave not meet that face on a dark night too far from home. Gerard stared. D'ne laughed, why dam, I would sip the night dew off the flower, and you needn't take ten years off nor ten days, to be worth risking a scratched face for. There our mistress, said Marian, who had just come in, said I not to the day you could make a fool of them still, and if you were properly minded. I dare say you did, it sounds like some daft wench's speech. Dam, said dear Gerard, this is wonderful. What? Oh, no, no, that is no wonder at all, why I have been here all my life, and reading faces is the first thing a girl picks up in an inn. Marian, and frying eggs the second, no telling lies, frying eggs is the third, though. The mistress, and holding her tongue the last, and modesty the day after, never at all. Marian, alak, talk of my tongue, but I say no more. She under whose wing I live now deals the blow, I'm sped, tis but a chambermaid gone, catch what's left on't, and she staggered and sank backwards onto the handsomest fellow in the room, which happened to be Gerard. Tick, tick, cried he peevishly, there don't be stupid, that is too heavy a jest for me, see you not I am talking to the mistress. Marian resumed her elasticity with a grimace, made two little bounds into the middle of the floor, and there turned a pirouette. There, mistress said she, I give in, tis you that reign supreme with the men, least ways with male children. Young man, said the mistress, this girl is not so stupid as her deportment, in reading of faces, and frying of omelets, there we are great. To be hard if we fail that these arts, since they are about all we do know. You do not quite take me down, said Gerard, that honesty in a face should shine forth to your experienced eye, that seems reasonable. But how, by looking on Denis here, could you learn his one little foible, his insanity, his miserable muleorosity? Poor Gerard got angrier the more he thought of it. His mule is what? crossing herself with superstitious awe at the polysyllable. Nate has but the word I was feigned to invent for him. Invent? What can a child like you make other words than grow in burgundy by nature? Take heed what you do, why we are overrun with them already, especially bad ones. Lord these be times, I look to hear of a new thistle invented next. Well then, dam, muleorose, that means wrapped up body and soul in women, so pretty tell me, how did you ever detect the noodle's muleorosity? Alas, good youth, you make a mountain of a molehill, we that are women be notice-takers, and out of the tail of our eye see more than most men can, glaring through a prospect glass. While I moved to and fro, doing this and that, my glance is still on my guests, and I did notice that this soldier's eyes were never off the women-folk. My daughter, or Marian, or even an old woman like me, all was gold to him, and there a sat glouring, oh you foolish, foolish man, now you still turn to the speaker, her or him, and that is common sense. Then he burst into a hoarse laugh, you never were more out, why this silky smooth-faced companion is a very Turk, all but his beard. He is, what do you call him, ozer than air and archer in the duke's bodyguard. He is more wrapped up in one single Dutch last called Margaret than I am in the whole bundle of ye, brown and fair. Man alive, that is just the contrary, said the hostess. Yorn is the bane in his and the cure. Cling you still to Margaret, my dear, I hope she is an honest girl. Damn, she is an angel. Aye, aye, they are all that till better acquainted. I just leave half her no more than honest, and then she will serve to keep you out of worse company. As for you, soldier, there is trouble in store for you. Your eyes were never made for the good of your soul. Nor of his pouch either, said Marion, striking in, and his lips they will sip the dew, as he calls it, off many a bramble-bush. Over much clack, Marion, over much clack. Odds, bodicons, mistress, you didn't hire me to be one of your three fishers, did you? And Marion's sult 30 seconds. Is that the way to speak to our mistress? Remonstrated the landlord who had slipped in. Hold your wish, said his wife sharply. It is not your business to check the girl. She is a good servant to you. What is the cock never to crow and the hens at it all day? You can crow as loud as you like, my man, out at all's. But the hen means to rule the roost. I know a byword to that tune, said Gerard. Do you know? Out with them. Femme veut en toutes ses ans estre d'âme en sa maison. I never heard it before, but is as sooth as gospel. I, they that set these bywords, are rolling at eyes and tongues, and tongues and eyes, before all the world give me an old sore. And me, a young husband, said Marion, now there was a chance for you all and nobody spoke. Oh, it is too late now. I've changed my mind. All the better for some poor fellow, suggested Denny. And now the arrival of the young mistress, or as she was called, the little mistress, was the signal for them all to draw round the fire like one happy family. Travellers, host, hostess, and even servants in the outer ring, and tell stories till bedtime. And Gerard, in his turn, told a tremendous one out of his repertory. A manuscript collection of acts of the saints, and made them all shudder deliciously, but soon after began to nod, exhausted by the effort, I should say. The young mistress saw and gave Marion a look. She instantly lighted a rush, and laying her hand on Gerard's shoulder, invited him to follow her. She showed him a room where there were two nice white beds, and bought him chews. Either is paradise, said he. I'll take this one. Do you know I have not lain in a naked bed once since I left my home in Holland? A luck poor soul, said she. Well then, the sooner my flax and your down, hee hee, come together, the better. So along. And she held out her cheek, as businesslike, as if it had been her hand for a fee. Along? What does that mean? It means good-night. Ahem. What don't they salute the chambermaid in your part? Not all in a moment. What, do they make a business on't? Nay, perverter of words, I mean, we make not so free with strange women. They must be strange women, if they do not think you strange fools, then. Here is a coil. Why, all the old greasy grey beers that lie at our inn do kiss us chambermaids. Fah! And what have we poor wretches to set on to the side, the comped but now and then, a nice young, a lack, time flies. Chambermaids can't be spared long in the nursery, so how's it to be? And please, you arrange with my comrade for both. He is mewly arose. I am not. Nay, it is the kerb he will want not the spur. Well, well, you shall to bed without paying the usual toll, and, oh, but, his sweet to fall in with the young man who can withstand these ancient ill customs, and gainsay brazen hussies. Shall have thy reward. Thank you. But what are you doing with my bed? Me? Oh, only taking off these sheets and going to put on the pair the drunken miller slept in last night. Oh, no, no, you cruel, black-hearted thing. There, there! A la bonne heure. What will not persevere in s'effect? But note now the froidness of a mad wench. I cared not for to button. I am dead sick of that sport these five years, but you denied me, and so then forthwith I behoved to have it, be like had gone through fire and water for it. Alas, young sir, we women are kittle cattle, poor perverse toads, excuse us, and keep us in our place savoir at arm's length, and so good-night. At the door she turned and said, with a complete change of tone and manner, The Virgin God thy Head, and the Holy Evangelists, watch the bed where lies a poor young wanderer far from home. Amen. And the next moment he heard her run tearing down the stairs, and soon a peel of laughter from the sal betrayed her whereabouts. Now that is a character, said Gerard profoundly, and yawned over the discovery. In a very few minutes he was in a dry bath of cold, clean linen, inexpressibly refreshing to him after so long disuse, then came a delicious glow, and then seven bergen. In the morning Gerard awoke infinitely refreshed, and was for rising, but found himself a close prisoner. His linen had vanished. Now this was paralysis, for the nightgown is a recent institution. In Gerard's century, and indeed long after, men did not play fast and loose with clean sheets, when they could get them, but crept into them, clothed with their innocence like Adam. Out of bed they seemed to have taken most after his eldest son. Gerard bewailed his captivity to Denis, but that instant the door opened, and in sailed Marion with their linen, newly washed at ironed on her two arms, and set it down on the table. Oh, you good girl! cried Gerard. Alak, you have found me out at last. Yes, indeed, is this another custom? Nay, not to take them unbidden, but at night we I question travellers, are they for linen washed? So I came in to you, but you were both sound, then I said to the little mistress, La, where is the sense of waking wearied men, task them as Charles the Great dead, and would they leave a curry foul linen or clean, especially this one with a skin-like cream, and so he has, I declare, said the young mistress. That was me, remarked Denis, with the air of a commentator. Guess once more, and you'll hit the mark. Notice him not, Marion, he is an impudent fellow, and I am sure we cannot be grateful enough for your goodness, and I am sorry I ever refused you, anything you fancied you should like. Oh, are you there? said Les Pigle. I take that to mean you would feign brush the morning dew off, as your bashful companion calls it. Well, then, excuse me, to his customary, but not prudent. I decline. Quits with you, lad. Stop, stop, cried Denis, as she was making off Victorious. I am curious to know how many of you were here last night, a-feasting your eyes on us, Twain. T'was so satisfactory a-feast, as we weren't half a minute overt. Who, why the big mistress, the little mistress, Janet and me, and the whole posse cometatus, on tiptoe, we mostly make our rounds the last thing, not to get burned down, and in prodigious numbers. Somehow that maketh us bolder, especially where archers lie scutted about. Why did you not tell me? I'd have lain awake. Bo-sire, the saying goes, that the good and the ill are all one, while their lids are closed. So we said, here is one who will serve God best asleep. Break not his rest. She is funny, said Gerard dictatorially. I must be either that or Navish, how so? Because the three fish pay me to be funny. You will eat before you part? Good. Then I'll go see the meat be fit for such worshipful teeth. Denis, what is your will? I wish that was a great boy, and going along with us to keep us cheery. So do not I, but I wish it was going along with us as it is. Now, heaven for fend, a fine fool you would make of yourself. They broke their fast, settled their score, and said farewell. Then it was they found that Marion had not exaggerated the custom of the country. The three principal women took and kissed them right heartily, and they kissed the three principal women. The landlord took and kissed them, and they kissed the landlord, and the cry was, come back the sooner the better. Never pass the three fish. Should your purses be void, bring yourselves. Le Sier-credi is not dead for you. And they took the road again. They came to a little town, and Denis went to buy shoes. The shopkeeper was in the doorway, but wide awake. He received Denis with a bow down to the ground. The customer was soon fitted, and followed to the street, and dismissed with graceful salutes from the doorstep. The friends agreed it was a Lysium to deal with such a shoemaker as this, not but what my German shoes have lasted well enough, said Gerard the Just. Outside the town was a pebbled walk. This is to keep the burgers feet dry, a walking of Sundays, with their wives and daughters, said Denis. These simple words of Denis, one stroke of a careless tongue, painted home in Gerard's heart. Oh, how sweet, said he. Mercy, what is this? A gibbet, and, ah, two skeletons thereon. Oh, Denis, what a sorry sight to woo by. Né, said Denis, a comfortable sight. For every rogue of the air there is one the lesser foot. A little farther on they came to two pillars, and between these was a huge wheel closely studded with iron prongs, and entangled in these were bones and fragments of cloth miserably dispersed over the wheel. Gerard hid his face in his hands. Oh, to think those patches and bones are all that is left of a man, of one who was what we are now. Excusez, a thing that went on two legs and stole, oh, we know more than that. How do you know he stole, have true men never suffered death and torture too? None of my kith ever found their way to the gibbet, I know. The better thy luck, prithy, how died the saints. Hard, but not in burgundy. You massacred them wholesale at Lyon, and that is on burgundy's threshold. To you the gibbet proves the crime because you read not story. Alas, had you stood on Calvary that bloody day we sighed for to this hour, I trembled to think you had perhaps shouted for joy at the gibbet billed there, for the cross was but the Roman gallows, Father Martin says. The blaspheming old hound. Oh, fie, fie, a holy and a book-learned man. Aye, Denny, you had read them that suffered there by the bare light of the gibbet. Drive in the nails, yet cried. Drive in the spear. Here be three malefactors, three rouets. Yet of those three little ones was the first Christian saint, and another was the saviour of the world which gibbeted him. Denny assured him on his honour they manage things better in burgundy. He added too after profound reflection that the horrors Gerard had alluded to. Had more than once made him curse and swear with rage when told by the good Curé in his native village at Easter Tide. But they chanced in an outlandish nation and near a thousand years ago. Mordemarie, let us hope it is not true or at least so exaggerated. Do but see how all tales gather as they roll. Then he reflected again and all in a moment turned red with ire. Do ye not blush to play with your book-craft on your unlettered friend and throw dust in his eyes evening the saints with these reptiles? Then suddenly he recovered his good humour. Since your heart beats for vermin, feel for the carrion-crows. They be as good vermin as these. Would ye send them to bed suppolus, poor pretty puppets? Why, these be their larder, the pangs of hunger would gnaw them dead, but for cold cut purse hung up here and there. Gerard, who had for some time maintained a dead silence, informed him the subject was closed between them and for ever. There are things, said he, in which our hearts seem wide as the poles asunder, and eek our heads. But I love thee dearly all the same, he added, with infinite grace and tenderness. Towards afternoon they heard a faint wailing noise on ahead. It grew distincter as they proceeded. Being fast walkers, they soon came up with its cause. A score of pikemen, accompanied by several constables, were marching along, and in advance of them was a herd of animals they were driving. These creatures, in number rather more than a hundred, were of various ages, only very few were downright old. The males were downcast and silent. It was the females from whom all the outcry came. In other words, the animals, thus driven along at the law's point, were men and women. Good Heaven! cried Gerard. What a band of them! But stay! Surely all those children cannot be thieves! Why, there are some in arms. What on earth is this, Denis? Denis advised him to ask that bourgeois with the badge. This is burgundy. Here a civil question ever draws a civil reply. Gerard went up to the officer, and removing his cap. A civility which was immediately returned said, For our lady's sake, sir, what do you with these poor folk? Nay, what is that to you, my lad? replied the functionary, suspiciously. Master, I am a stranger, and a thirst for knowledge. That is another matter. What are we doing? Ahem. Why, we dost hear, Jacques? Here as a stranger seeks to know what we are doing. And the two machines were tickled, that there should be a man who did not know something they happened to know. In all ages, this has tickled. However, the chuckle was brief and moderated by the native courtesy, and the official turned to Gerard again. What are we doing? And now he hesitated, not from any doubt as to what he was doing, but because he was hunting for a single word that should convey the matter. You decant? That should mean you pour from one vessel to another. Precisely. He explained that last year the town of Charme had been sore thinned by a pestilence, whole houses emptied, and trades short of hands, much adieu to get in the rye, and the flax half spoiled. So the bailiff and alderman had written to the duke's secretary, and the duke he sent far and wide to know what town was too full. That we are, had the bailiff tool writ back. Then send four or five score of your town's folk, was the order. Was not this to decant the full town into the empty, and is not the good duke the father of his people, and will not let the duchy be weakened, nor its fair towns laid waste by sword nor pestilence, but meets the one with pike and arbalest, touching his cap to the sergeant and Denis alternately, and tether with policy, long live the duke. The pikemen, of course, were not to be outdone in loyalty, so they shouted with stentorian lungs, long live the duke. Then the decanted ones, partly because loyalty was a non-reasoning sentiment in those days, partly because they feared some further ill consequence, should they alone be mute, raised a feeble, tremulous shout, long live the duke. But at this, insulted nature rebelled. Perhaps indeed the sham sentiment drew out the real, for on the very heels of that royal noise, a loud and piercing wail burst from every woman's bosom, and a deep, deep groan from every man's. Oh, the air filled in a moment with womanly and manly anguish! Judge what it must have been when the rude pikemen halted unbidden, all confused as if a wall of sorrow had started up before them. On avant! roared the sergeant, and they marched again, but muttering and cursing. Ah, the ugly sound, said the civilian, wincing. Les malheureux, he said ruefully, for where is the single man can hear the sudden agony of a multitude and not be moved? Les ingrats, they are going whence they were, detro to where they will be welcome. From starvation to plenty, and they object, they even make dismal noises. One would think we are thrusting them forth from burgundy. Come away, whispered Gerard Tremblay, come away. And the friends strode forward. When they passed ahead of the column, and saw the men walk with their eyes bent in bitter gloom upon the ground, and the women, some carrying, some leading little children, and weeping as they went, and the poor bans, some frolicking, some weeping because their mommies wept. Gerard tried hard to say a word of comfort, but choked, and could utter nothing to the mourners, but gasped. Come on, Denis, I cannot mock such sorrow with little words of comfort. And now, artist-like, all his aim was to get swiftly out of the grief he could not soothe. He almost ran not to hear these sighs and sobs. Why, mate, said Denis, art the colour of a lemon. Man alive take not other folk's troubles to heart, not one of these whining milksops there, but would see thee a stranger hanged without winking. Gerard scarce listened to him. Decan't them, he groaned. Ay, of blood were no thicker than wine. Princes, ye are wolves. Poor things, poor things. Ah, Denis, Denis, with looking on their grief, mine own comes home to me. Well-a-day, ah, well-a-day. Ay, now ye talk reason, that ye poor lads should be driven all the way from Holland to Rome is pitiful indeed. But these slivelling curses, where is their hurt? There is sick score of them to keep one another company. Besides, they are not going out of burgundy. Better for them if they had never been in it. Mais on va! They are but going from one village to another a mule's journey. Was thou there no more? Courage, camarade, le diable est mort. Gerard shook his head very doubtfully, but kept silence for about a mile, and then he said thoughtfully, Ay, Denis, but then I am sustained by book-learning. These are simple folk that likely thought their village was the world. Now, what is this? More weeping? Oh, tis a sweet world. Huh, a little girl that hath broke her pipkin. Now, may I hang on one of your gibbets, but I'll dry some one's tears? And he pounced savagely upon this little martyr like a kite on a chick, but with more generous intentions. It was a pretty little lass of about twelve. The tears were raining down her two peaches, and her palms lifted to heaven in that utter, though temporary, desolation, which attends calamity at twelve. And at her feet the fatal cause, a broken pot, worth, say, the fifth of a modern farthing. What has broken thy pot, little one? said Gerard, acting in tensest sympathy. Hela, Belgar, as you behold! And the hands came down from the sky, and both pointed at the fragments, a statuette of adversity. And you weep so for that? Needs I must, Belgar. My mummy will massacre me. Do they not already? With a fresh burst of woe, Que call me je jeunette en cacasse, too? It wanted, but this, that I should break my poor pot. Hela, fela-t-il donc, mergue de Dieu. Courage, little love, Tis not thy heart lies broken, Money will soon mend pots. See now, here is a piece of silver, and there scarce is the pot. And there scarce are stones through office a potter. Take the bit of silver to him, and buy another pot. And the copper the potter will give thee. Keep that to play with thy comrades. The little mind took in all this, and smiles began to struggle with the tears. But spasms are like waves, they cannot go down the very moment the wind of trouble is lulled. So Denis thought well to bring up his reserve of consolation. Courage, mamie! Le diable est mort! cried that inventive warrior gaily. Gerard shrugged his shoulders at such a way of cheering a little girl. What a fine thing is a loot with one string, said he. The little girl's face broke into warm sunshine. Oh, the good news! Oh, the good news! She sung out with such heartfelt joy. It went off into a honeyed whine, even as our gay old tunes have a pathos underneath. So then, said she, they will no longer be able to threaten us little girls with him, making our lives a burden. And she bound it off to tell Nanette, she said. There is a theory that everything has its counterpart. If true, Denis, it would seem, had found the mind his consignor fitted. While he was roaring with laughter at its unexpected success, and Gerard's amazement, a little hand pulled his jerk in, and a little face peeped round his waist. Curiosity was now the dominant passion in that small but vivid countenance. Oui, mamie, c'est Denis, as gruffly as ever he could. Rightly deeming this would smack of supernatural puissance to owners of bell-like trebles, c'est moi. Pique, sa pique, quelle dommage, je vais la couper. Nanny, ce n'est rien, et puisque t'as tué ce méchant, T'es fier, mon beau, tout de même toi, T'es liable mieux que ma grande-sœur. Will you not kiss me too, mamie, said Gerard? Je ne demande pas mieux. Tiens, tiens, tiens. C'est douce, celle-ci. Ah, que j'aimons les hommes. Des femmes, ça ne mourrait jamais donne l'argent, Blanc plutôt, ça m'aurait les rionnés. C'est si peu de choses, ces femmes. Serviteux, bossire, bon voyage, et n'oubliez point la gêne tant. Adieu petit-queur, said Gerard, and on they marched, but presently looking back, they saw the contemner of women in the middle of the road, making them a reverence, and blowing them kisses with little, may-morning face. Come on, cried Gerard lustily, I shall win to Rome yet. Holy Saint Bavon, what a sun-beam of innocence hath shot across our blood-thirsty road. Forget thee, little gêne-tant, not likely amidst all this slobbering and jibberting and decanting. Come on now, la gawd, forward! Dost call this marching, remonstrated Denis, why we shall walk, or Christmas day, and never see it. End of chapter 33 part 1, Recording by Tom Denham