The Cloister and the Hearth Part 58

"Who doubts that? Why she said so, round about, as they always say these things, and with 'nay' for 'ay'. 'I hope you will be happy together,'

said I.

"Well one thing led to another, and at last as she could not give me her hand, she gave me a piece of advice, and that was to leave part of my money with the young mistress. Then, when bad company had cleaned me out, I should have some to travel back with, said she. I said I would better her advice, and leave it with her. Her face got red. Says she, 'Think what you do. Chambermaids have an ill name for honesty.' 'Oh, the devil is not so black as he is painted,' said I. 'I'll risk it;' and I left fifteen gold pieces with her."

Gerard sighed. "I wish you may ever see them again. It is wondrous in what esteem you do hold this s.e.x, to trust so to the first comer. For my part I know little about them; I never saw but one I could love as well as I love thee. But the ancients must surely know; and they held women cheap. 'Levius quid fmina,' said they, which is but la Jeanneton's tune in Latin, 'Le peu que sont les femmes.' Also do but see how the greybeards of our own day speak of them, being no longer blinded by desire: this alderman to wit."

"Oh novice of novices," cried Denys, "not to have seen why that old fool rails so on the poor things! One day, out of the millions of women he blackens one did prefer some other man to him: for which solitary piece of bad taste, and ten to one 'twas good taste, he doth bespatter creation's fairer half, thereby proving what? le peu que sont les hommes."

"I see women have a shrewd champion in thee," said Gerard, with a smile.

But the next moment inquired gravely why he had not told him all this before.

Denys grinned. "Had the girl said 'Ay,' why then I had told thee straight. But 'tis a rule with us soldiers never to publish our defeats: 'tis much if after each check we claim not a victory."

"Now that is true," said Gerard, "Young as I am, I have seen this: that after every great battle the generals on both sides go to the nearest church and sing each a Te Deum for the victory: methinks a Te Martem, or Te Bellonam, or Te Mercurium, Mercury being the G.o.d of lies, were more fitting."

"Pas si bete," said Denys, approvingly. "Hast a good eye: canst see a steeple by daylight. So now tell me how thou hast fared in this town all day."

"Come," said Gerard, "'tis well thou hast asked me: for else I had never told thee." He then related in full how he had been arrested, and by what a providential circ.u.mstance he had escaped long imprisonment or speedy conflagration.

His narrative produced an effect he had little expected or desired. "I am a traitor," cried Denys. "I left thee in a strange place to fight thine own battles, while I shook the dice with those jades. Now take thou this sword and pa.s.s it through my body forthwith."

"What for in Heaven's name?" inquired Gerard.

"For an example," roared Denys. "For a warning to all false loons that profess friends.h.i.+p, and disgrace it."

"Oh, very well," said Gerard. "Yes. Not a bad notion. Where will you have it?"

"Here, through my heart; that is, where other men have a heart, but I none, or a satanic false one."

Gerard made a motion to run him through, and flung his arms round his neck instead. "I know no way to thy heart but this, thou great silly thing."

Denys uttered an exclamation, then hugged him warmly,--and, quite overcome by this sudden turn of youthful affection and native grace, gulped out in a broken voice "Railest on women--and art--like them--with thy pretty ways. Thy mother's milk is in thee still. Satan would love thee, or--le bon Dieu would kick him out of h.e.l.l for shaming it. Give me thy hand! Give me thy hand! May" (a tremendous oath) "if I let thee out of my sight till Italy."

And so the stanch friends were more than reconciled after their short tiff.

The next day the thieves were tried. The pieces de conviction were reduced in number, to the great chagrin of the little clerk, by the interment of the bones. But there was still a pretty show. A thief's hand struck off flagrante delicto; a murdered woman's hair; the Abbot's axe, and other tools of crime. The skulls &c. were sworn to by the constables who had found them. Evidence was lax in that age and place.

They all confessed but the landlord. And Manon was called to bring the crime home to him. Her evidence was conclusive. He made a vain attempt to shake her credibility by drawing from her that her own sweetheart had been one of the gang, and that she had held her tongue so long as he was alive. The public prosecutor came to the aid of his witness, and elicited that a knife had been held to her throat, and her own sweetheart had sworn with solemn oaths to kill her should she betray them, and that this terrible threat, and not the mere fear of death, had glued her lips.

The other thieves were condemned to be hanged, and the landlord to be broken on the wheel. He uttered a piercing cry when his sentence was p.r.o.nounced.

As for poor Manon she became the subject of universal criticism. Nor did opinion any longer run dead in her favour; it divided into two broad currents. And, strange to relate, the majority of her own s.e.x took her part, and the males were but equally divided; which hardly happens once in a hundred years. Perhaps some lady will explain the phenomenon. As for me, I am a little shy of explaining things I don't understand. It has become so common. Meantime, had she been a lover of notoriety, she would have been happy, for the town talked of nothing but her. The poor girl however had but one wish; to escape the crowd that followed her, and hide her head somewhere where she could cry over her "pendard,"

whom all these proceedings brought vividly back to her affectionate remembrance. Before he was hanged he had threatened her life: but she was not one of your fastidious girls, who love their male divinities any the less for beating them, kicking them, or killing them, but rather the better, provided these attentions are interspersed with occasional caresses; so it would have been odd indeed had she taken offence at a mere threat of that sort. He had never threatened her with a rival. She sobbed single-mindedly.

Meantime the inn was filled with thirsters for a sight of her, who feasted and drank, to pa.s.s away the time till she should deign to appear. When she had been sobbing some time, there was a tap at her door, and the landlord entered with a proposal. "Nay, weep not, good la.s.s, your fortune it is made an you like. Say the word, and you are chambermaid of the 'White Hart.'"

"Nay, nay," said Manon with a fresh burst of grief. "Never more will I be a servant in an inn. I'll go to my mother."

The landlord consoled and coaxed her: and she became calmer, but none the less determined against his proposal.

The landlord left her. But ere long he returned and made her another proposal. Would she be his wife, and landlady of the "White Hart?"

"You do ill to mock me," said she sorrowfully.

"Nay, sweetheart. I mock thee not. I am too old for sorry jests. Say you the word, and you are my partner for better for worse."

She looked at him, and saw he was in earnest: on this she suddenly rained hard to the memory of "le pendard:" the tears came in a torrent being the last; and she gave her hand to the landlord of the "White Hart," and broke a gold crown with him in sign of plighted troth.

"We will keep it dark till the house is quiet," said the landlord.

"Ay," said she: "but meantime prithee give me linen to hem, or work to do: for the time hangs on me like lead."

Her betrothed's eye brightened at this house-wifely request, and he brought her up two dozen flagons of various sizes to clean and polish.

She gathered complacency as she reflected that by a strange turn of fortune all this bright pewter was to be hers.

And this mighty furbis.h.i.+ng up of pewter reminds me that justice requires me to do a stroke of the same work.

Well then, the deposition, read out in the alderman's room as Manon's, was not so exact as such things ought to be. The alderman had condensed her evidence. Now there are in every great nation about three persons capable of condensing evidence without falsifying it: but this alderman was not one of that small band. In the first part of the deposition he left out as unimportant these words "my mother advised me to keep out of his way till his wrath should cool."

Between the words "jealous of me" and "the reason" Manon had said "My master was aye at my heels: so I told my mistress, and said I would rather go than be cause of mischief." This the alderman suppressed as mere babel: whereas it was a worthy trait. He also let slip the word "afterwards" in the next sentence. Manon had said the reason they gave _afterwards_, _i. e._, "when I was no longer there to contradict them."

And so on all through the deposition.

Sometimes the deponent suffered as many a one does now-a-days, in the newspaper and other reports, by the mere suppression of the question.

For instance this is what actually was said:--

_The Alderman._ "Come now, should you have interfered if this soldier had had no beard?"

_Manon._ "How can I tell what I _should_ have done?"

Now this was merely a sensible answer to a monstrous question no magistrate had a right to put. But, under the condensing process, behold her saddled with a volunteer statement of a very damaging character.

Finally she had said, "I am sorry I told, if I am to be hanged for it."

This the old boy condensed ut supra, p. 136, antic.i.p.ating as far as possible the tuneful Sinclair.[A]

Whilst Manon and I were cleaning, she her coming, I my parting, pewter, the landlord went down stairs and falling in with our friends drew them aside into the bar.

He then addressed Denys with considerable solemnity. "We are old acquaintances, and you want not for sagacity: now advise me in a strait.

My custom is somewhat declining: this girl Manon is the talk of the town; see how full the inn is to-night. She doth refuse to be my chambermaid. I have half a mind to marry her. What think you? shall I say the word?"

Denys in reply merely opened his eyes wide with amazement.

The landlord turned to Gerard with a half-inquiring look.

"Nay, sir," said Gerard. "I am too young to advise my seniors and betters."

"No matter. Let us hear your thought."

"Well, sir, it was said of a good wife by the ancients 'bene quae latuit, bene vixit,' that is, she is the best wife that is least talked of: but here 'male quae patuit' were as near the mark. Therefore, an you bear the la.s.s good-will, why not club purses with Denys and me and convey her safe home with a dowry? Then mayhap some rustical person in her own place may be brought to wive her."