The candid Denys at once admitted he had seen merrier jests hatched with less cackle."'Twas a great matter to have got rid of hypocrisy.'So,' said I, 'I can give you the chaire de poule, if that may content ye.' 'That we will see,' was the cry, and a signal went round."Denys then related, bursting with glee, how at bedtime he had been taken to a cell instead of the great dortour, 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 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 Saint Theresa, and Saint Catherine, etc., bedizened with gold, stood for the four queens; and black, white, grey, and crutched 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 cannily 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 on 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 mewsical chorus, and the lay visitor shrieked and been sore discomforted; but Abelard only cried, "What, are ye there, ye jealous miauling knaves? ye shall caterwaul to some tune to-morrow night.I'll fit every man-jack of ye with a fardingale." 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 demoiselle beginning to whimper, they had danced caterwauling 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 lachymose, kicked them all merrily each into his cell,"And so shut up in measureless content."Gerard was disgusted: and said so,Denys 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, tench, and 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.
"'Tis there the holy fathers retire to pray," put in Gerard.
"Not always," said Denys; "wax candles by the dozen were lighted, and princely cheer; fifteen soups maigre, with marvellous twangs of venison, grouse, and hare 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 knave 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 wont to hold good wine; had to be coaxed ere they would put it to their white teeth; mais elles s'y faisaient; and the story, and the jest, and the cup went round (by-the-by, they had flagons made to simulate breviaries); and a monk touched the cittern, and sang ditties with a voice tunable as a lark in spring.The posies did turn the faces of the women folk bright red at first: but elles s'y faisaient."Here Gerard exploded.
"Miserable wretches! Corrupters of youth! Perverters of innocence!
but for your being there, Denys, who have been taught no better, oh, would God the church had fallen on the whole gang.Impious, abominable hypocrites!""Hypocrites?" cried Denys, with unfeigned surprise."Why, that is what I clept them ere I knew them: and you withstood me.Nay, they are sinners; all good fellows are that; but, by St.Denys his helmeted skull, no hypocrites, but right jolly roaring blades.""Denys," 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 o'er the stones.""Misericorde!" whispered Denys.
"Ay, more," said Gerard, lowering his voice almost to a whisper;"celestial sounds have issued from the purlieus 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, Denys, 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."Denys wore a look of dismay."Ugh! if I had known, mules and wain-ropes had not hauled me thither; and so" (with a sigh) "I had lost a merry time."Whether 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 Ghysbrecht 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 Denys's infinite amusement not only gave a piece of money to the lay brother, but kissed the mule's 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 were away to Sevenbergen.
They reached the promised land, and Denys, who was in high spirits, doffed his bonnet to all the females; who curtsied and smiled in return; fired his consigne 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 a pied et a cheval,'" said Denys, going minutely through the inscription, and looking bumptious when he had effected it.
Gerard did look, and the sentence in question ran thus:
"ON NE LOGE CEANS A CREDIT; CE BONHOMME EST MORT, LES MAUVAISPAIEURS L'ONT TUE."