The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (old books to read .TXT) 📖

are wolves; but two-legged ones, and little apt to favour their four-footed cousins. One greedy thing loveth it another? I trow not. By the same token, and this too I have from my boy Nicole, Sir Wolf dare not show his nose in London city; though 'tis smaller than Paris, and thick woods hard by the north wall, and therein great store of deer, and wild boars as rife as flies at midsummer.”

“Sir,” said Gerard, “you seem conversant with wild beasts, prithee advise my comrade here and me: we would not waste time on the road, an if we may go forward to the next town with reasonable safety.'

“Young man, I trow 'twere an idle risk. It lacks but an hour of dusk, and you must pass nigh a wood where lurk some thousands of these half-starved vermin, rank cowards single; but in great bands bold as lions. Wherefore I rede you sojourn here the night; and journey on betimes. By the dawn the vermin will be tired out with roaring and rampaging; and mayhap will have filled their lank bellies with flesh of my good neighbours here, the unteachable fools.”

Gerard hoped not; and asked could he recommend them to a good inn.

“Humph! there is the 'Tete d'Or.' My grandaughter keeps it. She is a mijauree, but not so knavish as most hotel-keepers, and her house indifferent clean.”

“Hey, for the 'Tete d'Or,'” struck in Denys, decided by his ineradicable foible.

On the way to it, Gerard inquired of his companion what a “mijauree” was?

Denys laughed at his ignorance. “Not know what a mijauree is? why all the world knows that. It is neither more nor less than a mijauree.”

As they entered the “Tete d'Or,” they met a young lady richly dressed with a velvet chaperon on her head, which was confined by law to the nobility. They unbonneted and louted low, and she curtsied, but fixed her eye on vacancy the while, which had a curious rather than a genial effect. However, nobility was not so unassuming in those days as it is now. So they were little surprised. But the next minute supper was served, and lo! in came this princess and carved the goose.

“Holy St. Bavon,” cried Gerard. “'Twas the landlady all the while.”

A young woman, cursed with nice white teeth and lovely hands: for these beauties being misallied to homely features, had turned her head. She was a feeble carver, carving not for the sake of others but herself, i.e. to display her hands. When not carving she was eternally either taking a pin out of her head or her body, or else putting a pin into her head or her body. To display her teeth, she laughed indifferently at gay or grave and from ear to ear. And she “sat at ease” with her mouth ajar.

Now there is an animal in creation of no great general merit; but it has the eye of a hawk for affectation. It is called “a boy.” And Gerard was but a boy still in some things; swift to see, and to loath, affectation. So Denys sat casting sheep's eyes, and Gerard daggers, at one comedian.

Presently, in the midst of her minauderies, she gave a loud shriek and bounded out of her chair like hare from form, and ran backwards out of the room uttering little screams, and holding her farthingale tight down to her ankles with both hands. And as she scuttled out of the door a mouse scuttled back to the wainscot in a state of equal, and perhaps more reasonable terror. The guests, who had risen in anxiety at the principal yell, now stood irresolute awhile, then sat down laughing. The tender Denys, to whom a woman's cowardice, being a sexual trait, seemed to be a lovely and pleasant thing, said he would go comfort her and bring her back.

“Nay! nay! nay! for pity's sake let her bide,” cried Gerard earnestly. “Oh, blessed mouse! sure some saint sent thee to our aid.”

Now at his right hand sat a sturdy middle-aged burgher, whose conduct up to date had been cynical. He had never budged nor even rested his knife at all this fracas. He now turned on Gerard and inquired haughtily whether he really thought that “grimaciere” was afraid of a mouse.

“Ay. She screamed hearty.”

“Where is the coquette that cannot scream to the life? These she tavern-keepers do still ape the nobles. Some princess or duchess hath lain here a night, that was honestly afeard of a mouse, having been brought up to it. And this ape hath seen her, and said, 'I will start at a mouse, and make a coil,' She has no more right to start at a mouse than to wear that fur on her bosom, and that velvet on her monkey's head. I am of the town, young man, and have known the mijauree all her life, and I mind when she was no more afeard of a mouse than she is of a man.” He added that she was fast emptying the inn with these “singeries.” “All the world is so sick of her hands, that her very kinsfolk will not venture themselves anigh them.” He concluded with something like a sigh, “The 'Tete d'Or' was a thriving hostelry under my old chum her good father; but she is digging its grave tooth and nail.'

“Tooth and nail? good! a right merry conceit and a true,” said Gerard. But the right merry conceit was an inadvertence as pure as snow, and the stout burgher went to his grave and never knew what he had done: for just then attention was attracted by Denys returning pompously. He inspected the apartment minutely, and with a high official air: he also looked solemnly under the table; and during the whole inquisition a white hand was placed conspicuously on the edge of the open door, and a tremulous voice inquired behind it whether the horrid thing was quite gone.

“The enemy has retreated, bag and baggage,” said Denys: and handed in the trembling fair, who, sitting down, apologized to her guests for her foolish fears, with so much earnestness, grace, and seeming self-contempt, that, but for a sour grin on his neighbour's face, Gerard would have been taken in as all the other strangers were. Dinner ended, the young landlady begged an Augustine friar at her right hand to say grace. He delivered a longish one. The moment he began, she clapped her white hands piously together, and held them up joined for mortals to admire; 'tis an excellent pose for taper white fingers: and cast her eyes upward towards heaven, and felt as thankful to it as a magpie does while cutting off with your thimble.

After supper the two friends went to the street-door and eyed the market-place. The mistress joined them, and pointed out the town-hall, the borough gaol, St. Catherine's church, etc. This was courteous, to say the least. But the true cause soon revealed itself; the fair hand was poked right under their eyes every time an object was indicated; and Gerard eyed it like a basilisk, and longed for a bunch of nettles. The sun set, and the travellers, few in number, drew round the great roaring fire, and omitting to go on the spit, were frozen behind though roasted in front. For if the German stoves were oppressively hot, the French salles manger were bitterly cold, and above all stormy. In Germany men sat bareheaded round the stove, and took off their upper clothes, but in Burgundy they kept on their hats, and put on their warmest furs to sit round the great open chimney places, at which the external air rushed furiously from door and ill-fitting window. However, it seems their mediaeval backs