"Speak no more on't if you prize my friendship.I have five pieces with the bailiff, and ten I left with Manon, luckily; or these traitresses had feathered their nest with my last plume.What dost gape for so? Nay, I do ill to vent my choler on thee: I'll tell thee all.Art wiser than I.What saidst thou at the door? No matter.Well, then, I did offer marriage to that Manon."Gerard was dumfounded.
"What? You offered her what?"
"Marriage.Is that such a mighty strange thing to offer a wench?""'Tis a strange thing to offer to a strange girl in passing.""Nay, I am not such a sot as you opine.I saw the corn in all that chaff.I knew I could not get her by fair means, so I was fain to try foul.'Mademoiselle,' said I, 'marriage is not one of my habits, but struck by your qualities I make an exception; deign to bestow this hand on me.'""And she bestowed it on thine ear.'"
"Not so.On the contrary she - Art a disrespectful young monkey.
Know that here, not being Holland or any other barbarous state, courtesy begets courtesy.Says she, a colouring like a rose, 'Soldier, you are too late.He is not a patch on you for looks;but then - he has loved me a long time.'
"'He? who?'
"'T'other.'
"'What other?'
"Why, he that was not too late.' Oh.that is the way they all speak, the loves; the she-wolves.Their little minds go in leaps.
Think you they marshal their words in order of battle? Their tongues are in too great a hurry.Says she, 'I love him not; not to say love him; but he does me, and dearly; and for that reason I'd sooner die than cause him grief, I would.'""Now I believe she did love him."
"Who doubts that? Why she said so, round about, as they always say these things, and with 'nay' for 'ay.'
"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 sex, to trust so to the first comer.For my part I know little about them; I never saw but one Icould love as well as I love thee.But the ancients must surely know; and they held women cheap.'Levius quid femina,' 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 god 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 circumstance he had escaped long imprisonment or speedy conflagration.
His narrative produced an effect he 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 pass 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 friendship, 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 hell 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 staunch 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.Athief's hand struck off flagrante delicto; a murdered woman's hair; the Abbot's axe, and other tools of crime.The skulls, etc., were sworn to by the constables who had found them.Evidence was lax in that age and place.They all confessed but the landlord.
