Cloister and the Hearth — Chapter 33, Part 1
“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, dame,” said Gerard.
“Well,” thought he, “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, Denys, what are you doing?
ordering supper for only two?
” “Why not?
” “What, can we sup without waiting for forty more?
Burgundy forever!
” “Aha!
Courage, camarade.
Le dia--” “C'est convenu.
” The salic law seemed not to have penetrated to French inns.
In this one at least wimple and kirtle reigned supreme; doublets and hose 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,” said she cheerily; “y'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 dame 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 an inn?
Why, it is like home.
” “Qui fit Francois il fit courtois,” said Denys, bursting with gratified pride.
“Courteous?
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 new-comer 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 practised tongue 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 looks mean and vulgar on paper, but carries all before it spoken: not wit's rapier; its 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 raillery 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 “Denys, Now I see why you Frenchmen say 'a woman's tongue is her sword:'” just then she levelled another assailant; and the chivalrous Denys, to console and support “the weaker vessel,” the iron kettle among the clay pots, administered his consigne, “Courage, ma mie, le---” etc. 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 masters,” said she, with sudden gravity.
“Apres?
We travellers cannot strip and go bare while you wash our clothes,” objected a peevish old fellow by the fireside, who had kept mumchance during the raillery, but crept out into the sunshine of commonplaces.
“I aimed not your way, ancient man,” replied Marion superciliously.
“But since you ask me” (here she scanned him slowly from head to foot), “I trow you might take a turn in the tub, clothes and 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 Denys, whose beard was of a good length, and singularly stiff and 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, 'chambriere,'” said he, with a smile, “mine is all unworthy your pains; take you this fair growth in hand!
” and he pointed to Denys's vegetable.
“Oh, time for that, when I starch the besoms.
” 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.
Their 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, Marion, lass,” said she good-humouredly, “if you laid me an egg every time you cackle, 'L'es Trois Poissons' would never lack an omelet.
” “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-on ne 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 dame 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 fie!
it is the best face that has entered 'The Three Fish' this autumn.
” “And mine, dame?
” said Denys; “dost see no knavery here?
” She eyed him calmly.
“Not such a good one as the lad's; nor ever will be.
But it is the face of a true man.
For all that,” added she drily, “an I were ten years younger, I'd as lieve not meet that face on a dark night too far from home.
” Gerard stared.
Denys laughed.
“Why, dame, I would but 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 Marion, who had just come in, “said I not t'other day you could make a fool of them still, an if you were properly minded?
” “I dare say ye did; it sounds like some daft wench's speech.
” “Dame,” said 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.
” Marion.
“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.
” Marion.
“Alack!
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 on to the handsomest fellow in the room, which happened to be Gerard.
“Tic!
tic!
” 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?
” Marion 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 reigns supreme with the men, leastways 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.
'Twould be hard if we failed at these arts, since they are about all we do know.
” “You do not quite take me, dame,” said Gerard.
“That honesty in a face should shine forth to your experienced eye, that seems reasonable: but how by looking on Denys here could you learn his one little foible, his insanity, his miserable mulierosity?
” Poor Gerard got angrier the more he thought of it.
“His mule--his what?
” (crossing herself with superstitious awe at the polysyllable).
“Nay, 'tis but the word I was fain to invent for him.
” “Invent?
What, can a child like you make other words than grow in Burgundy by nature?
Take heed what ye 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, dame, mulierose--that means wrapped up, body and soul, in women.
So prithee tell me; how did you ever detect the noodle's mulierosity?
” “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.
Whiles I move 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 womenfolk: my daughter, or Marion, or even an old woman like me, all was gold to him: and there a sat glowering; oh, you foolish, foolish man!
Now you still turned to the speaker, her or him, and that is common sense.
” Denys 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 d'ye call 'em oser than ere an archer in the Duke's body-guard.
He is more wrapped up in one single Dutch lass called Margaret, than I am in the whole bundle of ye, brown and fair.
” “Man alive, that is just the contrary,” said the hostess.
“Yourn is the bane, and hisn the cure.
Cling you still to Margaret, my dear.
I hope she is an honest girl.
” “Dame, she is an angel.
” “Ay, ay, they are all that till better acquainted.
I'd as lieve have 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.
” “Overmuch clack!
Marion overmuch clack.
” “Ods bodikins, mistress; ye didn't hire me to be one o' your three fishes, did ye?
” and Marion sulked thirty seconds.
“Is that the way to speak to our mistress?
” remonstrated the landlord, who had slipped in.
“Hold your whisht,” 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 o' doors.
But the hen means to rule the roost.
” “I know a byword to that tune.
” said Gerard.
“Do ye, now?
out wi't then.
” “Femme veut en toute saison, Estre dame en sa mason.
” “I never heard it afore; but 'tis as sooth as gospel.
Ay, they that set these bywords a rolling had eyes and tongues, and tongues and eyes.
Before all the world give me an old saw.
” “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 Denys.
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 MS. 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 were two nice white beds, and bade him choose.
“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.
” “Alack!
poor soul!
” said she; “well, then, the sooner my flax and your down (he!
he!
) come together, the better; so--allons!
” and she held out her cheek as business-like as if it had been her hand for a fee.
“Allons?
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 greybeards that lie at our inn do kiss us chambermaids; faugh!
and what have we poor wretches to set on t'other side the compt but now and then a nice young----?
Alack!
time flies, chambermaids can't be spared long in the nursery, so how is't to be?
” “An't please you arrange with my comrade for both.
He is mulierose; I am not.
” “Nay, 'tis the curb he will want, not the spur.
Well!
well!
you shall to bed without paying the usual toll; and oh, but 'tis sweet to fall in with a young man who can withstand these ancient ill customs, and gainsay brazen hussies.
Shalt 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 perseverance effect?
But note now the frowardness of a mad wench!
I cared not for't a button.
I am dead sick of that sport this five years.
But you denied me; so then forthwith I behoved to have it; belike had gone through fire and water for't. 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 guard 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 peal of laughter from the salle 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--Sevenbergen.
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 seem to have taken most after his eldest son.
Gerard bewailed his captivity to Denys; but that instant the door opened, and in sailed Marion with their linen, newly washed and ironed, on her two arms, and set it down on the table.
“Oh you good girl,” cried Gerard.
“Alack, have you found me out at last?
” “Yes, indeed.
Is this another custom?
” “Nay, not to take them unbidden: but at night we aye question travellers, are they for linen washed.
So I came into you, but you were both sound.
Then said I to the little mistress, 'La!
where is the sense of waking wearied men, t'ask them is Charles the Great dead, and would they liever carry 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 Denys, 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 ye there,” said l'espiegle.
“I take that to mean you would fain brush the morning dew off, as your bashful companion calls it; well then, excuse me, 'tis customary, but not prudent.
I decline.
Quits with you, lad.
” “Stop!
stop!
” cried Denys, as she was making off victorious, “I am curious to know how many, of ye were here last night a-feasting your eyes on us twain.
“'Twas so satisfactory a feast as we weren't half a minute over't. Who?
why the big mistress, the little mistress, Janet, and me, and the whole posse comitatus, 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 scattered about.
” “Why did not you tell me?
I'd have lain awake.
” “Beau 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 knavish.
” “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.
” “Denys!
” “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 forefend!
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 sieur credit' is not dead for you.
” And they took the road again.
They came to a little town, and Denys went to buy shoes.
The shopkeeper was in the doorway, but wide awake.
He received Denys 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 Elysium 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 burghers's feet dry, a-walking o' Sundays with their wives and daughters,” said Denys.
Those simple words of Denys, one stroke of a careless tongue, painted “home” in Gerard's heart.
“Oh, how sweet!
” said he.
“Mercy!
what is this?
A gibbet!
and ugh, two skeletons thereon!
Oh, Denys, what a sorry sight to woo by!
” “Nay,” said Denys, “a comfortable sight; for every rogue i' the air there is one the less a-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.
